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« Ask FlickChick
Questions About Grindhouse, Flying Pancakes and More!
Grindhouse courtesy Dimension Films
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Question: Grindhouse did horribly at the box office — it made a mere $11 million. Any idea why it did so poorly when it opened to mostly positive reviews? — Michael
PS.: I love you and the gang on the podcast, I have recently been getting into exercising and am listening to every episode you have ever recorded... very fun!
FlickChick: Thank you, Michael. As to Grindhouse, there's a very real irony in the fact that back in the day, real grindhouse movies made money despite negative reviews (or, more often, no reviews at all in the mainstream press), while Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's loving homage got terrific reviews and did poorly.
I can think of a number of explanations: I suspect some people were put off by the three-hour length of Death Proof/Planet Terror plus trailers. I think Rodriguez and Tarantino may have overestimated the number of moviegoers who share their enthusiasm for the down-and-dirty horror/sci-fi/road-rage movies of the 1970s, and have forgotten that you have to be in your forties to be nostalgic for them. That means that a lot of the core moviegoing audience is too young.
I think putting Death Proof second may have been a miscalculation, because it's my impression that there are far more hard-core Tarantino fans than there are Rodriguez fans. All that said, I'm betting Grindhouse will do bang-up business on DVD. The length won't be an issue on DVD — in fact, it could easily be longer — and people will be able to get together and make watching it a social event. After all, DVD is where everyone under the age of 40 discovered grindhouse movies in the first place.
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Question: I remember seeing a movie in the 1970s about a creature under the sand that sucked up its victims from underneath. Was it the movie called Blood Beach? — Rani
FlickChick: Yes, it was. And speaking of grindhouses, I have fond memories of seeing Blood Beach — which was actually released in 1981 — from the balcony of the gloriously rundown New Amsterdam on bad old 42nd Street. The theater, which was built to house Florenz Ziegfield's famous follies (in the '70s and '80s you could still see his initials woven into the filthy carpeting, assuming you dared put your face that close), and has since been restored and is home to Disney's The Lion King. But Blood Beach is as sleazy, cheesy and just plain dumb as ever.
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Question: As I child, I remember going to an independent movie theater in the early- to mid-1980s. I am trying to find the name of the movie I saw, but all I remember is a scene with flying blueberry pancakes. Am I crazy? — Elana
FlickChick: You don't sound crazy, so I'm going to proceed from the assumption that you're recalling, however dimly, a scene from a real movie. That said, the best idea I have is that you may have seen a sorry little sci-fi/horror picture called Without Warning (1980). In it, alien sportmen hunt human game, their weapon of choice something that has variously been called a flying pancake, a fanged flapjack or a lethal Frisbee. The movie's claims to fame are that it marked the career nadir of such Hollywood golden-agers as Jack Palance, Martin Landau, Neville Brand, Cameron Mitchell and Ralph Meeker, was the movie debut of a young David Caruso, and appears to have inspired Predator (1987).
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Question: Do you think there will be a second part to The Descent? I thought it was great and it makes sense that another group of women could go looking for the original ones and find out what's in the cave and what happened to their predecessors. I would love to see a Part 2. — Jeffrey
FlickChick: Although no Descent (2005) sequel has been officially announced, some recent interviews with U.K. writer-director Neil Marshall suggest that you may get your wish. Though Marshall has no plans to write or direct a second Descent movie, he did have some idea about what could be done, and he put an unidentified screenwriting team to work fleshing out his plans. The only thing he's said about the plot is that he doesn't want it to be a rehash of the first but with different women. He told BloodyDisgusting.com that "based on the reaction of people… we struck a nerve with the claustrophobia scene. A lot of people say that scene is the one that stuck [with them]. The monsters they can deal with. And a bit of the claustrophobia they can deal with. But the combination is definitely something we want to incorporate into the sequel, by putting the monster and the girls in a really tight spot.” Just by the way, Marshall was also talking about a sequel to his first film, the werewolf picture Dog Soldiers (2002), even before The Descent opened. It even has a title — Dog Soldiers: Fresh Meat.
