Written by Linda
October 13, 2008
You just want Stuntman Mike to save all of our valuable time by simply blowing that shack sky high.
If you saw a pulsating boil on someone's tongue, would you reach over and squeeze it? That is one of the many new questions you may ask yourself while watching Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror, the first flick in this made-for-double bill movie marathon called Grindhouse. Edited together as a continuous two-movie experience (replete with previews and intermission trailers for other B-movie faux-flicks), Grindhouse is an experiment in homage and mimicry, re-creating a time beloved to Rodriguez and co-director Quentin Tarantino of a time in the 70s when they sat in crappy sticky movie theaters watching scratched-up exploitation films. Rodriguez opens up the three-hour extravaganza with his zombie movie, followed by (after intermission) Tarantino's killer thriller Death Proof.
After a hot opening go-go dance routine featuring Cherry Darling (Rose McGowan), Planet Terror wastes no time amping up the gross-factor with its tale of zombies gone amuck. Of course there is some conspiracy with the military having secret access to the antidote, and of course there are many guns involved (why wouldn't a tow-truck driver have a semi-automatic weapon with night vision stored behind his truck seat?). El Wray (Freddy Rodriguez from Six Feet Under) is a mysterious thug with a past, and part of that past involves Cherry. They, among a big cast of others (including some a big cameo that should please the audience) are in a fight! between! life! and! death!
What I enjoyed about Planet Terror is that it was relentless in its action and gore, but it was also very very funny. I particularly enjoyed Marley Shelton's performance as a doctor who is fighting the fight without use of her hands (hard to explain), the appearance of Michael Biehn as a cop (oh, Mike, where have you "biehn" since your 80s heyday?), and of course Cherry Darling. I know that a huge chunk of the audience will be paying the big bucks to see Grindhouse simply because the image of Cherry's go-go dancer with a machine gun prosthetic on her leg. Awesome.
Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof doesn't fare so well, alas, despite having a final half hour that will knock your socks off. The first hour or so (interrupted with a juicy brutal car crash) is so mind-numbingly BORING that I wondered if Tarantino made it that way on purpose. Was he trying to remind us that packs of babelicious babes waxing poetic and drinking all night in a bar was entertaining? That their pseudo-intellectual babble is neither interesting or witty? That, just to prove that the movie is intentionally bad, QT himself shows up again as an actor (after having a film-melting appearance in Planet Terror), this time as the bar owner Walter (who of course has a babe on each arm)? Pfffft.
When Kurt Russell finally shows up at the bar with the full ham and cheese aura of a star knowing exactly what movie he is in, I breathed a sigh of relief. He smirks and glowers and has a huge nasty scar running down his face. He is Stuntman Mike, and he's got a badass car. You know that these dull as chalk girls are going to somehow meet their maker via this car, but you just want Stuntman Mike to save all of our valuable time by simply blowing that shack sky high.
If you are wondering when the true intermission is, it is during this first 2/3rds of Death Proof. Stay for the fabulously hilarious faux-intermission trailers (my favorite was for the insistent movie thriller Don't!). As soon as Death Proof starts, that is when you can get up, stretch your legs, pee out some of the caffeine you imbibed in order to survive this three-hour tour, and go stand in line for more snacks.
But be sure to come back for the final half hour of Death Proof, where Stuntman Mike meets his match with a new group of girls including Tracie Thoms, Zoe Bell, and Rosario Dawson. There is a 70s muscle-car race/chase scene that goes on and on and on, that literally had me grinding my teeth in tension (another meaning for "grindhouse" perhaps?). With the last half hour of Death Proof, Tarantino blows it out of the water, almost (almost) saving his portion of this double feature. The audience is left breathless and laughing, and, lucky for the two directors, Grindhouse ends on a high that will have fans satisfied.
