I'll wait for other members to catch up before dealing with spoilers, but I hated this, and I've been looking forward to GRINDHOUSE since it was announced. I can't believe all of the positive reviews this has been getting.

Briefly...

• Rose McGowan was a poor choice. Especially as the lead in PLANET TERROR.

• I don't like Eli Roth, but I thought his bit was the best, and felt the most like he "got it".

• Soooooo much Tarantinoesque talking in DEATH PROOF. Sooooo boring.

• The audience I saw this (Santa Monica) with wasn't impressed at all -- and I'm assuming that we're the target audience. Don't think this will play well in Middle America.

• PLANET TERROR was silly, but fun.

I normally don’t rush off to see films their opening weekend, but I made it to the very first screening of GRINDHOUSE in the whole city. I’m pleased to report that both films live up to the hype. I think the 20 or so people who were at the 10:40 AM screening would agree with me, as the entire audience, in addition to applauding and cheering the whole way through, stayed until the end of the credits, something that I’d never seen before.

The first feature is Rodriguez’s PLANET TERROR. I have to admit I’m not much of a fan of the majority of the director’s previous work, but I think this film is up there with EL MARIACHI as one of his best. It’s a fast paced zombie movie, with gross-out effects galore and enough explosions and gunfights to put PM entertainment to shame. Rodriguez’s brother, Freddy, plays the lead role of El Ray, and to my surprise he was fantastic in the role. In fact, with the notable exception of Tom Savini hamming it up, the entire cast was terrific. There’s a lot of comedy here as well, mainly through the device of characters repeating dialogue that had been spoken to them earlier in the film (think THE BIG LEBOWSKI if you don’t know what I mean.). While the film was great, I have two critiques. Number 1: no boobs. There are all these sexy chicks shooting guns, go-go dancing, and even some hot lesbians, but no one involved with the movie had the good sense to tell any of them to take their tops off. It was like eating a bowl of cereal without milk, gratuitous violence around every corner, but not even a peek of nudity. The second critique is that the PLANET TERROR became too stupid for its own good in a few places, especially toward the end when Rose McGowan got a rocket-launcher leg and was flying through the air. Still, this was a fun movie and would have been worth seeing if it was playing on its own, but fortunately…

The second feature was Quentin Tarantino’s DEATH PROOF, and as good as PLANET TERROR was, this one’s even better. I know that a lot of people who read the screenplay thought it was weak, and if I had only read the script without seeing the movie I would probably agree with them. For the majority of the runtime there’s no plot at all; we just watch seemingly random groups of women hanging out with each other. If DEATH PROOF resembles anything it’s not an exploitation movie, but rather a Cassavetes film. There’s loads of atmosphere and characterization as we follow the girls around and get to know them. Things shift gears, figuratively and literally, in the last act where we are treated with non-stop action scenes. The stuntwork here is masterful, and the ending is brilliant. This may be my favorite Tarantino film, and PULP FICTION is one of my favorite films of all time. The build-up may prove too weird for mainstream fans and critics, and the ending too straightforward for the arthouse set, but for the type of moviegoer that reads genre forums like this one, DEATH PROOF is sure to satisfy.

Along with the movies were several fake trailers and ads. Eli Roth’s THANKSGIVING trailer was the best, and culminates a shot that will drop the jaws of even the most jaded fans of exploitation movies. Still, I don’t think any of these beats the amazing HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN.

This double feature was a fantastic take, and is something Mobians will not want to miss. This write-up was pretty generalized to keep it free of spoilers, but I think these films, particularly DEATH PROOF, are worthy of a lot more detailed discussion. So let's have at it :D

There was one thing about the presentation of GRINDHOUSE that seriously pissed me off. Toward the end of the credits in DEATH PROOF, the film stopped, the house lights went up, and two digitally projected ads were shown on screen. Ads before the movie are bad enough, but in the middle is beyond obnoxious. I've had issues with this theater before, but this is inexcusable. I think I'll call them up and bitch at them.

I'd like to know if anybody else had this happen when they saw GRINDHOUSE. I don't think it's beyond the Weinsteins to recommend something like this, although I'm inclined to blame this particular theater (It's the theater at the Palms Hotel if any other Las Vegans want to join me in harassing them).

