Grindhouse
“Grindhouse” offers two movies for the price of one. Sadly, one of them stinks. Directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino pay passionate homage to the low-budget genre movies that played in sticky, decaying urban theaters in the 60s and 70s. But only Rodriguez remembers that he’s also trying to entertain contemporary moviegoers in soulless suburban multiplexes. “Grindhouse” gets off to a rip-roaring start with Rodriguez’s feature, “Planet Terror,” a tongue-in-cheek zombie movie with bountiful wit and gory action. He builds teasingly toward the iconic image of Rose McGowan as a go-go dancer with a machine gun attached to the stump of her severed leg. You know it’s wrong, but you can’t look away: That’s the soul of exploitation cinema. After three uproarious mock trailers by Rob Zombie, Eli Roth and Edgar Wright, “Grindhouse” quickly grinds to a halt with Tarantino’s contribution, “Death Proof.” He stages 80 minutes of inane blather punctuated by impressive but spectacularly arbitrary car chases. Tarantino apologists will argue that “Death Proof” is supposed to be boring, because he’s doing what real grindhouse moviemakers did – marking time so he can blow the whole budget on action and stunts. But I think he’s just indulging his obsessions and betraying a casual disdain for viewers who weren’t lucky enough to grow up near a theater that showed the movies he loves. He’s annoyingly insistent: Yes, that’s a real car, and yes, that’s a real stuntwoman riding on the hood. But no, Quentin, I don’t care.
LISTEN: Grindhouse