Zoë Bell is better than you.

Playing hooky from school resulted in me getting Saturday detention, but when Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez played hooky from work, it resulted in Grindhouse. Go figure. As part of QT's birthday month, the man himself is programming the schedule at the New Beverly Cinema. There's a line that Harry Belafonte's gangster character says to Dermot Mulroney's hostage character in that dead drunken supremely-talented asshole Robert Altman's film Kansas City, and I vaguely remember it being something like "You hear that? (the music playing in the club) That's Count Basie. It's the only reason you're not dead yet." Well, I'm going to appropriate that shit, smack it up, flip it, rub it down (oh no!) and say that the New Bev is the only reason L.A. isn't dead to me.

When I drove past the theater, there were about 5 or 6 people in line. Ten minutes later, after finding a spot and taking a stroll around the block, the line was halfway down the block. Mr. Phil Blankenship would periodically walk down the line to make sure that everyone already bought their ticket online (it completely sold out online, anyone who wanted to buy a ticket that night had to wait in Standby). The huge turnout for tonight's screening of Grindhouse plus Machete reminded me of the two or three (or four?) screenings of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World they had here, and how those shows played to a packed house; both films were disappointments at the box office but the fans are hard-fucking-core. Which made me think if there were just as many hardcore fans of the movies that beat Grindhouse during its initial release; would I see people line up around the block to see Wild Hogs at the New Bev? I highly doubt that.

A very familiar-looking man stepped up to someone in the line, and after a couple seconds I went Holy Shit It's Michael Biehn -- Kyle Reese! Cpl. Hicks! Johnny Ringo! -- dressed casually in his dragon print button shirt and black jeans and hiking boots (he looked like he was in a scene from the non-existent Navy Seals 2, chilling out and drinking beer with his bros on R&R until they all get paged because a group of terrorists have taken over an embassy or something). The man in line showed Biehn an album full of black & white artwork (storyboards? comic art?) and after a while of looking through them, Biehn took his leave and walked off with his lady companion who was not Sarah Connor, which is a good thing because the chances of the New Bev turning Tech Noir dropped dramatically once I realized that.

As I devoured (DEVOURED, I SAY) the delicious popcorn, and the theater slowly filled to capacity, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez showed up. Biehn went up to Quentin and they hugged; he said something about how it's been a while since the last time they had spoken. Mr. Rodriguez -- a tall drink of water -- arrived suited and booted, and he not only managed to wear a cowboy hat without looking douchey or racist, he made that shit look pretty fuckin' cool. Quentin came dressed as Quentin.

They ended up sitting in front of my friend and I, and that was very cool. We were going to watch this movie with the guys responsible for it sitting close enough for me to uncomfortably breathe heavily all over them, clipping hairs from their head for the shrine I keep in my closet where I worship them Helga Pataki-style in my spare time; I have a lot of spare time. To Quentin's left were three ladies, which sounds about right, I'd complain if he had 2 or less. One arrived in the kind of sexy badass outfit one wears when riding a motorcycle in a movie; her belt buckle appeared to be a diamond-studded pistol. At one point, Quentin asked her for a large Diet Coke and I wondered if she was an assistant (or just a considerate friend) and perhaps that pistol was real and she was Quentin's "do-dirt nigga".

Like most of my fellow fanboys, I too considered the idea of going up to them and making a complete ass of myself. It's not like I wouldn't have anything to say, in fact, it's quite the opposite. I wanted to tell them how I had just completed my first feature and I had them to thank/blame. I wanted to tell them how they were the first filmmakers who I felt a kinship with, and that it was the 1993 one-two combo punch of seeing Reservoir Dogs on VHS and El Mariachi in the theater that gave my life a goal in that young age -- to go from accomplished film-watcher to wannabe filmmaker. I wanted to tell them how with their first films, Quentin Tarantino made me want to make movies and Robert Rodriguez told me that nothing was stopping me from making them.

Instead, I decided it was better to respect their space and leave them alone.

"Jungle" Julia Marchese began the intro by requesting people not to take photos or video and then QT and RR came down. Quentin talked about how this screening was especially, uh, special because it felt like he and his brother from another mother Rodriguez were coming full circle with this experience. They told the "hooky" story; Robert would watch 16mm prints projected on a white sheet in Quentin's blacked-out apartment (this was before Tarantino moved to plushier digs that are unfortunately located next door to Alan Ball's pterodactyls) and that Quentin sincerely declared/asked something to the effect of "Isn't this the life?". They told the Dragstrip Girl/Rock All Night story; Robert saw the poster for that double bill, said he had the same one at home, and then he immediately had a light bulb moment and brought up the idea for Grindhouse.

