Quentin Tarantino Double Bill: 'Grindhouse' a Gory Good Time
Monday , April 02, 2007
By Roger Friedman
The best movie so far of 2007 is one in which Rose McGowan, best known to TV audiences as a kind witch on "Charmed," has her leg chopped off and replaced by a snap-on semi-automatic machine gun.
"Planet Terror," directed by Robert Rodriguez, is one film of the double bill called "Grindhouse" that opens Friday and should be a monster hit among teens, film enthusiasts and, maybe, monsters.
The other half of "Grindhouse" is Quentin Tarantino's "Death Proof," a sort of two-parter within itself concerning a psychotic stunt man (Kurt Russell) who terrorizes beautiful young women until he comes across his donnybrook in the form of three crusading lasses (Rosario Dawson, Tracie Thoms, Zoe Bell) in a 1970 Dodge Challenger.
McGowan has a small role in that film, as well, and there are a couple of overlapping characters from the first movie.
The idea here is to send up C movies (not even B) that used to run on double bills at drive-ins and the sort of movie theaters that seemed like haunted houses.
The film stock is even manipulated so that it looks warped, scratched or dirty, as if it had spooled off the projector onto the floor and left there a while.
The film often sputters and jumps on purpose to give the impression that it's a really cheap production. Indeed, the double bill presentation even carries a warning that some reels may be missing and, in fact, they are.
All of this is very, very cool, as is the music, the locales ("Planet Terror" is set in Austin, Texas; "Death Proof" shot in Central California masquerading as the Tennessee countryside) and the makeup (there's blood spurting everywhere).
But it's up to the actors to pull off all this tongue-in-cheek stuff, and they are all up to snuff. McGowan and Freddy Rodriguez are the nominal stars of "Planet Terror," and they couldn't be better as they battle puss-oozing zombies who've invaded Austin.
McGowan is sensational as a plucky leather-clad biker chick who learns to aim her machine gun stump in all the right places.
The rest of that film's cast Marley Shelton, Jeff Fahey, Michael Biehn, Josh Brolin, Michael Parks, Naveen Andrews from "Lost" are perfect because they're B movie refugees in the first place.
Add in Stacy Ferguson, aka Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas for sheer trivia value, and you've got yourself some fun. Did I mention that Bruce Willis appears from time to time, sporting a beret, sending up his whole "Die Hard" macho persona?
"Death Proof" is another story altogether. It's a Tarantino special, in which a famous 1971 B movie, Richard Sarafian's "Vanishing Point," is invoked a lot. This is important because "Vanishing Point," like "Death Proof," is about a psycho car chase. It's a revered cult film, which was what Tarantino and Rodriguez are aiming for with "Grindhouse."
In "Death Proof," four young women who are on location shooting a cheerleader movie in Tennessee take a day off for a road trip. Two of them (Thoms, Bell) are stuntwomen.
They borrow a for-sale Dodge Challenger for a test drive that includes one of them strapping herself to the hood and the other driving wildly fast.
When they encounter a murderous Russell (who's already shown his sick side in a previous sequence with McGowan and a trio including Sydney Tamika Poitier, Jordan Ladd and Vanessa Ferlito), tables are turned.
Tarantino's film, as opposed to Rodriguez's, is very talky. While "Planet Terror" is nonstop mayhem, Tarantino includes long stretches of the "Cheer Up" movie's crew chit-chatting first while they're crammed into a Chevy Nova and later while waiting to scam the Dodge owner.
Luckily, the dialogue is amusing enough, and the wait is worth it. The ensuing car chases are hair-raising, Bell's stunt work is amazing and Russell is his amusing, snarly best as he gets his comeuppance.
Add to all this Nicolas Cage making a cameo as Fu Manchu in one of the four witty fake trailers, and Tarantino himself making Hitchcock-like appearances in both films, and the appeal of "Grindhouse" just goes through the roof.
The package may not be for everyone. The first film is quite bloody and gory, and not for the faint of heart, that's for sure. There's one sequence of torture in the beginning that will send many scurrying under their seats. But all the violence in "Grindhouse" is broadly comic and so over the top that it's aimed at a teenage mentality.
But that's the pleasure of it, too. You can tell that both Rodriguez and Tarantino just had a ball (or balls, it's an inside joke from "Planet Terror") making these movies, and the audience has one watching them.
