(SPOILER GENERAL’S WARNING: I wish I had gone in knowing less, so you probaly shouldn’t read this before seeing the movie. To be safe though I’ll try to be vague.)

You always kind of know what you’re gonna get with Tarantino, and yet, you never know what you’re gonna get with Tarantino. Every movie he’s made after PULP FICTION seems to throw people for a loop at first. Why isn’t JACKIE BROWN more like PULP FICTION? Why isn’t KILL BILL more serious, like JACKIE BROWN? Why is KILL BILL VOLUME 2 all this character and shit instead of all the killing like part 1? Why does he take so long to make his movies, what an asshole. Why did he make DEATH PROOF as a quickie just-for-fun movie, what an asshole.

I don’t know what the conventional wisdom will be on this one, but the advertising is definitely gonna mislead some people. They try to act like it’s gonna be a bloody, nihilistic action movie, but the electric guitars and blood splatters are liars. It has a couple scenes of ultra-violence but even more than any Tarantino movie except maybe RESERVOIR DOGS this is a movie all about long conversations. In a way it kind of reminds me of Jim Jarmusch’s challengingly uneventful THE LIMITS OF CONTROL. It’s not as deliberately repetitive, as minimalistic or as strict about its structure, but it is mostly built out of a series of conversations that repeat the same motifs. In almost every scene there’s one party trying to hide a secret, like that they’re a double agent, that they’re not the nationality they say they are, or the location of the other troops. And the other party engages them in a long conversation, pretending to be friendly, trying to draw out information to be sure of their suspicions, or trying to convince the other party to do what they want. And usually the secret is revealed and some violence happens.

The characters are always proud to know that their reputations precede them, but they still want to listen to their own legends. I assume you’ve heard about me? Yes, of course I’ve heard about you. What have you heard about me?

Meanwhile there’s a plot in the works, a slow, almost DePalmian build toward a secret operation that if successful would mean some very satisfying Jewish revenge against their Nazi oppressors. And Tarantino has the balls or poor taste to go much further into exploitation than any other American World War II movie. So it’s a slow slog but with a nice warm bath at the end. (note to self replace analogy with good one)

I also thought a few times of Spike Lee’s MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA, which is not very similar either but it’s another case of a director with a distinct, idiosyncratic style that I’m surprised to see applied to a WWII movie all the sudden. In Tarantino’s 1941 you still get pop culture references, but instead of FRIDAY FOSTER they talk about MATA HARI, and there’s alot of G.W. Pabst references. I’m not joking. But believe it or not it’s all very organic. The assassination plot takes place at the premiere of a German propaganda film, so some of the main characters include a theater owner, some actors and Joseph Goebels (portrayed like a Hollywood studio honcho). In one scene a soldier who is also a film critic briefs Winston Churchill on German film movements.

In fact, the fake and the pretend seems to be one of the main themes of the movie. People pretending to be on the other team, pretending not to be Jewish, pretending to be different nationalities, playing a game where they pretend to be a famous person, actors playing roles, real people acting as themselves in a propaganda film which is a fake version of his true story (true within BASTERDS, but not in the real world), BASTERDS itself being a propaganda movie with a fake version of history… Pitt’s character Aldo has to pretend a few times, but he’s not very good at it. He doesn’t like it. One of his obsessions is making sure that Nazis can’t just take off their uniform and pretend not to be Nazis.

Taking place in France, with plenty of subtitled French and German dialogue, and with the historical context, BASTERDS has a bit of a European arthouse feel. But Tarantino doesn’t seem to feel at all restrained stylistically. He still recycles Ennio Morricone cues (and Lalo Schifrin and others), he has chapter titles like in KILL BILL, some goofy hand-written captions now and then, some blaxploitation freeze frame character introductions, a montage set to a David Bowie song (which made people laugh when I saw it), even a celebrity third person omniscient narrator. These seem like occasional indulgences though, not a constant barrage like NATURAL BORN KILLERS or CRANK or something, so they’re kind of charming. Usually WWII movies try to be so reverential. This movie’s pretty funny.

Tarantino misled people about the movie with all those years talking about it being “my men-on-a-mission movie.” I think it must’ve evolved as he was writing it, because it’s not anything like THE DIRTY DOZEN or the original correctly spelled INGLORIOUS BASTARDS. The Basterds aren’t even really a team of badasses. I guess Pitt is playing tough, and Eli Roth (who does surprisingly fine in his role) put on some muscle. For most of the other guys they just cast weiners. The only guy that seems genuinely tough is Hugo, played by Til Schweiger. He has a great introduction but doesn’t do much after that.

The Basterds are also only inglorious to their Nazi foes, they’re not outcasts from their own side like in those other two movies I just mentioned. Unless maybe we just didn’t get their backstory. Aldo does have a scar on his neck, maybe he was facing execution. Anyway, the Basterds are only one component of the movie, they’re on screen maybe half of the movie. There’s alot of other stuff going on.

