Week of April 4, 2007, Issue #598
FILM
Skip school, burn one down and see this movie (or movies)
ROSS MOROZ / ross@vueweekly.com
Attending a press screening of a film is a bit of a dissociating experience, if not for the mostly empty theatre and lack of popcorn and jujubes than because of the bizarre scheduling. For various deadline and logistical reasons, most big-budget Hollywood pictures are shown to reviewers early in the day in the middle of the workweek, and the experience of emerging from a darkened theatre into the midday sun tends to be a little mood-killing.
Even more so, I assumed as I arrived at the 9:30 am (yes, am) Tuesday morning advance showing of Grindhouse, the hotly anticipated double-feature from Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, for a movie like this. Or, well, movies, that is: Grindhouse is comprised of two entirely separate—and surprisingly disparate in tone, pacing, style and quality—full-length features that pay homage to the down-and-dirty ’70s exploitation films Tarantino and Rodriguez grew up on.
Gore, violence, excessive cursing and, of course, gratuitous T and A combine with scratchy film stock, bumpy audio, “missing” reels (used as a particularly effective gag in both features) and a generally seedy feel to effectively immerse the audience in the illusion of watching a bad ’70s slasher flick (even if the characters in both films spend an annoying amount of screen time SMSing each other on their cellphones). A far cry from the university class I was missing that morning, to be sure.
First on the bill (after a “trailer” or two—more on that later—and some fantastic period-appropriate funked-out “Coming Attractions” and “Feature Presentation” reels that look as if they were rescued from a gritty New York cinema that was abandoned 30 years ago) is Rodriguez’s Planet Terror, about a Texas backwater overrun by zombies after a virus (or something) is released from a nearby military base. The few townsfolk who have managed to escape infection or decapitation—including down-on-her-luck go-go dancer Cherry (Rose McGowan), her mysterious ex El Wray (Freddy Rodriguez) and his nemesis, the local sheriff (Michael Biehn)—form a rag-tag group of deputized, gun-toting zombie killers desperate to save themselves from the brain-munching undead overrunning their town.
Despite some truly inspired gross-out gore, the odd reference to the War on Terror (perhaps meant as an allegory, but, if so, it’s a little ham-handed), a spicy naughty-nurse lesbian-lover cheatin’ hearts subplot (seriously) and, without revealing too much, an amputated leg replaced by a machine gun (no, seriously), Planet Terror doesn’t quite elevate itself above the level of loving but predictable—and, ultimately, forgettable—homage. Rodriguez apes George Romero a little too closely, perhaps, and while Planet Terror is a decent zombie movie, other recent flicks have done a better job of expanding upon (28 Days Later) or parodying (Shawn of the Dead) the genre than this.
Between the two features is an eight-minute “intermission,” but anyone leaving the theatre to stretch or pee will miss possibly the best part of Grindhouse. Along with more retro inter-titles and a truly disgusting commercial for a period fast food joint comes three more trailers for unmade (well, so far) exploitation films, courtesy of directors Rob Zombie, Eli Roth and Edgar Wright. I won’t ruin the laughs, but I will say that I’m willing to starting waiting in line now to see Zombie’s Nazi monster movie Werewolf Women of the SS.
Undoubtedly the better of the two films, Tarantino’s Death Proof is an unabashed take off on classic driving movies like “Dirty Mary Crazy Larry” and “Vanishing Point,” both of which are repeatedly name-checked, with the latter’s iconic white Dodge Charger figuring prominently in the film’s climax.
Instead of Planet Terror’s near-continuous onslaught of gore and violence, Death Proof spends its first half lulling the viewer with a group of stoner 20-something babes indulging in classic Tarantino shooting-the-shit, driving-around-town, smoking-weed-and-gettin’-drunk riffs, his best scenes of this kind since Travolta and Jackson riffed on “Royale with cheese” in Pulp Fiction.
The tension created by the arrival of Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell, perhaps beginning a Travolta-like career rehabilitation) and his scary black “death proof” car ratchets itself up slowly, almost subconsciously, which makes it difficult to reveal too much of the set-up without ruining the truly chilling moment when Pam (McGowan again, this time as a blonde hippy chick)—and the audience—realizes that something is very, very wrong.
The only real knock on Death Proof is that it’s, well, too good of a movie to really fit into the exploitation genre: the acting is a little too good, the dialogue is a little too natural, and the extended climax—which is comprised entirely of one of the best car chase scenes in recent memory, accomplished entirely the “old fashioned” way with real cars and real stunts—is too crisp and professional for the old ’70s exploitation flicks to which Tarantino is paying homage.
But after Planet Terror, which suffers from the opposite problem (sacrificing plot, acting, dialogue, et al to better serve the genre), Death Proof is a revelation, and is one of Tarantino’s most genuinely enjoyable pictures.
One tiny problem with Grindhouse is its runtime. At three hours and 11 minutes, it’s a bit of a slog—especially on a Tuesday morning. But as I lurched out of the dark of the matinee (or whatever it is you call a 9:30 am screening) into the searing lunch-time sun, it occurred to me that perhaps this was the best way to see a movie like this. I had, for the first time since the 10th grade, skipped school to hit the movies.
Besides, as I recall, when ditching class to take in a flick, the gorier and sexier and trashier that flick was, the better. And teenagers of Edmonton, if there was ever a movie worth missing second-period English for, Grindhouse is probably it. V
Opens Fri, Apr 6
Grindhouse
Written & directed by Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino
Starring Rose McGowan, Marley Shelton, Freddie Rodriguez, Kurt Russell, Zoë Bell, Rosario Dawson