2008 Woodie Awards
'Grindhouse' reviewed
Two directors thriving
by James Adams Smith
Issue date: 4/10/07 Section: Mosaic
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Dimension Films
Rating: 3 stars (out of 4)
In this double-feature tribute to every '70s B-movie you never saw, you get two doses of beer-inspired, reckless, nihilistic mayhem in a raunchy, action-packed joyride.
Directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino join forces to bring a handful of dying genres back to life with new edge and style in two separate films - "Planet Terror" and "Death Proof."
Grindhouses were traditional urban theatres in the '70s and '80s that played non-stop, low-budget exploitation flicks, which is the sole source of inspiration for this collage. The formula for this juxtaposition includes fiery explosions, stomach-blowing guts, werewolves, lesbian hookers, wild car chases, nudity and flesh-eating zombies. Both films are cut in a style that fits the genre with scratched images, missing reels and several hilarious spoof trailers directed by Rob Zombie ("House of 1000 Corpses"), Eli Roth ("Hostel") and Edgar Wright ("Shaun of the Dead").
The first package, "Planet Terror," is Rodriguez's recreation of the traditional zombie film with more power than the Energizer Bunny. Think "Evil Dead" corniness alongside a parody like "Shaun of the Dead," but with more flavor, more camp and enough laughs to lose ten pounds.
The story follows Cherry (Rose McGowan), a go-go dancer who is reacquainted with her ex-boyfriend Wray (Freddy Rodriguez) in the midst of a virus outbreak that has turned everyone in a small Texas town into zombies. After getting her leg eaten off, it is replaced with a machine gun to fight the spreading evil.
The film is laughable from beginning to end, with the exception of disgust extracted from splattering guts, popped eyes and flying testicles. But overall, Rodriguez packs a fun flick that has a good pace and raw humor.
In Tarantino's "Death Proof," Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) is a somewhat likeable killer who stalks and crashes into girls in his mean stunt hot rod. After a drawn-out bar scene and the attack on a set of unlikable women, Mike starts to follow a new set of gals gone wrong - feministic stuntwomen with a high for highway recklessness.
In "Death Proof" Tarantino delivers much of his typical off-the-wall dialogue, artistic cinematography and meat-packed excitement that has many qualities of "Pulp Fiction" and "Kill Bill," but woven to fit the genre in a way that works and even admits to its 1971 predecessor "Vanishing Point."
This is one to catch in theaters, after you have chugged your beer, left the strip bar, put on your combat boots, picked up your girlfriend and bought a large bag of popcorn, because this is what action movies are all about.
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