Monday , April 02, 2007
By Roger Friedman
The best movie so far of 2007 is one in which Rose McGowan, best known to TV audiences as a kind witch on "Charmed," has her leg chopped off and replaced by a snap-on semi-automatic machine gun.
"Planet Terror," directed by Robert Rodriguez, is one film of the double bill called "Grindhouse" that opens Friday and should be a monster hit among teens, film enthusiasts and, maybe, monsters.
The other half of "Grindhouse" is Quentin Tarantino's "Death Proof," a sort of two-parter within itself concerning a psychotic stunt man (Kurt Russell) who terrorizes beautiful young women until he comes across his donnybrook in the form of three crusading lasses (Rosario Dawson, Tracie Thoms, Zoe Bell) in a 1970 Dodge Challenger.
McGowan has a small role in that film, as well, and there are a couple of overlapping characters from the first movie.
The idea here is to send up C movies (not even B) that used to run on double bills at drive-ins and the sort of movie theaters that seemed like haunted houses.
The film stock is even manipulated so that it looks warped, scratched or dirty, as if it had spooled off the projector onto the floor and left there a while.
The film often sputters and jumps on purpose to give the impression that it's a really cheap production. Indeed, the double bill presentation even carries a warning that some reels may be missing and, in fact, they are.
All of this is very, very cool, as is the music, the locales ("Planet Terror" is set in Austin, Texas; "Death Proof" shot in Central California masquerading as the Tennessee countryside) and the makeup (there's blood spurting everywhere).
But it's up to the actors to pull off all this tongue-in-cheek stuff, and they are all up to snuff. McGowan and Freddy Rodriguez are the nominal stars of "Planet Terror," and they couldn't be better as they battle puss-oozing zombies who've invaded Austin.
McGowan is sensational as a plucky leather-clad biker chick who learns to aim her machine gun stump in all the right places.
The rest of that film's cast Marley Shelton, Jeff Fahey, Michael Biehn, Josh Brolin, Michael Parks, Naveen Andrews from "Lost" are perfect because they're B movie refugees in the first place.
Add in Stacy Ferguson, aka Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas for sheer trivia value, and you've got yourself some fun. Did I mention that Bruce Willis appears from time to time, sporting a beret, sending up his whole "Die Hard" macho persona?
"Death Proof" is another story altogether. It's a Tarantino special, in which a famous 1971 B movie, Richard Sarafian's "Vanishing Point," is invoked a lot. This is important because "Vanishing Point," like "Death Proof," is about a psycho car chase. It's a revered cult film, which was what Tarantino and Rodriguez are aiming for with "Grindhouse."
In "Death Proof," four young women who are on location shooting a cheerleader movie in Tennessee take a day off for a road trip. Two of them (Thoms, Bell) are stuntwomen.
They borrow a for-sale Dodge Challenger for a test drive that includes one of them strapping herself to the hood and the other driving wildly fast.
When they encounter a murderous Russell (who's already shown his sick side in a previous sequence with McGowan and a trio including Sydney Tamika Poitier, Jordan Ladd and Vanessa Ferlito), tables are turned.
Tarantino's film, as opposed to Rodriguez's, is very talky. While "Planet Terror" is nonstop mayhem, Tarantino includes long stretches of the "Cheer Up" movie's crew chit-chatting first while they're crammed into a Chevy Nova and later while waiting to scam the Dodge owner.
Luckily, the dialogue is amusing enough, and the wait is worth it. The ensuing car chases are hair-raising, Bell's stunt work is amazing and Russell is his amusing, snarly best as he gets his comeuppance.
Add to all this Nicolas Cage making a cameo as Fu Manchu in one of the four witty fake trailers, and Tarantino himself making Hitchcock-like appearances in both films, and the appeal of "Grindhouse" just goes through the roof.
The package may not be for everyone. The first film is quite bloody and gory, and not for the faint of heart, that's for sure. There's one sequence of torture in the beginning that will send many scurrying under their seats. But all the violence in "Grindhouse" is broadly comic and so over the top that it's aimed at a teenage mentality.
But that's the pleasure of it, too. You can tell that both Rodriguez and Tarantino just had a ball (or balls, it's an inside joke from "Planet Terror") making these movies, and the audience has one watching them.
