Comments on: Joe Rice Media Review 4/9/07

By: John Seavey

John Seavey — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 12:47:48 +0000

I’d say it falls somewhere in the gray zone between “qualified success” and “interesting failure”…the movies should very clearly have been switched around, and Tarantino’s was padded by about twenty minutes. That said, there were a lot of excellent moments, Zoe Bell’s stuntwork was spectacular, Kurt Russell once again proves that every movie can be improved by putting Kurt Russell in it, and the fake trailers were some of the best parody/homages I’ve seen in years. ‘Thanksgiving’, alone, was worth the price of admission. “This year…there will be no leftovers.”

Ultimately, I can’t be too unhappy with either movie, since I saw each movie for half the price I paid for ’300′, and they were each twice as good.

By: stealthwise

stealthwise — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 06:10:40 +0000

Grindhouse was the best cinematic experience of the past ten years for me. I really enjoyed all of it in its entirety, but apparently I’m in the minority, as it made so little money. The best part of the flick was that I was able to actually, literally, shut my brain off during the vast majority of it, a rare thing after spending so many years studying literature and media.

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 17:38:07 +0000

Death Proof had characters?

By: AstroZombie

AstroZombie — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 17:19:09 +0000

Well, I loved Grindhouse. Especially Death Proof. I thought after the manic hilarity of Planet Terror (and those wonderful trailers), the more laid-back sections of Death Proof were a welcome change of pace. It’s an opportunity to catch your breath before the mind-blowing car chase finale, and it helps build interest in the characters.

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 16:56:25 +0000

I thought on the whole Grindhouse was a spectacularly failed experiment where both Rodriguez and Tarantino severely overestimated how clever they were. Neither of the movies felt like they had enough substance to sustain more than 45 minutes of screentime, let alone 3 hours combined. Planet Terror was a typically awful Rodriguez movie, and Death Proof was utterly insufferable aside from the scene where Kurt Russel kills the first group of women and it gets replayed 4 times in a row. The only part of the movie I actually enjoyed was the fake trailers, because they didn’t last long enough to get boring.

By: Grant

Grant — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 16:37:59 +0000

I’d like to see it on it’s own and see how it holds up. I do agree they could have trimmed down the talking but I liked how it was setup.

By: David C

David C — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 16:05:06 +0000

Y’know, now that you mention it, Marvel really *should* try selling small paperback (maybe in that manga-ish format which I can’t remember what the term for it is) editions of The Punisher in airports! It’d be a natural….

By: Joe Rice

Joe Rice — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 14:45:58 +0000

Yeah, I can see that. A lot of my problems with Death Proof would have been more managable if it had gone first.

I still think we could have seen a bit less of the girls hanging out and it would have had the same effect.

By: Segway

Segway — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 14:44:59 +0000

Will Arnett WAS painfully wasted in Blades, but he’s got tons of new stuff coming up!

Check out the Will Arnett Research Project at http://blutharnett.blogspot.com

By: Grant

Grant — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 14:35:27 +0000

Actually I preferred Death Proof. Planet Terror seemed to be a bad movie acknowledging it was a bad movie. And it’s not as fun if the movie is on on the joke.

Death Proof had it’s problems and it was way too talky but I have to say I really enjoyed the last twenty minutes. And think part of the reason was we kind of hung out with the characters for a little bit and got to know them. Stylistically it’s closer to Jackie Brown in that regard.

Sticking it at the end hurt it though. I was pretty exhausted from Planet Terror and the crazy ass trailers (“Don’t” being the best one).