It also came out of wanting to share the experience of watching movies at Quentin's house; QT would screen 2, 3, 4 movies and have trailers and intermissions and ads -- Grindhouse would be a chance to do all that for audiences worldwide (well, audiences in the U.S. at least). They also mentioned how Rodriguez had his movie cast long before Tarantino cast his; to give the actors an idea of what kind of movies they were making, they screened Zombie (horror: this could never happen) and Torso (terror: this could happen) with trailers. Rodriguez's film would be full of show-stopping gore (like Zombie) and Tarantino's film would feature extended scenes of girls talking punctuated with the occasional brilliant kill scene, climaxing with a 20-minute long final setpiece (like Torso).

They also made sure to distinguish the "sickos" in Rodriguez's film as being "infected", not zombies. Quentin told a story about how he talked to director Umberto Lenzi (I'm assuming they were discussing Nightmare City) and referred to the bad guys in his film as zombies. Lenzi responded by getting all WTF about Quentin's use of the word "zombie", acting all confused before finally getting all Italian loud and declaring "THEY'RE-A EEEN-FEC-DED PEEEE-PUUULL!"

We were then told how we were going to watch Grindhouse as they originally intended it; with real trailers and ads included. The movie was already long, Quentin said, and I'm sure legal issues were also another reason why it wasn't released this way, but for us, the fans at the New Bev, this is how we'd be watching it. He told us that he and Robert would not be coming up to do a Q&A or talk more about the film, this would be a triple feature that would go: trailers, Planet Terror, trailers, Death Proof, trailers, Machete. Then they wished us a good time and sat down.

A guy went right up to Quentin to get his autograph or something and QT gave him the apparently-known-by-many shpiel of "Thanks, but I'm just trying to watch the movie like you..." or something like that. The lights went down and suddenly a guy in a powder-blue t-shirt with dark blue sleeves came walking quickly down the aisle, headed for the same row as Quentin but Julia (walking up the aisle) demonstrated her Bionic Woman engineering by lasering in on the pesky target and getting in front of him. She held up her hands, effectively blocking him in a polite manner that could also double for Don't Make Me Have To Push You. The lady Just Fucking Knew what this guy was up to and was going to put a stop to it. Whispered words were exchanged, but I managed to hear her tell him "Please go back to your seat" at the end of it, and that's just what he did.

I don't remember the order of the trailers and ads, but I'll do my best: a Coca-Cola advertisement, Lucio Fulci's The Psychic, Dario Argento's Deep Red, Sum Yung Guy's Deep Thrust, Lucio Fulci's Zombie, some Filipino's Women In Cages and I think that was it as far as the new trailers, followed by the Machete trailer and Planet Terror.

Now, I've written about Grindhouse before in one of my first ramblings on this here blog; it was my contribution to the far superior blog Final Girl and her Film Club. I haven't been there in a while, but I'm going to see if she's still doing the Film Club thing, I'd like to do another one. I think I might have even met the lady (if that was even her) behind that site at Eric Spudic's Movie Empire (which is now closed, unfortunately). She was working the counter and even offered to help me take my purchases to my car. I thanked her but figured I could handle it myself. Then she politely laughed at my stupid joke about how I'll probably drop them anyway. Then I went outside, and sure enough, I dropped the movies. Because my life is filled with nothing but new ways for me to choke on my spoon.

Anyway, yeah, I've rambled about Planet Terror and Death Proof already and it's interesting to read (for me, not for you) because I was well into an alcoholic depression (with the occasional rage-filled moment of levity) during that time of my life. Don't clap for me yet, 12-steppers, I don't drink anymore but I do love me some pot -- but at least I'm not depressed anymore. So if you want my detailed (read: way too fucking long) thoughts on the extended versions of both films, click on this motherfucker.

I will say a couple things about the films, I'm now of the opinion (or at least as of this moment in time) that the shorter Grindhouse versions of both movies are superior. For a while, my ideal version of Grindhouse was the theatrical cut of Planet Terror (the pacing moves like a MUTHAFUCKA) and the extended version of Death Proof. But now, I like my Death Proof shorter as well. Sure, there are moments that I'll be missing, like the full Michael Parks monologue or that awesomely creepy photo-taking sequence, but I can always enjoy those scenes separately on the Blu-ray. I really don't give a shit about buying Italian Vogue (even though I liked seeing Nicky Katt pop up) and I'm not getting anything out of Kurt Russell fondling Rosario Dawson's feet, since I'm not the one fondling them. I once made a DVD with the extended versions of both movies along with the Zombie/Wright/Roth trailers taken from an Internet source, but after watching it once, I gave it to my cousin.

