Movies I Watched Instead of Writing: Grindhouse

WARNING: CONTAINS MASSIVE SPOILERS & WHINY RANTING

Being that I’ve been running a monthly series of trash film double bills, inspired by the festival circuit and the old grindhouse era, it was pretty much a requirement that I see this film. Or these films, as a couple of our buddies figured out after three hours on their butts.

Now, it would be pretty easy to sit back and be all jaded about this project. Let’s face it, Tarantino isn’t exactly known as Mr. Original and I’m slowly learning that I’m actually only a little bit behind him on the trendy curve. Rodriguez I’ve regarded as consistently fresher, but his insistence on doing everything himself had resulted in a couple of sloppy outings (Spy Kids 3D & Once Upon a Time in Mexico, I’m looking at you) recently. However, I really liked Grindhouse. It did everything I wanted it to, it played to the audience and it made going to the movies an event. Even the fake trailers in between the films were super fun. It’s a tribute to an era and it manages to take what each director loved about that era and craft it into something distinctly theirs.

In many ways I feel that Rodriguez was more successful than Tarantino in this endeavor. He wore his influences on his sleeve, with hard boiled characters and pitch-perfect acting. His offering, Planet Terror, clips along at the breakneck pace Rodriguez is known for, but he still has time to introduce us to a great array of oddball characters and somehow manages to build sympathy for them. It’s heavy on the gross-out, but has a ludicrously endearing love story. It’s filled with jaw dropping performances, from Jeff Fehey to Josh Brolin to especially Rose McGowan. Freddy Rodriguez is an unlikely but wholly convincing action star and Michael Parks kicks fucking ass.

Death Proof on the other hand, spends so much time smashing you over the head with the fact that it’s a “Quentin Tarantino Movie” that the mood he managed to create was sadly overshadowed for me. I say sadly because, (and this is probably one of the more embarrassing things I will ever admit to the internets,) the teenage me adored him to the point where I had actually constructed a Q.T. mini-shrine in my high-school agenda planner. The other thing that is sad about my reaction to the Quentin film is that because he played it straighter, instead of loading on the one-liners and gore, he had the opportunity to make a truly great piece of trash. But no, it became the “I-think-Austin-is-cool-I-know-lots-about-old-movies-and-TV-shows-oh-and-did-you-know-I-like-UK-garage-now-Quentin-fucking-Tarantino-show”. The car chase at the end did kick fucking ass, though.

Really, what it came down to for me were the characters. While Rodriguez did play it more tongue in cheek, he created characters you could root for, even if everything was painted so broadly you couldn’t really identify with anybody. The only person I wanted to identify with in Death Proof was Stuntman Mike, but his smug swagger disappeared halfway through the film and we were left with nothing but another group of self-involved girls. I don’t care if one group was the hunted and one was the hunters. Same loudmouthed pretentious bitches, different pile.

I want to say something here about misogyny, but I know I have to be very careful because accusing a film of being misogynist can be a very reactionary thing to do. When you are dealing with a film about a man who stalks and murders women, misogyny just kind of goes with the territory. The story wouldn’t work as well without the objectification and subjugation of women and trust me; I am the last person to go on a feminist rant about a movie like this. However, as ballsy as Mr. Tarantino wants to think he is, in Death Proof it felt half-assessed and irresponsible. I understand that by having a group of chicks turn the tables on the lady killer he was trying to excuse his earlier glamourization of brutality against women. This despite the fact that our “heroines” leave one of their own (albeit not a bright one) to get raped so that they can go out joyriding. Okay, so that might be a stretch. At no point is it made explicit that chicky-poo in the cheerleaders outfit is going to get raped. But if it had really been a grindhouse exploitation film, she would have been. That is my point.

My other point is that if you are going to have male stomping she-heroines, make them interesting. I’m talking Tura Satana style psycho-cool. While the decision to kill stuntman Mike was startling and rewarding for the audience, it really didn’t make a lick of sense. Especially when their friend is back at the farm house getting raped, something they seem to have invited. Or maybe Rosario Dawson’s character was supposed to be a sadistic bitch that uses her perky persona to goad her friends into devious acts. Or maybe they’re all stupid.

The thing is if you take out all of the annoying “Tarantino-isms” and half-hearted misogyny I probably would have liked Death Proof even more than Planet Fear. Too bad Tarantino is coasting on pop-culture references and borrowed cool to the point of self parody.

Which brings me to my other big complaint about the films: where were the boobies?! At least there were some in the trailers, but real exploitation has ‘splosions and T&A! Hollywood pussies.