Planet Terror
]Cherry Darling (Rose McGowan) quits her job as a pole dancer and meets up with her ex “El Wray” (Freddie Rodriguez - the actor, not the cyclist) and together they find themselves in the midst of a zombie war brought on by the release of a mysterious chemical agent.
Everything about this is perfect, although as it involves zombies, it would probably be more appropriate for Easter than Christmas. The film starts with trailer for another film called “Machete”. Then it moves to “Our Feature Presentation” complete with psychedelic slide as seen in any drive in.
When I see Bruce Willis in things like this (and Sin City), I gain a whole new respect for his work. I suppose I should never have lost that respect since I thought he was fantastic in Moonlighting, but the Die Hard series leaves me cold. I guess I’m also not all that up on everything, but everyone in this movie looked like someone else. I recognized Rodriguez from Six Feet Under, but I initially thought Rose McGowan was Alicia Milano. And of course, Josh Brolin is the spitting image of his father. And Marley Shelton looks like someone, but I can’t place exactly who it is at the moment (she’s reminiscent of Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, but not a body double like the others).
The plot is exactly cheesy enough, and the cinematic tricks are spot on, hilarious dialog, and satisfying gore. The love scene between Wray and Cherry blots out and a missing reel clip is played followed immediately by a jump into the middle of the biggest, baddest zombie fight so far: perfect. The peg leg: perfect. This may be a keeper.
December 26th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Agreed. This movie rocked. (Although someone needs to convince Quentin to stop doing cameos.)
The other half of “Grindhouse”, Death Proof, is saved only by Zoe Bell.
December 26th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
I agree with that, too. He’s very distracting. He’s okay as an actor, but all I can see is “hey, Tarantino is doing another cameo!”
I also like that it had many of the cheesy 70s schlock movie stars in here: Michael Parks, Michael Biehn, and the rest. All it was missing was that guy from Billy Jack.
Two against the world, baby!
December 26th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
Michael Parks is the man. Then again, I know him best from the first scene in From Dusk Till Dawn (one of my favorite movies, no matter what anyone else may say about it).
John Brolin will always be Brand from The Goonies to me. Not that that’s a bad thing. Not at all.
December 26th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
Just to clarify:
(schlock movie) (stars)
not
(schlock)(movie stars)
Michael Parks always reminds me first of as that guy in the motorcycle tv show (w). And also Adam.