With repeated viewings, a dim motherfucker like me starts to notice and appreciate things more from these films. My third favorite scene in Death Proof (following the entire car chase sequence and the first crash) is when Jungle Julia texts Christian Simonson. She's excused herself to a closed-off section of the bar, away from the loud music of AMI the jukebox. The bar music on the soundtrack is eventually drowned out by Pino Donaggio's score from Blow Out ("Sally and Jack", I believe) and she's sending him lovey-dovey messages. It's like this is Jungle Julia without the tough don't-give-a-shit persona she's been putting up in front of everyone else for the rest of the film. This is a personal, non-guarded moment and I think she genuinely likes the dude, this dude who probably doesn't give a shit about her. I mean, for all she knows, that guy was probably texting back his "Me Too" message while getting a fuckin' lap dance. She's making Stuntman Mike feel like a heel and talking shit about that skinny fake-blonde bitch at the bar, but she's probably hiding the fact that she's also a little touchéd herself.

At least that's how I like to see it. I'm probably wrong, like I was wrong about the scene in Jackie Brown (still my favorite QT joint) when Robert Forster firsts sees Pam Grier and Bloodstone's "Natural High" starts to play on the soundtrack. I thought that was supposed to underscore Forster's love-at-first-sight moment, but then on the DVD, QT is talking about how that was just a moment for people to go "Ahhh!" because it's an awesome song, and how the only people who really got that scene were black people -- and Quentin, of course, because he's black too.

A couple moments watching Grindhouse with the directors in front of me stood out; The first was right after the Machete trailer when a blocky 70's-style Weinstein Company logo came up with the announcer saying "Brought to you by your friends at the Weinstein Company!" Right after that, Quentin glanced over to Robert and Pretty Girl With The Diamond Pistol Belt Buckle beside him. Oh how I wish I had the ability to interpret that glance! What did it mean? What was the emotion behind it? Only Quentin and those he shared his glance with know for sure. Also when the late Sally Menke's credit in Death Proof came up, everyone else in the room burst into applause and cheered -- all but Quentin, who slowly nodded for a while. 

After Grindhouse, there was about a 20-minute break (and the exodus to the toilets and concession stand began). Some guy walked up to Quentin and Robert and thanked them for the good times, and QT/RR graciously thanked him back. Quentin then said "Love your tailor!", referring to the man's Grindhouse t-shirt. I talked with my friend for a bit, then checked my messages (zero, as usual), then went to say goodbye to the Cherry Coke I had gotten intimately acquainted with during Grindhouse. I got in line to use the head and saw that Mr. Rodriguez was in front of me, probably looking to relieve himself of some Cerveza Chango.

When you're a famous filmmaker, you have to make peace with the fact that people are going to ask for autographs or talk with you while you wait to use the toilet; Rodriguez signed quite a few pictures and posters and was being incredibly nice the entire time. If he was annoyed, he was hiding that shit like a pro. The powder blue shirt guy (aka the guy who almost probably got his ass handed to him by Golden Earrings in the name of Quentin's comfort) went up to RR and shook his hand. After that guy left, the guy in front of Rodriguez then turned to Robert and said "Man, you can't even pee in peace!" and then followed it up with "So how was it like working with Lindsay Lohan?"

After the break, a new reel of trailers started: a jazzy bebop-ish ad for Dr. Pepper, Chinese Hercules (starring Bolo Yeung aka That Buff Asian Dude From Bloodsport), some crazy nunsploitation flick called The Lady of Monza (the trailer consisted of people getting whipped, smacked, punched, kicked, and I think even banged -- it's a movie about nuns), something called Ride In A Pink Car, muthafuckin' Charlie Bronson breaking out muthafuckin' Robert Duvall in Breakout, and a teaser for something called Teenage Hitchhikers (dialogue and narration playing over a slow revolving zoom out of what appeared to be the poster, if I recall somewhat correctly).

Machete followed. I saw it back in October and liked it, but felt a tad letdown. It's a sad irony (or whatever the right fuckin' word is) that ultimately this was yet another example of a movie that wasn't as good as the trailer. You have Danny Trejo, the 21st century Charles Bronson, fucking motherfuckers up in the worst possible ways using knives and various other stabbing/slashing/impaling implements all in the name of the illegal immigrants who are trying to make a shitty living doing shitty jobs -- and I was left wishing there was more of that. My buddy loved it, though; I think he even liked it more than Death Proof.

The good outweighs the bad, but the bad is still pretty fuckin' heavy; the movie feels too slow at times and that's kind of a shock because Rodriguez is usually aces in the pacing department (remember long ago, when I told you how I thought Planet Terror's pacing moves like a MUTHAFUCKA?) but to me, this one doesn't really feel like it's headed anywhere. Usually, you can feel that shit, like we're headed into the home stretch, but in this one, I sure as fuck couldn't. By the time Machete is leading an army of low-riders into the final battle, I knew I was watching the prelude to the Big Battle, and yet, it didn't feel like it, if that makes any sense and it probably doesn't.

Robert DeNiro's character, he's this senator who's running for re-election on a campaign of no amnesty for illegals and building an electrified fence at the border, and I think his ads where he refers to the illegals as "parasites" and uses images of cockroaches and maggots, well, it didn't seem so funny to me because I can totally buy that happening in real life. I think Rodriguez was trying for Satire and took an unplanned left turn into Straight Up Fuckin' Accurate. Shit, check any news message board on the subject, those motherfuckers are already talking that kind of shit -- hell, it's probably even worse. It's really just a matter of time before we see real ads like that, making illegals synonymous with insects. I'm still not convinced that DeNiro's speech where he keeps mocking the idea of "change" wasn't taken word-for-word from some politician going off on that socialist/commie/America-hating/tax-loving Obama (or "Nobama", as the clever like to call him).

Steven Seagal is awesome, and if you don't agree with me, then you're probably Kelly LeBrock. I probably even like him more as a fat guy, but I'm down with either version -- which I guess makes him the Alec Baldwin of martial artists. I love that they cast him not only as the bad guy, but a Mexican drug kingpin named Torrez. That description sounds like it was taken straight from the fantasy movies that play in the cinema of my imagination. He doesn't disappoint, either; he speaks with an accent, occasionally throws in some Spanish (he's particularly fond of calling people "puñeta").

The rest of the cast is great; Don Johnson does his best Michael Parks impression, Lindsay Lohan does a good job remaining somewhat relevant, Cheech is Cheech (always a good thing), Jeff Fahey speaks in such a low growling voice you could probably play his scenes to test your subwoofers, Nimrod Antal is way better an actor than you'd expect, and goddamn Jessica Alba and Michelle Rodriguez are making it difficult for me to live life knowing I'll never get to bang them. We already know about Alba's hotness capabilities, but I was especially (pleasantly) surprised by M.Rod's bringing-of-the-sexy in this one. She didn't do much for me back in the day, but now, I don't know if it's because they usually cast her in butch roles or she hadn't fully blossomed yet, but I see her in Machete and she manages to combine that hardass aspect she brings with a large degree of absolute smokin' heat.

I wonder about that. I thought it was good filmmaking that did it, but I recently watched a video clip from a radio show where the host was recording his guest and in the middle of it, Michelle Rodriguez walks down the hall with her entourage, on her way to another show. They say Hi to her and she winks back. After she's gone, the guest turns to the host and talks about how hot she is in person, and what a shame it is that Hollywood's been dyking her up all these years.

Anyway, Robert Rodriguez co-directed this movie with his protege Ethan Manquis, maybe that's why this one doesn't have that same, uh, I don't know, snap to it that his other movies have. It really only comes to life during the action, and even then, half of the action is frustratingly standard-looking, while the other half is wildly inventive. It also seems to have the same problem that Once Upon A Time In Mexico had -- the film seems more interested in the supporting characters than the fuckin' main dude. Look man, in the end, I dug it, but goddamn, I really wanted to see the movie I thought I was going to get from the trailer. As it is, it feels like I'm watching a different movie with the occasional scene from the trailer thrown in -- which come to think of it, is EXACTLY what this movie is. Don't I feel like a fuckin' tonto.

The audience response was interesting. There wasn't as much cheering or laughing as with Grindhouse. There was the occasional WOOOO but I think it was the same guy doing it. Some of the jokes fell flat (regardless of whether they were funny or not) and got no response, and some bits that I didn't expect to get a reaction were rather well-received. Quentin seemed to really dig the movie, though. Some of the loudest laughs came from him, and on occasion, only the laughs came from him. But before you say What The Fuck Are You Implying, calm down puñeta, I'm not implying anything -- trust me, his were as sincere and genuine a fuckin' laugh as you will ever hear. These guys are best friends, and as such probably share the same sense of humor. It happens, I guess -- sometimes the audience is going to be on a different wavelength but as long as you're still getting laughs and as long as the audience is still cheering every once in a while, what's the problem?

The triple feature ended, and a great time was had by most (I can't assume for all of you). Quentin and Robert stuck around during the credits, talking to each other. My buddy and I ended up chilling outside for a while, me yapping incessantly while he smoked his cigarette. Eventually, RR went outside and signed some autographs. By the time we decided to take off, I looked over to see RR and QT listening intently while Clu Gulager (wearing a Marine Corps jacket -- once a Marine, always a Marine) talked to them about whatever. I felt like turning in their direction and shouting THAT'S RIGHT MOTHERFUCKERS, WHEN CLU SPEAKS, YOU FUCKIN' LISTEN, but then I remembered that I while I may be stupid, I'm not bloody stupid and instead I drove my friend to Norms, where I spent my meal being stared at by a bald smiling tattooed man in the booth in front of me, only occasionally breaking eye contact with me to look down at a sketchpad he was furiously drawing on.