The most memorable character and performance is definitely Christoph Waltz as the lead villain, Hans Landa. He’s a classic villain, a murderous Nazi with the job of tracking down Jews hiding in France, who fancies himself a master detective. He’s an unusual portrayal of a Nazi because he’s a goofball, a dork. You want to laugh at him but you know how dangerous he is. He plays with his victims by pretending to be friendly, but not in that usual “I’m saying friendly things but you know I’m really threatening you” kind of villainous way. He makes it so you almost believe him – maybe he really doesn’t know? And sometimes he doesn’t.

Tarantino takes full advantage of the ultimate bad guy status of Nazis. By definition Nazis are horrible people. Any other group, you’re gonna feel kind of bad seeing them beat to death with a baseball bat, maybe they don’t deserve it. Not so much with a Nazi. This Landa guy, he’s infuriating because he doesn’t seem as hateful as your usual movie Nazi. He’s almost worse because he seems like he just found something that he’s good at and sees no reason why he shouldn’t choose that as his vocation. He’s playing a game, he has no idea that he’s the bad guy. And you wish you could fucking convince him.

But still, they’re human beings, that’s the weird part. There’s another major Nazi character who, from what you see on screen, is mostly a nice guy. And when SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER THIS IS THE BIG ONE a crowd of unarmed Nazis are running in panic while being machine gunned it really messed with my emotions. My face smiled but my brain thought oh Jesus, they’re scurrying around like rats. That’s harsh.

Tarantino is both renowned and notorious for his dialogue. Sometimes maybe he goes overboard. I think there’s more going on in the conversations in DEATH PROOF than some people give it credit for, but he does get excessive there. BASTERDS I think must have his most precise use of dialogue. The conversations are the movie, they’re the characters, they’re the suspense, they’re the action (most of it). I mentioned DePalma before – think of the bucket of pig’s blood in CARRIE, the way he draws that scene out in slow motion. You know what it’s leading up to, but you have to watch it go down veeeeeeerrrry slowly, all the pieces coming together, all the people who are there, the looks on their faces, the bucket, the rope, who sees the bucket, who tries to stop the bucket, Carrie doesn’t see the bucket… the grueling wait is the beauty of it. Tarantino’s BASTERDS conversations are the same way. You know what the secret is. You know that the one side is probaly gonna figure out the secret. And you’re gonna have to sit there as they slowly pull it out in conversation, word by word. It’s a bunch of individual scenes of suspense that seem somewhat disconnected until you find yourself at the climax, all the characters are there, are the plans are in motion, and you’re wondering how this is all gonna come to a head.

A NOTE TO THE INTERNET:

I don’t want to lecture anybody, but I just want to say that I wish the internet hadn’t covered this movie the way they did. Before the movie was made the script got leaked and everybody from Ain’t It Cool, Chud etc. couldn’t restrain themselves from reading it. I didn’t read their reviews because I didn’t want to know anything. But I still couldn’t avoid the spoilers because they all had to constantly drop the names and nicknames of the characters, the name and significance of a film-within-the-film, and all that kind of shit. If there was a story about Brad Pitt they had to drop in “who plays X in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, nicknamed Y because of Q.”

Yeah, we get it, you’re on the inside, you’re in the know, you’re ahead of the curve, whooptee fuckin doo. If it was “the watchmen” and everybody read the comic already then yes, you can show off that you know who Dr. Manhattan is. But I purposely didn’t read any spoilers and still knew the names of every fuckin character. It felt like going to see THE LION KING on the first day and all the kids say “Simba!” at the first sight of a lion. Man, can’t I just see the thing and find out for myself?

And there’s a pretty unusual thing Tarantino does in the movie, I’m sure it has been spoiled by many sources but for me it was spoiled before the god damn thing was filmed by somebody writing that he wouldn’t want to give anything away, but let’s just say (then goes on to make it very clear what happens but then pretend he didn’t ruin it for you because he didn’t say it in so many words). And as much as I enjoyed the movie it would’ve been much better if I watched it not knowing where it was going.

So, thanks alot, fellas.

WRAPPING THIS SHIT UP:

In case you don’t know already, I should say that my record of enjoying Tarantino-directed movies is unblemished. I love all of them – yes, even DEATH PROOF (although I think it’s his weakest). I’m not sure if I have a favorite, but the KILL BILLs (and especially part 2) are my most rewatched and beloved movies of the 2000s so far. So if you’re one of the people who hates some of his movies you can mathematically divide my praise of this movie by the number of Tarantino movies I like that you don’t like in order to get the probably level of enjoyment you’ll get out of this. I think that’s the equation.

Walking out of the theater my instinct was that BASTERDS was great, but low on my list of Tarantino favorites, maybe just above DEATH PROOF. It hit me, but I don’t think it hit me as hard as his other ones did the first time I saw them.

