Grindhouse (2007)

What is it with Robert Rodriguez and testicles??

One of the main things that kept me from liking his Sin City was it's s-exploitability (particularly how women were portrayed). Sure, some of it was visually appealing and sometimes funny/disgusting during movie (who doesn't find some sort of satisfaction in seeing an evil, yellow creature get his manhood ripped from his body?) , but in the end you have to ask yourself, "Was that completely even minutely necessary?" It all really sums up to nothing but a crutch to appeal the juvenile in people like me. Although not nearly (as in miles away, but still there) as strongly as with Sin City, I felt similarly uneasy after Planet Terror, Rodriquez's first half installment in the double feature movie event Grindhouse.

I almost feel bad bringing up the negative first because I enjoyed the movie for the most part, but I feel worse because I cannot recommend the movie to very many people because of it's overtly twisted sexuality. If Sin City had been any good, I would have had the same problem recommending it, but it wasn't any good, so there was no problem there. But now we have Planet Terror: a good movie with a little bit of the same tendencies of Sin City that make you ponder the mental stability of the director. This makes it so much more difficult to talk positively about the film with that glaring discrepancy, but there were many positives amidst its few negatives, and therefore I am giving Rodriguez the benefit of the doubt this time because I had such a good time with his raucous, bloody concoction.

So with all that wishful "why testicles?" thinking aside, Planet Terror was an excellent, yet absolutely absurd, horror adventure. I wasn't expecting it to be quite as scary as it was. I jumped a few times, and held my breath in others. I probably found too much joy in the splatter festivities. When a prominent and gusto character unexpectedly gets blown to smithereens towards the end, I laughed harder than when Dory spoke whale in Disney's Finding Nemo four years ago...and that is saying alot. Rodriguez keeps the story moving forward so your mind never has a chance to wander. His film is a satisfying "on-purpose" blend of ridiculousness and seriousness that pays tribute to the "on-accident" blend of ridiculousness and seriousness characteristic of the first taboo, rebellious horror flicks of the twentieth century.

If you can handle a movie bloodier than anything you ever seen before, than I cautiously recommend it. It is a funny, often hilarious, over-the-top gritty film that packs enough punches to make a jock feel queasy and an emo-kid laugh. Otherwise, if you can't handle blood and the crushing, ripping, dropping, obliterating, eating, or cutting of body parts (some of which were never meant to see the light of day or roll across the wet asphalt of night) than avoid it with every fiber of your being. It is as bad as you can possibly imagine it to be, and it is as pointless and juvenile as that which it is paying homage.

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Quentin Tarantino. Death Proof. First of all, like before, let's get the negative out of the way. Tarantino needs a major mouth washing. I can deal with curse words. I use them sometimes, but seriously...the lip of some of the characters was exhausting, if not an all out verbal raping of my now not so virgin ears...

But...with that out of the way, Tarantino is a bloody genius. Where Planet Terror thrived off of the constant adrenaline rush of something happening, Death Proof thrives off the constant adrenaline of "nothing" happening. Like the calm before a storm, his film blows gusts of uneasiness our way, taunting us with the careful patience of the perpetrator just waiting to drop the giant rains and winds of chaos on an unexpecting town of commoners minding their own business.

I loved Death Proof.

The crackling dialogue and flowing cinematography had me giggling like a school girl. There is a scene in which the group of women are sitting in a diner talking, and the camera is continually moving around them. The technical challenge behind a scene like that dumbfounds me, and the result is simply enthralling. The car chase nearly made me crap my pants, both in the excitement of it all and the pure horror at the fact that what I was watching was for the most part actually happening. I wonder how many documents that girl had to sign that said "If you die, that's your fault, your family and/or dog cannot sue us." I'm glad she signed them, because her dramatic tango with death was great fun!

The ending of Death Proof was just too good to be true. I kept asking the person next to me if that actually just happened. He said it did, but I still don't believe him. Darn. Guess I have to go see it again...just to make sure...

Anyone?

Planet Terror: B
Death Proof: A-

P.S. There were fake trailers in between the two films, but the only one I remember specifically is Don't because it was funny.