not even kurt russell...
...could make "death proof", quentin tarantino's segment of _grindhouse_, worth watching.
wow. i mean, wow. what a craptastic movie! so, the story is that there are these hot women in tight t-shirts and tiny short shorts who drive around in texas and get high and tease boys and drop the f-bomb in every sentence and talk like guys in the proverbial locker room and eventually kurt russell kills some of them and tries to kill the others but then they kill him in the end. OMG BORING!!! soooooo boring!
carson and i had nothing to do last night, and we both think kurt russell is pretty fantastic (come on -- "overboard"??? "big trouble in little china"?!? yes!), so we decided to watch "death proof." but then we got exceptionally bored by way too much stupid boring dialogue. to the point where we were making exasperated sighs and in general acting like impatient little kids because we were totally annoyed with the movie. i'm sorry, but who told tarantino that people want to watch 20 minute scenes during which four boring characters talk about boring stuff that is not only painfully boring, but isn't even remotely funny or educational? (if tarantino were my friend, i'd say to him, "quentin, you've truly outdone yourself this time, you arrogant, pointy-chinned prick.")
and then, when things finally get unboring and kurt russell is trying to kill the girls for being so freaking uninteresting, and then the girls fight back and go after kurt russell, it gets totally lame AGAIN because after being a murderous crazy asshole for the whole movie, suddenly kurt russell is all "i'm so sorry! i'm so sorry! i didn't mean anything!" um, what?!?
here's what really gets me, though: people have referred to this movie as "feminist." maybe i've been reading all the wrong stuff, but i didn't realize that "feminism" was nothing more than women talking about their sex conquests and giving lap dances as a means of empowerment and driving fast musclecars and violently beating the crap out of the bad guy at the end. uh, what? sorry, folks. you don't make something "feminist" by casting sexy, leggy women in roles typically reserved for men.
long story short, "death proof" is a colossal waste.
but "planet terror", the robert rodriquez part of _grindhouse_, is pretty damn entertaining and a good time. and federico from "six feet under" is in it, too!
posted by emily @ Sunday, November 18, 2007
4 comments
4 Comments:
Kurt Russel totally sucks - Three (or maybe four depending on how you count the abbreviation) words: Escape from L.A.
three words that point the other way, though: escape from new york. okay, four words.
weird, while i haven't seen grindhouse, everything i'd read / heard from the supposedly highbrow critics was that it was rodriguez's section that was unwatchable, and that tarantino's segment made it worthwhile.
a propos feminism and empowerment, i'll tell you what: if i needn't hear one more time that the conventional male version of the shoot-em-up is deeply sexist, then i'll agree with you that inverse gendering of that same convention isn't especially empowering for women. but since for now i've gotta here how all the bad genre adventure movies manifest deep-seated sexism at its worst, for as long as i've gotta have that hanging around my male neck, then i'm going to find equal semiotic value to the contrary when someone sticks a woman in that role.
it's silly, finding the meaning of american life in such trivial entertainments, but that hasn't stopped anyone. it's also why i decided not to go to grad school.
and just look how well that worked out. :-/
my gripe with this brand of woman-as-shoot-'em-up-violent-action-hero -feminism is that all it's doing is putting a woman in a role that has traditionally been male. "sin city" did that, too, and i felt all what-the-fuck-ever about that movie as well. because that's an easy fix to a difficult problem, but it's still playing to gender roles. it's all 'we want the little ladies to be empowered, so we'll give them some guns and fancy cars so they can blow people's heads off and drive fast while they wear tight clothes'. this is progress? this is feminism?
it's certainly what movies like this are selling, but i'm not buying it.
it's boring. it's uncreative. it's a band-aid on a hatchet wound.
and it's true that the explosions-and-car-chases action movies are deeply sexist -- they're totally one-dimensional from a male point of view, too. but i'll tell you this -- i don't know a single man who feels that he needs to prove his masculinity by blowing shit up and fighting bad guys, but i know way too many women who feel that they must prove their femininity by the way they look and by using their sexuality as a form of empowerment.
so, i stand by my critique of this tarantino piece of crap -- it just ain't feminism.
by the way, that's the reason i liked the rodriguez part of "grindhouse" -- it didn't give a shit about making a statement. it was all, "look at me! i'm a silly movie about crazy zombies and barbecue and texas and a go-go dancer with a machine gun for a leg!" nothing about it was highbrow or pretentious. it was fun. it was silly. it was entertaining.
i don't want to suggest that all movies should suddenly take themselves so seriously as to be vehicles of social reform. not only would that be colossally boring, but the movie industry would lose a hell of a lot of money. and then those out-of-work hollywood types would go to law school and further stiffen the competition for folks like me who are trying to find jobs. but the tarantino thing was pretty blatantly trying to be a legitimate "film". had he just made something mindless, it probably wouldn't have pissed me off so much.
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