Grindhouse - Page 2

I disliked both films quite a bit. I could appreciate the homages, but exploitation films have never been my cup of tea.

I really want the theatrical cut of Grindhouse on DVD/Bluray. I love Death Proof and the extended cut isn't bad, but I absolutely hate the scene of the whiney dude trying to get Arlene to make out with him. I really don't understand what Tarantino was going for with this scene. In fact I think it belittles Arlene's character for submitting to this jackass.

Some sites have a blu-ray up for preorder on 12/31:

The two extended cuts (105 and 114) add up to 219. The double feature theatrical version was 191 minutes. So don't get too psyched yet.

I'd prefer this set to be the theatrical cut, but a collection of the two Blu-Rays together would be cool, since I haven't bought them yet.

Yeah, over at Dvdtalk they were mentioning that Wal-Mart had it up for pre-order for August and then it got moved back to December. It's probably just a packaging of both extended cuts.

They really need to get off their asses and release the theatrical cut.

Picture is great so far.

Extended Cut of the Don't trailer: 1 minute, 33 seconds.
Extended Cut of the Werewolf Women Of the SS trailer: 4 minutes, 56 seconds. Pristine, missing the fake aging, lots more Sherri Moon singing.

The video on the Making of Don't! trailer is fucked. David Arnold did the score for Don't!

How's the sound? I'm not one of the ones freaking out about it, but I have to admit I'm curious. Getting mine tomorrow.

Is this only being put out on Blu-ray?

Yeah, it's going to be a Blu-ray exclusive. I just may head into town after work tomorrow to pick it up.

What does this mean?!

Oh that is a horse of shit.

Yeah, that's bullshit. I'm still years away from switching over to Blu-ray. Fuckers.

It looks like the behind rhe scenes video and interviews they shot for Don't was PAL or something and it's a bad conversion.

While in the US it seems that the theatrical Grindhouse experience is Blu-Ray only, in Canada, Universal/Alliance is releasing it on Blu-Ray and DVD. However, I do not know the details of the Canadian DVD release, and it could very well be lacking features that are Blu-Ray exclusive.

http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/produ...3288d9ef01en02

Thanks Brad, I'm going to have to investigate.

I'm mostly miffed because I was planning on getting it as a gift(as well as getting it for myself). Sucks that I'm going to have to import a double(triple?)-dip, since I already own Death proof and Planet Terror.

Ugh, I've seen behind-the-scenes material like that before. I think it was for Battle Royale. It's an eyesore, for sure.

It's a drag, but the content is still solid. Didn't realize certain people were even in Don't (don't wanna spoil in case you don't know, it's a fun reveal).

Blu-Ray really shows off (or reminds me; way to take three and a half fucking years to hit BD) how much Planet Terror looks like a composited to fuck digital flick run through a zillion After Effects filters, while Death Proof really could pass as an honest to God old movie (give or take a cell phone).

Never thought I'd use "restraint" and Tarantino in the same thought, but he really knew how to ride the line on the amount of film damage. And it's really nicely shot to begin with. Rodriguez amps up the scratches, splices and melting frames to match the tension beats in the film.

Yeah. You can get a real sense of the difference between the filmmakers through those quirks of editing and style despite the fact that the stories are both in the same "world" Special feature I am most interested in: 10 Minute Cooking School. I love BBQ.

Just had Planet Terror playing in the background with the audience reaction track. Fun. Says a lot about the way that movie was built compared to Death Proof which just happened to not get one of its own. I'd imagine all you'd hear is the movie for most of that purposely slow middle-section. Heheh.

Shot I love: Marley Shelton regaining the use of her hands as the camera zooms into her flexing her fingers.

Is the MACHETE trailer on the Blu? I didn't see it listed on the back of the case, while the other trailers were called out by name. It ran before PT in the theater, right?

Yes it did. And the trailer is definitely on the blu-ray.

Was the Machete trailer present when the two films first came out separately on home video? Maybe the others were called out by name because they were finally making their official debut on video?

EDIT: Kurt Russell's so damned good in the scene he goads Butterfly into giving him a lapdance. Especially when he reads her bruised ego to a T.