Mike, I just made a long post in the cult/exploitation forum about GRINDHOUSE and I thought the movies were great! I thought the "Tarantinoesque talking" did a good job of setting up the action scenes in DEATH PROOF, but I'm petty enough to not want to discuss this in a thread other than the one I started ;). j/k... mostly

[EDIT: This post and Mike's initial post shifted from the Arthouse board and merged into the existing topic here at C&E - Your friendly neighborhood moderators]

I took the day off from work and saw GRINDHOUSE at 11:45 AM with about 50 other fans. Audience response was very positive.

I liked PLANET TERROR much better than DEATH PROOF, which was way too talky for me (I know, What do you expect with the QT?), though the car chase scenes were excellent and that saved the film for me. Stephen Hunter's review in the Washington Post described DEATH PROOF as "a car-chase movie fused with a women's acting workshop." I agree, though I'd've said it "a women's acting workshop movie fused with car-chase scenes."

I'd definitely see PLANET TERROR on its own, can't say the same for DEATH PROOF, but together with the trailers (epsecially MACHETE), the funnest and most enjoyable time I've had in a theatre in a long, long time.

I read somewhere that one of the trailer films is going to actually be released as a feature film. Is it MACHETE? Is this true, did I dream it, or was someone pulling my leg?

Nope. That would have pissed me off too!

I called up the theater, and the manager claims there was a problem with the projection, so the ads came on automatically while they fixed the problem. I'm wondering if perhaps Tarantino and Rodriguez shot in different formats and maybe the reels had to be projected differently (EDIT: the film was stopped in the opening credits). Another possible reason might be that this theater hires chimpanzees as projectionists, as their crappy presentations suggest sub-human intelligence in the booth.

I agree with nearly everything you said here. I think "Planet Terror" was wonderful fun. Perhaps my favorite Rodriguez movie ever. "Death Proof" bogged down too much with the first group, even knowing why it was structured that way, I think it could have been made to work better somehow.

Where is all the love for "Don't", though? As much as I loved "Machete" - and, oh, do I hope you're right about this rumor! - it's only, at best, tied with "Don't" for me for best fake trailer.

MACHETE will be released direct to DVD. It's rumored that other films will be made if there is enough fan interest. How they gauge fan interest I do not know.

DTV? I'd definitely rent all four, if they want to guage my fan interest.

I'd go see Machete and Don't in a theater without a second thought... as with Werewolf Women of the SS, assuming it kept the same cast... with a new cast, I'd go just to support such a wild grindhouse concept being released, in the off-hope it would inspire more of the same, but I wouldn't have my hopes too high. Thanksgiving? I like the trailer, but the joke couldn't hold up, could it? I'd wait for word-of-mouth.

Not his brother. He's not related to him at all, actually. The twins, and the little boy, on the other hand...

I love Danny Trejo and Cheech as a priest, complete class. :wacko: I can't wait!

Of course, Rodriguez did the direct to vido thing with FROM DUSK TO DAWN 2 & 3, though he was the producer and it looks like he'll be directing MACHETE!

MACHETE, MACHETE, MACHETE! I love sayin' that.

I feel just like Jon Voight in MIDNIGHT COWBOY.

"Rico, Rico, Rico!"

Ahhhhhh, the twins. :wub: Gorgeous girls. His sisters, I believe.

I remember seeing them in some of Rodriguez' early efforts, short B&W films, that pre-date EL MARIACHI.

Enjoyed PLANET TERROR... hated DEATH PROOF. Why they had Tarantino's gabfest close out the three hours is beyond me. By the time he got around to actually having something happen, he was too in debt patience-wise with me that I couldn't really get in to it.

That and I was muttering some lines before the actors got around to saying them. It's not that I don't have patience for actors sitting around jabbering at each other... I just want them to have something to say. Or at least be witty.

Or maybe it was self-parody and I just missed that aspect. But at least he stayed true to the grindhouse ethos... all sizzle, not much steak. I don't know if that was a deliberate choice, but there it is.

But PLANET TERROR... oh, yeah. Rodriguez pwned Tarantino.

Some spoilers ahead...




DEATH PROOF: Great "The End" or greatest "The End"?

