i think i'm the one that hooked dani onto robert rodriguez. long story short, he worships him now as a filmmaker and was excited to go see a rodriguez picture together. "grindhouse" is a double feature with a film by rodriguez and another by quentin tarantino. i was never into tarantino, but i was intrigued by the idea of a double feature, of a throwback to the old days. it started off with just the right mood because the theater was empty. i don't mean just our screen but the whole place was empty. it was very odd. there must have been only 10 people or so in the entire place that we saw, including employees. we went to the restroom before the film started and it was so empty and messy that i felt like we were in a scary movie.

the film starts off like the old movies back in the drive ins in the 70s(?) did. i can't say for sure because i really don't remember those days. i remember being at the drive in and the crappy speakers and the playgrounds in front of the screens but i just don't remember what was shown on the screen. it has that old crappy 70s graphics and music and such. there were fake trailers for other films. those trailers were great! they'd each be really fun movies, even if they were just shorts.

first up is "planet terror" robert rodriguez. i think i was the only one in our party that loved it. i just thought it was so fun. it was purposely cheesy and came off really well. i'm glad i didn't read anything about the plot so that everything unfolded with me unaware of what could be next and no expectations. i liked the nuances, the little jokes in the film about texans and bbq and things gross.

second up was "death proof". kurt russell plays a super bad ass that is really cool. the film was fun at first, but my problem with it was that it didn't really go anywhere. it was really focused on one long scene. one might call that the climax but it really became the main chunk of the film. if there was more development with the plot then i would have liked it more. what was funny was in the beginning of this one, there is more like an inside kiwi joke. the character is clearly wearing a pounamu necklace and her purse has a koru design. then there's the talk about never calling a kiwi an australian, etc. i think this must've happened with tarantino and a kiwi so he threw it in this movie.

when i got home i quickly looked up a copule things about the film on the inernet. i was happy to read that one of the fake trailers is being turned into a short film, apparently for the dvd release of "grindhouse". awesome!