| Tarantino Grinds "Grindhouse" to a Halt |
Grindhouse Robert Rodriguez's segment "Planet Terror"  Robert Rodriguez on the the set of "Grindhouse"  Quentin Tarantino's segment "Death Proof"  Kurt Russell as Stuntman Mike in "Death Proof" Starring Rose McGowan, Freddy Rodriguez, Josh Brolin, Kurt Russell, Vanessa Ferlito & Rosario Dawson www.grindhousemovie.net "Grindhouse," the new Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino flick, allegedly pays homage to the exploitation double-features of the '70s & '80s (a subject upon which I wrote a best-selling book: "For One Week Only: The World Of Exploitation Films"  ). If you're intrigued by this sort of thing, or by this movie specifically, I can say it's an enjoyable, entertaining combo of "Ewwww", "Yikes!" , "I don't believe it!", and funny moments for a good 96 minutes. Unfortunately, the feature is 191 minutes long. Rodriguez's contribution, "Planet Terror," which starts off the effort, does the trick and nails the landing. In fact, I dare say, it's one of Rodriguez's best structured, most consistently entertaining films since "El Mariachi," with a nice balance of legit character development, flights of "fancy" (just how DOES Cherry pull the trigger of her leggun anyway?), and visual imagination (Marley Shelton's sedated hands was a highpoint for me). Then there are the wonderful fake coming attraction trailers created by Eli Roth ("Hostel"), Rob Zombie, and especially Edgar Wright ("Shaun of the Dead")--about which the less said the better (the better for you to enjoy them in all their amusing, insightful, surprising splendor). But Tarantino's concluding contribution, "Death Proof", is almost unbelievably T-E-R-R-I-B-L-E. It has approximately a half hour of effective plot, surrounded by endless stretches of fruitless dialogue that ostensibly exists to make you identify with and like the female victims of a nutbag, Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) who targets them to participate in vehicular homicides. I can assure you, it doesn't elicit any sympathy for the girls. Virtually nothing said between Russell and his "companions" has any bearing on what has happened, is happening or will happen in "Death Proof". Worse still, these scenes ramble on for ten, fifteen, and even twenty minutes (yes, I timed them) for no apparent good reason. And while, yes, Tarantino is probably using these sequences to depict realistic womanly behavior, these characterizations could have easily been accomplished in much less time — not the hour of self-indulgent screentime it takes. Could "Death Proof"'s interminable chatter be a satire of the same sort of time-wasting that previous (but low-budget) exploitation films indulged in, in order to fill their running time? No, because by this point in this butt-numb-a-thon, Tarantino has totally jettisoned the whole concept of the "Grindhouse" project, making his visually pristine last 60 minutes look and feel completely different than the lean, mean, scratched and satiric 100 minutes which preceded it. In the end, you can literally walk into Tarantino's portion a half hour late without missing a thing, and then saunter out again ten minutes later, staying away for another full thirty minutes without detracting from the story at all. In fact, your strategic absences would only improve this auteur's exercise in self-important arrogance. Best to leave the film after the entre-act previews and await the inevitable Youtube shortening of "Death Proof". Or if you choose to stay, you techno-savvy audience members can thank Tarantino for graciously putting bathroom, fast-food, text message, and iPod-listening breaks in his half of this pulp double feature. {mos_ri}
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