GRINDHOUSE is the most fun I've had in a theater in a long time. I can't decide which feature I liked better, though why do I need to pick a favorite? I really, really liked Jeff Fahey in this movie. Heck, I never thought I'd see Fahey on the big screen again, and he got such short shrift in the marketing that I figured his role was small. Nope. It's a great, chewy role, and I love the concept of him and Michael Biehn as brothers who don't get along. I really enjoyed filling in their backstories. Fahey also ruled in the MACHETE trailer; he totally nailed that "Where are my wife and children?"

I liked all the fake trailers, MACHETE best of all. Strangely, WEREWOLF WOMEN OF THE SS, which should have been the craziest, came off pretty tame, though I would definitely see the real thing.

Though neither feature is really a grindhouse movie, I appreciated Rodriguez's great lengths to make PLANET TERROR look like one, including the pops and scratches. The "missing reel" gag was perfect, melting out of a sex scene and popping back into a major conflagration and chaos everywhere. That also led the bit with Biehn learning El Wray's "secret identity" (which we never really learn), and the background gags with the extras that tag along with the main characters--extras who just appear out of nowhere, including the lady deputy whose clothes get skimpier and skimpier. Funny stuff.

What was the significance of the crush whom Sydney Poitier kept text-messaging? I started wondering whether she was having an affair with Marley Shelton, but, no, other characters made references to "Christian" as if he were a man. I kept waiting for a plot twist concerning the unseen lover, but it never happened.

I'm dying to know why Mary Elizabeth Winstead was wearing that cheerleading outfit. Not that I'm complaining.

Kurt Russell is so freaking charismatic, it's scary. I can't imagine Mickey Rourke in the role now that I've seen Russell. First off, he's still rocking that mullet, and he's the only guy in the history of the world who has ever looked cool in one. Ever. He really owns the first half of DEATH PROOF, and everything he says and does is three times as interesting as the women are. I was fine with QT's structure, though I agree it was too chatty, and I would have liked more Russell, who was sorely missed in the middle.

I got a big kick out of the original Dimension Pictures logo that QT used ahead of DEATH PROOF. It's too bad Charles Swartz died before he could see it. And I loved the opening titles of both films, particularly the copyright notices, the huge fonts (I miss those), the DeLuxe credit and the MPAA certification, and the DEATH PROOF title, which "replaced" the original title.

I'm happy to see that almost everyone enjoyed GRINDHOUSE as much as I did. I don't expect this film to be a hit, probably topping out at less than $70 million. That's about as much audience as Rodriguez and Tarantino have. I just hope it's enough for GRINDHOUSE 2.

Michael Parks is still the man. The idea of Earl McGraw stumbling into all these different movies cracks me up (five so far?), and Parks' son, who looks exactly like him, plays off him perfectly.

DEATH PROOF had its longeurs, but ultimately, it blew me away, proviing more raw knuckle thrills than any film I've seen in a long, long time. In this context, the first half of it goes on a bit too long, but I suspect that wouldn't be such a problem if it had been released as a feature all by itself, which I almost think it should have been. Yes, the dialogue is arch and meandering, at least where the original set of women is concerned, although I quite liked Butterfly (and really wanted to see her lapdance, dammit). And once Kurt Russell pulls away from the bar with Rose McGowan, there's a mounting sense of dread, leading to a First Big Jolt that's genuinely shocking in a way that nothing before in the two hours before it was (well, except maybe for that cringe-inducing final shot in the THANKSGIVING trailer -- just what the Hell was going on there, anyway?).

Kurt Russell really does own the mid section of the film, but our second quartet (well, trio, really) of heroines proved surprisingly compelling. Tracie Thoms sometimes felt like she SHOULD have been irritating, but she never really bugged me, and ultimately I found myself liking her because Rosario Dawson and Zoe Bell so believably did.

And Zoe Bell! That's some amazing, Hong Kong quality stunt work there, and on top of it, she's a natural and ingratiating actress. To say of the climax of DEATH PROOF that "the chase scene was good" is to do it a major disservice, methinks. I knew a bit of what to expect in advance, and while I really wish I hadn't, I was still bowled over it. The scenes of Bell trapped on the hood of the speeding car were genuinely nerve wracking, in a way that even accomplished stunt work almost never is for me.

