Enjoyable. Fake Danny Trejo trailer….sort of funny. Must side with R.R’s first half – more subtle nods to exploitation nuance (massive plot holes, stunted and meaningless one-liners, lots of shit that doesn’t make sense, etc). Be warned, though, of the flip-side: There’s also a plenty of ham-fisted, over-referential crap (the fake worn-out film stock). The violence in Planet Terror is cartoonish and everywhere….the squeamish among you should not worry. I don’t like realistic gore/torture, yet this one didn’t bother me at all. Laughed out loud at some childish splatter scenes, truth told.
Now, Tarantino’s half is a different story. Dialogue-heavy, and I’ve been known to enjoy his dialogue about 50/50, but it’s weaker than usual….and boring. There’s far less violence, but it’s more effective/disturbing. That’s probably just due to my queasiness re: realistic car accident scenes. Car accidents send me up the wall; the thought of them, the sight of real ones, the sound of them, and when they are realistically depicted in film, I tend to shudder. Death Proof packs one that is alternately ridiculous and jarring. The second half (of the second half) is dumb-dumb surprising and fun. The Vanishing Point references could have been cut in half, however.
The intermission trailers:
EliÂÂ Roth, a director thatÂÂ I care nothing about, delivers the best one, especially if, like me, you grew up watching crappy horror on crappy TV sets on crappy Saturday afternoons.
Recommended. Another complaint before I close: You’d think that the three hours would blow by. That’s not entirely true. Most of Tarantino’s yip-yapping scenes drag. And of course, the whole experience is aided if you are a serious movie nerd that’s padded your life with loads of film-garbage. ÂÂ
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