jamesq | Grindhouse

Well that was really fucking awful. Like about 90% awful.

Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror was a full on zombie-filled gore fest. That's great if it's your thing. It's not mine though.

garething?

ladyerwyn? Go see Grindhouse.

Was there anything in Planet Terror for mere mortals? Well Rose McGowan puts on a pretty good go-go dance. That's pretty much the first thing in the movie.

Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof is the next feature. It featured a lot (and I mean a lot) of Quentin's signature dialogue, or as me and

thebrucie call it - wanking. Come to think of it, Grindhouse was pretty much nothing but wanking. Some of it (gratuitous T&A shots) was welcome. Others (gratuitous bursting masses of goo, gratuitous over-usage of the N-word), not so much.

Death Proof does have some good things going for it, namely the last 1/3 of the film, which features some good stunt work, honestly exciting action pieces and heroines you actually like (I think I fell in love with Zoe Bell when she started beating Stuntman Mike with a pipe). And a rip-roaring ending. And very little dialogue.

So here is Quixote's patented method for watching Grindhouse in the multiplex while simultaneously enjoying yourself and not wasting your money.

Buy a ticket for Grindhouse. Watch Rose McGowan strut her stuff. If you have a few minutes to kill, Marley Shelton makes some nice eye-candy too. When either of them get injured, it's time to leave.
Sneak out of the theatre and watch something good, like 300.
Other movie all done now? Ok, sneak back into Grindhouse, by this time you should have missed the rest of Planet Terror, the sad sad intermission and the boring first half of Death Proof. If you've timed it just right, you get to see a really awesome car chase.

The only drawback is you'll miss Nicholas Cage's 10 second cameo as Fu Manchu, where he achieves the impossible - he overacts more in those ten seconds then he did in all of Ghost Rider.