Fuck both of you and your little high-five: my Final Girl Film Club review of Grindhouse

It was probably after Quentin Tarantino had just snorted his third line of uncut Bolivian flake off some stripper's bare foot when Robert Rodriguez finally had enough and put his digital camera down to rub his tired eyes. Rodriguez then looked over and noticed a poster for an old 50's double feature on the wall, and I'm guessing that's when he and Tarantino started talking about the cool idea of putting together a double feature of their own and calling it Grindhouse.

The idea was to create a full night of entertainment, complete with trailers and two feature films, back-to-back. It was supposed to be a big hit, and had it been a double feature of Will Ferrell ice-skating with Napoleon Dynamite in one flick and Ice Cube falling on his ass while trying to remodel a house in another, it would have been huge. Instead, Tarantino & Rodriguez chose to base their double bill on the kind of low-budget exploitation cinema that played in many seedy and rundown movie houses during the 70's & 80's, so it bombed. Shoulda thought that one through, boys.


Grindhouse is this month's Film Club pick over at Final Girl, and I wanted to join in the reindeer games, so for my "review" I watched a DVD that included the extended versions of Planet Terror and Death Proof along with the 3 trailers from the theatrical version.

The following pics were taken while I was watching the movie. I notice a lot of the other movie blogs put up nice sharp pics straight from their DVD or VHS copies, but I'm running on some antiquated equipment, so bear with me. But you can be entertained by the shaky and blurry quality of the shots, which may give you a slight idea of how increasingly hammered I got on Jack Daniels while watching this.


The first trailer is for a movie called Machete, starring my boy Danny Trejo. It feels good to watch homeboy come up, I remember the first time I saw him was in a movie with Michael Pare called The Last Hour (aka Concrete War), where he played a scary Mexican who killed people. Five years later, he was in his first Rodriguez movie, Desperado, where he played a scary Mexican who killed people. Now here he is, starring in his own fictional movie where he plays a scary Mexican who kills people, only this time he uses machetes.
Some kitty cats show up and turn into a big growling panther, then the first feature begins.
Planet Terror is Robert Rodriguez's ode to grade-Z zombie flicks and John Carpenter's badass heroes. Or as I once told a cousin of mine, Planet Terror plays like an Italian rip-off of an imaginary movie written by George A. Romero and directed by John Carpenter. Then I remembered that my cousin doesn't know who the fuck any of those dudes are in the first place. So I just told him that it's lots of gore and lots of action but zero titties. He was kinda bummed about that.

The movie begins with the character of Cherry Darling as she go-go dances on stage. Listening to the director's commentary, you find out that a lot of the character is based on the actress playing her, Rose McGowan; the whole "useless talent" thing she says throughout the movie is something Rose actually says all the time, and the running gag about Cherry wanting to become a comedian is taken from everyone in real life always complementing McGowan's wit and suggesting that she should pursue a career in stand-up. I'm assuming the same people who say that are all guys and some may have succeeded in bedding her with that bullshit, like Rodriguez ultimately did with Rose behind Mrs. Rodriguez's back. When I noticed in the end credits that McGowan also sang a couple of songs on the soundtrack, I wondered if maybe a better title for this flick would've been "I Love Rose McGowan", or "Rose & Robert: Two Against the World" or "Rosie, You So Crazy!". I'm sorry, I'm just hating because I'm lonely. Good for you, guys. I wish you both the best. Hope the wife understood.

But then again, maybe she didn't and Rodriguez feared the worst so he manifested his fear in the form of Josh Brolin's character, Dr. Block. Dr. Block is this dude who finds out that his anesthesiologist wife, Dakota, is cheating on him for the second time with Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas. I'm guessing the first time he found out he was kinda cool with it. He was probably all like "Hey, let's get down and have some Three's Company action up in this piece" but Dakota was like "Nope, I only want to be with her" and that pissed homeboy off so he broke that shit up. Well, when he discovers Dakota was wandering off for again for another taste of those lovely lady lumps, Dr. Block loses his shit completely and becomes a real fucking creep about it. I think he was even going to try to stab Dakota in the eye with a hypodermic needle. Calm the fuck down and call your lawyer, dude. I don't know, maybe Rodriguez likes to see Dakota and Fergie as him and Rose, and that asshole Dr. Block is the mother of all those kids he gave first names starting with "R".

