Grindhouse

BitchlyBitchly said:

The word that came to mind, particularly when watching the Robert Rodriguez feature, Planet Terror, was intentionality. Don't get me wrong, most movies strive to make a point and position cameras, objects, and actors in specific ways to achieve a purpose. However, Planet Terror went out of its way to make sure everything, including cinematic inconsistencies, had a place. This was refreshing, as movies that strive to be perfect make laughable errors, whereas one striving to be imperfect due to the nature of its genre had everything perfectly placed. Even the machine gun strapped on the leg of an amputee did not seem as ridiculous in the context of the film as it did on the preview.
The Quentin Tarantino feature, Deathproof, stood out less in its intentionality and more in its commentary on groupthink and human nature. These two went hand in hand, as characters were able to switch their basic behaviours on a dime based on the situation. For instance, a timid female character becomes a hothead daredevil, and a hothead daredevil is reduced to a crying schoolgirl in a matter of minutes. As sad as this was to see, it was also believeable. While I was less impressed with this feature then the first, I have to admit having a feeling of pure joy as I watched Kurt Russell get the shit kicked out of him. I haven't felt that excited by a scene in a movie since, well, ever. Now I know how Goldie Hawn must feel.



Mediabastard said:

When Freddy Rodriguez's character, Wray, offers consolation for the freshly amputated leg of his former girlfiend, Cherry, by saying that "sometimes the best jokes are about cripples," you can't help but feel the line applies to the entire Grindhouse experience as well. This is lovingly told joke, three hours long, but well worth the wait to the punchlines.

Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror is Grindhouse's first feature, but I couldn't help feeling that it would have made a better rejoinder to Tarantino's Deathproof, the darker tone of which could have been buoyed by Rodriguez's cartoony acting and unrepentantly inane action. That said, Planet Terror delivers the goods: to me, it perfectly captures the quality of what a grind house movie was, right down to the missing reels suddenly jumping the action twenty minutes ahead, or the intentional debris on the film stock. The story is a sci-fi/horror Frankenstein's monster held together ungraciously by a thick neck bolt of willful continuity errors, and as such it's better seen than described. Rodriguez captures the look and feel of the genre perfectly with attention to detail that surpasses Tarantino's contribution, but it's the latter who succeeds more in capturing the genre's bullish intent.

Deathproof, the misbotten child of chase movies like Vanishing Point, feels like exploitation; watching it you feel a little dirty, and that, my friends, is exactly the point. The question of female empowerment comes up in Tarantino's movies time and time again, and likewise here the female characters are uniformly strong, but what Deathproof is really about is not female empowerment, but male disempowerment, masochistically so. Tarantino puts the screws to Kurt Russell's Stuntman Mike in such a way that it's almost sexual. And that, I think, is exactly the point. Tarantino builds and titillates, and when the final payoff arrives, it's a cinematic money shot - satisfying and a little empty at the same time. Which, if I'm not mistaken, is the whole purpose of a grind house film.

Grindhouse delivers an exploitative, escapist jaunt through the shared mental landscape of two of the world's biggest B movie buffs. Somewhere along the way, the intent of execution forces a raising of letter grade: Grindhouse is an A film about B movies.