Death Proof
Producer Harvey Weinstein lived up to his Entourage doppelganger when he wailed on Kurt Russell at Cannes this year. Russell was publicly rebuked for saying that audiences won't get to see the planned Quentin Tarantino / Robert Rodriguez double-bill Grindhouse as it was meant to be seen: "Two movies together, the complete three-and-a-half hour ride."
Grindhouse was split in two for distribution, and Tarantino's extended half, Death Proof - fizzing with digitally-inserted flaws, scratches, and missing frames - is also split. Two films, sharing a villain in Kurt Russell's "Stuntman Mike", getting a long-deserved Travoltian comeback.
But there's never been split-brain cinematic self-diagnosis as accurate as in Death Proof. The first half up with Tarantino's best: idiosyncratic dialogue, carefully-balanced comedy and menace, and The Coasters' track 'Down In Mexico'. (You'll be humming it for days.)
The second half goes from 100 to 0mph. Other than an old-school car chase, it shows all Tarantino's failures. What worked for Godard doesn't work in an exploitation flick: just as things were heating up, you're left wading through more pop-culture minutia with new, empty characters and no dramatic tension. See it in a packed cinema, and the crowd-buzz might carry you through to the finale.
Format: Cinema
Mood: Rad
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