My complaints are all minor. Brad Pitt is really funny in the movie and gives a good physical performance, so I’m not complaining too much, but I don’t think it’s as good as the casting Tarantino usually does. I was always very conscious of it being Brad Pitt doing a funny accent and a funny face and acting tough. Most of the great Tarantino characters are more natural than that, not as much of a broad comedy character. I think it could’ve been even better with an actual (or more naturalistic) Southern tough guy in the role.

I also don’t at all get the casting of Mike Meyers. It’s a small part and he does fine but there’s no way to not think “that’s Mike Meyers” the entire time he’s on screen. It’s not shocking or anything, just distracting, kind of confusing. What is the point? The scene would work better if it was a generic British character actor.

Also, some of this is not historically accurate in my opinion. And I believe some of the spelling in the title could have been improved if he hadn’t been rushing to get it ready in time for Cannes.

But you know, those are the things I could quibble with, the list of the things I loved would take me a while. It’s like criticizing an ice cream flavor or something. Saying it’s a lesser ice cream is not saying it’s not delicious. I just don’t like it as much as the Snoqualmie Ginger, the Ben and Jerry’s Creme Brulee or the Haagen-Dazs Caramelized Pear and Toasted Pecan. (Don’t worry, that’s an analogy and not product placement, although if you are an ice cream manufacturer willing to pay me money to mention ice cream flavors in movie reviews please drop me a line).

That’s what I was thinking as I left the theater. But then I started thinking back to the beginning of the movie, the first dramatic scene with the man trying to bravely stare down and wait out Hans Landa, and I just wanted to go right back and watch the movie again. I have a feeling I’ll end up re-watching this movie every couple years or so, and whatever my misgivings about the casting probaly won’t even occur to me anymore, and there will either be something else that bothers me or something I love that I haven’t even noticed yet. We’ll see.

I’ve already noticed that like DISTRICT 9 last week I liked the movie but then gained more respect for it as I started to write about it. Because the more I think about it the more I see going on beneath the surface. With these two movies coming out now at the end of August it looks like the summer movie season is finally kicking off. Should be a good one!

[ratings]

So in that sense GRINDHOUSE is even better than you realize at first glance. It’s a good time at the movies AND it lost money for some assholes. Two birds with one stone, in the form of two movies.

Down to business: I was one of the people who thought Rodriguez’s PLANET TERROR was kind of a fun fake movie but Tarantino’s DEATH PROOF was a good actual movie. I liked it. So that’s where I’m coming from reviewing the new DEATH PROOF dvd out today. A guy who bought the dvd because he likes the movie.

That’s right, the DEATH PROOF dvd. As opposed to the GRINDHOUSE dvd that would contain the original double feature as shown to packed houses on the outer edges of the United States. You may say wait a minute, why are these bloodsuckers releasing the two movies on dvd separately? No longer a double feature? Without even including the trailers? And as if we are so stupid that we don’t know they’re gonna release it as a double feature later?

These are all valid points and clearly those snakehearted fuckers are doing it for the money. But by accident there is a certain logic to it. Think of it this way. There have been many double features throughout time, it has rarely been a permanent state. I remember in the late ’80s for example seeing a double feature of I’M GONNA GIT YOU SUCKA and THE FLY 2. For real. So to me that’s how those movies were meant to be seen, but you can’t buy them on one DVD. A double feature is a fleeting moment in time, a limited time offer, like a Christo installation, a snow sculpture, or the “eggnog” milkshake that becomes “tom and jerry” when it’s not winter. You appreciate it when it comes around but you can’t have Christmas every day. Unless you work in one of those year round Christmas stores. In which case I hope you get paid well you poor bastard.

Also, I gotta be honest, there’s not much of a chance I would sit and watch the whole double feature again. I saw it twice in theaters but on home video how often are you gonna watch two movies in a row that are pre-programmed for you by the Weinsteins? Not often. I do like those double feature dvds with the trailers that Dark Sky puts out, but those I don’t watch the whole thing in one sitting either.

So I really can’t be too upset about it personally. Your mileage may vary. (That is not some car pun because of the movie being about cars, I am just using a common idiom.) In order to justify the separation this is the longer European cut with the “missing reel” lapdance scene and other additions. I don’t know how the fuck they’re gonna do it with PLANET TERROR since you would never want the “missing reel” to be in there, and the movie is probaly a little too long as it is. But with DEATH PROOF it seems kind of like a movie that had a bunch of different releases and you’re seeing a version with parts you never knew were cut out before.

So you got the lapdance scene, that’s self-explanatory. (if you need it explained, what happens is she gives him a lapdance.) The other most noticeable addition is a long black and white sequence at a convenience store before Rosario, Kim and Lucy McClane pick up Zoe at the airport. Nicky Katt from THE LIMEY plays the clerk. The highlight is when Stuntman Mike pretends to drop his keys so he can lick Rosario’s foot. I was surprised it was Kurt Russell’s character that did that, you’d think Tarantino’s character Warren the bartender would’ve been the one to do it. It would make no sense for him to be out there in Tennessee stalking girls in a minimart parking lot, but I’m sure he could’ve figured something out. But he didn’t, he had Stuntman Mike do it for the sake of the story. Way to take one for the team Tarantino.

