Photos
I was born in the late ’70s, so I didn’t experience the hyper-violent, openly sexual film of that decade first hand. I missed out on the low budget exploitation and the winking social satire. It wasn’t until years later in elementary school that I started catching up with the Easy Riders and Taxi Drivers of the past. I totally understand why these films were influential, and how they wrested the power away from Hollywood and put it into the hands of free-spirited artists who wanted to get at a human truth beyond Roman-era epics and Busby Berkley musicals (which were all made in the ’70s, don’t be fooled by facts). But even without experiencing those things in the weather-beaten seats of a cum-stained Times Square movie theater, these Grindhouse-style b-movie revival projects depress the shit out of me.
Hell Ride red band trailer after the jump, you guys.
Quentin Tarantino executive produced it, NATURALLY. That vampire bully will not rest (in the coffin that he uses for a bed because he is a vampire as mentioned) until he sucks (because he is a vampire with a vampire face) all the pleasure out of film’s long and changing history. At some point he’s just going to make a film with a three and a half year running time that combines every single cinematic trope, which other directors actually had to use their creativity to come up with, and at the end he’s going to toss his lighter onto a trail of gasoline that leads to Hollywood and give us all the finger as he descends into his bamboo-lined Boom Boom Fortress on the outskirts of a Las Vegas he doesn’t realize is not half as sleazy as he wishes it was, to spend the rest of his days whittling away the hard edges of his nose with a pocket knife and remembering how things were simpler when he worked at a video store and no one knew him well enough to hate him.
 |
 |
Gabe,
The movie looks so-so, sure. But if Quentin Tarantino didn’t exec-produce it, someone else would have, and nothing in the movie’s style or plot would have changed
Eventually your by-rote writing style of being uber-ironic and witheringly critical of everything will also feel as overdone as this kind of film must feel to you. You’re quite the douche.
If you think you can make me hate myself more than I already do, you’re wrong. But you can’t seriously be arguing that just because this movie could have been executive produced by someone else (a specious claim at best) that it somehow relieves Tarantino of the responsibility he’s taken upon himself to triumph this kind of retro-schlock cinema. For one thing, it WASN’T executive produced by someone else. And secondly, the main point is that Tarantino has shifted his career to a full-time glorification of things that weren’t that great to begin with, which is tiresome and unimaginative and Grindhouse is the worst thing ever.
I’d also like to point out that there’s nothing “ironic” about this post. Irony is the use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning. In this case, I write explicitly about how I dislike Quentin Tarantino in order to convey the meaning that I dislike Quentin Tarantino. I just wanted to make sure that we all had our semantic arguments straight before we got back to why I should kill myself.
fruitbat works for tarantino. Your writing is hilarious. when is irony and omgdie criticism not funny? Fruitbat is clearly out of touch with reality.
Fruitbat wins.
three cheers for gabe…grindhouse made me hate moving pictures
regardless of whether its been done before, tarantino never fails to entertain. if you judged every film on whether something stylistic/story-wise had been done previously, you’d never have anything to watch. tarantino is easier to criticize because his influences are a more obvious than others.
the thing is, Tartino quite regularly fails to entertain! Have you seen Jackie Brown? Slowest movie ever. Not to mention the borefests of Death Proof (despite semi-exciting car chase ending) and Kill Bill v2. heck, even Reservoir Dogs was 75% boring pointless dialog
These make me pine for the days of Seagal.
I mean, sure they suck and that was point, but they were sincere.
Tarentino- not sincere.
So instead of getting ripped and feeding into this recycled garbage, I’m gonna get ripped and by Marked for Death.
Who’s with me?
I like how you simplified the car chase as merely the “ending” of the movie. I think it’s the only “ending” I’ve ever seen that lasts a half-hour.
You’re absolutely right, your post did not make use of irony, and I take that back. Hyperbole and litotes are better descriptors of your style.
They’re still inappropriately directed, though, and miles away from funny. Seriously, “… whittling away the hard edges of his nose…”? What’s the point of going that far?
Good luck working on that self-loathing.
Ah get over yourself Fruitbat. (Oh and you argue like a little kid. “Oh yeah well… you suck!”)
Tarantino is a terrible director who proved with Death Proof that the reason why all of his movies are non-sequential is because he can’t tell a straight story without being incredibly boring. And since most of his films are not entertaining, showing his biggest film-making weakness just made it clear that he’s just not that good.
And how is Gabe’s criticism inappropriate towards Tarantino? The man is not a good director, I’ve only gotten through a few of his films because I get bored easily, and he’s smug and arrogant. He hasn’t earned the right to act as if he’s smarter about films than anyone else.
And the ending of Death Proof was the car chase. It was the most interesting part of the film, but that’s pretty much how the thing ends.