Looking for an experience unlike anything you are likely to have encountered before? Are you ready for a double feature that puts its over the top, nonsensical stories front and center? More importantly, are you ready to hand over the logic potion of your brain and allow the pleasure center to rule your movie going experience?
That is pretty much what this project is asking you to do. Grindhouse caters to the whims of its creators who are paying homage to the films of the past that helped put them where they are today. If you are willing, this experience will be unforgettable, and you are likely not to experience it again for a long time, if ever.
This is a very strange project. It is one that will definitely only have a niche market, at least on the big screen. How many people are going to understand what these two are trying to do with this? Many of the people who go to see it will have never been to a grindhouse, much less even know what it is. I am one of those people, I have an idea of what a grindhouse is/was, but I was just a young child during their heyday in the 1970s. This has to be a project that Rodriguez and Tarantino were making primarily for themselves. Considering what it is, I think that the marketing was pretty good.
I can only imagine what it must have been like as these two movie geeks started to get all giddy at the prospect of recreating the grindhouse experience. I can see them in the planning phase, even before talking about what their respective movies were going to be, sitting in a dark corner of some random diner. They sketched out the ideas of using vintage preview and feature promo announcements, throwing in some fake trailers for other grindhouse style features, dropping frames, aging and purposefully marking up the prints, all in an effort to be true to the style. Then, Tarantino would get all bug eyed and want to take it to the next level by dropping reels, like what happened to him when he bought a copy of The Sell Out, only to find a reel missing, using it as a device to ramp up the mystery of just what happened during the missing twenty minutes.
Article comments
1 - T. Michael Testi
While I will wait till it comes to DVD, I will be looking forward to this. I buy everything Rodriguez and Tarantino whether it is "El Mariachi", "Spy Kids", "Dusk till Dawn" or "Kill Bill".
These guys are great!
Thanks for the review!
T.
2 - Rodney Welch
I do not understand the problem people have with Death Proof. I thought it was a minor Tarantino masterpiece, with great dialogue (kind of a female version of Reservoir Dogs) and a really, really exciting chase scene -- the best since I don't know when. I thought it easily beat Planet Terror.