When the anthology Grindhouse came out last year, my friend Dan and I had a little bit of a mini-debate on the relative merits of Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. Dan took Rodriguez and I took Tarantino. If you take a look at this previous post, I laid out the likely merits of my case. Mind you , neither of us had seen the movie at that point.
Grindhouse is one long movie, containing two feature-length films and a handful of trailers. Each feature was issued separately on DVD. I purchased them, but hadn’t gotten around to watching them. Recently, the theatrical version of Grindhouse appeared on Starz, so I sat down to view it.
As I had suspected, the whole thing is pretty clunky. Part of this is based on intent: If you set out to mimic a set of flawed movies, you’re probably going to make a flawed movie. In addition, if you set out to parody or pay homage, it can be difficult to create something of originality. As I pointed out, Rodriguez seems content to make simple genre films, while Tarantino seems incapable of making a straight genre flick.
I also watched the first hour of the uncut DVD version of Planet Terror with Rodriguez’s commentary and a few things became apparent. The theatrical version got cut down too much. There are a few transitional bits in the longer version that made the story work better. It’s also clear that Rodriguez winged the story. For example, I really hated the early crucial stand-off at a military base. The writing felt sloppy: Bruce Willis’ first line is “Where’s the shit?” The plot points seemed confusing. In his commentary, Rodriguez admits that he’s had the scene for a while and kept trying to find ways to stick it in his movie. The plot also gets excessively silly a few times, such as when the character of Wray rides a pocket bike (a kind of miniature motorcycle).
The last few years have shown that it’s possible to make intelligent zombie movies, so I was disappointed that the creatures weren’t used well in Planet Terror. A couple times they rip out their victim’s brains, but not on a consistent basis. In contrast, it’s clearly established in Return of the Living Dead that the zombies seek to eat the brains of the living. Sometimes our heroes in Planet Terror have to shoot a zombie in the head to kill it, but the “sickos” are sometimes dropped by being stabbed or shot elsewhere.
On the other hand, Planet Terror is structured like a conventional horror movie, so I can understand why that approach might be preferable to the route Tarantino took in Death Proof. He does a twist on a slasher movie when, instead of watching a victim stalked for about 5-10 minutes before she’s killed, she hangs out with her pursuer for 40 minutes and they make small talk first. This also means that instead of seeing a series of killings, you only get two attempts, only one of which is successful.
It also feels like Tarantino does the same exact plot twice, taking two different approaches. The first time, a group of women are stalked and killed and the whole thing ends as tragedy. Even though it’s set in present-day Austin, it feels like the Seventies. In the second version, the group of women work in the film business. Their whole attitude seems more contemporary and they’re certainly strong independent gals. They not only work in film, but also talk about the movies, especially those with car stunts. They seem so aware of the conventions of films that they’re able to recognize the situation they’re in and seize control of the situation and take control. The very ending of the movie, when they catch the villain, comes across as a too-abrupt jump into the universe of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! On the other, it feels a lot like the phony tidy endings one often sees in the cinema.
(Can I mention in passing that, even though it’s a strong cast, that New Zealand stuntwoman and actress Zoë Bell practically steals the whole damn thing?)
So, I still respect both these directors, but Grindhouse was just a diversion. Back to work, men.
Tags: Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, Grindhouse