Grindhouse. Posthumously coined genre term for the tawdry scuzzploitation films that flourished in sticky-floored adults-only movie houses before the advent of videos and the tidying up of Times Square.
-The Film Snob's Dictionary
After seeing Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's latest pet project, Grindhouse, this weekend I came to the conclusion that Tarentino is (for better or worse) a bona fide genius (which should in no way be construed as any kind of endorsement of his acting ability), and Rodriguez is (for better or worse) one of the most amazingly skilled hacks in the world.
Planet Terror, Rodriguez's contribution to the project, is an exploitation film in the truest sense. It's a whole story set up around one central gimmick (that being the M16 grafted to Rose McGowan's leg), and the gore and violence are gratuitous in the best possible way (not to mention enough T & A to make Larry Flint blush). Its sometimes difficult to tell whether the writing is being bad in the name of camp value or if he's just using the film as an excuse to indulge his own bad taste, but basically he succeeds (in the same way that Snakes on a Plane fails) by having so much style that you wonder why you even go to a movie expecting substance. It's also worth noting that, aside from writing, directing, editing, and shooting the film, Rodriguez also does the music, which is arguably better than the actual filmmaking (as tempting as it is, I'll spare you the "one-man band" pun).
Tarentino, on the other hand, spares with the tongue-in-cheek routine and makes a movie that actually stands up as a great film in it's own right. Like his previous work, he manages to distill his own quirky cinematic obsessions into something that's infinitely smarter and slicker than any of the films to which he's paying tribute. Owing a certain debt to Richard Linklater, the film consists primarily of its protagonists roaming around the city of Austin and making witty banter, but the dialogue is never tedious and the payoff is always worth it. And, in an unlikely twist, Tarentino makes all the sassy girl-talk sound surprisingly natural. Nevertheless, Tarantino still uses a male lead to manifest his apparent love-hate relationship with women. Since Tarentino apparently can't resist the urge to dredge up low-brow icons of the seventies and eighties and squeeze performances out of them that makes you wonder why they haven't been off doing Shakespeare for the last 20 years, he brings Kurt Russell in as the charmingly psychotic stunt driver that provides the centerpiece to the ensemble. And whereas Rodriguez relies on his slick digital effects (along with some wonderfully grotesque makeup and bladder effects) to carry his film, Tarantino goes the old-school route and delivers possibly the most suspenseful car chase ever filmed with nothing but muscle cars and mentally ill stunt drivers.
If you haven't seen this film yet (which, if the box office figures are any indicator, is probably the case) you should hurry up before the Weinsteins lose their spine and decide to split the two movies up and make you pay double to see both (which, mind you, would still be well worth it). And if you need any more incentive, the mock trailers that they insert before and in between the movies are just as awesomely ridiculous as the films themselves.
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