Planet Yawn

Rating: 3/10 (4 April 2007)

I'm going to make this brief for two reasons. Firstly, I figure people will see this so I don't want to ruin the good parts of the film. Seondly, I don't want to waste too much time on a blah sack of dung.
Planet Terror- Honestly, this was the one I was expecting to like more, and was ultimately the most disappointed with. Something just doesn't work. If you're like me, you'll see the where this movie goes from "meh" to "this is the dumbest thing I've seen in a long time." Hint: caravan leaving the BBQ restaurant. Luckily this moment is late in the film, so you've got a little time to enjoy it. Still, the violence is almost so constant that it loses all of its oomph.
Deathproof- I like this one more than I thought I would. I actually have grown very weary of ol' Quentin's style. All this referential dialog bull-hockey, and over-indulgent, self-masturbatory film-making is just getting trite. This film actually starts out very strong. In fact, what i viewed as the strong part would have made for a brilliant mini-film (it turns out that sitting through two straight movies is a chore.) But no, after a potentially great ending we are treated to a absolutely ludicrous amount of dialog which serves no purpose at all. If you want to make Vanishing Point, make Vanishing Point. Car chase movies are exactly that, car-chase-movies! They are not dialog driven in any way. To tell the complete truth I fell asleep during a bit of the dialog bit. It was pretty uninspired dialog. Also, Kurt Russells character somehow goes from being amazingly awesome to a whiny little turd in the blink of an eye.
And yes, the fake aged film effect goes over the entire thing and is stupidly overused the entire time, especially in Planet Terror. Fake Cuts, "Missing Reel" screens. This was clearly made by two guys who really like to show off that they "get" Grindhouse films, a nice little pat on the back. They just seemed to miss what was the entire beauty of the genre.
So if you are easily amused, and like to spend 3.5 hours pretending, and subsequently showing, that you "get it," than this flick is for you. For those of you who actually like grindhouse films, stay away! Watch one of the old ones you count as a favorite. It's just one long inside joke between the filmmakers.