A trip to the grind house of old with great trailers, a fun splatter flick are ruined by painfully dull "car chase" movie thats mostly talk

Rating: 4/10 (8 April 2007)

Two movies in the style of the old grind house double features, complete with trailers.
The trailers are great, but are too short to spoil with discussion. They are simply a great deal of fun.
The first film is Planet Terror. This is the story of a zombie like take over of the the world due to a chemical weapon. Every zombie clichÃ© you've ever seen here is played out with a bigger budget and higher body count. Its a bloody film thats a great deal of fun. If there is any problem with the film its that its intentionally nonsensical. To be certain films of this type often left logic and reason to blow in the wind, but even so you had a sense that things would have made sense if they had the money, or a better script, or something. Here the film jumps around and I got the feeling that they were doing it simply to replicate the feel of the old films and not out of necessity. On a scale of one to ten the film is a seven- get a bucket of popcorn, a root beer and enjoy.
The second film is Death Proof. Easily one of the worst films of this year, and then some. This is a talky bore. The first half of the film has a bunch of girls and guys hanging out in a bar drinking and shooting the breeze. Nothing happens much other than the girls run into Stuntman Mike played by Kurt Russell. When they leave some 50 minutes into the film Stuntman Mike does what he does, which is kill the women. The film then shifts gears and we meet a new group of girls who talk for a while before Mike shows up. However these girls aren't like the first and they decide to battle the madman. Painful Absolutely painful. As good as the stunts and crashes are, the dialog is bad. The normally sharp Quentin Tarantio pacing is non existent. Who made this really? This is an exploitation film of the worst sort- it rips you off. This is also the sort of movie that grind house audiences might have demanded to be removed simply because there simply isn't enough action. I hate this film. On a scale of one to ten, a one, for some great stunts. (I can not believe that there is a longer cut of this film. Clearly we know what movie is going to be played eternally in hell when we die)
Leave when Death Proof starts and you'll have a great time at the movies.