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April 07, 2007
A Touch More Grindage
So… I returned to Grindhouse on Friday. To clarify an earlier discussion, Planet Terror (the name of which seems to be Project Terror in the film, but was inexplicably turned planetary) is 89 minutes long and Death Proof is 84 minutes long.
I was also struck by a much simpler clarification of the difference between these two films. Rodriguez’ film is 99% meta. It really doesn’t work as a movie, even though there is a strong central idea in the McGowan/Rodriguez relationship. But there are so many ideas flying around that neither that story nor any other really gets told.
The non-meta moments that really work include the McGowan leg gags, which really expand on the idea of the stripper turned gun toting mama instead of, like so much of the film, simply resort to doing the squishiest thing possible. No spoiler here, but if you see the film, there is one leg beat in particular in which the audience has to think for a second to get the joke… and it gets one of the biggest laughs of the entire film. More of that, please.
Tarantino’s film, on the other hand, is really just a movie in the genre with the added QT touch… people talking a whole lot about very little. (I quite enjoyed the chatter, though he really does twice as much of that as is necessary to be effective, literally doing roughly the same things twice conversationally.) The idea of a two-act structure is also unusual for any movie, though here, it defines itself as you watch. The experience the first time is quite different, when you don’t know how the first act goes and you really don’t know where the second act is going.
QT could easily cut his segment down to 70 minutes and really, the Rodriguez at 45 minutes could have been a blast. Add the 9 or 10 minutes of trailers and gunk and you would have had a tight movie that would have been a joy on DVD for all the very real extras. (I will be curious, even as it is, whether Mary Elizabeth Winstead has another 5 minutes of screentime that didn’t make the final edit.)
Anyway… Planet Terror was a real grind to get through again, though watching the many ways Rodriguez found to shoot McGowan and Shelton was even more interesting and the wish for more from El Wray and a zombie story that made some sense became more apparent. And aside from a little less chat in the QT, when it finally got to it, the audience and I both got giddy in a hurry.
Posted by poland at April 7, 2007 02:21 PM
Comments
I was surprised by Rose McGowan's performance. Watching her lame as all hell go-go dance made me think one way about what would come from her and her character, but by the end of "Planet Terror", I was loving her performance and that lameness in the opening dance actually made perfect sense. McGowan's curves and rotating appendages are fine, but she didn't just phone in yet another femme fatale with a heart of steel, and she wasn't there just to be Rodriguez's iconic plaything (on film. no comment otherwise). Her character felt unique and her chemistry with El Wray carried the film. For that and a handful of other highlights, Planet Terror was saved from being some nasty crap.
Death Proof was awesome. I can't even verbalize it yet. How is that just watching a girl bump her head for the first time in Stuntman Mike's car was more shocking and disturbing than all of the carnage and mayhem in Planet Terror? Quentin Tarantino has a reputation for being a developmentally arrested 8-year-old in a middle aged man's body, but his movies, when he's in the zone, are DEAD SERIOUS about their business and nobody does it better.
Posted by: Hallick ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/nav-commenters.gif)
at April 7, 2007 05:04 PM
I enjoyed both parts, but the Tarantino film was tighter...
As for the El Wray character, some more of him would have been good. After he does his big entrance in the hospital, my friend turns to me and says, "Who is this guy?" Freddy Rodriguez's performance was pretty cool methinks.
And I agree with Hallick's assessment of the film. FR and RM definitely carried the story. And Rose is frickin' beautiful in the film. Even with a peg leg.
Posted by: Aladdin Sane at April 7, 2007 06:05 PM
Walked into the 2nd half of this yesterday, as I HATE everything RR has ever done and I'd rather watch paint dry. As for the QT film, can he bastardize himself anymore? RD was great, PF is a classic and JB was a well made, adult film that really took its time to tell its story. But he lost it with those BILL movies and its all over a tthis point. the only part of the film worth watching was the 40 minutes or so of KR at that bar and when he kills rose. Other then that, it was another QT verbal vomit fest. Gotta love it whne people discuss his "witty, snappy dialogue." Watch PF, that had great dialogue. DP doesn't. It's a waste of time.
Also, who care about the HW anymore? the guys is a blowhard and a cock and it was a dumb mistake to leave Miramax.
Posted by: EOTW at April 8, 2007 09:59 AM
The Weinstein brothers didn't leave Disney on their own. They were pushed out by Disney corporate.
Posted by: Chucky in Jersey at April 8, 2007 11:02 AM
Actually, not true, Chucky. They were offered a $400 million a year deal, which was $300 million less than they were budgeted for in their last year. They said, "no." And from there it ended.
Turning down that deal will turn out - as I've indicated from the ime it happened - to be one of the great mistakes in Hollywood history. To be as independant minded as The Weinsteins and to be in the hammock of a major is a perfect storm and when they end up getting a less financially attractive deal at Sony or Paramount, the deal Disney had on the table will look great.
This is one of those stories that I railed about re: the Traditional Media. They were all so busy attacking Eisner and pumping up Weinstein that they missed the obvious realities.
Posted by: David Poland at April 8, 2007 02:07 PM
This is so out of my field of expertise, but I think it would be better to run a small company and have LOTS of control and still have the Disney monolith behind me for muscle then to have my own company w/o the muscle. Don't know. Maybe that's why I'm not in the biz!!!
Posted by: EOTW at April 8, 2007 03:23 PM
It all depends on what you want to accomplish, EOTW. If you want to turn out hack crap for the masses, then a studio deal is the one for you. If you want to be quirky and individualistic, stay indie.
Posted by: Cadavra at April 8, 2007 10:43 PM
Ironic then that the Weinsteins' hits since breaking off have been Scary Movies and Sin City - hardly 'quirky and individualistic'.
Posted by: jeffmcm at April 8, 2007 10:55 PM
Well, the Weinsteins want to act like they're a major: many of their biggest hits of the 90s were studio castoffs (ENGLISH PATIENT, SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE...even PULP FICTION was put in turnaround by TriStar). The movies you cited were Dimension titles, a label which was specifically created to handle genre stuff. Their quirky stuff, notably BOBBY, has failed to connect.
Posted by: Cadavra at April 9, 2007 10:01 AM
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