It's impossible to watch Grindhouse the same way we did 15 years ago because of two people. In the second half of Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino's double feature, actress Rose McGowan accused Weinstein, one of the film's executive producers, of raping her 10 years before the film's release. You can project some of the fear and pain onto the performance, but in two completely different ways. It doesn't ruin the innocent intentions of Grindhouse, but it shines a different light on them. On April 6, 2007, Grindhouse was released as a three-plus hour theatrical experience that included two full-length features, fake trailers, ads, and more. It was a bold experiment by two of the boldest filmmakers of the era and, financially, it failed, grossing barely $26 million against a budget probably double that. The film was hurt by word of mouth because general audiences weren't sure what they were watching. The directors of Desperado and Pulp Fiction were trying to turn modern multiplexes into theaters of the past. There are theaters with sticky floors that show shlocky, gross movies with missing reels and scratches on the prints. Most people wanted to see a normal movie. I saw the film in theaters and then bought the high definition version a few years later. It was wrapped in plastic until this week. I never watched it again in 15 years. There was something frightening about Grindhouse. After a few years of three-hour comic book blockbusters, the length seems more manageable. It was as if my memory of the film was too traumatic to go back. I didn't. I found a movie that read differently due to the times to be a valid reason for my apprehension. Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror is the first feature of Grindhouse. It is set over a single night when a dangerous toxin is released into the air, turning most of a small Texas town into skin-melting, flesh-eating zombies. The movie is fast-paced, action-packed, and one of the most disgusting films you will ever see. It's seriously. Planet Terror is filled with all manner of grossness, from its melting testicles to its oozing tongue puss. I like to think I have a strong stomach, but at times I had to change my mind.
That is the point of Planet Terror. It is supposed to be shocking, disturbing, and also make you laugh. There are a lot of offensive jokes in the film and they are delivered by a lot of prominent characters, including Josh Brolin, Freddy Rodriguez, Michael Biehn, and others. At the center of them all is Cherry Darling, and any one of them could probably warrant their own article. In the film, Cherry loses her leg after performing a go-go dance during the credits, which leads to some questionable disability humor. She fulfilled her destiny when she made her leg into a machine gun and started a revolution. It's a fun ride, but it's a lot, and 15 years has taken its toll on it.
You understand Rodriguez's intentions, but they hit differently in 2022. The name Harvey Weinstein is plastered over the dancing and creates a mind-meld of news stories, interviews, pain, and suffering. The juxtaposition went from seductive to counter productive. The title Planet Terror feels a little too real because of the added weight of history. I was emotional as it ended. The Grindhouse was just beginning.
After a few fake trailers (created by Rob Zombie, Eli Roth, and more), the film moved into its second feature, Death Proof by Quentin Tarantino. Kurt Russell plays Stuntman Mike in Death Proof, a driver who stalks and kills young women with his car. Reality is obscured for a good portion of the film by his trademark dialogue and camerawork that focuses on the breasts, butt, and feet of his leading ladies. It could use its own article.
About 40 minutes into the film, a young woman named Pam thinks she's getting a ride home from Mike, when in fact she's not. Mike jerked the car around wildly as she sat in a passenger seat without a seatbelt, because he wanted to kill her. It's a brutal scene, made even more brutal today, when you think of the violence that McGowan had to endure from Weinstein. It's hard to forget that a character in the movie was brutalized by a person who paid for it. It's even more gut-wrenching than the opening of Planet Terror.
Things change here. The character of Planet Terror was objectified throughout but eventually rises above that to become a leader. Pam was brutally killed. It feels egregious at first. Death Proof moves on and we are introduced to the next group of women Stuntman Mike will target. The second group of women are played by Rosario Dawson,Zoe Bell, and Tracie Thoms, and they are Mike's victims. They chase him down with their car. The sequence, film, and entire double feature ends with a long scene of women beating Mike. The final image of the film shows a character smashing his head open with a shoe.
At that time, Grindhouse had triumphed over the man. Mike was defeated and humiliated, but he was also killed. The 15 years of history between one of its stars and producers has had a negative impact on Grindhouse. The tables tipped the other way when Pam's murderer is dealt satisfying justice in the last frame.
I was overwhelmed with how much was said about it after not revisiting it in 15 years. It takes 190 minutes of balls-to-the-wall, sometimes literally, madness. The script does an excellent job of balancing shock value and self-awareness, as well as the creature work in Planet Terror and Death Proof. There are a lot of problematic bits before you get to the characters. I'm looking at the film now, in 2022, and it was the McGowan arcs that stood out to me the most. It made me realize how important real-life history is to a film. It can be possible to turn a silly experiment into something more. A type of redemption.
The film is available on ablu-ray.
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