I appreciate the artistry of Tarantino’s long takes with the floating-camera-’round-table-while-people-eat trick he does so well, but what does this pay homage to other than his other work? I thought the ‘Grindhouse’ was supposed to be a send-up of all of those shitty movies Fred loves so much. I think Rodriguez turned in his homework assignment for an A+ while Tarantino lost his way somewhere in the process. With that being said, I loved both films anyway!

P.S.-For the sake of the entire experience, ‘Planet Terror’ should have followed ‘Death Proof’.

“Salo” may be the greatest film ever made. That’s a documented fact about which there can be no question.

Finally, Tim someday you and I will escape together and spend endless days and nights on an island where our true love can express itself and we will be fullfilled as no other men have been fullfilled. Someday …

usually it’s:

“working”

“sorry. can’t”

or

(no reply)

Basically, it’s come to this: insult a movie he enjoys in order to get bonafide interaction? Well, “SALO” SUCKS SUCKAH!

I’m just giving you shit, Fred. Though, we all do miss you.

Hi Don! I’m about to join you in the world of Fatherhood.

Now, I don’t know if it devalues a work if you have to have seen something else to enjoy it. I’ll let stunted man-children with no sense of humanity debate that particular fucking issue. All I know is: I’ve seen “Vanishing Point,” “The Swinging Cheerleaders,” “Faster Pussycat … Kill Kill Kill” “Dirty Mary Crazy Larry,” “Movie Movie,” “Two Lane Blacktop,” “Macon County,” “Return to Macon County.” (Look, I’ve seen a lot of crappy movies, okay. Last night I watched something called “Baron Blood” by Mario Bava and thought it was great.) Anyway, I have a great love for those films and watching “Death Proof” you can tell the filmmaker loves those movies too. Especially “Macon County” which is just a weird meandering movie. And so is “Death Proof.” It’s just weird, man.

When grindhouse movies were weird it was because they were made in a hurry or had no money or because they were made by inept directors (like Ed Wood etc) but sometimes it was because an outstanding filmmaker like Larry Cohen was taking advantage of his situation. When that happened you got fantastic things like “God Told Me To” and Tarintino pulls the same trick with “Death Proof.”

“Death Proof” is one of Tarantino’s most unique films and probably the most original thing he’s done since the Palm D’Or winning “Pulp Fiction” By the way, I thought “Kill Bill” was pretty great too. He’s a singular filmmaker who is attuned to all things cinematic and is one of the few filmmakers who understands the language of cinema and how to use it. He’s a crazy bastard. Who makes a movie so weird and full of outlandish shit? It’s a no brainer to say that the final car chase is on par with “The French Connection,” “Bullet,” and Cronenberg’s “Crash.” A particular delight is when the two 70s cars join the freeway filled with minivans, SUVs and family sedans as the modern comes crashing into the past.

Beyond the obvious car chase, is the sequence where the camera spins around the coffee table as the second group of women tell the story where Zoe Bell fell down a hill trying to take a picture. In the middle of the scene Stuntman Mike sits out of focus in the background and remains there uncommented on as this figure of impending menace. The whole scene is an unbroken shot (at least six minutes) that is just beautiful to watch on a technical level (especially knowing Tarantino served as his own DP) and on a narrative/suspense level (a textbook example of Hitchcock’s bomb under the table rule.)

For me it’s stuff like this that made the movie a fantastic pleasure. But not everyone has even seen those old crappy movies (and maybe they shouldn’t) or has the same voracious love for cinema in all its forms (especially the slimiest forms) that I have, so they’re not going to like it. And it’s not about not “getting it” or sharing some inside “wink, wink, nudge, nudge” bullshit, ironic joke. It’s not about that. It’s not irony. It’s love. Real fucking love for real fucking movies. This is a goddamn religion. Now get out of my church and rain on someone else’s parade.

And hi Don!

That said, there’s never been anything like Grindhouse in the theaters. Ever.

That part was the most awesome. Planet Terror was good for what it was, and the Tarantino thing was absolute genius*!!!!!

*i define genius as something relentlessly boring and self-indulgent made by stunted man-child with no sense of humanity and absolutely nothing to say about anything and whose latest masturbatory abstractions can only be defended by people who like to use the phrase, “Well, that’s the whole point!” Pure Cinema!