The Best Of Times, The Worst Of Times

Saw Grindhouse the other day. Thought I'd talk about the two films that make up this odd double bill before talking about the thing as a whole.

Up first is Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror, a whale of a Zombie cum Disaster Movie. What it lacks in story (which is grade-z all the way), it makes up for with exploding everything. (Speaking of explosions, it's good to see that Rodriguez adheres to the theory put forth in Contamination: that the human body is merely an exploding bag of blood.) And the cast of mostly late '80s/early '90s character actors (who knew Jeff Fahey was still in the business?) appear to be having a good time. Movie even has the common decency to be funny, and has a spot-on Carpenter-esque music score. It's a dumb, yet highly-entertaining good time.

And then we come to Death Proof.

I'll start out by saying that, while I'm not as obsessive about his stuff as some fans, I consider myself a Quentin Tarantino fan, and have seen all of his movies (Reservoir Dogs included) in the theatre. That being said, it's been 10 years since he's committed anything watchable to film. And Death Proof is no exception.

The idea of a psychotic stuntman who commits vehicular homicide is actually a pretty good premise. I could see how you could make an entertaining 90 minute feature out of that. But Tarantino goes another direction. Kurt Russell, who plays the aforementioned stuntman, has possibly 15 minutes of screentime, tops.

The rest has been filled with scene after scene after scene after scene after scene (and onto infinity) of inanely witty dialogue. (Actually, saying "scene after scene" is a bit of a misnomer, because it's actually just a couple of scenes that go on for about half an hour apiece. Someone I saw the movie with thought maybe they'd forgotten to edit the movie. I wondered if they'd slowed the projector down to four frames per second.) And the dialogue can only be called witty if you think the stuff written in bathroom stalls is a little too highbrow. It's hard to believe this dialogue was written by the same guy that wrote Pulp Fiction. (Maybe Roger Avery is a better writer than previously thought.))

The awful writing isn't the film's only flaw. It's full of material "sourced" from other movies (even his own); it's got more stolen material than a Carlos Mencia standup routine. (But that's Tarantino's trademark: being a clever plagiarist.) And, much like I didn't realize that I could be bored by a lightsaber fight until I saw Revenge of the Sith, I didn't realize a could be bored by a car chase until I saw this movie. And that's not a good thing for a pseudo-Car Chase Movie.

I hate to say, "I told you so," but I did kinda predict that Death Proof would be unwatchable. And it pays off in full. Really, a completely awful movie; the worst I've seen this year.

And now, the thing as a whole.

The idea behind this whole venture was to replicate the "grindhouse" experience: two low-budget, grade-z exploitation movies shown as a double bill. And while Planet Terror and Death Proof get the tone and material right, they are big budget movies with high-priced stars. There's something false about trying to pass off these extremely costly and well-produced movies (particularly Planet Terror) as cheapo exploitation movies. It's like comparing Saving Private Ryan to that war movie you and your buddies made in the backyard with a video camera: same material, $50 million difference in budget.

The films incorporate little tricks to make these silk purses appear to be sows' ears. The clicks and pops on the soundtrack, the excessive film grain, the overexposed and skipped film frames (a trick Rodriguez uses with some artistic flair) are all clever ideas, but they kinda disappear after a while. And the "missing reel" gag gets old after approximately one use. (Again, a trick well utilized by Rodriguez, who segues from a sex scene to the beginning of the Apocalypse. Oh, and doggie style is an impossible position with a peg leg like that.) It's a nice try, but the movies are more blockbuster than bargain basement. (To see a recent movie that does it right, check out Jim Van Bebber's Deadbeat at Dawn.)

It's not all a waste, however. I liked the retro film snippets that connect the films, and some of the fake trailers have a nice period feel. (As someone who's seen a lot of trailers for these kinds of movies, I think Edgar Wright's trailer for Don't! just about nails it.)

All in all, I'd call it a failed experiment: the parts are mostly better than the whole. (It also doesn't help that the better of the two movies comes first.) Maybe if Tarantino had made a movie that wasn't a complete piece of shit, this would have worked out better. In fact, it can work out better for you. And here's how you do it: Find a theater that's playing both Grindhouse and The Host, the Korean monster movie. Go to a Grindhouse showing that starts about two hours before a Host showing, and watch it all the way through Planet Terror and the trailers in the middle. And then leave, and go see The Host. What you'll end up with is a great Monster Movie double feature in the same amount of time.

And you won't have missed a thing by walking out of Grindhouse. Trust me on that one.