2008 Woodie Awards
Welcome to the Grindhouse
Carly Perrin
Issue date: 4/20/07 Section: Features
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A one-legged ex-go-go dancing Rose McGowan, a zombiefied Bruce Willis, and a sociopathic stuntman Kurt Russell, oh my. We are not in Kansas anymore; we are at "Grindhouse," the new movie with a classically worn style by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez.
Tarantino explains the idea behind the movie's aesthetically gritty and over-the-top edge in the short documentary, "Welcome to the Grindhouse:" "In grindhouse (basically the equivalent of urban drive-ins) films, you never knew what you were going to see. It was raw, it was off the hook, sexuality was wild."
Rodriguez said, in the same documentary, "Because there was so few prints made that explains why the films were so scratched up, worn out, and scenes being chopped out before anyone was able to see them."
Though the worn-out effects in "Grindhouse" were digitally added, the result is the same. They distance the audience and allow them to enjoy the potentially frightening carnage carnival that is the double feature, which, if the movie had taken itself seriously, would have been too much to bear.
Warning should be given to those who do not like zombies, muscle cars, Rosario Dawson, decapitation, bad mini-bike-riding guys called El Wray (yes, this is an allusion to the guy who played El Mariachi in one of Rodriguez' earlier works), cute girls in cheerleading outfits, a lap-dancing Butterfly and excessive amounts of violence. If this is the case, I would suggest that you go see "The Last Mimzy" or "TMNT," which are not likely to have any of these things.
But, if you do not have a strong aversion to the elements listed above, you are going to be having one fast and eventful stay at the "Grindhouse."
In the first feature, "Planet Terror," Bruce Willis plays an Army commander called Muldoon, who unleashes an airborne toxic chemical substance that turns people into pulsating pustule-infested flesh eaters, who manage to be less scary than some of the other supposedly human characters.
Tarantino explains the idea behind the movie's aesthetically gritty and over-the-top edge in the short documentary, "Welcome to the Grindhouse:" "In grindhouse (basically the equivalent of urban drive-ins) films, you never knew what you were going to see. It was raw, it was off the hook, sexuality was wild."
Rodriguez said, in the same documentary, "Because there was so few prints made that explains why the films were so scratched up, worn out, and scenes being chopped out before anyone was able to see them."
Though the worn-out effects in "Grindhouse" were digitally added, the result is the same. They distance the audience and allow them to enjoy the potentially frightening carnage carnival that is the double feature, which, if the movie had taken itself seriously, would have been too much to bear.
Warning should be given to those who do not like zombies, muscle cars, Rosario Dawson, decapitation, bad mini-bike-riding guys called El Wray (yes, this is an allusion to the guy who played El Mariachi in one of Rodriguez' earlier works), cute girls in cheerleading outfits, a lap-dancing Butterfly and excessive amounts of violence. If this is the case, I would suggest that you go see "The Last Mimzy" or "TMNT," which are not likely to have any of these things.
But, if you do not have a strong aversion to the elements listed above, you are going to be having one fast and eventful stay at the "Grindhouse."
In the first feature, "Planet Terror," Bruce Willis plays an Army commander called Muldoon, who unleashes an airborne toxic chemical substance that turns people into pulsating pustule-infested flesh eaters, who manage to be less scary than some of the other supposedly human characters.
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