by Joe Buffaloe
Daily Lobo
The term "grind house" refers to seedy movie theaters in the '60s and '70s that showed low-quality B-movies filled with sex, violence and general tastelessness. The Robert
Rodriguez-Quentin Tarantino project of the same name is a spoof of and an homage to this lost format.
"Grindhouse" features two movies for the price of one. "Planet
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
Terror," by Rodriguez, is a classic tale of zombies, a secret government base, a small Texas town and Rose McGowan having a machine gun for a leg. Tarantino's "Death Proof" is a movie about vehicular homicide. Both directors take delight in making fun of their styles, essentially caricaturing themselves.
Of the two directors, Rodriguez seems to have a lot more fun intentionally making a bad movie. Complete with grainy, inconsistent picture quality, missing reels, incoherent and contradictory plot points and horrendously cheesy dialogue, "Planet Terror" is the home movie you always wanted to make, if only you had the backing of a major film studio. It's filled with tongue-in-cheek jabs at the horror genre, all the while coming out as one of the coolest zombie movies in years.
Above all, Rodriguez had fun. The film opens with a fake preview for "Machete," and if you're not dying of laughter by then, the zombie movie takes over soon enough. Destined to go down as a classic of B-movie perfection, this spoof has enough respect for the source material to work with it rather than against it, and the results are pure comic-and-horror gold from beginning to end.
The first film is followed by more fake trailers. In a show that weighs in at 3 1/2 hours total, you may be tempted to take a break during this intermission, but it's the funniest part of the entire program. Don't miss it.
What you can miss is the second movie.
Where Rodriguez caricatured himself by going as over-the-top as possible from beginning to end - Bruce Willis' character became a zombie as the result of an absurdly convoluted back story, never fully explained, in which he shot Osama bin Laden twice, "once in his heart (points to heart), and once in his computer (points to forehead)" - Tarantino has more trouble. Tarantino's movies are already updates of vintage crime films, so spoofing one may not have come as naturally to him.
"Death Proof" revolves around two groups of women, both of whom have run-ins with a mysterious character named Stuntman Mike, played by Kurt Russell. But instead of filling each moment with insane humor, the joke of this film is that it's actually bad. By the end, the overall concept gives you something to think about it, and the ending is a sadistically satisfying beat down of the male chauvinism that is so prevalent in horror movies - the symbolism of Stuntman Mike is overt, represented by his throbbing, black, phallic symbol of a muscle car and, at one point, a humorously misplaced oil-pumping rig - but the rest of the movie is simply a test of patience. Like many grind house movies, no self-respecting studio would have touched this script with a 10-foot pole. Tarantino forces you to sit through minute upon minute of useless, inconsequential babble from obnoxious characters. Their lines never surpass the worst moments of "Reservoir Dogs" and sometimes descend lower than the most clichÇ, stereotypical blaxploitation films ever made. Imagine if, in "Pulp Fiction," the conversation about foot massages had never ended, and if it weren't half as cool.
About an hour into the movie, I swore I'd chase down that slimy foot-fetishist and punch him in the face, just to bring him down a notch. But I think that's the joke, and I admire the fact that this bizarre mix of highbrow art and terrible filmmaking actually got made.
Anyway, here's my advice: Go to "Grindhouse" for the fake previews and the hilarious zombie movie, but if you stay for the second half, the butt of the joke may be you.
"Grindhouse"
Now playing
Grade: A
