Fool Proof

Grindhouse (2007)
consisting of Planet Terror
directed by Robert Rodriguez
rating: 1 out of 5 cravats
& (without further ado) Death Proof
directed by Quentin Tarantino
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
seen on the screen at Malco Paradiso

Let's leave the first half at "Planet Terrible," give Edgar Wright the nod for best fake trailer, and move right into "Death Proof," which would have been an honest-to-goodness five if Quentin had rethought the "missing reel" joke before he went to press.

"Death Proof" is great - a drive-in movie plain as day, as in love with the maxim of women in movies (and movies for women) as my best over-worked defense of Eric Rohmer. Could anything be further from the tits and ass of "Planet Terror" than Abernathy and her girls, even with the same actresses between them?

And yes, Quentin's a creep like his barman is, but as a director he's true blue. Big Trouble in Little China might just as well have been yesterday, and "Death Proof" might as well be thirty years down the road. It's a classic.