Murder Porn.

Rating: 3/10 (9 April 2007)

I was surprised that, of the two, Rodriguez's was more entertaining. Tarantino seems so in love with his unimpressive dialogue (especially an interminable exchange about "Ship's Captain") that he forgot to make a movie. Somehow the main players, Rose McGowan, Rosario Dawson, Kurt Russell, Sydney Tamiia Poitier, etc., came off pretty well anyway, and some of the supporting players, esp. Jeff Fahey and Josh Brolin, came off better than well. But even Rodriguez's entry was pretty terrible and curiously uninvolving. My main problem with the whole thing was the trailer for "Thanksgiving." There is no way something that sexually violent would have played in a trailer, and it probably never would have been allowed to be seen. I've seen some pretty messed up stuff, but the knife through the trampoline and the last shot of the cooked woman with a baster were pretty close to evil, and I am not a religious person. I really think these murder pornography images are only half a reflection of the world under W. The other half is people that think showing someone being murdered for half an hour is artistic freedom. Eli Roth is at the top of this list, his movies are crappy and they're successful because of the murder porn. I just hope these filmmakers contract some sort of social responsibility virus soon and stop lovingly photographing severed legs flopping onto the pavement, or creating characters and getting us to care about them and then peeling their heads off (both from "Death Proof"). Is this the Tarantino that satirized Oliver Stone with "Coming Home in a Body Bag"?
And if Tarantino is such a feminist hero, why did the girls leave their cheerleader-dressed friend to be assaulted by Tom Joad? What, at the start of the movie they're callous but killing Kurt Russell makes them grow as people, is that the arc?
Nothing more really needs to be said, they set out to make bad movies and Tarantino won; they just didn't make them enjoyable. The worst thing is that all of these reviewers piled on to spray deodorizer on this crappy movie and now they're baffled that it didn't do better. It didn't do better because it was bad, people were right to see "Blades of Glory" instead. Tarantino will bounce back; the emperor is wearing clothes, he just made a terrible movie.