Really? I’m a big RR fan myself. And I think PT was perfectly done exploitation movie.
I really felt the whole action-escape from new york thing he was going for and really liked it.
[quote=“PutneySwope”]
CGI and good editing dont make a movie. All flash, no substance isnt what I want from movies.
[/quote]
Indeed, it would seem you like no flash and very little substance........but thats what B movies are all about.
[quote=“me”]
RR did a great job with Planet Terror
[/quote]
Gotta echo with this.
It stands as it’s own as (At least) as a high-schooler’s attempt at saying, “Did I do a good job with re-creating a Grindhouse-type of movie?” Just with that head-explosion near the end, I would say, YES.
Keep in mind that Rodriguez never attended the usual double-triple features that QT attended. In my mind, he was treating this similar to a high-school project. Looking to get an “A” from the masters who have had their share of grinding out the exploitation classics at a Drive-In. I’d say Rodriguez did as best as he could do (With the graphic violence,fucked-up film reels, music mockery, sexual attitude, crowd-reaction, etc…) and since there’s a bonus movie included, along with memorable fake-trailers, he helped manage to make this one of the most unforgettable movie-going experiences I’ve ever had.
(Even though a couple hundred people managed to experience it)
[quote=“Crazy_Hattori”]
is that a fact?
btw, lots of people didn´t like it/hated it.
[/quote]
I am too lazy to compile numbers, but if you do the adding up, grindhouse plus death proof already earned around as much as grindhouse cost. and planet terror hasn’t even opened. plus, if you’ve read the business papers about the whole grindhouse fiasco, you’ll know that the weinsteins have hedged their bets and the flop hasn’t hurt them a bit.
and those who hated/ didn’t like it either just didn’t get the entire thing and therefore hated it, or were really few. i dont know how often you’ve seen it, but everytime i have, the entire auditorium was totally hyped, and 90% or so of all the reviews i’ve read were positive.
let’s stop calling a film a total failure that just didn’t earn as much money as the borne ultimatum 
well i sounds good to hear that. i want Grindhouse and Death Proof to be successful, and maybe we´ll get GH part 2! and also i hope the GH failure won´t affect IB or whatever QT wants to do next.
[quote=“Scarface”]
Then why were they initially advertising the movie as Grindhouse in the UK, complete with the “2 movies for the price of 1” tagline and all? Not even the most incompetent moron in the marketing business would do such a thing.
[/quote]
no you are right in the IK it was supposed to be grindhouse but in the other countries, non-English speaking, they had decided to split the film from day one
[quote=“blue_lou_boyle”]
death proof opened at number 9 in Ireland even with all the publicity that came with tarantinos press tour. I think piracy is one of the reasons for this though because a lot people of talked to have seen it but didnt go to the cinema.
[/quote]
a number of things have fucked up this movie.
piracy is definately a factor. (the whole movie was on youtube for ages)
in addition, there has been an awful lot of negative publicity regarding the commercial failure of Grindhouse, with people thinking releasing Death Proof on it’s own both a ripoff and act of desperation. (rightly or wrongly)
sadly, another big factor and the worst one in my opinion NEGATIVE WORD OF MOUTH.
Death Proof has had some the most vicious, negative reviews from both critics in the U.K/Ireland and the general public i’ve witnessed all year. apparently even Johnathan Ross( a known exploitation film fan) didn’t ‘get it’… funny he didn’t mention that to QT when he had him on his fucking show. 
reviews from critics and cinemagoers that run the gamut from ‘it’s the most BORING movie EVER’ to ‘What a retarded ending’ to ‘Tarantino even forgets to include the scratches during the second half’ to ‘Tarantino’s finished’.
these are the same fuckheads who’ll go see the new dumbass Jodie Foster piece of shit and actually expect it to be good.
that’s what you’re dealing with.
Ultimately i don’t give a shit, maybe Death Proof is a little overlong here and there but it is still easily one of, if not THE film of the year for me. that would probably be Grindhouse and i saw that on shitty bootleg!
it’s strange, here it got a lot of great reviews. several notable reviewers said that death proof was among qt’s best work. that it was very mainstream but at the same time very bold and experimental… however you are right re piracy, what can you expect when a growing part of the fan base won’t go to a theatre anymore to watch a film but who will download it?? plus it don’t seem that qt has been very cautious about this kind of things either. the script of kb was all over the internet very rapidly, same thing with the death proof…
lol I guess it tanked because “people” are too fuckin’ stupid to see a good movie out there when there is one. watch out for the first people to complain about a lack of good movies these days… dumbasses
I still think it was bad marketing. Two movies is too much for most people. It was great for us that really like this sorta thing but you gotta be hardcore to go see a double feature. I wish I could have seen it in a Drive-In. Thats how these movies played in the south. There is still one left just out side of Memphis, the sound comes through your car stereo system instead on that tin speaker box of days gone by (IM showing my age here!). It did not show Grindhouse but it would have been so perfect!
