Here's an article about the "new" version in the Hollywood Reporter:
DEATH Reincarnated: The Hollywood Reporter

Mary Elizabeth Winstead sings "Baby It's You"?!

I'm delighted to give this Quentin Tarantino person several more of my American dollars in short order. And this time, no way am I going into DEATH PROOF without a big gross plate of sloppy nachos.

Boy, did I like Planet Terror a heap more than Death Proof. RR really delivered on the promise of making a “grindhouse” movie – a full-on tribute to a very specific genre (did anyone else get a major Contamination vibe?) – while QT simply made a QT movie. I’ve really enjoyed his films, but I’m getting to the point of thinking that the Emperor has a pretty limited wardrobe.

What kills me in that Hollywood Reporter piece is the implication that the interminable dialogue scenes in the first half of Death Proof will only tax those with limited attention spans, rather than people who like to have the plot actually move along under its own power. Lap dance or not, you couldn’t pay me to spend another minute in the company of that first group of girls. I’ve read several reviews that actually singled out the extended chatter scenes for praise, with many critics whishing that they could have spent more time with Sydney Poitier’s Jungle Julia character – a sentiment that truly makes me feel like a visitor on this planet. After about 10min I was so firmly in Stuntman Mike’s corner that my cheering at the girls ultimate demise actually creeped out my neighbors in the theater.

I think Grindhouse would have done more than twice the business if the order of films had been reversed. The audience I was with (at midnight on opening night) was riding such an incredible high after Planet Terror and the trailers that it took QT a full 20 minutes to completely exhaust their patience.

Considering how upsetting I found that scene, even as a self-contained sequence, I'm gonna hafta agree with your neighbors on this one.

I'll be a few rows back - where I can keep an eye on you. Thanks, I guess, for adding to the 'grindhouse' experience, though!

If it helps, Andrew, my wife and I felt the same way about the first group of women. As I mentioned elsewhere, when the "Missing Reel" sign came up, my wife whispered to me, "Too bad he didn't miss the previous two reels as well."

I have to say that I AM tempted to see this new version now ... just to see if QT managed to somehow magically fix it.

So does this mean GRINDHOUSE won't be released on DVD as it was in its initial theatrical run?

Actually, I'm pretty much with Andrew on that one... not out of general bloodthirstiness, but just because I wanted closure that those characters weren't going to start up with the yammering again.

And coming from someone that because of such safety films as Signal 30 and Mechanized Death still (after almost 30 years) gets the heebie-jeebies anytime they get in a car, that's something.

With the first group, I was never able to make that shift and believe in the characters... I was trapped in a theater chair mired in the awareness of just watching actors reciting QT's stream of consciousness writing. Which he can be very, very good at... but apparently not under a tight deadline.

The promise of another reel of that seriously isn't any temptation to give Death Proof another shot.

Now if it was more footage (ahem) of the Sheriff and his Number One Son hot on the case, digging up backstory and in pursuit of Stuntman Mike, yeah... I'd try it again.

That said... loved the glimpse of Butterfly closing her eyes just before the crash. Not a flinch, wince or brace against impact... just a sad acceptance of inevitability. Too bad it was the only saving grace in the whole mess. And it only lasted as long as the character's last heartbeat.

Overall I see Death Proof as two different films itself. On one hand I see the grindhouse film and then I see a seperate film within it that is more of a personal story about Tarantino and his experiences over the past couple of years (there is kind of a love letter to Austin and the girls he knows in this). The harmony of this co-existence never quite gels IMO but it still was certainly very interesting to me. In his previous efforts the talking felt more in context and supported characters going from A to B. I hear the characters talking and interacting but it never has the same context or impact on me that his characters did in his previous efforts like Pulp Fiction or even Jackie Brown. I can sink my teeth into bits and pieces of this but overall it kept me more at a distance with the characters and their situations than I wished it had (like watching a back story to a hang out movie).

To some degree I felt in Death Proof he seemed to be taking his oeuvre and reworking grindhouse type films into it. Much the same way Shinya Tsukamoto does with J-horror in his latest film Nightmare Detective.

SPOILERS AHOY!

I saw the extended version (released on its own here in Sweden) - without any of the trailers etc.

Man, does this film have problems. If any on this board haven't see the film yet, then heed my advice: when you see the word "Lebanon" on the screen, leave the cinema promptly.

After a chatty but decent first half, with the best (and most shocking) car crash this member has ever seen on celluloid, the film takes a MAJOR nose dive into hubris. The same enactment is (unbelievably) repeated AGAIN, but with the most ANNOYING non-actresses wittering incessantly about QT's obsessions. Let's mention "Vanishing Point" and "Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry" yet again! Let's reference my own films! Let's use music from other films written for the exactly same schematic purpose! Let's try to make the best car chase this side of the millennium, ruin it but not thinking it through so it just becomes extended for the sake of being extended - finally becoming tedious (I'm thinking here of the countless opportunities the actress riding on the hood has to jump off).