Or maybe Robert sees himself as El Wray, this short unassuming guy who you later find out is actually the Baddest Motherfucker Who Ever Walked The Planet. Wray runs into Cherry and you find out they used to be together, so you know how that's going to go. So it's good that they found each other again, what with the world coming to an end because fucking dude from Lost had to let loose some chemical gas that turns everyone else into flesh-eating "sickos". Where Robert Rodriguez sees himself in any of this, I have no idea. I don't even know why I brought it up in the first place, but the fact that I'm currently well into my third glass of Maker's Mark may have something to do with my current train of thought.


In addition to having to deal with those zombie assholes, Wray's also got some shit going on between him and the Sheriff, played by Reese from the first Terminator movie. Sheriff Reese has both Tom Savini and the original El Mariachi as his deputies, which is pretty awesome. Savini can't shoot for shit, though.

Cherry gets attacked and winds up losing her leg, which really bums her out. On the other hand, by the end of the movie she's got a kick-ass replacement that also doubles as a machine gun and rocket launcher. Plus, I'm sure she can now qualify for handicapped parking, so there you go. Anyway, lots of blood, gore and explosions ensue.

I almost forgot. Later on, Tarantino shows up as a rapist, giving in my opinion his second best performance since From Dusk Till Dawn where he played a rapist.


The look of the movie is perfect. Not perfect as in pristine, but perfect as in getting the tone and feel of this kind of movie down. In addition to giving the appearance of a worn out film print with scratches and jump cuts, Planet Terror is also shot like something that would've played in a downtown discount house back in the late 70's/early 80's -- plenty of shaky zooms along with fast & cheap lighting set-ups. Two of my favorite examples are a kitchen scene with the Block family and Fergie's scene where she's stranded on a dark highway; they look like they could've been deleted scenes from Lucio Fulci's City of the Living Dead (aka The Gates of Hell).

Planet Terror even pulls the "Special Guest Star in a B-movie" trick. Bruce Willis appears as Lieutenant Muldoon, and you can tell that they shot all of his scenes in a row, mostly in close-up, and then filled the rest with stand-ins and body doubles and creative editing to give the illusion he's in the movie a lot more than he really is. It works, and it made me feel like I was watching the movie in an alternate universe where grindhouse theaters and drive-ins never died, the same alternate universe where Willis' career never quite recovered from the failure of Hudson Hawk and now he's reduced to doing special appearances in b-movies. Alternate Universe Bruce Willis probably stars in a lot of action movies and giallos over in Italy and Spain too.


It's fast and lots of fun, but ultimately this feels less like a real grindhouse movie and more like a movie for someone who always wanted to know what those kinds of movies were like but never really wanted to take the time to watch one. Because the truth is that you would need to watch about 3 or 4 real zombie/action flicks of the time to get the amount of craziness and gore and sheer scope of the stuff that happens in Planet Terror. I think Rodriguez knew that and wasn't trying to make an exact replication of that kind of movie in the first place, he just wanted to give folks the same kind of enjoyment he got growing up on that shit.


Three trailers follow. First you have Werewolf Women of the SS, by Rob Zombie. There's Nazis, young women being tortured and bloodied and branded with a swastika iron, machine gun-toting werewolves and Nicolas Cage at the end giving his usual understated performance. It's okay.

An advertisement for a fake Tex-Mex joint called Acuna Boys follows. I guess the joke here is how unappetizing the food looks, photographed in stark lighting conditions. Maybe it was because I was completely hammered at this point, but I swear I saw a shot of pizza served with potato chips. I was like Ewww, but then I remembered that I like to eat pizza with mojo potatoes at Shakey's, so really, how big a difference is THAT shit? I also dug that the Acuna Boys mascots were named after characters from one of my favorite movies, Rolling Thunder. If you haven't seen that shit, then you just don't fucking know and I can't help you. Search that shit out, bro.


Then you have Don't from Edgar Wright. This one's my favorite out of all the trailers. It's just random moments from the movie with no dialogue, only sound effects and music and GOB from Arrested Development narrating. It plays like a trailer to a foreign horror movie, except the distributors don't want to tip you off that it's either very badly dubbed or subtitled. Main dude from Hot Fuzz is supposed to be there somewhere, but I didn't catch him. The fat dude from Hot Fuzz, on the other hand, makes a big fucking impression, showing up in a diaper and with brown smudges all over his body.

The final trailer is for Eli Roth's Thanksgiving. I like this one too. It's about a dude chopping up motherfuckers over the Thanksgiving holiday. Roth also appears in this as a dude who gets his head chopped off while homegirl from Cabin Fever is giving him head, which I guess evens everything out or something. I remember Roth programmed two weeks of movies over at the New Beverly Cinema in L.A. last year, and he would introduce movies like Pieces and Mother's Day, so you can totally tell that his heart lies with this kind of stuff. He does a great job of making a trailer for a movie that would not feel out of place with those flicks. The cheerleader landing on a butcher knife was a little too much, though. I'm just a fucking prude, that's all.