I saw the movie with two men and four women. The other two guys liked it quite a bit, although one was a bit horrified at the destruction of the cars (and the other was pissed off at not getting to see the lap dance). But the four women went absolutely berserk during this sequence, the ones on either side of me digging their fingernails into my forearms in a way that would have been painful if I hadn't been so caught up myself.

PLANET TERROR "pwned" DEATH PROOF? I don't think so. Before I write the next paragraph, I want to make it clear that it is NOT directed at Craig, who's just innocently using a distressingly common bit of phraseology.

But I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hatefrigginghate, HATE, haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatttttttttteee than damnable idiotic useless repellent craptastic addle-brained neologism. I dream of caching the little choad who coined it, whomever and wherever he may be, and spending a few hours in a locked room, just me and him and a tire iron. I wouldn't just do the kind of violence that I refer after my SPOILERS below. I wouldn't just break every joint and separate every ligament in his body. I would pound him into pulp, into puree with bone fragments in it, every square inch and pound of him, until he was a smear on the concrete or hardwood, and then I'd piss on it, and then I'd set it on fire. And then I'd find and kill his parents.

Well, okay, not really, and to some degree I'm expressing this kind of hyperbole because the movie still has me keyed up, but boy do I ever hate that term.

Upon leaving the theater, Nikki turned to me and said "Rodriquez had fun, but Tarantino went for the balls!" I had to agree, and if somewhere Rodriquez isn't saying "erm, Quentin, you kind of cheated by making something that GOOD!"

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And yikes, while the very end had the theater around me cheering, and me pretty much with this, was it ever harsh. Usually in chase action films, the villain dies in a fiery crash. I don't think I've ever seen one where the good guys (or this case, the good gals) dragged him out of his crumbled car and beat him to death.

I'll copy and paste this one part again -

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Now, maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but I've heard a couple of similar references, so I'm going to chime in.

My interpretation is that the "second" story takes place first, in the timeline of the story and that the "first" story is actually then Stuntman Mike's retaliation against the "second" set of women by murdering a group that somewhat resembled them.

Am I alone in this take?

I was a bit confused by this myself




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At first I thought the second story was a flashback - of the four girls in the first story - but then I realized that the four girls in the second story were different. The ending, when they smash Stuntman Mike's face, ...well did he die? ... and if it is a flashback, is Stuntman Mike death proof, like the car in the first story, and hence a second meaning (or the primary meaning???) for the title of the film?
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I still find DEATH PROOF too talky for its own good, but the chase scenes were exciting, a movie about people who make movies is cool, and I also dug all the Austin locales, definitely a love poem from QT to Austin, TX.

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I did not pick up on this at all, but if Stuntman Mike does not have a scar on his face during the chase scenes, then I would say you're probably right.

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Actually his face is scarred in both scenes, but who knows what other adventures he's had prior to both scenes. He does mention the scar in the first scene, but not when he got it.

Actually, I didn't innocently use the term. I dislike it myself...about as much as I disliked DEATH PROOF.

I'd like to watch it again to see how my emotions react upon a second viewing, but I must say if nothing else, I loved how QT totally confounded expectations with DEATH PROOF, the pre-release hype promising a nonstop action fest and instead delivering a very daring rebuke to the structure of most action/slasher films. It's like an unholy blending of THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (focusing on girls' lives while killer stays distant until needed), STUNT ROCK (for the simple, unpretentious love of doing stunts), and MASCULINE FEMININE (the long conversations that precede the action sequences).

And as Donn Davison or Dave Friedman would tell you, what's more "Grindhouse" than promising something outrageous and giving you something else entirely? :)

Did anyone else see similarities between PLANET TERROR, and Lenzi's NIGHTMARE CITY?

I'm going by memory here,I saw this Wednesday night, so I may be abit off....





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In the scene where Josh Brolin is about to do his wife in....there's a shelf with some binders on it.....one of them is labelled CITY CONTAMINATION(a nod to the origianl Italian title of the Lenzi film?). The action fast, with the "zombies" being able to use weapons, and run around.....Rodriguez rushing to the hospital to rescue his love interst...kicking mucho zombie a** along the way.

Did anyone else see this, or was I just being affected by my lack of sleep the night before?

Loved PLANET TERROR, found DEATH PROOF a chore to sit through.