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Question: I know for a fact that there is a movie called The Electric Grandmother. It's about this family of three kids who, I think, have lost their mother; a box comes out of this helicopter and when they open it up there's a robot grandmother who spurts milk out of her fingers and does a bunch of other crazy things. I haven't been able to find any proof that this movie actually exists. Please tell me it does, and that I'm not making these crazy stories up! — Ellen
FlickChick: The Emmy-nominated, made-for-TV movie The Electric Grandmother absolutely exists: The trouble is that it's long out of print on tape and has never been unavailable on DVD. It's based on the Ray Bradbury story "I Sing the Body Electric" and stars the late, great Maureen Stapleton as the robo-granny. VHS tapes of the film occasionally show up on eBay, but you're far from the only person with vivid memories of it, so be prepared to bid aggressively.
Send your movie questions to FlickChick.
Question: Who is the African-American female singer in Kiss Me Deadly? — Jo
FlickChick: Her name was Madi (or Mattie or Mady) Comfort, and she was a professional nightclub singer who performed with Duke Ellington’s band in the early 1950s; he apparently wrote "Satin Doll" (with Billy Strayhorn and Johnny Mercer) for her in 1956. Comfort was married to bass player Joe Comfort, who worked with such well-known musicians as Lionel Hampton and Nat Cole, and did studio work on a number of Frank Sinatra records produced by Nelson Riddle. As far as I can tell, Kiss Me Deadly (1955) was Madi Comfort's only movie credit — the number she sings is "I'd Rather Have the Blues." Nat King Cole's version of the same song is heard in the film's opening sequence. She died in Whittier, California, in 2003 at the age of 79. The only other information I've been able to uncover about Comfort is that she has been linked to the Black Dahlia murder case via George Hodel, a Los Angeles-based doctor who was considered a suspect and whom Comfort is said to have known. Hodel's son, Steve Hodel, wrote a book called Black Dahlia Avenger in which he argues that his father was indeed the killer of Hollywood-fringe figure Elizabeth Short, and maintains an extensive website about the case. That's where I found the references to Comfort's interviews in connection with the case.
Send your movie questions to FlickChick.
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Apr 18, 2007 4:35 PM
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I think you are right Maitland, about Tarantino and Rodriguez over-estimating the box office appeal of the genre. Also about over-estimating the same appeal of the film's "stars". As much as we may like them Russell, McGowan and Dawson are hardly A list when it comes to box office. Russell is really only a "star" by virtue of his marriage to Goldie Hawn. McGowan may have peaked and Dawson may be in ascendance-or the other way around.
This is not an assessment of the talent of any of the above. I have several favorites-talented actors-who are "B" stars. Sam Elliott comes to mind for one.
I think too, that Tarantino, when out promoting his films on talk shows may turn some people off. Sometimes I find him amusing and sometimes I find him overbearing.
The film itself may have been oversold. The two directors and four of its stars were on every TV talk show one after another almost everyday for two weeks. At least once I saw the same priciple (Tarantino) with Leno and then later with Craig Ferguson on the same night. It was too much.
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Apr 19, 2007 2:50 AM
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Maitland
I really enjoyed The Good Shepherd but had to return the video before I could watch it more than once. Can you clear up something? Why was the male person in the photgraph and on the tape recording in the part of the world he was in in the first place? Had he made and effected the career choice he discussed and was he there in that professional capacity? I missed that connection. Thanks
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Apr 19, 2007 3:45 AM
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Ummmm.... Lion King moved theatres like a year ago. The New Amsterdam is currently home to Disney's Mary Poppins.
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Apr 19, 2007 9:52 AM
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As someone who wrote into the Podcast mentioned, the studios should force Tarantino into hiding and prevent him from doing publicity for his films. He comes across as such an elitist boob that no one can relate to him. Dude needs a valium! We get it... you're excited by movies. Maybe little Johnny gets a bit too excited from time to time.
