welcome... to the grindhouse

Grindhouse




* * * * 1/2



When you hear that Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino are making a movie, but they're going to mash them together on one bill, and get some friends to make some fake trailers that play around either feature, one can't help but get excited.

When I think about this movie as a whole, I find it hard to review the movie and end up reviewing the entire experience. Because its the overall experience of sitting in the movie theatre for three plus hours, watching the most ridiculous thing you've ever seen and loving it, that makes Grindhouse so much fun.

The movie starts with a bang with the Robert Rodriguez-directed trailer for a movie called Machete (which looks like a complete riot) and then blazes into Rodriguez's Planet Terror: a 80's inspired schlock-fest. There's explosions, great one-liners, a girl with a machine gun leg and the biggest squibs you've ever seen. The acting is bad, the gore excessive and the fun factor is at least a 10.

After Planet Terror, we're treated to three fake trailers. One, for Rob Zombie's Werewolf Women of the SS (a Nazi-werewolf movie), Edgar Wright's Don't (a hilarious trailer) and Eli Roth's Thanksgiving (the one with the best tag line: White meat. Dark meat. All will be carved). I found myself laughing so hard at these trailers, that I completely missed Nicholas Cage's one line in the Rob Zombie trailer.

Lastly, we move into Tarantino's Death Proof, a road-rage story that oozes 70s cheese. This one is obviously a Tarantino movie for the dialogue alone. It moves from dialogue to car chase. I felt that comparing the two, Death Proof was the weaker of the films, but not by much. Each was entertaining in its own right.

As I said earlier, I'm basing my review on the entire experience of seeing this movie in the theatre. I found myself laughing for almost three straight hours, and when I wasn't laughing, I had a big grin on my face. This movie is a must-see, especially if you love b-grade, or "grindhouse" cinema. Highly recommended!!