Grindhouse

Review in a Hurry:  Back-to-back trashed-up exploitation flicks, one from Quentin Tarantino (who seems downright obsessed with the joke) and one from Robert Rodriguez (who seems to actually get it). If the trailer sold you on the concept, the film won't be a disappointment.

The Bigger Picture:  Truthfully, this movie was a slam dunk waiting to happen since Rodriguez and Tarantino hatched the concept—a double feature of joyously exuberant mock-'70s schlock films, stitched together with fake trailers for even trashier fare. All the idea really demands is that neither of them screw it up too badly—or, alternately, that neither of them fail to screw it up badly enough.

Nevertheless, the definition of success is pretty broad here.

Rodriguez, probably the most technically gifted action director working today, knows how to work an aesthetic and please a crowd. His segment—a goofy zombie flick called Planet Terror—is halfway between homage and spoof, and so far over the top it might as well be in orbit, replete as it is with splattering decapitations, lurid plotting and gleefully ludicrous characters.

Throw in a number of nice genre-appropriate touches (Rodriguez's own John Carpenter-style synth scores and a beautifully grainy, scratched-up film effect), and Planet Terror is easily worth the price of admission by itself.

Good thing, as Tarantino's Death Proof, a thriller about a psycho killer named Stuntman Mike who uses a muscle car instead of a cleaver, has high points to match Planet Terror but some unfortunate lulls. Where Rodriguez shows, Tarantino tells, and you don't go to the movies for telling. Worst is a lengthy discourse during which the characters, standing in for Tarantino, spend a suspense-free reel discussing the greatest car-chase films of all time, all of which have something in common: Each of them is infinitely more exciting than watching people sitting around talking about them.

To his credit, Tarantino makes things right with a fantastic, nail-biting car chase of his own.

The directors have gone to great lengths to make Grindhouse an experience, commissioning hilarious trailers for nonexistent films from Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead), Rob Zombie and Eli Roth (Hostel).

There are some curious decisions; both films look like they could have been shot thirty years ago, but include anachronisms such as cell phones. But for every misstep there's a stroke of genius, like the casting of modern-day B-movie mainstays Jeff Fahey and Michael Biehn in crucial roles, or the missing reels that still somehow contribute. Grindhouse feels like what it is: a night at the movies, one that's eminently disposable and still a night to remember.

The 180—a Second Opinion:  Retro purists might argue that these movies are too good to be bad; anyone who doesn't care for metajokes will wonder what everyone else in the audience is laughing about.