I watched both of these over the course of 2 nights last weekend. Overly long comments (with spoilers probably) follow.
Planet Terror was pretty much what I expected - very reminiscent of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace actually! It was obviously completely OTT and daft but still managed to have some cool moments. Loved the main guys ninja stroll through the hospital. From all the promo stuff I'd seen beforehand I expected the lead girl to be a little more sultry in nature. I think that's what they were aiming for tbh. Rose McGowan didn't seem to be able to pull it off though, she seemed kind of cheerful to me.
Death Proof. What to say about this one. First off, ever since Kill Bill I have hated Tarantino with a passion. I thought he was the bees knees when I saw Pulp Fiction, but now I think he's a fat, useless, unfunny plagiarist who loves himself so much he lives in his own arsehole. KB pt 1 woke me up to how much of a thief he is, and KB pt 2 confirmed that he writes incredibly inane dialogue that makes every actor (no matter how talented) sound like they are just reading Tarantino's script.
(incidentally the low point of Planet Terror was QT's overly long cameo - he can't f**king act! Why give him such a significant role?)
On the other hand I love Kurt Russell and classic chase movies.
The first 40-60 minutes were just excruciating to watch. I pretty much hated all of those girls the moment they opened their mouths, particularly the DJ. Droning on and on about meaningless guff like she's the queen of sheba, aaargh. People that obnoxious couldn't possibly have so many friends! If I had a driving license I would most certainly try to hit her with a car, so you can't blame Kurt for doing what he did.
Were these scenes supposed to be building character? Tension? The whole time in the bar was just a complete waste of film imo, other than to set up Stuntman Mike as a pretty nice guy (on the surface). Don't even get me started on those long embarassing shots of the girls 'digging the music'.. yeah right! Them listening to what they did is about as believable as the whole of Planet Terror.
What with Kurt typically being the hero/anti-hero, combined with the horrible characters I was actually thinking we were supposed to be rooting for him - if the first crash hadn't been as gruesome as it was I would still have been thinking that by the time the film ended. It did set him up as a thoroughly nasty piece of work though, which worked wonders for the next half of the film.
From there on the girls were genuinely likable, mainly thanks to the New Zealand lass. The female Sam Jackson threw a giant spanner in the works mind, that was another character that just spouted off so much cartoon **** you could almost hear Tarantino reading the lines (badly). However the tension built remarkably well, I was actually feeling moments of dread as the final situation was being set up, and the end result was just about one of the best car chases I've ever seen (minus the parts where it cut to the girl behind the wheel to get in a gratuitous MUTHA****AMUTHA****A). For once his ripping off actually did seem like a tribute to the classics. Then again a car chase is a car chase, so it would be hard to call it plagiarism anyway. He stole those engine noises from Bullitt, lol.
Ended up really entertained, although I want to know what happened to the cheerleader girl that got left with the redneck!
It could possibly have been one of my favourites if it wasn't for the first hour. I know there needs to be a first hour for the sake of the ending but I never want to sit through that again.
Planet Terror was pretty much what I expected - very reminiscent of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace actually! It was obviously completely OTT and daft but still managed to have some cool moments. Loved the main guys ninja stroll through the hospital. From all the promo stuff I'd seen beforehand I expected the lead girl to be a little more sultry in nature. I think that's what they were aiming for tbh. Rose McGowan didn't seem to be able to pull it off though, she seemed kind of cheerful to me.
Death Proof. What to say about this one. First off, ever since Kill Bill I have hated Tarantino with a passion. I thought he was the bees knees when I saw Pulp Fiction, but now I think he's a fat, useless, unfunny plagiarist who loves himself so much he lives in his own arsehole. KB pt 1 woke me up to how much of a thief he is, and KB pt 2 confirmed that he writes incredibly inane dialogue that makes every actor (no matter how talented) sound like they are just reading Tarantino's script.
(incidentally the low point of Planet Terror was QT's overly long cameo - he can't f**king act! Why give him such a significant role?)
On the other hand I love Kurt Russell and classic chase movies.
The first 40-60 minutes were just excruciating to watch. I pretty much hated all of those girls the moment they opened their mouths, particularly the DJ. Droning on and on about meaningless guff like she's the queen of sheba, aaargh. People that obnoxious couldn't possibly have so many friends! If I had a driving license I would most certainly try to hit her with a car, so you can't blame Kurt for doing what he did.
Were these scenes supposed to be building character? Tension? The whole time in the bar was just a complete waste of film imo, other than to set up Stuntman Mike as a pretty nice guy (on the surface). Don't even get me started on those long embarassing shots of the girls 'digging the music'.. yeah right! Them listening to what they did is about as believable as the whole of Planet Terror.
What with Kurt typically being the hero/anti-hero, combined with the horrible characters I was actually thinking we were supposed to be rooting for him - if the first crash hadn't been as gruesome as it was I would still have been thinking that by the time the film ended. It did set him up as a thoroughly nasty piece of work though, which worked wonders for the next half of the film.
From there on the girls were genuinely likable, mainly thanks to the New Zealand lass. The female Sam Jackson threw a giant spanner in the works mind, that was another character that just spouted off so much cartoon **** you could almost hear Tarantino reading the lines (badly). However the tension built remarkably well, I was actually feeling moments of dread as the final situation was being set up, and the end result was just about one of the best car chases I've ever seen (minus the parts where it cut to the girl behind the wheel to get in a gratuitous MUTHA****AMUTHA****A). For once his ripping off actually did seem like a tribute to the classics. Then again a car chase is a car chase, so it would be hard to call it plagiarism anyway. He stole those engine noises from Bullitt, lol.
Ended up really entertained, although I want to know what happened to the cheerleader girl that got left with the redneck!
It could possibly have been one of my favourites if it wasn't for the first hour. I know there needs to be a first hour for the sake of the ending but I never want to sit through that again.
I thought it looked so cool as well.
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