- This topic is empty.
- Posts
Grindhouse Music
Ever wonder how Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez come up with such awesome soundtracks?
New Times: Robert, can you talk about how you began composing your own scores?Robert Rodriguez: “I’ve been writing this movie so long, I don’t want to just turn it over to a composer five weeks before the movie comes out.” Then they just write a bunch of music and, hopefully, I’ll like it all. [It was] Danny Elfman who inspired me to do more and asked me, “Why don’t you write your own score? You play guitar.”
More here: http://music.miaminewtimes.com/2007-04-26/music/grindhouse-music/Is the score any good? (I haven’t heard it).
(Danny possibly felt sorry for a prospective composer who would have to deal with a director who’d be very precious with his long-written movie [judging from Rodriguez’s fear of handing it over], and suggested a best solution for everyone)
The score for PLANET TERROR is just right for the film. Very ESCAPE FROM FROM NEW YORK-ish. I liked it, too bad no one saw the damn thing. The GRINDHOUSE gimmick was just too good of a movie for mass America. I liked DEATH PROOF more. QT uses a bad-ass Jack Nitzsche music cue from VALLEY OF THE GIANTS as the opening theme. A little slow, but a damn fine movie in the end…
I agree with you Monsterhead…
It was one of the Most entertaining times I’ve ever had a theater!
Planet Terror was the popcorn, and Death Proof was the fun ride… an amusement park at the movies!
If you are thinking of replying to my post….
DON’T!!!!!!!
Well we disagree, because DEATH PROOF was the worst movie I’ve seen this year and I love B-grade schlock as much as the next guy. QT is a total whore too, lending his name to HOSTEL, the biggest POS I’ve seen in a decade and now DEATH PROOF, a pointless exercise in homage that is not much more than an excuse for the circle jerks to get together and paint the floor!
Ryan
Eeeee-ow! Yeah, what else can I say, Ryan. I thought DEATH PROOF was too good of a movie to be lumped into the GRINDHOUSE gimmick. DEATH PROOF was an attempt to make a ‘good’ movie out of B-movie movies. I like the same films that QT does and I work with and I am close friends with some of the filmmakers he admires, so I see the good in what he’s doing. Perhaps my opinions are tainted, I dunno. I did think, however, the first act of the film was weak and mared by actresses who could not act to the caliber of the dialoge. Act II, however, was solid – and talk about a fantastic climax…..
Part 1 of GRINDHOUSE: ugly women with dialogue written by a man in a trashy bar with the world’s greatest juke box (yeah, right). Part 2: ugly women pretending to eat with dialogue written by a man. Part 1 & 2: uniformly terrible performances, wasting Mary Elizabeth Winstead, wasting Kurt Russell, and a climax tacked, stapled and taped on. This wasn’t a celebration of bad movies, this WAS a bad movie.
For the record I like RES DOGS, PULP FICTION and JACKIE BROWN. QT has run out of steam and goodwill. Time to wake up beatniks, as your leader has stopped banging the bongos and now you’re just grooving without a beat!
Ryan
Though I admire Tarantino, I don’t worship him the way a disturbingly high number of my friends do. It’s good to see a talented director who pays tribute to the filmmakers (be them great or terrible) who have come before him, but it’s another thing when this practice becomes so selfindulgent that we’re left with a film that come off more as collage than an original work. That being said, I really hope that his next film is the long-anticipated Inglorious Bastards. We don’t need another exercise in trashy genre entertainment that’s supposed to be clever just because there’s a hidden reference to the works of Antonionie.
Planet Terror was POPCORN.
Death Proof was A RIDE!
And that’s not all I’ll say…… Kurt Russell wasn’t wasted, it’s his best movie since Big Trouble in Little China.
Not all of you may think that this was the best movie to come out in 2007, but you must give some credit to the fact that it is one of the most unique movies to come out this year. And with that alone, it makes it a lot better than most that already came out.
wow, i must say… i totally disagree. i think “death proof” is tarantino’s near-masterpiece, right after “jackie brown.” i agree with monsterhead, it was too good for the “grindhouse” format, and that – i think – is keeping some people from seeing the genius of it. as it stands on its own, i think it’s incredible. some of tarantino’s most real observant dialogue ( i can’t think of the last time i heard women sound like real women in a film). the pacing was perfect (deliberately slow, then bam! full speed), like setting the whole thing to invisible music.
what intrigued me most was that the film had a real thematic quality to it, something i was not expecting. i see the whole thing as a very feminist picture. “stuntman mike” uses his car (we all know what that stands in for, it’s no mistake that he’s a stuntman) to keep power over his women in the worst way. when women use the same weapon against him, (remember key dialogue they throw at him, “tap that ass,” etc.), he’s now nothing but a crying baby… who they pull from the safety womb of his car, and pummel to pieces… the end, women are victorious!
what makes “death proof” so exciting to me is that it can be deconstructed in ways most american films cannot. and it’s a pretty damn fine film.
If you thought they sounded like real women I suggest meeting some real women and listening to how they talk. They do not talk about VANISHING POINT.
Ryan
Um… I do, ocassionally.
*has no idea aboit “Death Proof”, though and as much as loves Tarantino, hates most Rodriguez she’s ever seen so…* (end of unnecessary info)Actually, I saw it with some women who indeed love car chase movies. I caught the press screening for this film and the woman in the audience were going ballistic in the final reel. It was quite a site. Don’t forget too, that so many ‘grindhouse/exploitation’ films are criticized for the way they depict woman in films — like they are glorified male fantasies and do not really exists. (take a good look at ‘women in prison’ films to see what I mean). To see a balls-to-the-wall action film with real woman was incredible. I’m anxious to see the extended version at Cannes.
DEATH PROOF will be talked about for years to come. You’re either in on it, or left in the dust.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.