Grindhouse

[ScottotD]

So you don't disagree with the premise you just think Robert didn't follow it?  I'm not sure a tribute has to be made in the same way as the origionals but I can see your point. 

On the other hand, Quentin's movie seemed to follow the 70's theme and low budget feel pretty well but I had trouble actually watching the whole thing from start to finish despite Kurt Russel being in it.

[Chaos]

On the other hand, Quentin's movie seemed to follow the 70's theme and low budget feel pretty well but I had trouble actually watching the whole thing from start to finish despite Kurt Russel being in it.

That's probably at least partially because it was fucking boring and stupid, though. Even Kurt Russel can only do so much...

[ScottotD]

On the other hand, Quentin's movie seemed to follow the 70's theme and low budget feel pretty well but I had trouble actually watching the whole thing from start to finish despite Kurt Russel being in it.

That's probably at least partially because it was fucking boring and stupid, though. Even Kurt Russel can only do so much...

That's what I was saying, Death Proof DID stick to the fairly vauge premise but I found it really boring (which I honestly didn't expect to ever feel about one of his movies) whereas I loooove Planet Terror so I'm not that bothered Robert coloured outside the lines a bit.

[Petey Wheatstraw]

I still disagree with the general concept. Only Quentin's movie was remotely similar to anything made in the 70s, and then only barely. Neither of them were a tribute to grindhouse movies, they were just shown like grindhouse movies. I don't understand the point of adding grain and cigarette burns and missing dialogue and missing scenes when the movies are clearly set in the present day. Cellphones abound. What does this mean? The movie fell through a time warp into the 70s and then sat around for a few decades before they released it with no restoration? I mean if it was a 70s movie being shown in the 70s then it would look new, not old. The whole thing was a half-assed experiment. If they kept anything, it was the aesthetic of making a cheap film that nobody cared about and making it quickly. But I mean, there never was a movie like Planet Terror. It doesn't make sense to pretend it's somehow nostalgic. If you saw that movie in the 70s, your head would have exploded.

The idea is not that these are movies from the '70s being shown in the '70s. The idea is that grindhouse theaters are still around. And if you paid attention to anything Rodriguez and Tarantino said, movies shown in grindhouses most certainly did not look "new," as you say. These prints were supposed to look like they've been shipped from theater to theater to the point where one theater gets this print that's been stitched together like Frankenstein's monster, and one sequence is missing color, another is dusty, a few people put their cigarettes out on the print, and, in this theater, an entire reel is even missing! And the studio fucked up so badly that they couldn't even restore those scenes when the movie was released on DVD, and it took them longer to find a clean print for the Blu-ray release (remember, we're talking about an alternate reality in which grindhouses still exist). That's the whole idea, not an attempt to make it look like two '70s films that are being reissued.

As for your comment about the films not being anything like actual grindhouse movies: that was the point. They wanted to come up with ideas that they could fit on a poster, then make films that actually delivered what the posters promised. This was specifically a reaction to terrible films with great posters that had absolutely nothing to do with the movie. You go to a grindhouse, you see a cool looking poster, you buy your ticket, you sit down and the movies are nothing but dialogue with weak action sequences. Here, the movies are as good as the poster.

I don't think that this was a failed experiment. I think that they just made a couple of great movies and released them in an interesting way. This would have been a huge summer hit, but it was released at the wrong date.

[MrTorso]

I don't think that this was a failed experiment. I think that they just made a couple of great movies and released them in an interesting way. This would have been a huge summer hit, but it was released at the wrong date.

That poor release date (easter) and other marketing blunders (wouldn't let an actual GRINDHOUSE exhibit the films) and the majority of theater-going public just didn't get it...

[Petey Wheatstraw]

I don't think that this was a failed experiment. I think that they just made a couple of great movies and released them in an interesting way. This would have been a huge summer hit, but it was released at the wrong date.

That poor release date (easter) and other marketing blunders (wouldn't let an actual GRINDHOUSE exhibit the films) and the majority of theater-going public just didn't get it...

The majority of the theater-going public doesn't have to "get it" when you release it in the summer and run trailers featuring lots of explosions, violence and suggestions of immorality.

