Since the new Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez collabo "Grindhouse" is being released next week, I thought it'd be a perfect time to discuss the film. For those who don't know, "Grindhouse" is a 3 hour long (yup, you read that right, 3 frickin' hours!) exploitation movie homage with 2 full-length blood-spattered flicks back-to-back. Rodgriguez's piece is the zombie infested "Planet Terror," while Tarantino's half is the slasher-driven "Death Proof," starring Kurt Russell. Now, I must admit I have mixed feelings about the film, especialy Tarantino's half. While Rodriguez has spent his whole career trying to perfect his bombastic, over the top style, Tarantino started his career as one of the most promising, visionary writer-directors of all time. "Pulp Fiction" and "Reservoir Dogs" are still considered 2 of the finest films ever made, and while his third movie "Jackie Brown" isn't usually viewed as a classic, it's definitely close to the former two films in terms of quality. That leads us to the little ditty "Kill Bill," slashed into two films by the Weinstein brothers. I am not a fan of "Kill Bill," or as I like to call it, "Overkill Bill." While it's obvious that Tarantino still has an overwhelming enthusiasm for the kung-fu and western flicks he grew up on, the whole epic has always seemed amazingly shallow to me. Amazing since Tarantino's previous film "Jackie Brown" was an introspective nearly three-hour talkfest about growing old. While the film adopted the cool, hip swagger of a 1970s blaxploitation film, that was merely the backbone. What made "Jackie Brown" truly come alive was its natural, realistic, identifiable characters. "Kill Bill" by contrast features cardboard characters that wouldn't be out of place in a saturday morning cartoon. Try to imagine, say, Robert Forster as Max Cherry of "Jackie Brown" in the "Kill Bill" universe, and it becomes clear how painfully artificial that world is. The "Grindhouse" trailers seem to continue Tarantino's style over substance approach he attempted in "Kill Bill." What makes this new chapter in Tarantino's career so disappointing is that the man is so damn good at dialogue; that gift doesn't really come out when his films are endless action sequences, with most of the dialogue merely serving as exposition.
My central question concerning "Grindhouse" is why make an exploitation movie homage? The original movies were such perfect artifacts of their time. In addition to the fact that Tarantino basically covered this ground so thoroughly in "Kill Bill," it's not nearly as much fun trying to watch someone duplicate the 60's/70's shamelessness of the originals, when you can just as easily view the real thing. One element that does have me interested is the fact that several directors (among them Rob Zombie and Eli Roth) are contributing fake trailers to "Grindhouse," recreating the over-top-style of the trailers from the 60's and 70's. This idea intrigues me because most of the 70's trailers are usually much better than the films themselves. I would much rather see "Grindhouse" be , say twelve 4 or 5 minute long exploitation trailer homages, than 2 complete films in the same vein back to back. Of course, all of these points concerning the film are merely speculation since it's not released until April 6th. Who knows? Maybe "Grindhouse" will become a future classic, or maybe it'll be "Overkill Bill: Part Tres..."
One of the "fake trailers" from the film that I mentioned above was just posted on the internet...It's pretty funny and it captures the 80's slasher movie craze well. Just wish Eli Roth's "Thanksgiving" was really being released as a full-length movie this November. Tsk...tsk
No comments:
Post a Comment