I cared about the characters in PLANET. All the actors got it right. They played it straight and then some. Rose McGowan and Marley Shelton surprised the hell out of me. I didn’t think they had it in them to step up to Claudia Jennings’ plate and hit it out of the park. But they did. The movie had a plot and genuine excitement and suspense. I loved the way the film looked. Rodriguez evidently had a plan and stuck to it. I loved the gruesome humor. I laughed a lot. Despite that and the abundant gore, it’s a feel-good movie after all.

Tarantino, on the other hand, proves incredibly mean-spirited. I didn’t care about any of his characters, nor did I care about those friggin’ cars. (And I don’t believe Tarantino cared much either.) And all that witless banter from two sets of profoundly annoying chicks was like chalk screeching on a blackboard. Imagine being stuck in a bar all night and having to listen to drunken rambling from the group on one side of you and dull stories from the group on the other side about who’s boffing the grip on a film set and Zoe falling into a trench. For 90 minutes. And then some deranged cretin calling himself Stuntman Mike comes over and starts telling you stories about doubling for Robert Urich on "Vegas." Now THAT'S what I call "Planet Terror."

But, man, does Rose McGowan stay with me. All she and Marley really needed was a little seasoning. And they wear it well. I’m paying attention now!

I caught Grindhouse last night, and I enjoyed both parts, but my vote for the stronger segment is for Death Proof. I saw it with a pretty sizeable audience, and the ending of Death Proof brought a pretty big round of applause. I thought Planet Terror was enjoyable too. I thought Rodriguez did a good job of giving it a grotty old B-horror movie look, I liked the Carpenter-esque synth music (the music credits reveal that a real Carpenter piece was stuck in there somewhere) and I couldn't help but laugh at the outrageousness of some of the special effects. I thought some of them were almost on the level of something like Brian Yuzna's Society.

A few other rambling thoughts about the movie:

-I thought it was wonderfully ironic that it had a trailer for a fake Rob Zombie movie that looks about 100 times more entertaining than the real Rob Zombie movie that had a trailer in front of Grindhouse (there's not much I'm less interested in than seeing a Halloween retread [other than about 95% of the crappy movies out there whose trailers I have to sit through before seeing a movie])

-I couldn't help but laugh at the way that Quentin doesn't even try to hide his foot fetish in the opening of Death Proof.

-Quentin definitely seems to be a fan of the wonderful Crippled Dick Hot Wax Italo-Crime compilation CD Beretta 70 since a couple of tracks from it show up in Death Proof (and, of course, it also includes the Luis Bacalov track featured prominently in Kill Bill V2). I'm a little surprised that Quentin has yet to use Guido & Maurizio De Angelis's "Driving All Around" song from Street Law in anything (maybe he's saving it for his next movie).I also really enjoyed the use of Morricone's music from Argento's Cat O' Nine Tails and Donaggio's music from DePalma's Blow Out.

-Edgar Wright's "Don't!" was easily the best of the faux trailers

-I enjoyed the little cameo by Kurt Russell's T-shirt from Big Trouble in Little China during Death Proof. (Can that movie really be 21 years old this year?)

-I thought that the whole hood-riding scene in Death Proof was some genuinely jaw-dropping, nervewracking stuff. Afterwards, I couldn't help but wonder how long it's going to be before some idiot gets killed "trying it at home." Anyone else remember when a scene with football players lying in a busy street got cut from the movie "The Program" after some mental defectives thought that it looked like fun? If anything like that did happen, I don't think the movie or anyone involved with it would be at fault, and anyone who actually tried that was probably bound to be a "Darwin Award" winner before long anyway, but I can't help but think about things like that.

Also, knowing that Bob Clark apparently saw Death Proof not too long before getting killed by a drunk driver was unnerving to think about.

I'm kinda shocked reading this but GRINDHOUSE apparently tanked at the box office yesterday, pulling in $5 million in fourth place. Box office sites were predicting a $25-30 million dollar weekend but it looks like it will end up doing $12-14million.

http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/

I did too. It certainly had all the fun of NIGHTMARE CITY.

I really enjoyed PLANET TERROR. I thought Rodriguez and his actors did an amazing job of getting me involved in all of the characters. There are a lot of them to follow, but I was immediately hooked and cared about what was going to happen to them.

For all of its explicit focus on character development, I thought DEATH PROOF was much less successful in this regard. The final trio of women were compelling, but the first batch didn't interest me in the least, so it was a bit of a chore to sit through them jabbering on for so long.