[MrTorso]

The fucking Hilary Swank movie The Reaping opened the same weekend and made 3 times as much money.  Grindhouse had way more marketing $$$ behind it which shows that the general movie going audience just didn't "get it".  Which is fine by me. I had a guy try to return a Planet Terror dvd because of the scratches...

[ScottotD]

hahaha, did you ask him if he'd adjusted the tracking?

[Petey Wheatstraw]

The fucking Hilary Swank movie The Reaping opened the same weekend and made 3 times as much money.  Grindhouse had way more marketing $$$ behind it which shows that the general movie going audience just didn't "get it".  Which is fine by me. I had a guy try to return a Planet Terror dvd because of the scratches...

The Reaping was released a day before Grindhouse, so it had the advantage to make more money, first off. Secondly, the Easter weekend revenue largely went to light comedies and family oriented films, and The Reaping seems to have made money because of the story's religious themes. There's no concept that would override the main element of why Grindhouse would be commercially viable: the promise of two action-packed films from big-name directors. And even if some people were not clear on the fact that it was two films, they would still be drawn in by the titillation of violence, sex and hardcore thrills.

[MrTorso]

hahaha, did you ask him if he'd adjusted the tracking?

I should have!

[bratpop]

So you don't disagree with the premise you just think Robert didn't follow it?

The premise was great, at least for a Tarantino fan. Robert is a little too off-book and innovative to stay faithful to a style of filmmaking other than his own. But neither of them really did an homage to anything but the idea of of a double-feature. Quentin's movie was unconventional to say the least. It was two movies that weren't even the same style. One was Tarantino conversations followed by a horrific car crash. The other was Tarantino conversations followed by a sunny car battle.

You'd think with how in love with all the grindhouse films they were, and the fact that it was all a whim, they would have done a blaxploitation flick and a kung fu movie, or a real slasher movie, etc. I don't think they had to try to be so original. The draw was you get to see two movies for the price of one. They were never going to get money from non-fans anyway.

[dalem]

I don't know nuthin' 'bout birthin' no Grindhouses.

But I do know that someone f*cked with the wrong Mexican.

-dale

[mrbasehart]

So you don't disagree with the premise you just think Robert didn't follow it?

The premise was great, at least for a Tarantino fan. Robert is a little too off-book and innovative to stay faithful to a style of filmmaking other than his own. But neither of them really did an homage to anything but the idea of of a double-feature. Quentin's movie was unconventional to say the least. It was two movies that weren't even the same style. One was Tarantino conversations followed by a horrific car crash. The other was Tarantino conversations followed by a sunny car battle.

I like to think that Quentin either remade or sequelized Death Proof in the same movie.  And I found Planet Terror to be kinda boring, to be honest.

[pyro]

So you don't disagree with the premise you just think Robert didn't follow it?

The premise was great, at least for a Tarantino fan. Robert is a little too off-book and innovative to stay faithful to a style of filmmaking other than his own. But neither of them really did an homage to anything but the idea of of a double-feature. Quentin's movie was unconventional to say the least. It was two movies that weren't even the same style. One was Tarantino conversations followed by a horrific car crash. The other was Tarantino conversations followed by a sunny car battle.

You'd think with how in love with all the grindhouse films they were, and the fact that it was all a whim, they would have done a blaxploitation flick and a kung fu movie, or a real slasher movie, etc. I don't think they had to try to be so original. The draw was you get to see two movies for the price of one. They were never going to get money from non-fans anyway.

Problem is that Quentin already did blaxploitation and sort of touched on kung fu.... 



And I was going to say I have trouble labeling Robert Rodriguez as a big director now days but forgot Sin City and then saw on IMDB that Once Upon a Time in Mexico was only 5 years ago....  Maybe I'm the only one who constantly remembers first in the context of this decade that his biggest output has been 3 Spy Kids movies and then one knockoff of them.

[CM916]

I just finally saw most of this. Anyway, I got the feeling for a while that the point of Death Proof was to annoy you to the point that you wanted Kurt Russel to brutally murder those girls. Perhaps the audience was being exploited? A shame it didn't really work out that way.

I want to see Rob Zombie's fake movie, it actually resembled a real exploitation film.