I liked seeing this scene, but I didn’t really think it needed to be in the movie. I especially didn’t see any reason for it to be in black and white, that just seemed like screwin off. It’s a good deleted scene but it doesn’t add enough to justify how much it slows things down. On the other hand, it does make the ending make a little more sense. Knowing how long this guy has been stalking them makes it a little more believable that they would want to kill him.

There are other scenes that aren’t new but are longer. One little thing that really changes the way the story unfolds is in the first half there’s a scene where Stuntman Mike is in his car laughing sinisterly and looking at the photos of his “girlfriends.” It kind of reminds me of MANIAC or one of those other early ’80s stalker movies. I liked in the theatrical cut that there really wasn’t an acknowledgment that he was evil until he turned left when Rose MacGowan wanted to turn right. You’d seen his car looking ominous but that could’ve always been a trick, he could turn out to be the guy who protects the girls from the slasher. In this “Extended and Unrated” cut you know that can’t happen because you see him cackling and collecting spy photos early on. The cat is out of the bag.

My favorite addition for this cut is in the Earl McGraw scene in the middle, the bridge between the two halves of the movie where he explains the concept that car crashes are “the only way that degenerate sonofabitch can shoot his goo.” The scene is a little longer and includes a part where he brings up the possibility of investigating Stuntman Mike, dogging him like Dr. Loomis, but he decides against it. I won’t give away the joke, but there’s some good new lines, it’s always good to see that character.

I know you’re supposed to want to see the longer, uncut version, but sometimes shorter is better. DAWN OF THE DEAD for example, the long one from Cannes is nice but I go for the theatrical cut. History repeats itself here, I liked the shorter version better. It was more efficient. The long one doesn’t ruin it though. I still like it.

The transfer looks real nice, whatever the process he’s using to make it look like a cheap ’70s movie at the beginning, it looks even better on here. If you like the movie like I do the extras are pretty good too, definitely better than on those KILL BILL dvds. (hey bloodsuckers, when you gonna double dip us on those?) The best is a feature on “The Legendary Drivers of DEATH PROOF.” One particular shot they talk about involves 3 generations of stunt drivers plus Zoe Bell on the hood of the car. In context it’s a cool shot but not one that would necessarily jump out at you, so it’s cool to see them explain the significance of it to the stunt drivers.

There’s also one called “The Guys of DEATH PROOF,” which talks about some of these actors you forget are even in the movie since you pay more attention to the girls, and should be ashamed of yourself. I heard Eli Roth interviewed a while back and he told the story of filming the scene where he makes fun of Stuntman Mike (”he cut himself falling out of his time machine”) and it’s funny because they actually show footage of it happening and everything is pretty much exactly how Roth told the story, including Russell throwing nachos at him and Roth proclaiming THE THING his favorite movie of all time.

The extra I was most excited for was “Quentin’s Greatest Collaborator: Sally Menke.” Unfortunately it’s not a real thorough study or retrospective on her editing. But it is kind of amusing. It starts with Tarantino singing Menke’s praises and ends with a long montage of takes where the DEATH PROOF actors turn to the camera and say “Hi Sally.” The best is Zoe Bell saying it from the hood of the VANISHING POINT Charger.

As usual for Tarantino, no commentary. Guess he’s not much of a talker. Real shy. It’s not an overwhelming amount of extras, and they have the balls to list the trailer for DOUBLE DARE (really good Zoe Bell-featuring documentary about stuntwomen) as a special feature. But it’s a good dvd. If you like the movie.

And alot of you hate the movie. I know when the double feature came out, DEATH PROOF was by far the least popular in the talkbacks. I didn’t take alot of you seriously because you were calling the characters bitches and cunts, but there were plenty of reasonable people who didn’t like it. And at least one of you asked me to explain why, exactly, I did like it.

I may be a charming fella but I’m not gonna be able to talk anybody into liking it. I will say a few things though on its behalf. (And before you say this review is too long, fuck you, you got eyes, you knew what you were getting into, and I thoughtfully divided it into three parts so you’d have plenty of chances to take the coward’s way out.) One of the complaints I heard was that it supposedly didn’t fit the “grindhouse” theme it was advertised under. I disagree. I took it as a tribute to movies like TWO LANE BLACKTOP, artier independent car movies marketed with their exploitation elements. (This cover even fits that, they show off the female curves and the box is made to look beat up and “grindhouse” but it also has the logo for “Festival de Cannes Official Selection.”) Those arty car movies tend to be dry and quiet though, this is kind of in the other direction, lots of talking before the car chase at the end.