A kitty cat walks through the jungle and becomes a panther, then the second feature begins. Death Proof isn't an ode or tribute to a grindhouse movie, it IS a grindhouse movie. Basically what this means is that most of those flicks are really 45-minutes of story stretched out to 90 with padding and filler. It's what the filmmakers DO with the filler and padding that makes it either worth a watch or a waste of your time, and I think Quentin Tarantino does fine with his in Death Proof.

So you have Kurt Russell as this nacho eating motherfucker named Stuntman Mike, who has this fucked-up thing for stalking girls and then crashing his reinforced muscle car into them. And that's it, really. In between the set-pieces, you get to know the two separate groups of girls he sets his sights on.


The first half of the movie involves 3 friends hanging out in Austin, Texas. You have this chick named Jungle Julia who's a local celebrity D.J., you got homegirl from Cabin Fever and Thanksgiving looking really tiny, and then you have Arlene/"Butterfly", who's visiting her friends from out of town. We watch as they hang out at a bar, drink, smoke bud, and talk. Lots of talk. Talk about guys they hooked up with, guys they're not going to hook up with and guys who they want to hook up with. To even out all this girl talk, you also have Eli Roth and a couple of other dudes (one of whom is a little too, uh...fey for me to believe him) talking about trying to hook up with these girls at the lake house tonight, and how much liquor it's going to take for them to do it.

That reminds me, have you gone drinking at a bar recently? Goddamn, it's way too fucking expensive. That's why I do all my drinking at home. It's also why I don't have friends anymore and I'm single. But maybe that's a good thing, considering how much these dudes in the movie probably end up spending on liquoring up these chicks. Damn. Whatever happened to just taking a girl out for some ice cream? Nah man, apparently now you gotta do shots of Jager and bring some fuckin' primo Kush to blaze on if you even wanna THINK about courting a young lady. Fuck that, I'll just stick to being a shut-in and jerk off. And cry.


Maybe that's why I dig all the chicks talking in this flick, and why so many regular people don't. They don't wanna hear that shit, they probably get enough of it at home. I'm trying to watch the fuckin' game, go call Laura and tell her all of that bullshit.

I read the screenplay to this shortly after having seen it for the first time, and there's a part that isn't in the final film where Jungle Julia talks about her typical day. You know what, I'm just gonna fuckin' find the script and type the shit out for you. It'll be the best written thing on my fuckin' blog, that's for sure:

JUNGLE JULIA
Hey, that's a discombobulated day in the life of a drive time DJ. I get off work at 10:00am, I'm at home by 10:30. By 11:00 I'm snuggled up on my comfy couch, in my pajamas, hittin' the bong. I watch I Love Lucy at eleven...The Andy Griffith Show...at eleven-thirty. At 12:00, I watch back to back episodes of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. At 1:00 I watch back to back episodes of Moesha. At 2:00 I watch Sponge Bob Square Pants. At 2:30 I watch Pinky and the Brain. At 3:00 I watch back to back episodes of Sister Sister. And at 4:00 I watch Tyra. Then I eat a big bowl of cereal, get unstoned and go about my day.

NATE
What do you mean you get unstoned?

JUNGLE JULIA
(like a doctor)
Dairy fucks up your high. You wanna get unhigh fast, eat a bowl of cereal.

Jesus Christ. You just fucking KNOW this is Quentin Tarantino's average day. You know this, right? But what the hey, you can't hate a dude for writing what he knows. Give homeboy some points.


You also have to give points to Tarantino for putting so much of himself into this flick, because there's a lot more personal shit in his flicks than you might think. No, I doubt that Quentin goes around running over cute girls or slicing up Japanese mafia with a sword, but there's other things spread throughout, like fetish-type shit that comes straight from his beautifully twisted mind. Anyone with eyes probably knows that Tarantino might have a bit of a thing for feet. But after having watched Death Proof the movie and having read Death Proof the script, I'm talking about other kinds of kink.

Near the end of the opening credits, there's a close-up shot of Arlene holding onto her crotch as she runs to her friend's apartment, doing the pee-pee dance. In the script, that scene goes on longer. It describes Arlene as she sits on the toilet, letting out a "racehorse stream of piss" and the shot ends with the camera zooming into Arlene's "pretty face of relief". Halfway through the movie, another woman talks about how her current man has a thing for watching her pee, and her girlfriends are more amused than grossed out. Again, maybe I'm being a prude and overreacting. But then in the script to Tarantino's next flick, "Inglourious Basterds" (that's how he spells it, people) a woman pees herself and the camera is supposed to follow down to a shot of all the urine pooling around her feet. I don't know, I'm probably just looking into it too much. But if there's ever a Grindhouse 2, and Quentin's movie is called something like "Piss, Baby, Piss!" remember where you heard about that shit first, folks.

