Grindhouse vs Mars Attacks! and Breakdown

Blackbelt: Okay, guilty pleasures time.

Cliff: Don’t believe in ‘em.

Blackbelt: No?

Cliff: Fuck guilty pleasures. Life’s too short. Like what you like and move on.

Blackbelt: Oh.

Cliff: Was that your strategy or something? This one was gonna be all about the bad movies we love because they’re bad? And it was gonna segue so smoothly into Grindhouse, right?

Blackbelt: Well not now it’s not.

Cliff: Sorry dude. No guilt here.

Blackbelt: Okay then, have you ever seen any of the movies that Grindhouse is honoring?

Cliff: There’s a movie called The Car, with James Brolin. It’s about a car that kills people. Brolin plays the sheriff who goes after it. It’s pretty tame, but in terms of the structure and style, it’s also a bit grindy. And then of course there’s all the 1970s horror films, zombie movies, stuff like that. A lot of them are really exploitative and funny.

Blackbelt: You a big Kung-Fu guy?

Cliff: Not really. It’s hard for me to get into the mythology of stuff like that, especially if it’s the stuff that’s maybe not made as well. Same reason I never got into Xena or Hercules. But there’s none of that in Grindhouse anyway.

Blackbelt: I know. Just asking.

Cliff: You really hate that your plan didn’t work.

Blackbelt: Shut up. Let’s just talk about Grindhouse. Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez each directed half of a double feature, filmed in the style of the old grindhouse double features they loved when they were younger. The movies were sexy, cheap and violent, and often made for no money, so it wasn’t rare for there to be mistakes in the finished product. First up in Grindhouse is Terror Island.

Cliff: Terror Island? What the hell’s the matter with you? How long ago did you see it?

Blackbelt: I got home like an hour ago.

Cliff: Planet Terror.

Blackbelt: Yeah, Planet. My bad.

Cliff: Jeez.

Blackbelt: Planet Terror is the Robert Rodriguez half of Grindhouse. It’s about a zombie apocalypse that starts in Texas near a military base. It comes down to a group of locals to stop it, including a barbeque cook, a stripper, and a tow-truck driver. What’d you think?

Cliff: I thought it was a hell of a lot of fun. I love all that Russ Meyer go-go dancer imagery. Rose McGowan is hot. She’s one of the great screen strippers, I think.

Blackbelt: Yeah. I’ve never liked her in a movie before. And by “never liked” I mean “never seen.” I just know her as Marilyn Manson’s ex-girlfriend, and as a cast member on a show I’ve never seen.

Cliff: She was in Scream. Everybody saw Scream. Whatever. The point is that she’s hot, and known enough to be sort of iconic, especially when she becomes the focus of the movie, but not so famous that it’s inconceivable that she’s be in something B-level or lower.

Blackbelt: Well whatever she was before, you’re right to call her iconic. The image of Rose McGowan with the machine-gun leg is part of the culture now. It’s badass, it’s unique, and it’s gonna be a great Halloween for a lot of sexy girls with good balance.

Cliff: Not much of Planet Terror makes sense, but I like that. With zombies, the whole point is that the clock’s ticking. Soon, they’ll spread everywhere, and they’ll infect everyone, and the world will eat itself. The characters don’t have time for questions, so it doesn’t seem fair that we do. So if anything in a movie like this sparks a question, I just ignore it.

Blackbelt: So that character who gets castrated and shot, and then shows up again a couple scenes later?

Cliff: Ignore it.

Blackbelt: I know that a huge part of the point of Grindhouse is that the film is supposed to be low-quality, and that it’s supposed to be poorly edited and framed, but I really liked most of it. Not in some kind of hipster asshole way either. I think Grindhouse is a cool looking movie.

Cliff: Me too. I forgot a couple times that the style it’s aping is actually one that’s the opposite of what you normally want in a movie. But then things like melting frames and the “Missing Reel” anytime it started to get too sexual snapped me back to reality.

Blackbelt: I love that. Of course the missing reels are the ones with sex. What else would anyone take?

Cliff: I’m actually glad that it wasn’t too jokey. I mean, it’s obviously tongue-in-cheek in parts, but I was afraid it was going to be Mars Attacks or something. Not that I don’t like Mars Attacks, but when Tim Burton owes so much of his career to that genre, and then his way of paying tribute to it was to let the air out, I guess it sort of rubbed me the wrong way.

Blackbelt: I liked Mars Attacks too, kind of, but I can see what you mean. It’s like, Tim Burton was influenced by these movies that were delivered completely seriously. And then, he makes a bunch of movies, and they’re very stylish and some quite serious. So when he pays tribute to his influences, he takes the piss out of them for being tacky, and makes a film that’s a complete parody. I never thought about it until now, but that’s sort of mean.