And it’s true, especially watching it the third time around, alot of that talking is not as funny or interesting as what they’re talking about in the other Tarantino movies. That’s a fair criticism. Jungle Julia especially starts to seem a little too full of herself with her soliloquy about Butterfly and her poem and lapdance situation.

But people that hate it don’t acknowledge how the dialogue does its job under the radar. In the first half these discussions set up all the slasher movie expectations – we learn that our heroines smoke weed and drink booze, they like boys, they flaunt their sexuality, they’re going to a cabin, and Butterfly refrains from going all the way with her date. Visually, Tarantino emphasizes that she should be the “final girl” who survives at the end. She’s the only one who notices him following them, the only one afraid of him. So it seems like they should go out to the cabin and be picked off one by one until Butterfly pulls it together and, say, runs over Mike while yelling that poem menacingly.

Instead he kills them all in one crash, running down the whole slasher movie formula. Whoops, start over.

Then there’s the bridge with Earl McGraw which is like the end of PSYCHO, the explanation of the psychology of the character. (That’s the comparison that came to mind when I saw it, and Tarantino uses it in the extras on the DVD. dude, I’m totally on the same page as Tarantino, I must really GET IT! That’s the problem, you guys just don’t GET IT like I do. People who GET IT get it, why can’ t you?)

In the second half the conversations are more important because they’re setting up what’s really gonna happen instead of what you’re supposed to think is gonna happen. For example, there’s a funny conversation that establishes that Kim has a gun, and that she’s happy to use it. That she believes in killing someone who tries to harm her. And there’s the story about Zoe falling into the ditch that establishes the spectacular car chase scene that’s pretty much the reason for the movie.

The car gets to star in the poster, but to me Zoe Bell is the star of DEATH PROOF. She’s the main thing that makes it special. I have no doubt that if she looked like some Bratz doll and was on the O.C. even you “haterz” would be sacrificing animals at her altar. Instead she looks like a normal person. But she’s not a normal person. She’s Xena flying through the air on fire, she’s Beatrix Kiddo running up that handrail in the House of Blue Leaves, she’s Zoe the Cat falling in the ditch and not getting hurt, she’s fucking DEATH PROOF, as much the reason for the title as Stuntman Mike’s car is. I think what Tarantino did was brilliant, to take this likable woman and turn her into an actress to create the weird circumstance of now seeing this same woman who we have been hanging out with actually, for real, put in this death-defying situation. The car chase is great, the crashes are great, the old school way it’s all staged and filmed is great, the organic has-CGI-even-been-invented-yet?-feel is great– but it’s Zoe, in the middle, on the hood, clinging on for dear life, and then later picking up a metal rod and jumping on the side of the car, ready to beat the hell out of Stuntman Mike and his death proof car – that’s DEATH PROOF.

Okay, maybe you don’t like it. Can we at least agree on MACHETE? You motherfuckers want our money, you need to hurry up and make MACHETE!

Originally published at Aint-It-Cool-News: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/34089

[ratings]

PREAMBLE

Here in the US these two movies were designed and released as a double feature with trailers for fictional movies in between. They were released under one unifying name that starts with a ‘G’ that is a word used to describe the shitty theaters that used to churn out sleazy horror, sexploitation, kung fu and blaxploitation movies back in the day.

I am not going to be using the g-word in this review, because I am sick and fucking tired of hearing it. It’s a perfectly legitimate title for this concept, but here is the problem. Mr. Tarantino is a huge fan and expert on these types of movies, he is the human IMDb judging from some of those interviews. So I don’t mind seeing him talk about it in every article about KILL BILL VOLUME 1 and then KILL BILL VOLUME 2 and then when they announced this g-word movie, and then while he was filming it and now to promote its release. Tarantino can use the g-word all he wants, he has earned it. So I don’t mind him and the trailers for his movie trying to explain to the kids what the g-word means.

That’s him, that’s his thing. But it makes me want to jump out a window to read the guy from the local newspaper or the dumbed down weekly entertainment magazine deciding that he too has to explain to you what it is.

You know what man, we know what it is. If we didn’t know what it was, we could look it up on the internet like we did when they put out those ads for DISTRICT B13 that pretended like everybody knew what “parkour” meant. The point is, we can handle this without you, we don’t believe that you have any personal knowledge of this subject. So shut the fuck up.

A couple years ago you could’ve read 150 articles about the same movies being referred to as g********e today, and you wouldn’t see more than a handful of uses of the g-word. You would see them called B movies, exploitation movies, drive-in movies, cult movies, genre movies, midnight movies. Sometimes they’d use words to describe them like slashers, sleazies, cheapies, no-budget, grade-Z, and yes, every once in a while, g—-house. You’d probaly even see “psychotronic” or “video nasties” used at least as often as g********e. Now Tarantino drops the word in enough interviews, all the sudden it’s g this and g that. G this that and the other. This was already bugging me after KILL BILL, now it’s the fuckin bubonic plague. I’ve seen reviews by my internet colleagues where the word is used as many as ten times. Come on, man. If Tarantino used the phrase “jump off a bridge” too many times would you use the phrase “jump off a bridge” too many times? I hope not. Let’s put that bitch to rest, please.