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I also thought Kurt Russell was miscast. He's just too damned likable as an actor, and doesn't bring the same level of sleazy menace that Mickey Rourke would have. As a result, I didn't think the shift to him being a whining pussy in the second half paid off. It felt like Tarantino was trying to channel Arch Hall Jr in THE SADIST in those scenes, but Stuntman Mike's breakdown felt contrived where it should feel unhinged and demented.

I also had a problem with Tarantino's representation of women in the film, despite its ostensible embrace of female empowerment. It felt to me like Tarantino structured the film merely as a statement on the type of woman he digs. The first batch of women are prick-teases, they are very much of the present cultural moment (e.g. text-messaging DJs), and none of them have heard of VANISHING POINT or DIRTY MARY CRAZY LARRY. The Stuntman Mike character is a hulking anachronism from the grindhouse era, dishing out punishment for these sins. The second batch of women, however, are tom boy gearheads who not only know about VANISHING POINT, they'll even track down the exact model of car from the film. They clearly gain Stuntman Mike's respect, and he chooses not to kill them. If this isn't just a male fantasy about women, I don't know what is.

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Edit: I saw a 5pm show on Friday and the theater was empty, save for maybe five other people. So the low grosses don't surprise me at all...

-I couldn't help but laugh at the way that Quentin doesn't even try to hide his foot fetish in the opening of Death Proof.

The opening? I lost count of all of the foot shots. It made me embarrassed for him.

-Edgar Wright's "Don't!" was easily the best of the faux trailers.

I enjoyed this as well -- just think it went on too long/too far with the joke.

-I thought that the whole hood-riding scene in Death Proof was some genuinely jaw-dropping, nervewracking stuff.

Granted, by this time in the movie I was so numbed by all of the talking -- but all I could think of was "pull the g-damned car over and let her get off!".

So did Big Trouble in Little China, it will just be the thing the cool kids like :). Still you don't know what Saturday holds. I may go back again tonight so I'll see what I can do :).

I loved Planet Terror (alot more than Death Proof, the movie had a really bad middle part and also any of the parts without Kurt) so much I went out and got the OST. Then again I'm a synth whore. Still I paid 14 USD for 2 tickets for 2 films how in the hell can I even complain!

Oh did anyone get a Girl in Gold Boots vibe from either of the films. I can't explain it but both me and Jess wanted to watch it afterward.

Bring on More Double Headers!!!

Harvey bring out a two fer of 36th Chamber and One Armed Swordsman

Don't get me started.

Don't discuss this trailer again.


....Don't, Don't, Don't...

While watching DP, I didn't like the "whining" either, but in the context suggested by others in this thread earlier (the "second" half of the movie is actually the "first" half), I think it works.

In a way I'm not surprised by this. While I thought GRINDHOUSE was incredible, I can't think of a single person in my circle of friends and family (none of whom share my taste for exploitation movies) that I would recommend this movie to. I think fans of both arthouse cinema and mainstream Hollywood movies will feel that the over-the-top thrills of PLANET TERROR are beneath them. As for DEATH PROOF, for most it will be too slow, but for my more artistically inclined friends will scoff at the unpretentious ending.

I hope GRINDHOUSE finds a widespread audience, but I can't think of any large-scale demographic that it will appeal to.

D'oh! Now I'll need to watch it again!
In addition to the missing reels, Tarantino (or was it Rodriguez?) did make inferences to reels being projected in the wrong order during promotional interviews ... so it's a viable reading. The DEATH PROOF print is certainly pretending to be a composite from different prints (evident in the poorly spliced audio during changes), so it's possible that the sequencing got messed up by a sloppy splicer/projectionist at some grindhouse somewhere.

I'm working all weekend, so I won't be seeing this until Weds, my next day off, but I was thinking that, in regards to the seemingly low box office take, it's likely also due to the 190-minute running time. Obviously, there can't be as many showings over the course of the day as their could be for a 90, 105, or even a 120-minute film.

A couple of buddies saw this yesterday afternoon and said the theater was packed. Not sold out, but packed.

WARNING: SPOILERS!! SPOILERS!

