Less talky, more zombie!

There's definitely such a thing as too much of a good thing. Especially when it's not so much that as it is "too much of a thing that's much better than you thought it would be in some ways, but mind-numbingly bad in other ways." In other words, I think they might have gilded the lily in making Grindhouse a double feature.

Caution: There are SPOILERS aplenty in this review, so you might not want to read much further if you prefer to be surprised. You also might not want to keep reading if you think Quentin Tarantino can do no wrong.

Of course, part of what makes Grindhouse so delightful is its nod to double features of days past: the "prevues of coming attractions," the utterly unappetizing ad for the restaurant next door to the theater, the animations that connote an R rating as a panther instead of a frolicking kitten.

The trailers, in particular, are genius, from Danny Trejo as Machete to the all-purpose horror warning Don't (with Will Arnett as the announcer -- awesome!). The greatest, though, is Thanksgiving, a clear spoof of the Halloween trailer with its subsonic announcer voice and horrible prose. ("White meat. Dark meat. All will be carved.") You can find the trailer here, but unless you want a visit from HR, don't play it in a cubicle.

I really liked the first feature, Planet Terror -- or, as I like to think of it, Leg of Blam! It's a glorious, barely-comprehensible, blood-and-goo-drenched zombie flick. This film knows it's ridiculous and plays the gore, the apparent lack of budget, the total defiance of physics and biology all for laughs. This is that film where you're cringing and yelling at the gooey mess on the screen, but you're laughing the whole time at how over-the-top it is. Are they... are they actually going to do that? Yes, they are.

It wasn't until I'd gotten home and thought about the movie for a while that I realized it had an actual heart -- not just a disembodied beating piece of gristle, but a genuine core of meaning and strength, and that it wasn't the babe with the machine-gun leg. No, Cherry Darling was always awesome, she just didn't know it. But Dr. Dakota Block, played by Marley Shelton, faces some of the worst terrors a person can face in one night -- and then the zombies hit. She comes through her torment stronger, able to help Cherry in one of her darkest moments, and thereby save the day. It's a surprising amount of depth for a spew-and-slime flick.

And then there's Death-Proof. Now, I should preface this with a few words about my take on Quentin Tarantino. He's capable of some great stuff, but I've come to believe that dialogue simply is not one of his talents. Whenever his characters start rambling off on various inanities, I find myself longing to sneak up behind Tarantino with an industrial-strength bullhorn and bellow into his ear, "Shut the fuck up!" His characters all tend to talk the same way, which is to say, like Tarantino himself, and the more they talk, the less I like them, and the less I care about what happens to them.

In fact, the first half of Death-Proof, concerning a group of self-obsessed hipsters killing time and brain cells in Austin one night, left me so incredibly bored and disinterested in the characters that I found myself almost hoping they'd be dispatched so they'd at least get off the screen. So when they were, I didn't care too much. Fans of Death-Proof insist that the film makes us care about these characters so their death is horrifying. These fans give me far too much credit for caring about boring characters who talk like Quentin Tarantino. The more of those folks we can wipe off the screen, the better, as far as I'm concerned.

The second half of the film picks up after we've dispensed some more obligatory chatter. Starting as a new group of women has lunch in Knoxville, the dialogue suddenly has some bearing on the action (imagine that!) and becomes much more interesting. We know that Kurt Russell and his death car are stalking these women just as he stalked the women in Austin, but we get the sense that something's different this time around, and our suspicion is eventually rewarded.

Part of what makes the second half of Death-Proof much better than the first is the presence of Zoe Bell, a Kiwi stuntwoman playing herself. She's so damn cool (she's the second from the right up there). The other component of the second half that works and works beautifully is the car chase. Honestly, this is some of the best driving and car stunt work I've ever seen. This is like Ronin-level good.

Death-Proof defenders insist that the (truly fantastic) car sequences in the latter portion of the film wouldn't have the same impact without the first part of the film being so talky, so aggressively average and then so abruptly violent. I'd still love to have seen a version of the film with the first half cut down to maybe 15 minutes of yammering followed by violent death, then the full second portion in all its glory -- and then a coda to find out what the hell happened to the girl the second group left behind.

When comparing Planet Terror to Death-Proof, I'm struck by the difference in tones in Robert Rodriguez films and Quentin Tarantino films. All the Rodriguez films I've seen (with the exception of Sin City) have a feeling of joy to them, a sense of delight in making movies. You can almost hear Rodriguez say, "Can you believe I'm getting away with this? Hee hee!" with an infectious glee. I don't get that from Tarantino movies, not even a little bit. I get a bitter taste of cynicism and misanthropy, all delivered in the condescending tone of that video store clerk who won't stop flapping his gums about obscure movies of the 70s when all you want to do is rent a copy of Cold Comfort Farm and get the hell out of there.

Still, that car sequence showed me a sign of Tarantino I hadn't seen before. Between the virtuosity of that scene and the great fight scenes in the Kill Bills, I'm reforming my opinion of Tarantino. I've decided that he should give up the dialogue thing entirely and focus on shooting movies with lots of action sequences that have been written by other people. Basically, I'm saying that Quentin Tarantino is the ultimate Michael Bay.

I probably wouldn't be so mean if there had just been a few zombies in Death-Proof. That's really not too much to ask.

Comments

[BronzeMan]

Great review. I'm so glad you took on this bizarre flop of a film (only $11 mil in the opening weekend, and its financiers are scrambling for ways to save themselves from a cinematic Hindenburg).

I'm 100% with you on Tarantino. I'd be happy if he said he was into mindlessness, numbing violence, and racial-gender stereotypes for the fun of them... but no, he always wants to pretend there's something deeper underneath his trash, as if by flooding us with unredeemable pulp, he's forcing us into some kind of zen awakening. I too can't wait until he stops making movies, stops talking about the movies he makes, or else figures out a way to channel his films directly to the twisted, immature, and annoying niche of people who still cling to him.

John

[Cheesemeister]

I didn't think I'd like Pulp Fiction and I did, so maybe I'll like this. But on the surface it looks like something of a must-not-bother-with.

[4rx scam]

Thanks so much for taking the time to share your post; this posting has evoked the most response.I think that this is really good, zombies are really interesting , funny photos !