The Collegian

Issue date: 4/17/07 Section: Detour

Media Credit: Courtesy of moviesonline.ca

Gore and hilarity: not since peanut butter and jelly has there been a marriage so pure and true. At least that is the case in do-it-yourself filmmaker Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror. The film follows a mysterious protagonist (Freddy Rodriguez) named Wray during an unidentifiable yet very familiar plague in a sleepy Texas town. His long-lost love is Cherry (Rose McGowan), a go-go dancer who loses her leg during the zombie chaos. Like any good lover would, Wray replaces her leg with an automatic weapon. Cherry laments she wanted to be a stand-up comedian.
But in a movie like Planet Terror, emotions are second to ass-kicking.
Rodriguez creates a winner by sticking to C-movies' shoddy formula. Zombie disaster movies promise tons of blood and he delivers. Rodriguez understands that over-the-top deaths that keep the crowd cringing are a plus. The comedy is forced and that is precisely why it is funny. Planet Terror sees every movie pitfall and drives toward it at 150 miles per hour with crowd-pleasing results. Rodriguez sensationalizes military weaponry in the Iraq war-true events out of context and in absurdity are a staple of grindhouse flicks.
The hokey plot, campy characters, and bad lines make Planet Terror a planet that should be inhabited.
Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof stars Kurt Russell. Yes, Kurt Russell. But damn if he is not the saving grace of an otherwise plodding movie.
Tarantino became known for his bad mother f-er style and witty conversational dialogue. And boy, doesn't he want to remind you of that for the duration of an entire movie. Stuntman Mike (Russell) photographs local Texan beauties and stalks them so he can murder them with his 1971 Chevy Nova stunt car (Side note: Apparently, every girl in Texas is an absolute prize and barefoot, which I am sure has nothing to do with Tarantino's foot fetish). A movie with a car so fast has never felt so slow.
Stuntman Mike does not appear until the movie has already degenerated into a bore. By the time he begins his murder spree, Death Proof needs a Hail Mary. The action scenes (all two) are separated by verbose sparring sessions of dialogue that fail to capture Tarantino's linguistic magic. It is watching Tarantino mimic himself.
However, when the action arrives there is a huge payoff. The car chase scenes are on par with Tarantino's best. If Tarantino had avoided his ego long enough to make the movie truly action-packed, Death Proof would have been the coolest movie of the year.
Maybe Death Proof's slow pacing is not Tarantino's fault. It is Rodriguez's fault. Rodriguez created a true exploitation film that lived up to Death Proof's tagline: "a white-hot juggernaut at 200 miles per hour." Tarantino took a methodical approach that has its payoffs, but not enough to live up to Planet Terror. Grindhouse plays Planet Terror first, which really hurts Death Proof's dialogue-driven script.
Grindhouse is nostalgic for unpleasant movie experiences. The fake movie trailers for Machete by Robert Rodriguez (now planned to be a feature film), Werewolf Women of the S.S. by Rob Zombie, Don't by Edgar Wright, and Thanksgiving by Eli Roth push the poor man's 1970's feel over the edge. If you have the opportunity to watch Grindhouse in a grimy, potentially-dangerous theatre, do it. Round out the experience.

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