Cliff: And I’m guessing Tim Burton doesn’t have as good of taste in music as Rodriguez and Tarantino.

Blackbelt: Who does? Tarantino and Rodriguez go on and on about their influences, and so they made sure Grindhouse plays like a tribute. It’s funny when they go after the flaws of those earlier movies, but it never felt disrespectful.

Cliff: Exactly. It’s not a parody, not really. I mean, so much attention and care is paid to stuff like make-up and car chases. You know the effects in Grindhouse are top-notch.

Blackbelt: I thought so too. And I know it’s supposedly a one-off thing for fun, and I liked Planet Terror, but to me, Death Proof stands next to everything else Tarantino has done. I think he cheated a little.

Cliff: How?

Blackbelt: Well, he’s got the grindhouse spirit. He’s got the female revenge story, and the hot cars, and the violence, but he’s also written some great, fast-paced dialogue, and he’s lit those actresses in a very big-budget movie star way. Tarantino always makes sure the ladies look hot.

Cliff: That he does. And I’m not sure he cheated all that much. There are a lot of silly grindhouse moments in Death Proof too.

Blackbelt: Without a doubt. To catch people up: Kurt Russell plays Stuntman Mike, a washed-up TV stuntman who spends his time targeting hot young girls to kill with his awesome car.

Cliff: I don’t want to give too much away, since there’s actually a fairly big curve thrown in Death Proof. But suffice it to say, there are two groups of girls, and they are all smoking hot and more than up for the task of spitting out Tarantino dialogue. Rosario Dawson is up there with the best of the Tarantino actors. She was really on board with the fun and speed of the dialogue.

Blackbelt: I loved it. Loved all the girl-talk, and how the two groups contrasted with one another. One group of girls is flirty and competitive over boys; the other is funny and tough. And how good is Zoe Bell? Man, she’s a natural.

Cliff: I had to look her up after watching the movie. She was Uma Thurman’s stunt double in the Kill Bill movies. She rocks. And not just the stunts. She’s a good actor.

Blackbelt: Absolutely. I guess we don’t have to wonder if she did her own stunts in Death Proof.

Cliff: Oh the whole, I think the performances in Death Proof are a little more interesting than in Planet Terror. Planet Terror is more of an effects piece, while Death Proof is character-based.

Blackbelt: Character-driven.

Cliff: Ouch. Anyway, Kurt Russell rocks. He knows this stuff so well. Dude has been around.

Blackbelt: I thought it was hilarious how big a baby he was.

Cliff: That last scene is a killer. Kurt Russell has never filmed a scene quite like that before.

Blackbelt: I was waiting for Tarantino to bust out the Mexican stand-off. Didn’t occur to me that there might be a variation on it.

Cliff: So is Grindhouse it’s own double feature?

Blackbelt: I don’t know. This has never been an option before. I would definitely like to explore that world some more. I’ve seen a lot of the car chase movies that inspired Death Proof. And just because there aren’t grindhouses anymore, doesn’t mean there aren’t fun movies that hold up that philosophy of just giving the people what they want: blood, cars, explosions, revenge.

Cliff: Machine-gun legs.

Blackbelt: Yeah. You know, the usual. One that comes to mind is actually another with Kurt Russell. You ever see Breakdown?

Cliff: I secretly love that movie.

Blackbelt: Aha!

Cliff: Not secretly! I love it out in the open. Openly. I openly love the movie Breakdown.

Blackbelt: It’s completely clichéd. A couple breaks down in the middle of nowhere, she hitches a ride with an obviously bad dude who takes her hostage. Then, the husband has to get all tough and hunt them down and save the day. None of it makes much sense, but it’s all about that payoff. If it were made in the 1970s, there would have been gratuitous nudity, and bloodier violence, but Breakdown’s seedy influences are pretty obvious.

Cliff: It’s just a classy, dressed-up grindhouse movie. It’s like how in Planet Terror, Rose McGowan doesn’t want to be called a stripper, she wants to be a go-go dancer. Breakdown says it’s a go-go dancer, but we all know it learned its moves from watching strippers.

Blackbelt: It is genuinely scary though. J.T. Walsh plays the bad guy for crying out loud.

Cliff: And after Mars Attacks, you’d probably be in the mood for something a little more sinister.

Blackbelt: And if a few carefully chosen reels go “missing”, it’s not a bad way to spend your evening.

Grindhouse (Planet Terror/Death Proof): A-
Mars Attacks/Breakdown: B-