EDIT2: I could've sworn that I saw Zoe Bell flying into the shrubs when I saw the movie in theaters. I'm talking about a shot where we literally see her fly into the shrubs from which she later pops out saying, "I'm OK!" But watching this again on video, I was clearly mistaken. Maybe it was in the extended version that came out on DVD first?

EDIT3: Just realized that this film totally passes the Bechdel Test. Heheheh

Machete was at the front of the Planet Terror DVD as well.

I was thinking about this today - Grindhouse is spiritually an extension of the way Landis and Dante embraced their cinematic nostalgia with Amazon Women on the Moon and Matinee. I'm curious if taking it all the way to all-out forgeries/counterfeit "grindhouse" is an evolution, a side effect of the whole "tyranny of realism" mindset, or something else.

Please specify how the 'tyranny of realism' is related to cinematic nostalgia. I'm having trouble connecting the two.

Landis and Dante had fun with the beloved genres of their youth. Tarantino painstakingly copied his.

So are you saying that Tarantino had a tyrannically exact approach to making a very realistic approximation of an experience (beyond the film itself) he has fond memories of?

Interesting...

I'm wondering if the difference between the last generation's homage (loose, not overly concerned with accuracy) and this generation's homage is at all tied to that "tyranny of realism" trend that has come up in recent years.

Gotcha. It kinda links to something I think Cronenberg has said about Tarantino (please correct me if I'm wrong) about how instead of taking life and putting it to the art, too many directors these days make movies about movies.

It might not be quite a 'tyranny of realism,' but perhaps the generation's inability to look beyond what they know. But I wouldn't say the two are completely unrelated.

EDIT: Ah, here it is: http://rlaneri.blogspot.com/2005/10/...oughts-on.html

Doesn't surprise me that Cronenberg feels that way about Tarantino, I don't disagree with him either. I will say in Tarantino's defense, that he's an excellent storyteller, frame of reference be damned. Sometimes it really is just about telling a good story, nothing wrong with that.

Phil's discussion point led me to re-read Devin's piece on the Tyranny of Realism (such a fantastic piece), and I completely forgot and, to my delight, was reminded that Devin used it to praise Speed Racer. Mwa ha ha.

Devin's Tyranny of Realism thing was railing against the (at the time) increasingly popular idea that gritty, serious, realistic movies are innately better and more worthy than light, stylised or whimsical ones. Tarantino's genre throwbacks have tended to be quite heavily stylised so they really have nothing to do with it.

The 'movies about movies' phenomenon is a separate thing entirely, but it's worth going into. Cronenberg has a decent point. He's a guy who's worked heavily in genre, but he's a guy with quite varied and complex ideas about the world who happens to use genre movies as a vehicle for exploring them. In contrast we now have a generation of filmmakers who grew up with home video, fascinated by movie culture and the technical aspects of film, and who now create movies that are basically shrines to the obsessions of their own introverted upbringings. Not that those shrines can't be very entertaining, but for me all the referencing and nostalgia and throwbacks start to feel like a hollow creative dead end after a while and I end up wishing those directors would start throwing themselves whole-heartedly into things that are truly new instead of wallowing in the familiar.

There's few things I hate more in the world than filmmakers (or, people in general) that have been criticized extensively precisely because they were true to themselves ("oh no the violence! oh no how sick/twisted") proceeding to tell other filmmakers that they shouldn't do shit their own way because its [insert qualifier]. I don't want Tarantino to stop doing what he does as his evolution (up to IB) proves his own style and metafilmmaking has merits of its own and, you know, its precisely what he is obviously passionate about in the same way Cronenberg has his own themes and interests. And, considering the increasingly media saturated culture the world, for better or worse, has embraced, I think this arbitrary distinction between taking from "real life" as opposed to movies is rather ridiculous, a point that, for that matter, one would think the man that made Videodrome would have no problem grasping.

To be fair though, I imagine it'd get exasperating to have your new movie constantly labelled Tarantinoesque simply because it had some violence.

Yeah, I don't need a whole generation of filmmakers making movies about movies, but I hope Tarantino never quits doing it.

Tarantino despite retreading the same ground over and over again, has managed to not only remain fresh, but evolve. He's earned the right to do his thing.

Especially with the sheer breadth of Tarantino's knowledge of film.