GRINDHOUSE: JAR OF BALLS

By Guest Writer, TED:

"Went to the world premiere of Grindhouse last night, definitely one of the coolest film going experiences so far this year. The event was held at the Orpheum Theater in downtown LA, which is a classic venue and apparently holds great significance for Quentin Tarantino. The entire cast was there...Rose McGowan, Michael Biehn, Danny Trejo, Kobe Bryant (!), Kurt Russell, Eva Mendes, Sidney Poitier, Rob Zombie, Eli Roth...the lobby was quite a sce To kick things off, Bob and Harvey Weinstein took the stage for a brief intro. Bob proceeds to tell of the "parting of the ways" that took place between the brothers and Disney, and that it was somewhat like that scene in Jerry Maguire...they said "who's with us?", and were apparently met with silence except for Tarantino and Rodriguez, who both went with them. Harvey mentioned that after some 15 years of making films together, they are behind these directors 100%, and it certainly showed last night.

Next, Tarantino and Rodriguez hit the stage to huge applause and proceeded to work the crowd into a frenzy. They want Grindhouse to be an event, and as such have enlisted the help of several of their friends to provide the trailers that run before Planet Terror, and then again between Planet Terror and Death Proof. It will be interesting to see if any theaters stick with this premise, rather than running a bunch of commercials first (which QT was quick to point out that he HATED). The trailers were cool overall, with the standout being the Danny Trejo pic "Machete". That film needs to get made!!

Now on to the films. Both Planet Terror and Death Proof deliver in spades, and in this case I'll avoid too many details since anyone who's got Grindhouse on their radar is already a fan of these types of films, and giving away too many details may detract somewhat from the experience. The crowd was pretty much going nuts through the entire night, which is definitely unusual for a premiere. If you like zombies, muscle cars, limb-shredding mayhem, boobs and revenge you will enjoy these films. Well, here's one detail: one of the characters carries around a jar of balls. Yes, you read that correctly. The level of gore is truly operatic, while maintaining a nice balance of dark humor. And, as expected, Death Proof has the classic Tarantino dialogue that we've come to expect.

All in all, a great night and mad props to the Weinsteins for getting behind Grindhouse!"

--TED.

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*AWESOME! I can't wait! Thanks, Ted!!