I can now count Grindhouse among the 4 movies I have walked out on in the middle.
After an seemingly endless parade of action and relentless gore split up by the most uninteresting scenes of dialogue and "character development," we are treated to 30 minutes of a Tarantino yap fest. The first 30 minutes of Death Proof has absolutely no plot development, just these rather dull and vapid girls chatting and chtting interspersed with shots of feet, closeups of a jukebox and, no kidding, a melodramatic montage of text messaging. I couldn't handle anymore.
I hear the car chase is great, but I'll have to wait for cable.
If you like over the top violence and zombies, you'll probably like Planet (why Planet?) Terror though I found it a bore. If you think that people actually talk like Tarantino thinks they do, you might like Death Proof.
Personally I think that when these two directors get together they get amplified into their most pretensious.
Also, I had a hard time getting into the shitty seventies film stock and grain when the movies were set in modern day.
After an seemingly endless parade of action and relentless gore split up by the most uninteresting scenes of dialogue and "character development," we are treated to 30 minutes of a Tarantino yap fest. The first 30 minutes of Death Proof has absolutely no plot development, just these rather dull and vapid girls chatting and chtting interspersed with shots of feet, closeups of a jukebox and, no kidding, a melodramatic montage of text messaging. I couldn't handle anymore.
I hear the car chase is great, but I'll have to wait for cable.
If you like over the top violence and zombies, you'll probably like Planet (why Planet?) Terror though I found it a bore. If you think that people actually talk like Tarantino thinks they do, you might like Death Proof.
Personally I think that when these two directors get together they get amplified into their most pretensious.
Also, I had a hard time getting into the shitty seventies film stock and grain when the movies were set in modern day.
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Los Angeles
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Night Guard
Mon, April 9, 2007 - 9:11 PMMaybe that's why they call it "Grind House." You sit in the theater and grind your teeth. Thank you for warning me. I usually don't see movies for car chases...well, at least Bullet made sense and there was this film about a Dodge Charger driver who ends up running into a tractor shovel along a flat Midwestern road that the police set up with the sun setting so he couldn't see what was coming. Somehow, my memory isn't serving me, but fond memories related to meaningful do.
I think I'll save my teeth. Thank you again. -
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Re: Night Guard
Fri, April 13, 2007 - 3:58 PM>and there was this film about a Dodge Charger driver who ends up ...
<nitpick>
You're talking about Vanishing Point. If so, that's a Dodge Challenger R/T with the 440 cubic inch engine. RRROOOOWWRRRR.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imag...ger_RT.jpg
</nitpick>
1969 or 1970, Charger or Challenger, no matter. Drop a 385hp engine in it and I'm sold, thank you.
Signed,
Totally Missed the Point
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Re: Grind House
Mon, April 9, 2007 - 11:23 PMI'm just curious. What do audiences expect to see when they go to this? I saw a lot of the same low budget crappy movies in crappy theaters in the late 60's and 70's that they did. I get what they're doing with scratched film and audio and bad splices which happened when you saw a movie that was a couple of years old at a double or triple feature. The only thing that made them watchable was going with friends where you could laugh and groan at the screen and had nothing better to do.
But I don't think it works like that anymore. So, who are they making these movies for? Kids without a date? Adults who want to stroll down memory lane? Not me, I had my fill on dateless nights back then. That's what I don't get. Where's the audience for this? Someone who went to this please tell me because I have no intention of wasting a dime on this not even as a rental.. Maybe when it's on one of the movie channels and I can sit with my TiVo remote finger over the button to go to triple fast forward.
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Re: Grind House
Tue, April 10, 2007 - 8:10 AMApparently the audience isn't there, cause it opened in fourth and may not recoup ot's budget.
But I agree, just cause you are making a film that emulates bad movies, still makes it a bad movie. And again, using the old seventies film grain, scratches and missing reels but seting the movies in modern day with cell phones, computers and such was and odd combination. -
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Re: Grind House
Wed, April 11, 2007 - 10:54 AMI think given the price of movies, people pick and choose more than they used to. Add to that the on-demand notions (and netflix) out there, and you have a "why bother" mentality.
Also, the notion of it being cheesy, but not intended as a comedy probably leaves people going "meh", and moving on to something else they feel more psyched about for 10 dollars a head before snacks. Tarantino and Rodriguez counted on their reps a bit too much for this venture maybe... -
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Re: Grind House
Wed, April 11, 2007 - 11:29 AM"I think given the price of movies, people pick and choose more than they used to. "
Does this explain the success of Ghost Rider, Wild Hogs and Norbit? -
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Re: Grind House
Wed, April 11, 2007 - 1:31 PMEva Mendes.. I mean c'mon, people went for the FX..?
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Re: Grind House
Thu, April 12, 2007 - 8:07 AMI think the younger audience plays a factor there. kids would be in to all 3 of those... -
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Re: Grind House
Thu, April 12, 2007 - 8:02 PMGrindhouse - a love letter to junk cinema of the 70s and the whole viewing experience-I admit I love the B-movies of the 70s- not all of them- but stuff like Detroit 9000, The Bad Bunch,Death Race 2000.The 3 hours rushed by for me- I enjoyed the faux trailers- the vintage ads.I enjoyed Planet Terror for it's over the top zombie freakfest and it's odd ending-Rose McGowan looked tremendous with 2 legs and just as well with a machinegun leg.Death Proof played like a mix of tease porn with the sexy gals and the ass-kicking.Kurt Russell hammed it up nice as Stuntman Mike and the final car chase was a nice eye-popping good time with Zoe Bell as herself.Sure this is a collage of movie styles(like most of QTs flicks-I don't mind) and as always I loved the soundtrack for Death Proof- am listening to it now.A fun afternoon. B+
I think the 3 hour run time did not help it's box office- less times for it to run and harder to fit in- I wanted to see it opening weekend- but this was my first chance today -
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Re: Grind House
Fri, April 13, 2007 - 8:44 AMEveryone is blaming the run time, but two of the highest grossing films ever, Titanic and Return of the King were over 3 hours. I think people just don't want to see recycled schlock. Grind House movies are by definition, bad, low budget films that don't make huge box office. Why, by emulating their style, did they think they'd suddenly be blockbusters? Plus, I think it was very confusing to the potential audience. -
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Re: Grind House
Fri, April 13, 2007 - 3:32 PMRun time does not help- especially if people are on the fence- let's face it - Grindhouse is a love letter to a type of movie that not everyone loves-so many movies get slagged because of length-sort of the opposite of penises-I enjoyed the whole thing and plan on owning the DVDs-
the Titanic had the look of an event movie(not some B-movie mumble)
and LOTR stuff had huge built in fan-bases- -
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This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.
Re: Grind House
Tue, April 17, 2007 - 10:14 AMWife and I saw it - Was very tounge and cheek, and over the top. Well written dialogue, and all-around entertaining, if long.4 members up.
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