Grindhouse

[CheesalaIsGood 0]

Honestly, can any of you tell me how Death Proof is good without saying "because I liked it" or "it's supposed to be bad"?

Firstly, the car chase scenes were just fucking awesome. I usually don't give a shit about car chases, there have been thousands of them and most of them all look alike. But the ones in Death Proof were truly spectacular. Even if the rest of the movie was nothing but Tarantino sitting on a couch and eating Cheetos for an hour, I still would give it a thumbs up just based on the carmageddon alone.

 

Secondly, I thought Stuntman Mike was a hell of a villain. The way Russell played him, he could be creepy or charming, sadistic or cowardly, and it all worked. He was a memorable and unique entry in the Sociopathic Heels of film history.

 

Thirdly: your main problem seems to be with the actresses and their dialogue. Well, I liked that part too. I thought all of them did just fine in portraying their characters, even if Tracie Thoms's lip-smacking recitation of her overbaked 70s blaxploitation one-liners did get old by the end. I had no problem with all the dialogue scenes, I found them amusing. I would willingly watch an entire movie of just these girls talking, with no car chases, and probably be entertained by it. Would such a movie be better than Jackie Brown? Of course not. But just saying "Jackie Brown > Death Proof" doesn't mean that the inferior choice is worthless.

 

Well it takes a little more than a good car chase/crash to make me enjoy a movie, otherwise I'd be a big fan of most action flicks. Although the car chase in the French Connection was far superior and that movie had good acting and an actual story to go along with it. I like Kurt Russell but I found his role as Stuntman Mike to be a rather uninspired performance. Maybe I need to watch it again to notice the little subtleties of his performance but I was pretty underwhelmed from what I saw.

 

Last night I listened to a one hour interview with Tarantino discussing Jackie Brown and he repeatedly mentioned how he wanted us to "hang out" with the characters in JB. Well I think he ran a little too far with that idea when making Death Proof. It was a lot more fun to hang out with the characters in JB because, a) they had vastly different and interesting personalities, and b) actually did something of interest in the film. All the broads in Death Proof were the same annoying bimbo with no distinguishable traits or empathetic qualities.

Yes, but Tarantino films are a character unto themselves regardless of the characters (or lack thereof) in them. I dig them and I really dug Death Proof.

[luke-o 0]

I really dug Death Proof, it's over stylised scripting, it's attention to detail editing, everything just came together really nicely.

 

It's harder to make a film look bad on purpose than to make a bad looking film.

 

So let me understand what you're trying to say... Tarantino deserves credit for making a bad movie on purpose but you think it's better than Jackie Brown (which you said was OK, meaning better than bad) because of its shorter and has over-stylized dialogue? I don't know what you mean by "attention to detail editing". Is it the car crash being shown at different angles?

 

Give credit where credit is due, he went through every frame of film and physically put the scrathes on them to make them love authentic. He didn't pussy out and digitally put them on, he had enough passion in his product to slave through each frame to make them look like they cam straight out of a low budget 70s flick.

 

Attention to detail editing sort of falls into that same catagory, each "fuck-up" edit in that film is purposfully put there in that place so it would fit within the theme of the film.

 

Well almost every Tarantino film has an over-stylized script, including Jackie Brown, but Jackie Brown actually has a plot and a point, and I don't understand how you could sit through (and enjoy) 90 minutes of annoying "girl talk" but a 2 hour and 30 minute movie that moves at a steady pace bores you...

 

Jackie Brown does have a plot and point granted, but it takes too long to get to said point. And saying the film has a "steady pace" is pretty ridiculous. Jackie Brown is (much like all other Tarantino joints) is scene after scene of people talking and takes forever to get the point. Now if Death Proof had been 2 hours and 30 minutes then I could see your point, but it's not. It's (meant to be) a 45 minute short.

 

I can't quite understand the "bad acting" aspect of the film comments you've made. In your orginal post you said that Rosario Dawson was one of the better chicks, if you ask me she was probably one of the worst. But I'm not really a fan of Dawson outside of Josie and The Pussycats.

 

I also agree with Jingus that Stuntman Mike was an awesome badguy. You just have to look at the scene where he kills Rose McGowan to see how insanly cool he is. "Well thats too bad. You see, you had a 50-50 chance of going the same way as me cause I'm going left and you want to go right. Now if you were going left, it would have been a while before you got scared. Now I'm afraid, you're going to have to get scared a lot sooner."

 

And this may seem a little out of left field, but I like the quote in your sig.

 

Thanks