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Show life' B4 MONDAY • APRIL 9 • 2007 Movie review Double the movie, double the fun Luke Hickman Life Editor In the late '60s and "70s, many theaters ran double features for regular admission. Some theaters, known as "grindhouses" for "grinding" through them quickly, specialized in running cheap "B" movies spanning horror, sci-fi and slasher genres considered too extreme and gratuitous for mainstream theaters. Every week, the movies were broken down, shipped to another local Planet Terror Director Robert Rodriguez (Sin City, Desperado) has created another fanboy classic with Planet Terror. Planet Terror tells the uber-violent story of a small town in Texas that's been plagued by a stolen chemical weapon that turns the majority of its population into man-eating zombies. The virus, however, doesn't affect everyone, which causes a group of them to team together to bring down those controlling the virus, thus saving humanity. A missing reel causes the audience to never know why, but the survivors unofficially elect the somehow-credible El Wray (Freddie Rodriguez, Poseidon) to be their leader. With Wray's amazing combat techniques and shooting skills, their outlook is bright. And when Wray arms his gogo dancing, one-legged ex, Cherry Darling (Rose McGowan, Scream), with an assault-rifle prosthetic leg, anything and everything is possible. With a wild ride like Planet Terror, Rodriguez was able to assemble a perfect cast, featuring Bruce Willis, Naveen Andrews (Sayid from TV's Lost), Marlcy Shelton (Sin City), Michael Biehn (Reese, The Terminator), Fergie and even Queritin Tarantino. Despite the Grindhouse previews you've seen in theaters and on TV, Planet Terror really isn't all that bad. *MLNOR SPOILER* The language and violence are at an alltime high, but the sex is kept to a minimum. Let's just say ... it has the hottest sex scene that you'll never get to see. *END SPOILER* Planet Terroris just as much an outrageous horror movie as the cult classic Shaun Of The Dead. If you loved Shaun, then you'll fully appreciate everything Rodriguez does with his Planet. Note: Gn'nd/iouse is a hard R and is considered borderline NC-17 for violence and the fake movie trailers. It is also 3 hours and 10 minutes long. grindhousc and replaced by another. Along the way, the reels were trimmed down by projectionists, here and there, cutting cells out of explosions, violence and nudity. By the time some theaters received the reels, the print was cut up, scratched and even missing reels. Grindhousc successfully conveys this experience: a double feature by two visionary directors and one bloody, violent,cheesy and scratchedup fun experience joined together by several fake previews of unmade flicks. Death Proof Academy Award-winning director (Best Original Screenplay, Pulp Fiction) Quentin Tarantino is the king of guilty pleasures, one of them being his gluttony for cheesy '70s B movies. He makes it visible in distinct, yet different, ways in every single one of his movies. Death Proof is a typical Tarantino movie -- that's not to say it's predictable or unoriginal — but it has the feel, dialogue, and characters of his style, set into an old ;70s slasher, car-chase movie. Death Proofis about an unknown stuntman (Kurt Russell), known as Stuntman Mike, who creepiiy stalks groups of women, or "girlfriends,11 for him to kill with his reinforced "death proof car. *MIN0R SPOILER* The first half of the movie is mostly pure dialogue that takes place between his first group of victims while partying in the presence of their stalker in a bar, followed by a grisly chase sequence. Know that it is very "Tarantino": slow and dialogue driven, yet interesting and natural, causing a building, rising tension. The second half of Ghndhouse begins with the same feel, but quickly rockets into a long, mind-blowing car chase that'll leave you dwelling on it for hours. * E N D " S P O 1 L E R * Death Proof is filled with fun little quirks thrown in by Taxantino exclusively for his fans. If you know your Tarantino, you'll see little throwbacks to every single one of his previous films. There's a Jackie Brown moment, a scene right out of Reservoir Dogs, a reference to an important line from Pulp Fiction and even characters straight out of Kill Bill. For those of us too young to have experienced the explicit roilercoaster ride of the grindhouses, together, these two iconic directors have given us a small, amazing dabbic at what it would"ve been like. Though it looks ovcr-the-top with gratuitous sex, violence, nudity and gore, it's really not all that bad and quite the contrary. Grindhouse is.a one-of-a-kind original masterpiece that is sure to create a new following of its own. Courtesy Photo/Grindhouse.com Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino take moviegoers on some wild rides in Gn'ndhouse. |