A Walk To The Grindhouse

Originally written 04-20-07

Union Square, near postcard settings such as North Beach, Nob Hill, and The Ferry Building, is perfectly situated in San Francisco. It’s where I work and where I spend most of my week. But if you go 25 yards west you're just steps away from junkies, dealers, gangstas, and winos. It's called The Tenderloin, and in order to see "Grindhouse" I had to walk through San Francisco's most notorious neighborhoods. In the daylight it's safe enough, and I knew it was a good way to put me in the mood to watch a 3 plus hour celebration of 70's Grindhouse cinema.

So I entered the theatre in the right gritty frame of mind. I knew the films wouldn't be "Citizen Kane" or even "Pulp Fiction", but with Quentin Tarantino as one of the directors I had a certain expectation of Quality. For me, a movie can be drama, comedy, horror, parody, action, crime, thriller . . . whatever. I don't judge a piece of art (be it book, play, or film) on what genre the material is classified. I'm looking for Quality. So did "Grindhouse" deliver in what I wanted? Sometimes. But overall it was still very entertaining.

Robert Rodriguez's "Planet Terror" was a straightforward rendition of a zombie movie. There's no originality in his story or dialogue . . . in the writing there's nothing to transcend the genre. But the twists in his technical execution, with the film severely "scratched" and having "missing" reels can only make you smile. Then there's Rodriguez's wonderful eye for cinematography and editing, whether he's framing the gorgeous Rose McGowan in her gun prosthetic or cutting an action scene of zombies to make you jump. He has great pure skills as a filmmaker, and Mr. Rodgriguez has always been good at moving a shoddy plot forward. But . . . essentially we saw all this 10 years ago with "From Dusk Till Dawn". Swap vampires for Zombies and there's not much different.

Then there's Tarantino's "Death Proof". My biggest compliment of the film is that, in the exact opposite of "Planet Terror", it's highly original. Throughout the whole story you have no idea what's going to happen. Tarantino, as he did with Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction", plays against the grain of genre. But instead of the crime/heist expectations, he's screwing with our collected knowledge of horror movies. And then, as the story progresses, he tosses the "Bullet", "Gone In 60 Seconds", "Smoky & The Bandit" car chase flick into his blender for great effect.

But the most surprising thing about "Death Proof" is that a large portion of the film could be sliced out and performed on stage as a play at any repertory theatre in the country. Quentin has always been all about dialogue, but he pushes it further in this one than he ever has. With his talent of creating real and interesting characters, this should be, and nearly is, a great thing. But . . . the Quality of dialogue does not live up to "Reservoir Dogs", "True Romance" or "Pulp Fiction". It's more on par with "Kill Bill", which means the characters speak better than the majority of movies that are released, but the writing doesn't live up to the standards Mr. Tarantino set in the early 1990's. And maybe it has something, at least a little bit, to do with the people who are delivering the lines. I could look at Rose McGowan and Marley Shelton for a ten hour film, but I don't think they have the acting chops of Samuel Jackson or Tim Roth or Amanda Plummer or Uma Thurman.

And when the film was over, I made my way back through The Tenderloin. In the dark, with the real possibility of getting mugged, there was no poetic grit as I walked to the train. And when I passed a bald freak selling a baggie of crack to a kid in dreadlocks, not taking a cab became a big mistake in my mind. Nothing happened, nobody said a word to me, and I got to my train safely. But the idea of a 70's style Grindhouse, a place where sleaze and violence can be celebrated, definitely lost its charm amongst the scum of San Francisco.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0462322/