Grindhouse

[Petey Wheatstraw]

Mark, Mark, Mark, my friend, you totally didn't get it.  It was SUPPOSED to be a bad movie.  It was a tribute to bad movies.  Movies that I grew up watching and that made MST3K what it was...

I don't understand why every low-budget older film that isn't geared for arthouse audiences is considered a "bad movie." That's absolutely ludicrous. Bad films are films that fail on every level, thus making them mockable. The movies QT and RR are paying tribute to are "B-Movies." The "B" in "B-Movie" does not stand for "Bad," but rather it means that studios would present these kinds of movies on the double bill of something that they feel has more commercial potential. Grindhouses would show double B-movies. B-movies are simply movies that are good, or great, but not art. A zombie film is a B-movie. The Seventh Seal is an "A" movie.

MST3K showed movies that usually weren't entertaining in either way, or entertainment because they were entirely flawed in every way, shape or form, but are unintentionally funny because they are so poorly conceived and made. Not every grindhouse flick is like this. Sure some films have posters that are better than the films themselves, but some films were genuinely good, even if they weren't "art" movies. But they were still good. Save the term "bad movie" for Ed Wood, Coleman Francis, Uwe Boll, and whoever the hell directed Are We Done Yet? - grindhouse flicks are "B" movies.

[MarkAndrew]

Mark, Mark, Mark, my friend, you totally didn't get it.  It was SUPPOSED to be a bad movie.  It was a tribute to bad movies.  Movies that I grew up watching and that made MST3K what it was...

THE CHICK HAD A FRIGGIN GUN FOR A LEG!!!!  There's your Academy Award right there!

I know, I know they made an homage to bad movies...and that's what they did.  They made bad movies, and I paid 8:50 to watch a bad movie.  I just think that if you want to make a genre movie, why not do it right?  Why remove entire reels that contain important plot points?  As a private joke??? 

Oy, I guess I just didn't find the private joke funny. 

The trailers, I get the joke there, and I enjoy it, because it's just a trailer, but 3 hours of an inside joke...it's like I'm watching the Star Wars prequels all over again.

:-)

[RandyMistie]

Well, yeah, I mean, it's all relative.  I wasn't saying you SHOULD like it just cuz I did... I was joking.

And Issac, stop with the super microscopic hair splitting and semantic slams.  I used a general term because I was super drunk off my ass.  Don't crucify me for it.  NOT ON EASTER!!!

NOT ON EASTER.... *sob*

[Petey Wheatstraw]

I'm not. Just explaining that there's a difference.

Folks, don't take every post I make as being me screaming at the person I respond to.

[RandyMistie]

I'm not. Just explaining that there's a difference.

Folks, don't take every post I make as being me screaming at the person I respond to.

hehe!  What you should have said there is that I posted AFTER Easter and I got no earthly right to still be drunk the next Monday.  Then you REALLY would have put me in my place...

Come to think of it. I really do have no earthly right to be drunk the day after Easter.... I should be ashamed of myself...  well, maybe I'll just drink to get over it.

We're cool, Issac, no worries... I respect your smarts!

[gbeenie]

I am really shocked that "Grindhouse" didn't do better at the box office.  Apparently it did pretty badly!  According to Rottentomatoes it was because of a negative reaction by women, but damn!  I really thought it would rule this weekend!  My wife was pretty typical, in that she thought it was stupid, so I had to go with a guy friend of mine... but... what the hell, girls???!!!

Don't look at me, man. The group of five I went with yesterday was 80% female.

[RandyMistie]

I am really shocked that "Grindhouse" didn't do better at the box office.  Apparently it did pretty badly!  According to Rottentomatoes it was because of a negative reaction by women, but damn!  I really thought it would rule this weekend!  My wife was pretty typical, in that she thought it was stupid, so I had to go with a guy friend of mine... but... what the hell, girls???!!!

Don't look at me, man. The group of five I went with yesterday was 80% female.

LOL!!!  Yeah I hear, ya, Beenie!  Studies show that it's usually women that decide the movie, so that's where I was coming from.  But, you know I was just joking, right?  The last thing I would ever want to do is offend you.  As I was typing this crap I was thinking, "I hope all this crap doesn't offend Beenie..."

