video review : Death Proof

video review : Death Proof

The best thing about this Grindhouse flick is the song that plays at the end. It’s a cute ditty that fits the plot; about a stuntman named Mike who drives around in a Chevy Nova he describes as Death Proof. By the time the pretty girl in the passenger seat realizes that description only applies to him, she’s about dead.

It’s a two-part story that would be better as one. The first half, set in Texas, at least has sexy stylization going for it. It’s also overlayed with retro movie theater effects. The second (Tennessee) half, which looks more like a regular movie, is closer to a borefest than a joyride as it stalls itself in mundane dialogue.

my rating : 2 of 5

2007

video review : Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

video review : Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

Quentin Tarantino says he wants to retire after ten movies. This is number nine. If he were to ask me what I think he should do to end his career on a high note, I’d sum it up with one word; suspense. That’s what makes his best movies; Inglourious Basterds and Jackie Brown; the classics they are. They’re filled almost to the brim with moments of suspense.

There’s a scene in Hollywood in which one of its two leading men; Brad Pitt as stuntman Cliff Booth; drives a sexy hitchhiker girl to Spahn Movie Ranch, where she says she lives. She invites him on the premises to meet her hippie friends. The tension that follows could be cut with a knife, but it leads nowhere. The suspense doesn’t return until the movie is about to end.

That ending, in which members of Charles Manson’s killer cult target Cliff and his famous actor buddy Rick Dalton; Leonardo DiCaprio as the other leading man; is violent and enthralling. Most of what comes before it is relatively uneventful. A lot of the movie is spent watching Dalton act in movies that are more entertaining than the one you’re watching.

my rating : 3 of 5

2019

video review : The Hateful Eight

video review : The Hateful Eight

If not for Inglourious Basterds, his masterpiece, I’d say Quentin Tarantino hasn’t wowed me, in a good way, since Jackie Brown. The Hateful Eight, like Django before it, is more epic in scale than substance. There are memorable quotes; the “goddamn Mexican” bit is hilarious; but they’re too far and few between to justify the script’s grandiose verbosity. Nearly every member of The Hateful Eight is a stone-cold killer, but they’re apt to talk you to death. That should be a positive. Tarantino has long had a knack for punchy dialogue, but he seems to be losing it.

The problem of the characters only sometimes saying interesting things to one another is compounded by the fact that they’re snowed-in at the mercy of a blizzard for most of the plot, which circles around a prisoner named Daisy Domergue; the one woman and most despicable of the bunch. The haven is a lodge named Minnie’s Haberdashery and, though this virtual stage play runs for nearly three hours, the suspense and bloodshed doesn’t begin until about the halfway point. Ironically enough considering the fact that a tighter edit could make the film better in half the time.

my rating : 3 of 5

2015