The worst part is Tarantino really fucking loves these movies, for real, he sees beauty in them that Joe Local Paid Movie Critic will never see even wearing night vision goggles. But by the time it’s written up in the magazine it comes off like “hey everybody, let’s have some fun wink wink look at these funny old movies, it’s so stoopid I LOVE IT!”

Going to movies on 42nd street is not a part of my life experience. I understand it smelled like pee and a guy was jerkin off or something, I believe is what I read. Apparently the print quality was poor and a rat was fuckin two spiders over in the corner – I don’t know, I wasn’t there. But I do like alot of these movies. I had a chance to literally go to the mat for LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT and I turned it down, but I would have to say I respect it more than the average joe. Most people don’t get the opportunity to turn down that opportunity. So I understand the nostalgia, the fetish for the look of scratches on film and old fashioned studio logos and the sound of the trailer narrator’s voice. I dig all those things, I want to see them, but I also want to see some good movies. I want to see that really good g-word movie you were hoping to see every time you went into the g-house, not the other ones that you usually got. The carrot on the end of the stick, the light at the end of the tunnel, the light that’s shining on a carrot. Don’t let me down, boys.

First up in the double bill is PLANET TERROR by Robert Rodriguez. This is a cartoony take on a gloomy zombie movie. Bruce has a small role as a special ops badass who, it is noted, killed bin Laden. (Yippee kay yay.) They don’t mention whether or not he let Geraldo bronze the head. Anyway, Bruce is involved in an incident which causes the release of a deadly gas which turns the inhabitants of the nearby Texas town into “sickos,” melty faced cannibal motherfuckers. The story follows a couple different characters as they try to fight off the zombies.

Rodriguez seems like a pretty cool guy, he’s a dude that took the money from volunteering for medical experiments and built it into a multi-million dollar full service movies studio and effects company that he runs out of his house. Holy shit now that I put it that way the guy is fucking Scarface. Anyway, I think he’s one of those guys who’s both underrated and overrated, depending on who you ask. I love his MARIACHI trilogy and some of the others are fun but usually a mixed bag. PLANET TERROR is no different.

This movie is the fetishistic all-surface homage that you expect out of the g-house project. But not so much an homage to the g-word as to my man John Carpenter in his sci-fi mode. The night skies and fog and the helicopters remind you of ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK. And the score (by Rodriguez, he has to play every role like Eddie Murphy in NORBIT or Tom Hanks in POLAR EXPRESS) is mostly retro keyboard blorts and buzzes like Carpenter used to do, with an occasional slice of Goblin. Good stuff. The movie is shot digital like he always does now but then he layers it with all kinds of phony grain, blur, scratches and broken splices. I think he kind of overdoes it but it’s a fairly authentic look.

The characters are .5 dimensional. Rose McGowan’s one-legged stripper Cherry Darling comes the closest to bringing something extra to her cartoon emotions. I like the opening credits of her dancing in the club, ending with her in tears. At the end she gets a machine gun for a leg and uses the same go-go moves to plow down motherfuckers. And when she does that she doesn’t cry.

The other main character is El Wray, played by Freddy Rodriguez (actually, Robert Rodriguez in disguise, another example of how he has to do everything in his movies [just jerkin your chain bud, Freddy is the guy from DEAD PRESIDENTS]). He is some sort of notorious in-trouble-with-the-law local who we sort of find out (although the explanation is purposely missing from the movie) also has a Seagalian past of some kind. The way the character is presented is cool and Freddy does what he can but let’s face it, he’s not Kurt Russell or Roddy Piper, and he’s not even Ice Cube. He’s a 5′6″ baby-faced little fella who is a good actor but just because he does a flip off a wall in one part does not make him a badass presence. Sorry bud just tellin it like it is.

And if you’re making a John Carpenter action movie but you don’t have a Snake Plissken or a Jack Burton or a George Nada, that sort of means you’re making GHOSTS OF MARS, doesn’t it?

I think the problem with Rodriguez is that he’s gone completely digital, but his talents are analog. He’s a guy who grew up making movies on camcorders and editing them together by dubbing from one VCR to another. So he knows how to edit together shots to tell a story well. In my opinion, it’s when he gets into all these green screens and digital whatsits or even old fashioned special effects that he loses control and starts making a mess of those basics he’s normally so good at. I think he’s best when he’s got an actual guy standing in the actual outdoors, with real sun shining on him. He knows exactly where to put the camera and how to edit it later. If you look at all those gunfights in DESPERADO for example, he knows how to put an action scene together, make it thrilling and beautiful, and in the process he invests these ridiculous characters with more emotional depth than should be possible. But ever since SPY KIDS he’s been doing his homegrown cartoon special effects and at the same time the stories get sloppier and less effective and it becomes harder and harder to think of the characters as people.

