"Grindhouse" is a True Tribute to Drive-In Movies
Posted: Apr 09, 2007 I can still remember the first time I went to a movie alone as a child. Actually, I was with my sister, but you know what I mean. I must have been ten years old. I had been to drive-ins many times with my parents, usually to see some Elvis flick or a Disney movie. In later years I would experience the “real” drive-in, watching films like Vanishing Point and Macon County Line, oh and let’s not forget Boxcar Bertha, my first "adult" rated film.The first walk-in theatre I went to was the Carolina Theatre in downtown Spartanburg, South Carolina. The movie my sister and I saw was a Disney classic called The Computer Wore Tennis Shows, staring Kurt Russell. Today, I saw Russell in a new movie, and let me just say, it is as far from Walt Disney as Marilyn Manson is from John Denver.
Grindhouse is a joint venture between directors Quenton Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, directed and shot in true early-seventies style, with all the gaps and scratches we remember from the old drive-in movies. Complete with missing film reels, melting film and cornball on screen ads, this is a true tribute to the old "grindhouse" films. Add in the bogus coming attractions, created by some of Hollywood’s best horror film directors, and the dark comedy of “Planet Terror” and the action adventure of “Death Proof” combine to make for one wild ride that is everything you’d expect from these two masters of modern cinema.
Actress Rose McGowan is the obvious scene stealer in both films, but her role as Cherry in “Planet Terror” is a career-defining character, a go-go dancer who loses a leg, only to have it replaced by a machine gun and rocket launcher and blow away several hundred yucky, slimy zombies. More fun than a barrel of saws.
I remember thinking Tarantino was out of his pop-culture-obsessed ever loving mind when Pulp Fiction first hit the silver screen. This one makes Pulp Fiction look like Son of Flubber. Tarantino, as always, appears in cameos in both films to great effect, and the whole 3-hour plus epic is one of the most creative films to hit the screen since Frank Miller’s Sin City. If you like zombies, hot chicks, gore, hot muscle cars and sick humor, Grindhouse is all for you. It’s one insane film that will never be described as “the feel good hit of the year.”
Shot in Austin, Texas and Lebanon, Tennessee. No wonder I like it so much. Five out of five stars.
Keep it Real. Keep it Southern.
Buffalo
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