GRINDHOUSE

Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Dimension Films
Grade: B-
Directed by: Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez
Written By: Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino
Cast: Rose McGowan, Freddy Rodriguez, Josh Brolin, Marley Shelton, Jeff Fahey, Michael Biehn,
Naveen Andrews, Stacy Ferguson, Nicky Katt, Hung Nguyen, Tom Savini, Carlos Gallardo, Electra
Isabel Avellan, Quentin Tarantino, Michael Parks, Kurt Russell, Rosario Dawson, Vanessa Ferlito,
Jordan Ladd, Tracie Thoms, Mary Elizabeth Winstead
Screened at: City Cinemas Village East, NYC, 3/30/07
Opens: April 6, 2007

By way of introduction (courtesy Wikipedia), grindhouse is an American term for a theater that showed
exploitation films, non-stop programs of B movies–double features where two films were shown back to
back. Many inner-city theaters featured burlesque shows, bump-and-grind dancing--therefore the term
grind-house. In the sixties and especially the seventies, these theaters featured explicit sex, violence,
bizarre plots, and pornography. By 1995, these theaters disappeared from the U.S..

The current movie, "Grindhouse," includes flasher films and simulated negative scratches and clipped
dialogue to recreate the feeling that the print is worn, just like the prints of many grindhouse films during
the seventies. The double feature including some mock trailers are a tribute from Robert Rodriguez and
Quentin Tarantino, the "coming attractions" evoking more laughs per minute from the audience than the
features, the latter holding court at ninety minutes each. At the screening I attended, in which every seat
at New York Village East Cinemas large screening room was filled, not a single attendee bolted after the
initial feature. Feature one was Mr. Rodriguez's "Planet Terror," followed without intermission by Mr.
Tarantino's "Death Proof." While both pay homage to the exploitation pics from the 1970s, the two are
quite different thematically: the first is a zombie film, which might be appreciated by those who like
movies about the undead (which I decidedly do not, not even the satiric ones that tell us with a wink and
a nod that, "hey guys, we're only showing you that all the people of the British Isles are really undead"),
while the second features quite an exciting car chase cum revenge actioner, a subgenre of which I am
quite fond.

"Planet Terror" opens in a go-go bar around the small Texan capital of Austin, but the ugly action begins
in a hospital run by Dr. William Block (Josh Brolin) and his wife Dakota (Marley Shelton). Patients begin
to inundate the halls with ugly wounds, not the least being that of go-go dancer Cherry (Rose McGowan)
whose leg was lost during a melee but who is prompted by the aggressive Wray (Freddy Rodriguez) to
snap out of her funk and get revenge against the grossly infected killers. Wray strips away her
makeshift wooden leg, substituting a machine gun, which she uses to waste dozens of the undead by
shifting her limb parallel to the ground and firing away. Survivors head for a chopper.

In "Death Proof," Tarantino makes us wade through quite a bit of raunchy dialogue of some young
women in a bar, signifying to the audience that the director is making a women's movie. If revenge is
going to be taken, it will be by the fair sex, and it will be against Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell).
Stuntman, sporting a deep scar from the top of his forehead on the left side down to his chin, pays rapt
attention to what the young women are saying, and is happy to offer one a lift. Big mistake. Post
"accident," we switch to what is almost a second movie as four new women played by Zoe Bell, Mary
Elizabeth Winstead, Tracie Thoms and Rosario Dawson, will be the agents of revenge. They are not
exactly choir girls, having, in effect, stolen a car themselves. Ms. Bell, a New Zealand stunt woman by
trade, performs an amazing acrobatic feat on the hood of a speeding 1970 vehicle while Tarantino
directs one of the snazziest chase scenes on record, making "Death Proof" the superior of the two films.

Rated R. 191 minutes (c) 2007 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online