Actually maybe the best place to trace it to is the pre-digital FROM DUSK TILL DAWN. The first half is what I love about Rodriguez and the second half is what mildly amuses me about him. He puts in some clever gags and it’s kind of fun but it just turns into a bunch of chaos and cartoony silliness and you lose the character and story that you get when he’s more stripped down.

To be fair, ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO is shot digitally and has tons of effects shots in it, but it LOOKS organic. I had no idea. So maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about.

Anyway, PLANET TERROR is more like the second half of FROM DUSK TILL DAWN. It’s a movie that has all kinds of cool stuff in it, which is a plus. They have Bruce in there, they have Tom Savini with a gorey death, they have Tarantino in a vanity role as “Rapist #1,” they have roles for Michael Biehn and even the original Mariachi Carlos Gallardo, they have a scene where a guy falls down and his mouth touches a severed testacle, and he deserves it. But what they don’t have, in my opinion, is heart. You have to really put some effort into it to convince yourself you care about Cherry and El Wray’s love at the end. This reminds me more of Rodriguez’s made for cable movie ROADRACERS than any of his theatrical releases. There’s a part where a little kid dies out of the blue but the context of the story is so un-serious that instead of getting upset you just wonder what that was all about. There’s nothing to make it work as a real horror movie and the jokes (although funny) aren’t enough to make it a real comedy. It’s not a real movie, it’s a nice homage to a real movie.

But Tarantino’s DEATH PROOF is a real movie. On the old double features the second one was supposed to be the B movie, the not as good one. Sure enough this one is smaller and cheaper, but it also happens to be better in every way. It takes some of the structure of a real good, serious slasher movie and it Tarantino-izes it. He builds to scares in a strong, traditional way but he spends most of the movie on dialogue and characters and good acting, the things nobody expects to see in a slasher movie.

Basically, this is a movie about girls hanging out talking, and then they run into a maniac who gets off on killing women in car crashes. Kind of a hard fetish to live with I’m sure, but I can’t really feel sorry for the guy. Kurt Russell is not exactly back in Snake Plissken mode, but man is he great as Stuntman Mike, the car crash pervert. But he’s not the star, he is actually a distant threat for most of the movie, he is the stalker.

The structure is perfect for a slasher story but the balance you expect is thrown off because most of the screen time is given to conversation and much less than usual is given to the actual horror. For the first half it doesn’t seem weird because you establish this car with an unseen driver following, then you slowly establish who Stuntman Mike is, you have him moving in, then suddenly he strikes and there are some deaths in one of the most amazing car crash sequences I can think of. At this point Tarantino brings in his recurring character Sheriff Earl McGraw (he was in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, KILL BILL VOLUME 1, and even PLANET TERROR) for one scene where he acts as the psychologist at the end of PSYCHO, the guy who explains what’s going on here in this sicko’s mind.

In that first half there is all this talk of the girls going to a lake house, which is of course a common staging ground for some slashing. But just like we never saw the movie THE LAKE HOUSE starring Sandra Bullock, we never do see this lake house the girls are going to. Instead we meet another group of girls who Stuntman Mike is stalking (there’s a shot of him photographing that’s straight out of SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE). These girls are in town to film a movie, and two of them are stunt women, played by actual stunt women. [UPDATE: I was wrong, only Zoe Bell is an actual stunt woman, but I'm leaving my fuckup in to show how humble I am.] The most notable one (because she ends up doing some amazing stunts) is Zoe Bell, the New Zealander who was Uma Thurman’s stunt double for KILL BILL, and here she is playing herself. The end of the movie turns out to be about what happens when Stuntman Mike fucks with the wrong group of girls. I saw the movie a couple days ago and just today it occurred to me that DEATH PROOF not only refers to Stuntman Mike’s car, but to Zoe Bell, the world’s luckiest stunt woman.

Now, as a fan of the old slasher movies this structure is a little bit weird to me, and I’ll tell you why. There are two main types of slasher movies, the ones where the girl gets away and the ones where the girl goes back and gets revenge. But usually before the revenge the girl has to go through hell, especially in those movies like I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE. That one was obviously designed as a feminist story but because you have to watch the vilest shit imaginable to get to the girl power, nobody really believed it was sincere. Even in the good old fashioned rape-free movies you’re gonna see the killer rack up a hell of a body count before he gets an ax in the head, and the girl is gonna be terrorized all over town before she gives the killer what he’s got comin.

That is my one minor complaint about DEATH PROOF. There is one very impressive murder scene, and one very impressive attack scene, and then they immediately turn around and get their revenge. Gleefully. Not psychotic gleeful, but cute gleeful, bloody revenge as girl’s night out. And it’s all so sudden. The way it goes down is definitely fun. Really, I liked it. But I think if Tarantino had put them through some more terror first then the end would’ve been all that more earned, all that more satisfying.

