Grindhouse: 7 hours of cinema in 3 1/2 hours..

[triadruid]

Saw Grindhouse last night with orcjohn. Wholly worthwhile (and even moreso because Ward Parkway is doing $5 weekday evening shows right now due to the remodeling), and I've been preaching the gospel of it ever since then. I'll even go see it again with featherynscale if when if she has time to see it.

I would DEFINITELY recommend seeing it in its original format, though. I can't imagine how/why the studio thinks it's going to work as two separate films, as they're BAD art by today's standard, which of course isn't the point. It's an homage, riotously funny, and completely over the top. Kurt Russell steals every scene of "Death Proof" that he's in, though Zoë Bell puts in a good showing as well. Rose McGowan is in both features, though she's primary female lead in the first one and cannon fodder in the second. The re-use of sets/actors/role names between the two is a nice touch as well (shades of King's Desperation/Regulators experiment).

Really, I felt like I'd gotten seven hours of enjoyable action film, and in this case that wasn't a bad thing. Of course, the "Missing Reels" might have helped...

See it!

Comments

Death Proof

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

I loved this double-feature! Except...

I really felt like the first half-hour or so of Death Proof was gratuitous, and consisted of nothing more than dialogue from characters who were irrelevant to the plot.

Maybe I missed something, though. Could you identify any reason why Jungle Julia and her Gang of Girlfriends were included in the film?

Re: Death Proof

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

I really did think DP suffered from the "Tarantino Dialogue Disease", wherein he has to be as clever, snappy, and full of the word 'fuck' as possible. It was definitely the weaker of the two, in my opinion.

I've heard/read a couple of theories about DP: 1) that JJ and her friends serve to set up the contrast with what happens with the second set of girls. In which case, I'd have rather seen three sets (I guess Pam counts as separate). For one thing, it showed that he can get away with it (were the pair in the cowboy hats supposed to be his family?) Or 2) that JJ and her Friends were actually the SECOND set to be killed, with Stuntman Mike having learned his lessons from the first attempt with Zoe Bell and her friends This requires the very last scene to be fairly ambiguous, of course, and I couldn't tell if he had that scar on his face in the 'second' half.

Re: Death Proof

[wildnsquirrelly.livejournal.com]

Yep, the scar was there for the second half of "Death Proof". matchgirl42 and I saw it on Sunday after watching "300" and "GhostRider". A movie day seemed like a good way to hide from all the pastel colors that were lurking about.

Me, I'd really like to see if they actually did anything more with "Machete" (Rodriguez's fingerprints are all over it), and maybe even "Don't". I also thought they should have started the film with DP and finished with "Planet Terror". I can't help but think what a lucky bastard Rodriguez is, because you know he's got loads of unfiltered, unedited footage of Rose McGowan naked & writhing for what little of her sex scene we saw *just* before that accursed missing reel. They could offer a special edition release of GH that'd cost triple the normal rate and people would buy it if it advertised the inclusion of the 'Missing Reels' in the bonus features.

Re: Death Proof

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

There's a rumor going around that Rodriguez got the green light for Machete as a direct-to-video release, based on reactions to the trailer. It'd be nice to see Danny Trejo get a leading man part rather than a character actor bit part, for once. He's got to be one of the hardest working men in showbiz, and he did 11 years in San Quentin apparently.

Also, good catch on the scar. Mike's in so little of the second half, and most of it is shot from his right side, that I wasn't sure.

Chiming in

[matchgirl42.livejournal.com]

I *loved* Grindhouse, and I don't usually like this kind of movie as a general rule. But it was so craptacularly campy as to be downright fun...and yes, the scar was there the whole way through. And *I* actually want to see Wherewolf Nazi Women of Germany, or whatever the hell the title of that one was...looks like more craptacularly campy fun, to me! And Rob Zombie. Gotta love that.