What's also cool about Death Proof is that it sets you up for one thing and then changes it up on you. Arlene is the one who notices that evil-looking car Stuntman Mike drives, she's the only one who feels something is wrong. Everyone is talking about this lake house they're going to go later that night. They set you up for Arlene as the Final Girl and the lake house to be the setting for all the crazy bad stuff to happen and yet it doesn't work out that way.


The second half focuses on a second group of girls who are in town working on a movie. You have stuntwoman Zoe Bell, stuntwoman Samuelle L. Jackson, John McClane's Daughter (wearing a cheerleader outfit, but no butcher knife up the snatch) and Rosario Dawson. Like our previous group, they also like to talk; all the fun they're having on the movie they're working on (Tarantino himself has said this is the conversation he knows the cast & crew have about working on his movies), the guys they've hooked up with, and the guys they want to hook up with. In both groups there's a woman who wants to get romantically serious with a film director and end up living in his mansion. That was interesting.

Anyway, Stuntman Mike is on the trail, following them around and taking pictures, like he did with the last group of girls. This perv eventually works up the nerve to sneak up to Rosario's bare feet while she's asleep and starts to touch and lick them. This has absolutely NOTHING to do with Quentin's apparent foot fetish, I'm sure. Stuntman Mike's mission to get off is made easier when Zoe comes in with the idea of having her buddy Samuelle drive a muscle car at top speed while Zoe rides on the hood. Why? I guess because she just felt the need to do it. Don't question Ms. Bell. Car chases and crashes ensue.


From all the blah blah blah, you find out that Rosario Dawson is a single mother dying to take part in something with the "cool kids", Samuelle L. Jackson is packing heat and not afraid to use it, and Zoe Bell is indestructable. After what happened in the first half, you're familiar with the game Tarantino is playing and you pretty much have it all figured out -- it's not going to work out the way the movie has it set up and instead it's gonna flip your expectations upside down, right side up, backwards and forwards and all that shit.

Except that doesn't happen. The movie proceeds to go exactly the way it's been set up. Zoe Bell does survive Stuntman Mike's attack with hardly a scratch, SLJ does use her gun on that punk-ass, and Rosario's character is just as determined to join her friends as they look to kill this motherfucker.

I'm reminded of something Tarantino said about the way he originally structured his screenplay for True Romance. For the first act, the audience knows nothing while the characters know everything. For the second act, both the characters and the audience are on the same level. But for the third act, the audience knows everything while the characters know nothing, so we have no choice but to watch the characters get themselves closer and closer into danger. Then Tony Scott came and restructured the script into chronological order for the movie. But if Tarantino was to explain the structure for Death Proof, he would probably say: "First half, I know more than you. Second half, you THINK you know, but I still know more than you. I own you. I never graduated high school and this is how I display my superiority. I rule. I love feet."


While the look of this movie isn't as beaten up as Planet Terror, it still gets the feeling across. There's the occasional scratch, skipped frame and jump cut, but it's the flat lighting used in some of the settings that give it that 70's drive-in look, like an AIP production or something from Crown International. There's also an entire section that's in black & white too. The best explanation I can come up with for that is maybe Tarantino was trying to recreate the feeling of watching a grindhouse movie at his place. The print quality for the movies he'd screen for his friends varied wildly, according to Rodriguez. You'd have a movie that had gone completely pink-tinted, or one that had proper color but was really beaten up (like Planet Terror), or you had a reel or two that was only avalable in black & white, and on rare occasion you might come across a print to a 30-year old movie that looked absolutely stunning -- which would explain the final third looking so clean. That's what I came up with, anyway.


I liked Death Proof as much as I liked Planet Terror. They're completely different kinds of movies, but I think both are representative of the kind of flicks that only Dark Sky or Synapse or Anchor Bay or one of those other companies release on DVD, and I think both are a good time, drunk or sober. Preferably drunk. It's too bad Grindhouse failed at the box office. I would've liked to have seen a follow-up. But I'm obviously in the minority. The majority is busy getting ready to pay their hard-earned money to see The Pink Panther 2 next month.

Ok, time to close this sucker up and end it with a little moment some viewers may have missed. In the theatrical version of Death Proof, just as Arlene is about to take Stuntman Mike inside and give him a lapdance, a "Reel Missing" card fills the screen. Since the previous five minutes or so were all about working the audience up to see this lapdance, we're left with cinematic blue balls, left laughing and applauding at being suckered like that. It wasn't until I saw this at a drive-in, that I was able to hear something being said right before the "Reel Missing" card goes away and the rest of the movie continues. See if you can figure out what the suspiciously Quentin-Tarantino-in-High-Pitched-Black-Voice-sounding guy is saying. Enjoy.