 It's hard to know whether the studio was thumbing its nose at religion, but Miramax has selected the Easter holiday weekend to resurrect the double bill at the nation's theaters. That Grindhouse, which features two separate movies from writer-directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino -- as well as some fake trailers -- also includes a prodigious amount of blood may be seen by some of the faithful as compounding the blasphemy. Critics, however, are generally greeting the film(s) with worshipful praise. Since, however, there are two of them -- Planet Terror from Rodriguez and Death Proof from Tarantino -- they have difficulty deciding on whether to review them individually or together. Most attempt to do both. "Grindhouse is a full-blooded attempt to summon up a bygone age of cinematic sleaze," writes Dennis Lim in the Los Angeles Times, who then goes on to describe Planet Terror as "disappointing" and Death Proof as "a film that surprises at almost every turn." Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal calls the twofer "exuberant" and also praises the Tarantino film as "much the superior of the two" with "an action climax of remarkable emotional intensity." Claudia Puig in USA Today calls the movie "three hours of mostly campy fun ... a rowdy jolt of quasi-nostalgic escapism." But the Washington Post's Stephen Hunter points up a very real problem that the movie faces at the box office. It's aimed, he says, at "an audience that pines for the gory double-feature format that petered out in the early '70s. That audience can be counted: One, two. Named Tarantino and Rodriguez." For older folks who wait for the film to come out on DVD and watch it at home, A.O. Scott of the New York Times has this advice: "Bring in a few drunks off the street to mutter and snore. It'll be just like the old days." |