Marketing budgets are based on the size of the target market. In this case the target market is very small: Males 18-40 who aren’t offended easily. Not that many women would be interested and it is unlawful for anyone under 18 to buy a ticket. You can’t just look at one figure and say that the movie bombed. What percentage of the Target Market actually went to the theater and saw it? What percentage of the Target Market bought the DVD? I think that those numbers are probably quite impressive. When you compare it to a movie like Star Wars or Robin Hood you aren’t making a fair comparison because they have two entirely different target markets. Of course one could say that in terms of profit it was a failure, but then again we go back to an earlier argument that says that Mac Donalds is the best selling hamburger but by no means the best…on the contrary…it is the shittiest hamburger in the world. I don’t think that a man like QT wants to be known as the “over 2 billion sold” kind of director/writer/artist.
I meant that putting the two movies together was a bad idea. I think alot of people were simply confused and had little or no idea what the films were about. Its no wonder no one went to see them.
as far as the publicity goes over here in the uk, all the magazines ran their major grindhouse features back in april / may when it was originally supposed to come out and obviously couldnt pull the articles in time (hence that issue of empire, i think, with some superhero film on the cover but a much longer massive article on ‘grindhouse’ inside). so despite his tour over here it was just kinda damp compared to the initial promotion. seemed most movie magazines rated it highly but most general publications only gave it 3 / 5 and i can see why - out of context the film doesnt really make that much sense, its only with knowledge that it was supposed to be a grindhouse kinda movie and what that means that death proof makes total sense.
the one truly good thing to come out of all this is that most critics who hate QT’s post-jackie brown movies reckon QT went back to ‘immature’ movies since his first ‘serious’ movie didnt do the business. on that reasoning, now death proof has bombed, hopefully itll mean QT will make sure that IB is a real cinematic epic - the pressures on
personally, i thought the extended death proof was a lil too long during the first half - i was surprised by how much dialogue had been cut for GH! I still think QT shouldve had the ‘missing reel’ title card instead of the actual lapdance - it didnt really do anything for the movie whereas the title card does. and to be honest i think he got the black and white scene wrong, i mean it was too clean and professional, he shouldve used a different emulsion (?) print, like was used for ‘clerks’ or something. but overall i really enjoyed it, not sure which i prefer though, the grind house or full version, only seen the latter once though
anyway, interesting fact from his uk publicity jaunt: sean penn inspired death proof after explaining to QT about how stunt cars are reinforced and stuff
It’s funny that you say the B&W scene was too “clean and professional”. The major criticism of B&W film has always been that it was too “grainy”. The film companies went great lengths to make B&W film more “clean and professional” and now all of the “artist types” are complaining that it isn’t “grainy” enough. You fuckin’ guys never cease to amaze me.
LOL @ different emulsion. WTF? Clerks was shot on 16mm wasnt it? QT shoots on 35mm. I thought the B&W scene looked great.
[quote=“PutneySwope”]
LOL @ different emulsion. WTF? Clerks was shot on 16mm wasnt it? QT shoots on 35mm. I thought the B&W scene looked great.
[/quote]
the smaller 16mm would make the large image more grainy. Different emulsion and developing techniques such as “pushing” the film up two stops would also make it more grainy. The problem with this is that most people can’t stand to look at it. I think QT did what was best - as always. Listen…we love QT on this forum much like a Chicago Bears fan loves Mike Ditka…so don’t fuck with QT - got it?
I might be picky about films, but Im not gonna start telling QT what fucking EMULSION or STOCK to use on his films. It looked BEAUTIFUL for his first cinematography work.
I didnt think the BandW scene fit well into this movie or at least, the scene it was used in, but thats just my opinion.
The film is supposed to be made up of reels in diff states of quality. So it just fits into that theme. I think its great.
So Sean Penn was the dude that told QT about the Death Proof automobiles? Thats awesome! I cant wait to see Into The Wild.