“Grindhouse” (2007)
Tarantino and Rodriguez at their most outrageous.
The above film poster was in pride of place amongst a montage of fellow film and music posters for many years along a kitchen wall that if you followed it left to right, would lead you to a view of the beautiful River Severn. As you turned left when entering that old flat in an even older town full of world renowned history, you would immediately see this Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez inspired double bill of outrageous love for the cinema of their youth, together with The Beatles strolling across Abbey Road, Nirvana’s smiley face motif, The Arctic Monkeys in a rowing boat, a Tim Burton era Batman poster and a poster detailing the opening lines to Trainspotting.
Choose life indeed.
I saved the best for the bedroom, naturally, with Uma Thurman smoking and pouting seductively on one Pulp Fiction wall, the other dominated by my love for Radiohead and their OK Computer album of a quarter of a century ago, an album that will continue to resonate throughout every coming possibility of every Dystopian future imaginable, and in between, and via two enormous windows, you had the delights of a continuing view of the River Severn rolling gently on her merry way.
Until last evening, I’d never seen Grindhouse as it was jointly created to be. I’ve seen its constituent parts, Rodriguez’s blood splattering chaos amid a deadly virus and Tarantino’s slow burning yet brutally spectacular ending to the life of a psychopathic, sexual thrill seeking stuntman, many, many times separately. My spoiler free review of Death Proof is linked at the bottom of this paragraph. But I’d never seen the film they intended and wanted to release until last evening, the Tarantino/Rodriguez full on Grindhouse experience of fake adverts for fake films, missing reels, “cigarette burns”, distortion, poor picture quality, jagged editing, missing or overlapping dialogue and most of all, their combined three hours together of outrageous and apologetic cinematic mayhem.
Having watched every second of the two films separately as well as any and every added features to the American imported DVD’s I bought at the time of release fifteen years ago, I thought I’d seen everything, just not in the cinematic order our directors intended. How wrong could I be! Naturally I’d seen the trailer for the film Machete, the Danny Trejo inspired trailer for a film that wasn’t actually a film but which has now spawned two highly regarded blood splattering cult classics and Machete Kills in Space (Yes! Machete in Space!) continues to be delayed and still not in production at the time of writing. But I’d never seen the trailer for Werewolf women of the SS (cameo from Nick Cage) or the blood soaked trailer for Thanksgiving or indeed the full on panic attack that is the trailer for Don’t. Then, after duly noting all of the reverse, twisted or overlapping dialogue, the fake film title, Tarantino’s foot fetish, the colour changes, cigarette burns and distorted picture of Death Proof, the filmmakers had cheekily inserted a “Missing Reel”, thus depriving us of the sexual high point to a highly charged film that was setting the table for the murderous rampage that was to follow.
On the singular release of Death Proof as noted in my review article above, you get to see Vanessa Ferlito as “Butterfly” in all her lap dancing glory as she wears a red bandana and plays a blues pianna, in a “Honky-Tonk down in Mexico”. But here? A missing reel!
Death Proof is my least favourite film released by Tarantino and only because his remaining eight, some argue nine and even ten, feature length cinematic releases, are incredible films rising in true all-time greatness. Or I love it but just not as much as the aforementioned Pulp Fiction or his masterpiece, Jackie Brown. But last evening’s latest re-watch reinforced the highly charged and sexualised build up to each horrific crime, the beautiful overlapping cameos of Marley Shelton and the much missed acting presence of Michael Parks, and that the second half of the film, whilst building to a catharsis and deadly dismantling of it’s psychopathic stuntman, is no match for the first half of the film and that damned “Missing Reel” that signifies the incoming on screen carnage, as well as that knowing smile directly to camera from Kurt Russell. Stuntman Mike is going to have himself a whole heap of fun! But the ladies who dominate both films will be having the last laugh, and the final say.
Planet Terror surprised me somewhat in that I remembered it being incredibly gruesome and blood thirsty, yet not this outrageously over the top! Scary too amid the homages to Grindhouse cinema that Tarantino soaks the first half of his film in before largely leaving the second half to play out after a deliberately jarring colour change. Rose McGowan steals the gory show as well as being the true heart of a bizarre film ahead of Freddy Rodriguez and a host of virus filled zombies hungry for the best barbecue sauce in Texas! It was rather wonderful to see Bruce Willis taking centre stage once more before he’d re-team again with director Rodriguez on his Sin City follow up and Josh Brolin as a rage fuelled revenge seeking husband and demented doctor? You’ve come to the right place!
Please take your seats, the trailers are about to begin.
Thanks for reading. Just for larks as always, and always a human reaction rather than spoilers galore. My three most recently published film articles are linked below or there’s well over 250 blog articles (with 500+ individual film reviews) within my film library from which to choose:
