Grindhouse

Impressions before seeing it
I missed this in theaters and refused previous DVD releases because they split up the two movies, but recently they finally released the entire Grindhouse package in one. I had been looking forward to it for a long time after the Tarantino/Rodriguez team had given us Sin City.

How was it?
Of the two films, I think Planet Terror is the one that relies more heavily on the Grindhouse gimmick. The scratchy old film look is very prominent, there's plenty of violence, sex, explosions, and cheesy lines, and it's slightly more fantasy based. I'm not saying that's a weakness, it adds to the entertainment value (or rather it is the entertainment value) and the '70's feel, even if there are text messages involved in the story. I'm not huge on zombie stuff, and the infection was somewhat zombie-like, but I didn't mind because the movie was just a fun, campy ride.

Death Proof works a little differently. The film scratches were barely noticeable here, and a large majority of it is just the characters talking, but that's not a weakness either because of Tarantino's impeccable ear for dialogue. Additionally, I'm glad he went in a different direction than Rodriguez because it might have gotten tiring to see him use all of the exact same tricks we just saw in Planet Terror. But the scene in the hospital was a nice way to tie both movies together, and the ending was funny in its abruptness. I have one small gripe, and that is that when Stuntman Mike was trying to knock Zoe off the hood of the girls' Challenger, it seemed like they had several opportunities to stop the car and let her get off and back inside, but they never did. Although I understand that it's a movie and that would be a less exciting solution, so I get why it didn't happen.

Recommendation
Neither film really has any substance, but I think Grindhouse movies were meant to be fun, not artistic or profound. This is a cool, fun package with a big cast of actors, not to mention the awesome fake movie trailers before the films. However, after watching some of the special features, I realized there was missing footage I hadn't seen, and I'm not talking about the intentional "missing reel" gags. The individual movie releases contained extended versions of Planet Terror and Deathproof, but I buy the SPECIAL EDITION of Grindhouse and they're only the regular theatrical versions? How is that fair?! So, yeah, if you want to see the extended versions you might have to buy them separately.