Ship's Mast

The fates are listening. And no, they're not about to be fooled by a "no doubt next week we'll be suffering through deliciously warm weather that will last right through to October."

I declined to see Planet Terror and Death Proof on their separate UK releases last year, knowing that an authentic Grindhouse opportunity would eventually present itself -- and suspecting, probably rightly, that neither flick would merit viewing a second time, authenticity be buggered.

Sure enough, the occasion finally arrived last night, with a late screening of the complete bill at the Islington Vue -- exactly the sort of plastic multiplex that nailed shut the coffin of scuzzy fleapits whose ilk Tarantino and Rodriguez romanticise. It was good to finally tick this box, at least, but not an unalloyed pleasure.

RR's contribution seems much more committed to the concept, a properly hysterical go-go splatterfest full of clunking dialogue, strung out performances, scratchy jump cuts and lurid technicolor gore. It nicely walks the line between portraying the rubbishness of its source material and actually being rubbish. You can't miss how appalling -- and tedious -- those B movies were, but you're still fairly entertained in the process. You do have to wonder just how much money they had to spend to make it look so cheap, though.

QT's episode is more problematic, probably because he can't help trying to turn it into some kind of postmodern trash art. So Death Proof is not satisfied simply to be an homage to proto-road rage movies like Vanishing Point, it has to turn being so into a significant plot point. I don't think the result really meets the brief at all -- it's way too talky and self-conscious to be a proper exploitation film, and indeed Tarantino pretty much dispenses with all the grindhouse signifiers after awhile. Once he's into his nasty little two-acter, the scratches and jumps and dodgy exposure and oversaturation fall by the wayside and it's clear he's started taking this stuff seriously. He scrapes some decent action, especially courtesy of stuntwoman Zoë Bell, but the dialogue remains tin-eared and the pacing leaden and disjointed. Tarantino probably couldn't make a really bad film if he tried, but he really does seem to be trying here. I sort of enjoyed it in a queasy, where's-the-remote? sort of way, but it's pretty weak.

I was also fairly disappointed by the trailers, which mostly seemed pretty crude and witless. Edgar Wright's Don't was probably the best, but oddly also the most disappointing -- any random three minute clip of Spaced was better. I enjoyed Rob Zombie's thoroughly awful Werewolf Women of the SS more, if only because it was totally in the right crappy spirit. Eli Roth -- oh, who the fuck cares?

Still, at least Doctor Who is back...
Posted by matt at April 6, 2008 10:52 PM