Cinematic trendsetter Quentin Tarantino tag-teams with his buddy Robert Rodriguez for a two-fisted punch to the gut called "Grindhouse." Tarantino's half of "Grindhouse" is a slasher flick called "Death Proof," with three foxy females fighting off unwanted attention from Kurt Russell in a menacing muscle car. Like Tarantino's previous pictures, "Death Proof" is jam-packed with quote-worthy dialogue and wild style.
Tarantino's concept for "Grindhouse" is authentic down to the fake trailers for nonexistent films, and the scratched and dirty look of the film stock. Given that the 44-year-old Tarantino has been an influential Hollywood filmmaker since 1992's "Reservoir Dogs," it may come as a surprise that "Grindhouse" is only his fifth major release as a director (counting both parts of "Kill Bill" together). His sixth film will be a remake of the World War II movie "Inglorious Bastards," which he plans to write soon.
Q: "Grindhouse" is contemporary, with characters using cell phones and such. So why did you decide to make the film stock look damaged, like it would have in the '70s? A: It was like, we never really wanted it to just be this '70s artifact.
Again - and this is all part of the fun of this - we're really doing a throwback to a Hollywood that doesn't exist anymore. Q: And back in the '70s? A: Back then, an exploitation company might make five prints and they'd open it in Chattanooga.
And it'd play there, and then they'd move it to Memphis. And for the entire year they would just schlep these same five prints all around the country. They're actually playing in the worst theaters in the worst projectors available in America, and once a print goes through the El Paso drive-in theater meat grinder, you know, it will never be the same.
And so depending on when you saw it in the run, they could very well look like this. So we actually wanted to pretend as if this type of film making had never stopped, this type of exhibition had never stopped. Q: Is "Grindhouse" something that ordinary moviegoers can get into, even if they are not familiar with grindhouse cinema?
A: Yeah! If you need to know the whole history of grindhouse, then we didn't really do our jobs. Part of our thing is, you know, Robert's movie has to work as a movie and my movie has to work as a movie.
But when you put them together, it's got to work as a whole experience. And that was what we were really going after. Q: "Grindhouse" practically begs to become a franchise.
Have you started thinking about a sequel yet? A: Oh, yeah! You better believe it.
There were all these possibilities. What would we do? Would we do a Blaxploitation movie?
A spaghetti Western? I've always wanted to do one of those. Or a moonshining movie, or women in prison.
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