Grindhouse

When Shawn Levy has to spend 17 paragraphs attempting to put Tarentinos latest into some kind of perspective, we should all be worried. I have not seen it yet, but from all of the trailers and his review, I can see that Tarentino and Rodriguez have gotten it all wrong again. You know they spent enough on giving Rose Mcgowan a CGI stump as a real grindhouse director would have spent on a dozen movies. Sure a z-movie director might have put a machine gun on his leading ladies stump, but it would be because his leading lady had only one leg. He couldn't afford the going rate for working actors.
It was this creative work in the face of a limited budget that made watching z-movies such a hoot. You never knew when you might uncover a low-budget classic such as "El Mariachi", Robert Rodriguz' great first movie. Unfortunately, like many low budget directors, once they get a larger budget. they don't know when to stop spending it. Thus, you get the sequel to El Mariachi, which was bigger, more bloated but not better, and the remake of El Mariachi with Antonio Banderas, even bigger, more bloated and still not as good. This seems to be a habit with Rodriguez. I enjoyed Spy Kids alot, but Spy Kids 2 was bigger, more bloated and not better. Spy Kids 3, well it just sucked.
It's not that I don't understand Tarentinos point. My own experience with so-called grindhouse fare came in 1976 when we went to downtown L.A. and plucked down a buck and a half for a triple header, one of which turned out to be John Carpenters "Assault on Precinct 13". Totally low budget with maybe two sets, but it was as tight a little action flick as you could find. When you suddenly realized it was an homage to Howard Hawks "Rio Bravo" it was all the more enjoyable. Unfortunately the snoring of the homeless people around us drove us out before the other two pictures showed, but we definately got our moneys worth. Since one of the other films was a masked wrestler movie from Mexico, maybe one of the Hercules series, we didn't feel too disappointed.
Hey, I've got an idea. Maybe Tarentino and Rodriguez could do a masked wrestler movie next. Or do you think they already have such a thing in the pipeline?
Great, another z-movie genre they can pump up with silicon and steroids and toss up on the screen while they stroll off, chuckling ironically of course, all the way to the bank.