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DVD Tuesday: Kill Bill and exploitation nostalgia
DVD Tuesday: Kill Bill: A trip down exploitation-movie memory lane!
I like Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse (2007). But I love Tarantino's Kill Bill. Both tap into fond memories of haunting the real grindhouses of New York's then notorious Times Square.
Times Square was never what it used to be: There was always someone around to tell you that you should have seen it when. Cue some nostalgic tale that starts, "it was so sleazy that…." Trust me, back in the 1970s it was plenty sleazy, and today it's like the Las Vegas casino version of its bad old self. But what a place to see low-budget American horror, yakuza pictures, spaghetti Westerns, Eurotrash thrillers and sexploitation, martial arts epics, mondo movies and assorted weirdness, all of which (and more) go into the Kill Bill mix.
The plot is simple, if digressive: A professional assassin code named "Black Mamba" (Uma Thurman) is murdered on her wedding on her wedding day. Except that she doesn't die: After four years in a coma, she wakes up and begins plotting her revenge against everyone who had a hand in destroying her life: Her four partners in crime (Daryl Hannah, Vivica A. Fox, Lucy Liu and Michael Madsen) and big boss Bill (David Carradine).
Volume one focuses on the present day, while volume two delves more deeply into the blood-spattered bride's background, both are filled with images, characters, music, actors and themes guaranteed to plunge a die-hard exploitation buff into a feature length Proustian reverie.
Which isn't to say you can't enjoy the hell out of it even if you can't name all (or even any of) the references: Kill Bill is a flawlessly crafted piece of pulp entertainment.
And ultimately, that's why I prefer it to Grindhouse, a flawless crafted homage to the pulp entertainment experience. Grindhouse plays for me because I have vivid memories of that experience -- most of those trailers, for example -- including Rodriguez's Machete, Eli Roth's Thanksgiving and Edgar Wright's Don't -- are dead on the money, and trailers were the only way you ever knew what was coming to a pit near you.
Movies that played grindhouses rarely advertised; if they did it was with tiny ads that ran the day of opening and almost never mentioned the second (or third) feature. The best way to know what was opening on 42nd Street on any given Friday was to walk up one side of the street and down the other checking the marquees. But without those memories on which to draw, I think Grindhouse feels mannered, artificial and long.
Kill Bill, by contrast, moves like a freight train -- even if you watch both halves back to back; that's a combined four-hour running time – and repays multiple viewings. There's just too much detail to catch it all the first time out. And that's a movie to love.
Send your movie questions to FlickChick.
See Maitland McDonagh and Ken Fox review this week's new flicks on the multiple award-winning Movie Talk vodcast.
Things to Consider:
How would you define "exploitation movie?" A Hollywood producer once said that all movies are exploitation movies, because they're designed to make money by exploiting something moviegoers want, from thought-provoking drama to cheap thrills.
For you, what's the difference between homage and a rip-off?
Do you distinguish between movies you're happy to admit you like and so-called "guilty pleasures?" (My feeling is if you like it, own up to it.)
What are some of your favorite of, let's say, the kind you'd only recommend to certain friends?
Do you remember grindhouses or drive-ins and, if so, do you have a story to tell?
Previously in DVD Tuesday:
2008:
Detour
Diary of the Dead
Videodrome
The Kingdom
M
Touch of Evil
Bonnie and Clyde
Atonement
When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth
Rififi
Michael Clayton
Network
The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T
Shoot 'Em Up
Freeway
A Mighty Wind
2007:
It's a Wonderful Life
Waitress
Laura
Cop
All About Eve
Severance
Sweet Smell of Success
Daughters of Darkness
The Crazies
Blade Runner
Zodiac
Manhunter
A Simple Plan
Taxi Driver
Renaissance
Blowup
Hot Fuzz
300
Ace in the Hole
Eyes Without a Face
Apocalypto
Citizen Kane
La Jetée
Gone in 60 Seconds (1974)
Bob le Flambeur
Near Dark
Perfect Blue
Pan's Labyrinth
Les Girls
The Girl Who Knew Too Much
The Queen
Expresso Bongo
I'm Not Scared
Shocking Grindhouse Double Bill! — Scanners and The Candy Snatchers
Don't Look Now
Re-Animator
Casino Royale
Pi
The Prestige
13 Tzameti
The Departed
Suspiria
Kiss and Make Up
Kiss Me Deadly
The Long Good Friday
What Alice Found
The Devil's Backbone
The Descent
The Devil Wears Prada
Pandora's Box
The Thief and the Cobbler
Nashville
Panic in the Streets/Jack Palance Interview
The Pusher Trilogy
Scarface
Slither
Sunset Blvd.
In Cold Blood
Brick
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Jun 10, 2008 10:22 AM
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I've been scanning YouTube and watching such legendary Drive-In/Grindhouse flicks like Don't Look in the Basement (a.k.a The Forgotten), Scream Bloody Murder (at least the one that had a boy's hand ripped off by a tractor and then when grown up kidnapps a hippie painter that resembles his mother and calls her "Daisy" even though her name is Vera), and Maniac (seeing those maniquins "beat" up that guy was a great payback scene!). There's plenty more I've yet to see like My Bloody Valentine, the original Prom Night with Jamei Lee Curtis and Leslie Neilson before Airplane! changed his career, Night of Bloody Horrer with that guy from "Simon and Simon", and Starcrashers (a Star Wars rippoff) with Caroline Munro and others I haven't mentioned! With not much to see on TV right now, I've got my summer planed out...
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Jun 10, 2008 11:50 AM
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Maitland - thanks for another thought provoking post! I grew up in a small rural community (pop 5000) in the 70's and the only theater we had was a Drive-In. I do remember watching many of the pulp type movies as second features. As you stated, mainy of the second features were only listed on the marquee and the only way to find out what they were about was to go and watch! Many of the Bruce Lee movies, early Clint Eastwood flicks and the occasional Billy Jack movies are remembered!
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Jun 10, 2008 12:52 PM
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I tend to think of explotation flicks as low-budget movies where the aim is to provide a little [or, occasionally a lot] more violence and/or sex than more mainstream films - or to cater to a niche audience that more mainstream fare doesn't usually feed [sex comedies, horror movies, biker movies, and so forth].
My favourite graindhouse memory is the day my sister and I shelled out our quarters at The Strand and sat through the double feature of Atragon and Latitude Zero four times - before going home to the well and truly incurred wrath of our parents. [I was twelve and she was nine.]
But it was worth it!
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Jun 10, 2008 3:49 PM
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Do you distinguish between movies you're happy to admit you like and so-called "guilty pleasures?"
Not so much. Except that from the looks I receive when I tell people, I realize that Kevin Costner and I are the only two people who may ever have truly enjoyed Waterworld. I always follow the revelation up by saying that I hated The Postman though.
What are some of your favorite of, let's say, the kind you'd only recommend to certain friends?
I loved Shakes The Clown and CB4 and though it's not a guilty pleasure type film, I am careful about who I recommend Welcome To The Dollhouse to.
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Jun 11, 2008 3:14 AM
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