What was DEATH PROOF doing in a movie called GRINDHOUSE? It should have been in ARTHOUSE. There was never a grindhouse movie that was as self-indulgent as DEATH PROOF. I wish it had three more “Missing Reels” in the middle. DEATH PROOF could never have existed in this form during the grind house era because a) if it was made by a studio like New World, several fistfuls of pages would have been ripped out of the script before it was put into production, B) if it was an independent production picked up for distribution, the distributor would have cut it down and made it playable, c) if it had been released at this length, the projectionists would have gotten tired of patrons throwing stuff at the screen and would have cut scenes out of the print, and d) ten years later, huge sections of the VHS copies would have been worn out because of excessive wear due to fast-forwarding. DEATH PROOF had only one thing in common with grind house movies. Many of those movies would give top billing to a name actor who only appeared briefly in the film. DEATH PROOF did the same thing with Kurt Russell. It’s structured exactly like THE STRONGEST MAN IN THE WORLD (1975) in which Russell gets top billing but disappears for the entire middle of the movie. By the time my favorite actor popped up for the second DEATH PROOF chase, I had forgotten that he was in the movie I was watching. Why does Tarentino keep putting Michael Parks in his movies with nothing to do? What’s with the scene in the middle of DEATH PROOF with Parks and the lady doctor from PLANET TERROR? I thought that Parks’ sheriff was going to continue to investigate his “vehicular manslaughter” theory later in the movie. Nope. How is this scene going to play when DEATH PROOF is released outside of the U.S. as a separate feature? What was the purpose of the Tarentino bartender? So “cool” people can do those green shots after seeing the movie or while watching it on DVD? I suggest doing shots of Red Bull which watching this movie. If Tarentino was going to play a role in both PLANET TERROR and DEATH PROOF, couldn’t he have worn a wig like Rose McGowan did? Or dyed his hair, grew a mustache, or at least parted his hair on the other side? What was the purpose of Eli Roth and the other guy that was trying to pick up “Butterfly” and company? When they were making fun of Stuntman Mike, I thought it was going to lead to them getting killed by Russell. Nope. No point. I stayed through the end credits to see if there was a coda that showed what happened to the girl in the cheerleader outfit that was left behind with the leering mechanic. I was thinking about buying a pair of the DEATH PROOF sneakers that are out, but fortunately I waited until I saw the movie before deciding. Like the CD market, the script publishing business is now being harmed by the internet. Miramax released the DEATH PROOF script as a $15 trade paperback. But everybody already downloaded it for free months ago. Same with the PLANET TERROR script, which is included in the $30 GRINDHOUSE “making of” coffee table book. I hope Miramax isn’t stupid enough to think that they can sell copies of the Rob Zombie HALLOWEEN script.

Maybe someone who wasn't near dozing off during DP can comment on this?

Does it make sense that the order of the reels could have been switched?

Rather than THE SADIST, I thought Tarantino probably got this from Corman's MACHINE-GUN KELLY, but you may be right.

I don't see how anyone could expect this movie to do big mainstream business. History shows that both Rodriguez and Tarantino (like Kevin Smith) have only loyal but limited audiences. Throw in a 183-minute running time, parodies of movies 95% of the regular moviegoing audience has never even heard of, plus the fact that few women I know have even the least bit of interest in GRINDHOUSE, and this movie will do $60 million, tops. I'm glad it exists, and I hope there are more GRINDHOUSEs to come, but no way is this a blockbuster.

As for Russell being too "likable," I think that may be the point. The fact that he's so charismatic and likable (I loved the John Wayne bit) makes the sudden realization that he's a psycho more of a shock.

BTW, Russell does look like Gary Clarke, and I would be willing to bet that this was something that actually happened to him when he was a younger actor auditioning for roles, where casting people would confuse Russell and Clarke. Does anyone know if this dialogue was in the original screenplay, because I imagine it was the result of an offhand conversation between Russell and QT while drinking one night ("I used to be confused with this guy Gary Clarke who was on THE VIRGINIAN for awhile, remember that show?"). When Stuntman Mike said he looked like Gary Clarke, I impulsively blurted out, "Hell, he does!"

I don't think so. It plays pretty straightforward, though I loved the DEATH PROOF title popping up on a separate card. I wonder what the "original" title was! :D

Yeah, he's usually so subtle about it... ;)

No... THE END is supered over the final shot.