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Some movies just make life worth living
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Grindhouse” has everything in it that you go to the movies for — brain-eating zombies, exploding heads, cars blowing up, and hot, topless lesbians kissing in front of a mirror.
And all that is just in the FIRST movie of the “Grindhouse” double bill!!! It’s called “Planet Terror,” written and directed by Robert Rodriguez, who shot the great “Mariachi” movies.
There was all this gossip while “Grindhouse” was shooting about how Rodriguez was getting a little too close with his star, Rose McGowan, and that’s why he and his wife — who’ve been together a hundred years and had 17,000 kids together — were splitting.
Well, “Planet Terror” kicks off with Rose swinging her half-naked self up and down and all around a stripper pole. And I’m sorry, Mrs. Almost-Ex-Rodriguez, I cannot blame the man. In fact, he could’ve shown just Rose and that stripper pole for all 191 minutes of “Grindhouse” and the movie would still be great — maybe even BETTER. (But I’ll talk about Quentin Tarantino’s half of the bill later.)
Once Rose leaves the stripper pole behind, “Planet Terror” goes [gonads]-to-the-wall crazy, in a good way. It never really makes much sense — but that’s in a good way, too, because since it doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t matter if you have to go to the bathroom three or four times. (Did I mention it was 191 minutes?)
Rose plays Cherry Darling, and she hooks up with her ex, El Wray (Freddy Rodriguez), who drives a big truck — and a big truck is a good thing to have because the countryside is suddenly overrun by those zombies I mentioned.
Meanwhile, Marley Shelton and Josh Brolin are married doctors who hate each other. Turns out Marley used to be a lesbian with Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas, who is hitchhiking, trying to hook back up with her — but those zombies sadly come between their hot girl-on-girl action.
The movie is crazy full of cameos like Fergie’s. Bruce Willis shows up, and Sayid from “Lost” and Michael Biehn from “Terminator” and “Aliens.”
But my favorite of all is gore-makeup wizard Tom Savini, who plays a deputy. Savini was the biker in the first “Dawn of the Dead” who got his intestines slurped up like spaghetti by zombies. In “Planet Terror,” he one-ups that scene by letting the zombos rip his whole body apart into spurting chunks.
Tarantino also pops up on-screen as “The Rapist,” and he’s around just long enough to remind us why he should stay BEHIND the camera. Only, his movie that follows “Planet Terror” isn’t as convincing on that score as it ought to be.
But before “Death Proof” starts, there are three awesome trailers for fake movies. The best of them is by Eli Roth, the guy who directed “Hostel.” His fake movie is called “Thanksgiving,” and it will do for trampolines what “Jaws” did to the ocean. (That’s too bad, because the world would be a lot better place with more babes bouncing topless on trampolines!)
Then “Death Proof” starts, starring Kurt Russell as a psychopath killer called Stuntman Mike who mows women down in his 1971 Chevy Nova. And you think, What can go wrong?
Well, let me tell you what: Tarantino’s writing, that’s what. The first half of the movie is all about this group of women friends who spend the evening drinking beer and shots and talking, talking, talking about men problems and blah blah blah. Luckily, Tarantino throws in a lot of sweet ‘n’ gratuitous shots of their [buttocks] and [breasts]. And finally, finally, Kurt shows up, and he’s great and sleazy in that Snake-Plissken-gone-to-seed way that only he can do.
Then the killings start, and Russell has an awesome crash — but then the movie jumps ahead and dumps us in the middle of ANOTHER group of women talking about men troubles and blah blah blah. But at least one of them is Rosario (Hello!) Dawson, so that’s OK.
There’s also Zoe Bell, a real-life stuntwoman playing herself. And the movie picks up for real when she and Rosario and Tracie Thoms take a 1970 Dodge Challenger for a spin in the countryside. And Zoe wants to do the “ship’s mast” — which means she crawls out on the hood while the car is at top speed, with only a couple of leather straps to hold on to.
And that’s when Kurt shows up and tries to wreck them — and “Death Proof” becomes amazing.
About time, too, because up till then the girls yak so much about great road flicks like “Vanishing Point” and “Dirty Mary Crazy Larry” that you want to go, QUIT TALKING ABOUT MOVIES AND SHOW US ONE — am I right?
‘GRINDHOUSE’
• Naked breasts: Yes! Bouncing on a trampoline and backstage (rouged!) at a strip club!!!
• Dirty words: Wall-to-wall.
• Best lines: “It’s go-go, not cry-cry.” — What Cherry Darling’s boss tells her when she ends her go-go dance in tears.
• The rest: Directed by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. Rated R for strong graphic bloody violence and gore, pervasive language, some sexuality, nudity and drug use. At metro theaters. 3 hours, 11 minutes.
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