Good but not Great.

Rating: 7/10 (13 April 2007)

I need to start out by saying I have a huge "man crush" on both of these directors. Even when they miss the mark, Once upon a time in Mexico & Four Rooms, they're still entertaining. Therefore, I went into Grindhouse with high expectations.
If I were to break the film into 3 parts, and I have, I would grade them thusly:
1. Planet Terror - 8/10 - I felt RR really nailed his movie and made a very entertaining and fun film. I even enjoyed the Missing Reel gag that leads up to the 3rd act of his movie. I also felt all of the actors got what he was going for and seemed to really enjoy themselves.
2. The intermission trailers and other misc. goodies. - 9/10 - The trailers, title cards, advertising, and rating trailers were all dead on. I was laughing out loud and grinning like a fool through all of those particular parts. They really added to the vibe of the movie and brought back a ton of great memories.
3. Death Proof - 5.5/10 - This is were things take a turn for the worse. I'm not really sure what QT was going for in the first half of his movie, but whatever it was, he missed. The setup was tedious and exhausting, and when things start to pick up with the introduction of Stuntman Mike, he goes and kills the momentum by setting up another group of heroes/victims. I really wanted to like this movie but I just couldn't get past the boring dialogue that failed to move the movie along or make us care about the characters. If he were to re-cut the film and take out all of the unneeded time with the first group of ladies, he'd have a pretty good movie on his hands. I will say the last 30 minutes or so, are incredible. The stunts and camera work are first rate and really had me glued to the screen. I would love to give his movie a better score and hopefully I will get a chance to when it comes out on DVD, but as is, this is his most disappointing film.
Please take this review with a grain of salt. As you can see by my screen name, I have questionable taste in films, but I will say that I love great films as much as I love the bad ones. This one is closer to the great side (as a whole) than to the dark side, which should be good news for the fans of the directors.
Enjoy and I'll see you at the movies....or the $5.00 bin at Wal-Mart.
Bollfan1