Grindhouse

[adam]

The time of my life. Bliss.

[kid cue]

i'm really excited to see it!!!!!!

[viddy]

drooling....

[grady]

heard good and bad points about it, eagerly awaiting the viewing hopefully tomorrow after my grandmother's 85th b-day.

i'm wondering what kind of madness b.miller was entwined with on his viewing in RR/QT land in Austin.....spill the can of beans already brian.

[b.miller]

I just got home from it about 15 minutes ago... We had several different events going on (i opted out of the star-studded premiere a week and a half ago) but I chose the all-night grindhouse marathon leading up to the 8AM showing of the movie.

Good and bad points on the event. good: I got to see 4 amazing movies before Grindhouse. bad: the 4 movies I got to see before Grindhouse were better than Grindhouse.

I liked parts of it, but don't want to shit on anyone's good time. my movie journal will have more detailed notes for the curious... the jist is I liked Death Proof more than Planet Terror. Don't and Thanksgiving might be my favorite parts though.

[adam]

Don't worry about shitting on my good time. Just because your opinion makes me want to tear your throat out like a bear protecting her young doesn't mean you shouldn't post it.

I'm just kidding, of course.

Please, by all means. One of the best things about movie watching is discussing that movie with friends.

I'll start:

spoilers ahoy!

I do think the veins of the two films were quite different, and I'm not sure if this worked for them or if the justaposition strengthened them. I expected Death Proof to be as campy as Planet Terror and it really was more straight up.

I'm surprised, honestly, that you didn't like Planet Terror so much, because I thought it was hilarious, but then, I was entertained by things that other people might find pretty mundane. Such as as the shot of the sheriff when he arrives in town amid the burning chaos and it's a close-up where he's shouting, "What the hell is going on here?!" It just struck me as such subtle (subtle as in the joke is in the melodrama/bad script/hokey directing/editing rather than ha ha punchlines) deliberately silly shit that I thought it was great.

Plus I was fairly captivated by El Ray. He was such an interesting character because he didn't quite seem to have that typical presence that you would expect the person cast in that role to have; I mean, up until the end he still struck me as this little kid/punk, except that he was totally awesome.

They were definitely some messy bits about it: the ball-collecting, the bruce willis backstory, that I would have cleaned up, but I took them in the spirit of "we're making a film that's a wink towards bad films".

Death Proof, however, was amazing. I was played that whole movie. I just thought the pacing was brilliantly done. The slow build from the first half of the story to the masthead scene was perfect, and then I was on the edge of my seat from there. Like, the transition from chased to chaser, and all that, I just loved every second of it.

I also loved Russell's smile towards the camera before he gets in the car.

But yeah, the fake stuff: Machete, Don't, "written and directed by rob zombie" was classic.

I guess what I'm getting at is I thought Planet Terror was flawed but that though flaws were at least plausible as part of the concept, and that Cherry and El Ray were interesting enough on their own that even if those flaws were not intentional, they were definitely in the "minor" category. And I loved Death Proof. Seemed to be just fucking brilliantly paced.

spoilers end here because the post ends. obvious, innit?

[kid cue]

SPOILERS




i thought the film fx in Planet Terror was too self-conscious & eclectic for its own good. the missing reel part in general was a pretty contrived gesture. the gun leg was obv meant to be this over-the-top wild ride to the end of the film, but somehow fell short. the film seemed ambitious with all the elements it was trying to pull together, but i felt like it never quite got there. QT's acting really got to me.

so did Zoe Bell's. the rest of the movie was cool though. the dialogue didn't bother me too much. i kind of like how he just slapped it in there. maybe it made the film too QT and not enough grindhouse (i wouldn't know), but he is the director, and it became its own thing. the last chase was a total blast.

[Bargo]

(source)

But where once the arrival of a new Quentin Tarantino film was a highlight of the cinema year, his latest work is languishing in limbo without a British or Australian release date.

For months, Grindhouse, a $US100million ($120 million) double bill of nostalgic horror films made with his friend Robert Rodriguez, had been scheduled to arrive in British cinemas on June 1 and Australia on May 10.

After disastrous box office takings in the US, it has been withdrawn while Harvey and Bob Weinstein, the films' producers, try to formulate a rescue strategy.

A spokesman for Momentum Pictures, the films' British distributor, said yesterday: "We are reviewing the release date and the release plans. It will definitely be released here but we don't know in what form."

[grady]

I feel a few weeks late and about ten dollars short on this thread, but I finally got around to seeing the film this evening.

Surprisingly I enjoyed it much more than I was expecting. Rodriguez's film surprised a bit by how hyped it had been and how it was so hit and miss at times. I did like his tinkering and fiddling here and there with the image and sound but it felt a bit too deliberate and the way he does his own score seems to be quickly treading into the waters of John Carpenter land. There were times where it sound like bits of the score from Sin City.

Tarantino's Death Proof seemed to get the most slogging from my friends who had seen the film and I found myself liking it, but really wish a few things would happen, reiterating what others in the pages before this post have said, his characters are just too Tarantino for their own good now. But what also irritates me a great deal more is when he appears in his films. Between him, M. Night Shamalamadingdong and Kevin Smith, I would take Kevin Smith anyday, and that is being very forgiving. Someone needs to restrain Tarantino's insistence(ego) upon appearing in his own work.

But my main problem was there was not enough of Stuntman Mike! Kurt Russell was just a fucking pleasure to watch, and there wasn't nearly enough of him. The car chase/action was fun too along with Tarantino's stellar choice of music.

So yeah, it was more enjoyable than I was expecting it to be. My friend and I that saw it this evening are both projectionist and were grinning like hell at some of the little bits here and there that popped up. I only wish there would have been some more count down mylar type stuff or having the framing appear to be off for a minute or two in the scene deliberately so someone would think there is a problem with the film, get up to complain, only to return to the auditorium and find the film back in proper framing.

And the trailers, I loved the trailers!