Day: April 8, 2007

I saw it, along with and yesterday, and LOVED it. No surprises there. Everything about it was spot-on — from Rodriguez’ musical score for Planet Terror being reminiscent of 1978-1981 period John Carpenter scores; to the “Vanishing Point” Dodge Challenger in Death Proof. More homages, in-jokes and nods than I can easily recount here.

Unfortunately, the film opened in 4th place — Easter weekend being “take the kids to the movies” time, which meant that unchallenging comedies like Blades of Glory and Are We Done Yet, and the latest souless Disney CG project, Meet The Robinsons came out on top.

Interestingly, Harvey Weinstein says that Grindhouse played to big crowds on the East and West coasts but failed to click with audiences in the Midwest and South. Where, not surprisingly, they didn’t really have grindhouses in the 70s.

Of the audience who was there for the opening matinee on Saturday, I’d guess that about a third really got it, a third were fratboy types digging on the cool-factor and gore, and a third were pretty clueless.

As for me — I saw two filmmakers decide to make the sort of films that they had grown up on, which nobody makes any more. It was brilliant, and it was inspirational.

Yup — another log on the “Gareth wants to make a movie” fire.