[gbeenie]

Keep in mind that the movie's length limits the number of times it can be shown in a day. My theatre only had four shows a day this weekend (cut back to three now that spring break is over), compared to SEVEN for each of the other releases in the top four, and that affects how much money it CAN make. Its per-screen was $4417; if you figure the number of possible showings versus the others, it's very likely that, PER SHOWING (which they don't count), it sold more than any of the others.

[gbeenie]

Family Comedies are always gonna do better than ultra-violent flicks. Grindhouse excludes certain demographics and "Are We Done Yet" doesn't. :^)

Didn't we just see that assertion disproved a few weeks ago with 300? In your FACE, Michael Medved!

[gbeenie]

Well, yeah, I mean, it's all relative.  I wasn't saying you SHOULD like it just cuz I did... I was joking.

And Issac, stop with the super microscopic hair splitting and semantic slams.  I used a general term because I was super drunk off my ass.  Don't crucify me for it.  NOT ON EASTER!!!

NOT ON EASTER.... *sob*

That gives me a great idea for an Easter prank: next year, on Easter, go to your local home-improvement store, stand on the nail aisle, and just start crying REALLY loudly.

[gbeenie]

I am really shocked that "Grindhouse" didn't do better at the box office.  Apparently it did pretty badly!  According to Rottentomatoes it was because of a negative reaction by women, but damn!  I really thought it would rule this weekend!  My wife was pretty typical, in that she thought it was stupid, so I had to go with a guy friend of mine... but... what the hell, girls???!!!

Don't look at me, man. The group of five I went with yesterday was 80% female.

LOL!!!  Yeah I hear, ya, Beenie!  Studies show that it's usually women that decide the movie, so that's where I was coming from.  But, you know I was just joking, right?  The last thing I would ever want to do is offend you.  As I was typing this crap I was thinking, "I hope all this crap doesn't offend Beenie..."

No worries. I LOVE the fact that we finally get a female revenge fantasy in mainstream film that isn't a "wacky, screwball comedy."

[Sinflux]

Luckily I had read reviews of Grindhouse before going this weekend.  I loved Planet Terror and the fake previews but I almost walked out during Death Proof (I'd never done that before) but people said that it all payed off in the last 30 minutes so I stayed.  I'm glad I did seeing Kurt Russell get the shit kicked out of him was well worth it :p

Also, right after Planet Terror a lot of people left in my showing too.  Including a woman with three 8-10 year old kids (wtf?)

[Just Some Guy]

Keep in mind that the movie's length limits the number of times it can be shown in a day. My theatre only had four shows a day this weekend (cut back to three now that spring break is over), compared to SEVEN for each of the other releases in the top four, and that affects how much money it CAN make. Its per-screen was $4417; if you figure the number of possible showings versus the others, it's very likely that, PER SHOWING (which they don't count), it sold more than any of the others.

The running time could explain a 20% discrepancy (one show's worth) but think about Titanic which had a similar running time and was the top grossing film each week for three months.  Not that I thought that Grindhouse would do Titanic numbers, just that blaming the running time for such a huge difference is disingenuous.  Anyone who wanted to see the movie could get in to see one of those shows; having an extra one wouldn't have sold any more tickets.

It comes down to the fact that Grindhouse is a movie with a very limited audience, it happens that pretty much 90% of us on this board happen to fall into that audience due to our love of certain styles of movies.  Finding people outside of here who could appreciate Rodriguez's monument to schlock film making or Tarantino's women's revenge/car chase epic would be difficult.

Finally, FWIW, I think Death Proof was just as true to the exploitation film form as Planet Terror was, but Tarantino's script was too weak to hold interest during those lengthy girl talk sequences.  The women were all exceptionally unlikable to me and it damaged his film, but at the same time I've seen that kind of plotting and writing in other exploitation films.  I think Tarantino would have been better served by going for the idealized form of his style of exploitation film (which is what Rodriguez appeared to be doing) rather than the actual.

[RandyMistie]

Huh?

[pyro]

From http://imdb.com/chart/:

USA Weekend Box-Office Summary
6 April 2007 (Sunday Estimates)
Rank Title Weekend Gross
1. Blades of Glory (2007) $23M $68.4M
2. Meet the Robinsons (2007) $17M $52.2M
3. Are We Done Yet? (2007) $15M $19.1M
4. Grindhouse (2007) $11.6M $11.6M



The hell?

better cult status when it leaves theaters