Tarantino to Rodriguez: Who's your Daddy?????

Rating: 7/10 (10 April 2007)

GRINDHOUSE 2007 (Rose McGowan, Freddy Rodriguez, Kurt Russell, Rosario Dawson) DIRECTED BY: ROBERT RODRIGUEZ and QUENTIN Tarantino ~ THE RUNDOWN: Overall, GRINDHOUSE is a fun and worthy venture, but definitely uneven. ~ The concept is great, and one can't help but admire the innovation and originality of the project as well as the consistent attention to detail. For example, the purposely-inflicted grimy look of the film and the missing reel parts were fun, even though a little cheap and a little distracting. Then again, in PLANET TERROR's case, the occasional distraction was usually far more entertaining than the movie. In fact, all the trailers were too. Now, don't get me wrong, Rodriguez is a good filmmaker and I like a lot of his stuff, but there simply wasn't anything above mediocrity involved with his portion of the pie; it was just a tiresome zombie movie. Thinking about it now it really just reminds me of one of those 'Tales from the Crypt' movies they make every few years, and you can't tell me Rodriguez took any longer than a couple days to come up with that entire movie...a movie which, on its own, is worthy of nothing more than some no namers and a straight-to-DVD release at Blockbuster. ~ However, Tarantino is a genius. The guy is simply a genius and kicks ass in every way possible...except for acting, which he's okay at. His naysayers are total dumbas*es who probably adore Braveheart and various Michael Bay productions. His portion here, entitled DEATH PROOF, is much more entertaining than it sounds, showcasing Tarantino's ingenious, unmatched writing skills as well as his ability to orchestrate finely-tuned, edge-of-the-seat actions sequences. Also, Kurt Russell's performance is especially slick and refreshing. DEATH PROOF, by no means, is flawless and not exactly up to Quentin's usual level of amazingness, but I'm cutting it slack because I do believe its potential was constrained a bit by the Rodriguez movie and the general 'Grindhouse' concept; Tarantino's films do, afterall, usually push three hours in length. ~ The hilarious trailers, highlighted by Eli Roth's delightful 'THANKSGIVING', combined with a satisfying ninety-minutes from Tarantino and an intriguing general concept make for a worthy venture to the theatres. Unfortunately, PLANET TERROR basically sucked.