You Gotta See Grindhouse

I actually got a chance to see a movie on opening day, which never happens when you have two young kids and a wife that's in a Friday night bowling league. But because we had no school on Good Friday, my wife and I, along with some students of mine with excellent cinematic taste, went to see Grindhouse.

Short review: You Gotta See It! It's the most fun I've had in a theater in a long time.

I won't go into a lot of details, because I want to go watch a bunch of dvds right now (once you leave the theater after seeing Grindhouse, you'll want to spend the rest of the weekend watching more movies--not Merchant/Ivory Jane Austen movies, but movies with lots of 'splosions and kicking and swearing and hot pants), but Planet Terror is, BY FAR, Robert Rodriguez's best film. It's a blast, literally and metaphorically. I enjoyed it immensely. It was really fun.

Death Proof really slowed things down, with a talky opening sequence (the whole movie, really, is only five sequences, most of them dialogue-heavy, which is a sharp contrast with Planet Terror, a movie that jumps from location to location and action to action). Yet the anticipation, and coolness of Kurt Russell, sets up the action perfectly, and once the killing starts, the movie becomes mesmerizing. I had more fun watching Planet Terror, but the scenes in Death Proof are unforgettable. I can't decide which one I liked more, but luckily, I don't have to because they're both part of the same movie. Man, you gotta go see Grindhouse. And see it soon, because it probably won't put up big box office numbers, so it won't last very long in your local theater. But, who cares? Let all the suckers go see Ice Cube remodel his house while you sit for 3 1/2 hours in cinematic bliss.