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Apr 19, 2007 12:42 PM
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I remember watching [i]The Electric Grandmother at birthday parties! Of course that was in the 80s and the movie was shown via projector! I know not in the league of My Super Sweet 16, but we were impressed!
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Apr 19, 2007 1:59 PM
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I Sing the Body Electric was also adapted by Ray Bradbury from his short story for a Twilight Zone episode in 1962. It featured Veronica Cartwright and David White (of Bewitched fame).
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Apr 19, 2007 3:23 PM
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You're right about Quentin Achy. He makes Tom Arnold look like a Valium addict. And would somebody PLEASE help me with my Good Shepherd question?
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Apr 20, 2007 4:17 AM
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DaMess:
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER...
Okay, if you read past here, you have been warned.!
The man in the picture is the grown son of career spook Edward Wilson (Matt Damon), and he was where he was because he was trying to be the exact opposite of his father: Someone who tried to intervene in the world's problems rather than sit back and report, someone who could truly love a woman, rather than lock his feelings behind a wall of duty to the greater good.
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Apr 20, 2007 9:56 PM
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Schuyboy: You're absolutely right -- Mary Poppins is now playing at the New Amsterdam, not The Lion King. My mistake. But my larger point remains the same: The once glorious theater-turned-grindhouse is now a showcase for insipid, corporate theater geared to out-of-towners looking for a status-quo afternoon or evening at the theater. And I find that very depressing. I know the old Times Square was a pit. But it was a vibrant pit with its own unique dynamics. Now Times Square is just part of a market-researched, demographically parsed to a fare-the-well marketing machine. And that makes me sad.
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Apr 20, 2007 10:05 PM
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Grindhouse was not advertisedwell and what I did see played off the double feature aspects rather than the films contents, about all the detail I got would be the amount of a 3-5 worded sentence description in an old tvguide style listing. I think having individual commercials for each film with an ending of playing with in the double feature. If they did such a thing, it did not air in my area.
I for one loved the length, I could have taken more. Why can't people sit down for a while? While this is a reference gotten by 40 year olds, these are the type of films that will have cult followings and probably do well on DVD. I really do think younger audiences could / should find these appealing.
Casting was great for these films, I would not question it. I hope these do well in the seperate releases. I preferred Rodriguez's film, I think it embraced the concept better but Tarantino's was fine girl power fun. I think it more of a "chick flick" action movie.
Despite the apparent bad sales, it is a good thing that Machete will be made into a direct to video feature, it was my favorite of the "fake" trailers.
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Apr 21, 2007 3:52 AM
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Bradford Curse: I'm with you about the length of Grindhouse -- with first-run movie tickets costing $10.50 or $11.00 in Manhattan, it just feels like good value for money. The only downside is that while at real grindhouse double bills you always figured you could make a quick bathroom/concession stand run during the coming attractions, with Grindhouse you don't want to miss them. I wound up taking a quick break at the beginning of Death Proof -- once I saw what kind of film it was, I figured I could miss five minutes with impunity.
I too could have watched more, and I'm willing to bet that the DVD version of Grindhouse will be longer -- maybe we'll even see the missing reels.
And believe me, if Robert Rodriguez really does make a full-length Machete, I am so there! For my money, Danny Trejo's turn as Isidor "Machete" Cortez is one of the highlights of the Spy Kids movies.
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Apr 21, 2007 6:46 PM
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Thanks Maitland. I got who he was though-didn't want to include a spoiler. What I missed was how and why he got there. Whether he had joined that organization he was talking about to his father or whether he just happened to be there and was talking about things he had overheard.
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Apr 22, 2007 1:08 AM
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DeMess: Sorry! He joined the organization -- something like the Peace Corps -- because he wanted to dedicate his life to a force for con\crete, positive change rather than skulking around in the shadows, manipulating people's lives for the "greater good" like his father. But Wilson's Soviet counterparts saw an opportunity to get at the father through his idealistic, slightly naive son.
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Apr 22, 2007 5:50 PM
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