the last movie i saw

I missed the Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino double bill Grindhouse when it was in theaters earlier this year. Life in LA seldom permitted me a three hour chunk of time to get lost in B-movie send-up splendor. The word of mouth was terrific, though the Weinsteins, true to their reincarnated form, bungled the release entirely. They seem to have done the same with the DVD release, giving us the Tarantino film Death Proof unencumbered by Rodriguez' zombie flick Planet Terror and in its extended, full feature form, which played at Cannes. The result is one of the strangest viewing experiences I've had in recent memory.

The flick, about a psycho killer stunt man who combines vehicular thrill-seeking and homicide, shouldn't be this long. There's the much talked about chase/fight scene, which pits fast-talking femmes against Kurt Russell's maniac, but outside of that exhilarating sequence, we get long chat scenes with mostly uninteresting characters spouting dialogue that sounds like an overzealous film student trying his hardest to sound like Tarantino. I dug the Austin, Texas locales, but I think I'd prefer the Reader's Digest version.

And that's the problem with the Weinsteins' DVD release plan. Planet Terror will be released on its own in mid-October. I don't know when the films will be released as they were in theaters (under the collective Grindhouse title). What's missing from the DVD is the full sticky-theater-floor, spilled popcorn feeling that the faux trailers, missing scenes and double bill created.