Grindhouse

I'm pulling a late night working on getting the latest, and the two belated episodes of LATE online. Hehe, it never gets old. Amid the video rendering, uploading, and exporting, I'm going to write about the Rodriguez/Tarantino flick, Grindhouse I saw last night.

Many people reacted with a face of horror and disgust when I told them that I planned on seeing Grindhouse. They were perplexed and confused upon hearing that I looked forward to seeing it the second I saw the previews. To most, it looked like a trashy B-roll movie whose sole purpose for existence was to fill up time with raunchy scenes of sex and violence. To those tomato-throwers out there, hear me say to you that you're absolutely right. The movies were very violent and over the top. Though not excessive, there was very brief nudity.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Grindhouse, and I am assuming most of you are, it is a double-feature of the movies Planet Terror and Death Proof, written and DP'ed by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino (respectively). Planet Terror takes on the plot of a cheesy 1970's horror film, with overly-done special effects, purposefully grainy sequences, and corny scenes. Rodriguez's film purposefully perpetuated itself into the dumpster, intentionally reminding us of how horrible movies used to be.

Death Proof by Tarantino quelled most of the audiences hopes of being able to sit through two movies within the first twenty minutes of its running. A slow start was to blame. It opened with almost twenty minutes of dialogue and probably a total of six cuts. One shot was eight minutes - dialogue the entire time. Tarantino fans have always talked about how he is always complete control of every shot in his movies, and through this painful sequence of opening scenes, he makes his point. After the light-core audience members have left the theater with weak bladders, sore butts, and tired eyes, the fun begins. The movie has almost no plot at all, except for the documenting of the rise and fall of a maniacal stunt driver who uses his "death-proof" stunt car to slay four innocent women in the first half. The second half follows a different group of girls who cross paths with the man, he tries to pull the same thing on them, but they come out winning in the end. You'll have to see it yourself, since the movie is far too entertaining to do it full justice in writing.

Too quickly have people written off Grindhouse as a terrible choice for a night at the theater. I was told that I would be making a bad choice by seeing this movie, that in no way could it be beneficial to me. Grindhouse is a waste of time. The real deal is that both movies are purposefully horrible, and that is what makes them great. Few people will understand how great Grindhouse really is, and frankly I don't expect them to.

Many thought M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water was a waste of time for parallel reasons. Those who disliked it lacked understanding of what the movie was truly about. It was not about a convincing plot or good acting. It was about telling the story. Rodriguez and Tarantino proved themselves as great filmmakers through Grindhouse by turning trash into treasure. Both movies were driven by ingeniously flawed characters who live in a cliche world, albeit they are being tracked down by zombies and a crazy stunt car driver.