The ending of this film has to be seen to be believed. Quentin's thinking the Switchblade Sisters, but his gals have even less sass than the Pussycat Dolls. This is the dumbest ending to a film since Sharon Stone shouted "Get a life!" way back in 1993's SLIVER.

And that's my 2 cents!!!

I had a less vitriolic reaction, but am in agreement with you in much, MUCH preferring the laid-back, building-dread vibe of the first half. I can still see Butterfly close her eyes when I close mine.

The second half is a cartoon in comparison.

I also felt that the "second half" was far too repetitive, and I'm speaking of the shorter cut! Rather than SWITCHBLADE SISTERS, I feel that Tarantino was channeling FASTER PUSSYCAT, KILL, KILL! I found parts of DEATH PROOF entertaining, but intellectually, I'd say that QT has hit a filmic dead end, a charge that some have leveled against Russ Meyer regarding his final film.

A year or two ago, I believe that QT wrote the script for a season-ending episode of one of the CSI shows. I didn't watch it, but it sounded like a total ripoff of THE CANDY SNATCHERS, thematically speaking. As someone here said, the emperor's wardrobe is very, very limited.

Odd I was talking with several last night and someone had sworn in the second part of Death Proof that Kurt doesn't drink nor have his scar. Anyone that has seen it, can you confirm if Kurt does or does not have a scar in the last half of it?

He's got a scar... someone linked a frame blow-up somewhere up the thread.

It's really nothing like CANDY SNATCHERS at all.

Yeah, that was me, here.

The whole '2nd part comes 1st' theory floating around is pretty empty, I think.

I agree, but I admit that some passionate defenses of that theory have gotten me thinking about it.

I've heard a lot of passion, but little logic. Or point. It just seems like a game you could play with pretty much any film at random.

"Dude, what if in CONAN, when he's a kid chained to that wheel, instead of a flash-forward to him grown-up, it's really a FLASH-BACK to his DAD being a slave, and the whole rest of the movie is the story of his FATHER's adventures!?! They're both probably named Conan anyway! Or Conan's a last name! Or whatever! Woah. :o "

There. Now that that total mindf**k puzzle-box movie CONAN THE BARBARIAN is cracked...

CONAN's not the best analogy, Jeffrey (even in jest), and if you go back and re-read that entire "2nd half first" thread over at the DVD Maniacs board, you'll notice that Chris Poggiali presents his argument with passion, logic, and a clear point, and in the process turns a number of the Maniacs into fellow believers.

But we'll leave that one alone and move on. :)

...but, but...

*MAJOR SPOILERS*
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...don't we see the girls crush Stuntman Mike's head at the end of the not-so-hidden ending?

I really like DEATH PROOF, but I don't think it was meant to be that sophisticated. After what seems to be one of the finest smack-downs in recent memory, the movie seems to end and then comes back long enough for one of the girls to deliver a MORTAL KOMBAT-style fatality.

The way I see it, Quentin intended for the audience to see Stuntman Mike killed in a fairly unambiguous way.
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*MAJOR SPOILERS ABOVE*

From the script: "14 Months Later"

Suspiciously missing from the film: "14 Months Later"

It's in Marsellus Wallace's briefcase. ;)

The reason for the confusion:

In the double-bill Grindhouse version there is no caption "14 Months Later". In the long version there is. Conspiracy theorists be damned!

Also featured in the long version is a superbly film lapdance sequence with great music.

What was a little strange in the second half of the film was the way that QT stopped distressing the print. The first half is full of pops, clicks, streamers etc. The second half looks like it was filmed yesterday.

There is also a pointless section where the film changes to black and white. Here, I mean the black and white of the "turn the colour down to black and white on the TV" variety. It's as phoney as they come. Is there anybody here who has witnessed a film print turn to crystal clear black and white?

I'm still so disappointed that the film was totally ruined by the plain daft 2nd half. What a bummer. After such a promising start. Everybody hears the oft recalled anecdote that actors don't watch their own films, but now I'm beginning to think that directors don't either :o

I just lost quite a bit of respect for Mr. Tarantino. ;)

In the UK the 113m version has just gone through the BBFC. Due to the poor BO in the USA it looks as if the Grindhouse double-bill idea has been canned in the UK (at least for the cinema) and that Tarantino's film will get a separate release trying to capitalise on his name.

Not sure about the Rodriguez film (although it will undoubtedly turn up on DVD).

I wish that had been in the GRINDHOUSE version, as DEATH PROOF almost seemed like two films to me. The first part, then the sequel right after that.