But oh well. It’s clear what Tarantino has in mind. The movie referenced the most in DEATH PROOF is not a slasher movie at all, it’s VANISHING POINT, one of the artier of the g.h. works. True, it’s more of a crowdpleaser than TWO LANE BLACKTOP, but it’s not just a bunch of cars flipping and going off jumps, there’s some quiet brooding and shit in that movie. This is much more upbeat, but it’s the same kind of thing, trying to go a little arty but also have some great car stunts.

I have learned from dipping into the dark underworld of the talkbacks that DEATH PROOF seems to be the less popular one, most people saying it’s boring because it’s all talk and the dialogue is terrible, and occasionally these talkbackers describe the women in the movie as bitches or cunts. Just for a touch of class. Well, more power to you guys but man oh man can I not relate to that. I’m not gonna say this is Tarantino’s best dialogue, and of course there is a bit of a formula to it, you notice any movie reference he makes and it can get self conscious at times. But I like watching these characters talk to each other. I like when Stuntman Mike is going through all the stars he’s doubled for, naming off shows like THE VIRGINIAN and VEGA$, the kinds of references Tarantino likes to make, and suddenly he slows to a stop as he realizes that these girls don’t have a clue about any of these people or shows he’s talking about, and then he goes away and sulks, realizing he’s an old man.

Some people say Tarantino’s dialogue is realistic, which is bullshit. That’s not the point. The conversations are stylized and structured into stories and create an artificial rendition of real conversation. And they slyly drop details that set up what would happen later in a regular slasher movie – and then it doesn’t. So when you get to the second gang of women and you listen to them talk shit to each other you don’t know if this is going to go anywhere or not, but what they’re talking about does indeed set up what you need to know for the thrilling no CGI car stunt finale.

And I honestly wasn’t bored for a second, not just because I think this is indeed well written dialogue but because of some damn good performances. Tarantino does both his “good performance out of somebody you didn’t expect it from” trick and his “good performance out of somebody you never heard of before” one. Rosario Dawson is better than I’ve ever seen her. Sidney Poitier’s daughter Sydney is great. Most amazingly, Zoe Bell is perfect as an actress, then ends up doing these incredible stunts. You become very invested in this character Zoe and then you see her – the character and the real person – hanging on for dear life on the front of a fast moving car. For real. Not since the old Jackie Chan movies have I felt so concerned about bodily harm being done to an actor.

One complaint I’ve seen is that these two were made with a combined budget of $50 some million, which is alot more than it cost to make BLOODSUCKING FREAKS. Well, it seems to me you guys are missing the point. This is not supposed to be some Dogme exercise, it’s a tribute. Please point me to the guy who expected STAR WARS or INDIANA JONES to be made with the budget constraints of the serials that inspired them. These guys are like every generation of directors, they get all nostalgic for the movies they grew up on but they turn it into their own thing. John Carpenter is always trying to make a Howard Hawks movie, but nobody gets mad at him for having a bigger budget, using color film and not putting Kurt Russell in a cowboy hat. Because that would be stupid.

Not that I would be against seeing what they would do using low budgets again. But keep in mind that H.G. Lewis’s BLOOD FEAST had more than three times the budget of EL MARIACHI, not even including inflation. So it’s not like they have anything to prove. Plus, wouldn’t it almost be an insult to the g-house directors if they tried to follow some kind of budget and schedule constraints to make it authentic? Hello, we are making movies with the same limitations they had back then, but because we are of the 2000s and are big time Hollywood directors ours will be really good and you should pay $9.50 to see them.

Anyway, the one drawback to this being a double feature is that it might make me hesitate to see it again in a theater. Maybe I’ll still do it but it’s really DEATH PROOF I want to see again. Still, it’s a fun night at the movies and a good value for the cash-strapped individuals like myself who would’ve paid separately to see both anyway. The fake trailers and vintage intros are great too. I do wish they hadn’t hyped what the different trailers are because they’re all pretty funny but would be better if you didn’t see them coming. They got one by Eli Roth (the narrator sucks but otherwise it seems 100% authentic as a low budget horror movie) Rob Zombie (the weakest but amusing), Edgar Winter or whoever (the funniest one) but my favorite was actually the one at the beginning, Robert Rodriguez’s MACHETE. Basically, this is a low budget action movie built around the scarred face of Danny (MARKED FOR DEATH) Trejo. Like a blaxploitation movie they work in themes specific to his ethnic background – references to day laborers, immigration etc., and he’s an assassin with a coat full of machetes who gets set up and then seeks his revenge.

The good news is Rodriguez has wanted to make a real MACHETE for years and is apparently planning to shoot it as a DTV release, expanding from the scenes he already shot to make the trailer. Now that’s the movie I want to see from Rodriguez. Let’s hope he really goes through with it.

In conclusion, PLANET TERROR is a fun warmup, DEATH PROOF is a great movie. If you like stunts, cars and Kurt Russell– well, you already saw it, so you can back me up on this.

[ratings]

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