Reaction & Review | Death Proof

Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight guys, I'm taking a look at an exploitation film from 2007. That movie is "Death Proof".

Now, I can tell you several things that I know about this movie. Number one, this movie was originally released in theaters back in 2007 as part of a double feature known as "Grindhouse". Those two films they showed were "Death Proof" and "Planet Terror". I've already seen "Planet Terror" and I rather enjoyed it. Even though that film was ridiculously flawed, it was still an entertaining film. And, to me, that's all that really matters with movies is whether or not they are entertaining.

Number two, I know that this movie stars Kurt Russel. And I would have not known that if I didn't decide to read the back of the DVD case.

And three, this movie was written and directed by legendary filmmaker; Quentin Tarantino. And I've only seen only one other movie from Tarantino. That movie being "Django Unchained". And I really liked it. Partially because I'm kinda biased towards Westerns.

Other than that, I know nothing else about this movie. All I can say is that I really want to like this movie, but I also know that this movie could be a massive misfire from Tarantino. But the only way I'm going to know if I will enjoy this movie or not, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm going to do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Death Proof".

10 minutes later

OK, why is some parts of the dialogue being cut out before repeating itself? I totally understand that this movie is trying to pay tribute to the 1970's "Grindhouse" movies, but this is, like, the second time that this has happened. I certainly hope that this won't ruin the movie, but, so far, it's kinda distracting.

18 minutes later

All right, guys. I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news, we are almost a half an hour into this movie and nothing has happened. I mean literally NOTHING has happened. The good news is, the soundtrack in this movie is fucking awesome. I just wish the movie's pacing was a little bit better, but I'm certainly hoping for it to get better.

13 minutes later

You guys can't hear this song for obvious reasons, but this song is catchy as hell. I know I've already said that the soundtrack is fantastic, but honestly, this is the only positive that I can pull from this movie. Well that, and the acting, but still. Now only if we can get any likable characters and the pacing not to be shit, but there's still time for this movie to get better. Let's hope.

8 minutes later

O...K. Well, I was hoping for this movie to pick up and...well, seeing this chick getting her head smashed from the inside of the stuntman's car wasn't exactly what I had in mind. Certainly looked really cool, though.

3 minutes later

All right, well that was certainly rather gruesome. I just saw one of them get their entire leg to pop off, while another just got her face almost ripped off. That was rather awesome. So far, this movie is looking better already. Holy shit.

9 minutes later

So Kurt Russel's character threw his car keys on the ground just so he could go up to this car with two women inside it. One of them had their feet sticking out, as he not only touched the sole of this woman's foot, but also attempted to lick it before driving off so that he wouldn't be noticed. Considering that Tarantino has a foot fetish, I wouldn't be surprised if he added that part in just to show the viewer that, indeed, he has a foot fetish.

17 minutes later

You know, guys, I really hate all four of these fucking characters. They've been rambling about bullshit the entire time they've been on-screen, and I want Kurt Russel's character to just take his car and run these 4 bimbos down. That's how much I despise them so far.

19 minutes later

Why the hell isn't this fucking thing finished yet? Seriously guys, you have no idea how boring this fucking movie is. You would think that a car chase featuring our stuntman would actually be something interesting. But no. It's still boring as hell.

The Review

Thank god it's over. Well guys, that was "Death Proof". Let me shut that crap off...OK. Well, that was...rather disappointing. In fact, that's what I would sum up this entire movie is that it was really disappointing. Because, I know Tarantino can write better. This is nowhere near that. Um...let's start with the writing.

I mentioned at the start of this that this movie was originally released in 2007 as a double feature in theaters alongside "Planet Terror". Is this movie better than "Planet Terror"? No. Because while "Planet Terror" has it's faults, it still had better writing, characters you can care about, and it was just an overall better movie. "Death Proof" has none of that. We have here a shallow, if not borderline, plotless story that involves a bunch of women being stalked at by Stuntman Mike, which is Kurt Russel's character in this movie, as he wants to kill them. Why is he going after these women? I don't know. My guess is that he's doing it because he's just that much of a fucking creep.

And that's kind of it. Because hardly anything of value happens in this movie. Which leads to me to my biggest problem with this movie's writing is that nothing happens. We have scenes that go nowhere in this movie. For instance, the scene I mentioned earlier involving Stuntman Mike as he starts targeting these second group of women. The entire time, he goes up to this car, because one of these woman has her bare feet sticking out of the window because she has a blindfold on and never notices him. At least, until he starts licking her soles and that's when she starts to gain her senses before he scours off to get his keys that he threw on the ground, so he could have an excuse. Did the scene do anything? No. The only thing that it did was re-establish that our stuntman is just a creepy pervert. Which, you didn't need to do that, because one of the first set group of girls notices the black car at least twice. And we also get an inside shot of his camera as he starts taking photos of his targets.
Now, when I first saw the scene where he starts licking the woman's foot, I thought it was one of the girls who got her face peeled off from the crash that happened previously. Which no, that wasn't the case. And a slight spoiler, the girl's face that gets peeled off remains dead throughout the entire movie.

Another scene that went almost nowhere was the scene involving the second group of women, who are at this diner. And they strike up a conversation that goes absolutely nowhere. And the entire time, you can see Stuntman Mike's back as he's sitting at the bar table of the diner. I thought he was going to do something that would the make scene not boring, but towards the end of the scene, he just gets up and walks out of the diner. And...that's it. Nothing happened. And it really makes me question why do we have scenes like this go on for a lengthy amount of time and have nothing happening? Mind you, now, Tarantino's movies usually have a habit of pushing the runtime of around 2 and a half hours to 3. And this movie almost reaches that 2 hour mark. And yet, I watched "Django Unchained" and that movie had almost no scenes where it needed to pad itself out to 3 hours, and yet it still manage to gap itself between the 2 and a half hour to 3 hour mark. So what the fuck was this movie's excuse to go almost two hours and have dialogue that goes fuck-all nowhere?

Speaking of dialogue, before I popped in the movie in my DVD player, I was reading the back of the case, and one thing caught my attention, so allow me to read what it said.

"Featuring exhilarating high-speed action, jaw-dropping stunts, and some of the most quotable lines since "Pulp Fiction".

That guys, is a huge fucking insult to "Pulp Fiction", because this movie has nothing even close to what I would call a quotable line. Hell, I couldn't even tell you the names of our fucking characters, outside of two. One of them being Stuntman Mike, because he's in it for most of the movie. And Jungle Julia, who is one of the women who gets stalked at in the first half of the movie. And that's it. Everyone else might've had a name, but I couldn't remember it because they were all shallow and lifeless.

So, if you couldn't tell, the writing in this movie is incredibly shallow, and to compare the dialogue of this movie to "Pulp Fiction" is just a slap in the face. And it's really noticeable because Tarantino wrote, directed, AND was in charge of the cinematography for this movie. I'll get to cinematography in a bit.

Now shockingly, as shallow and almost lifeless as the writing was, the acting was actually great. Almost everyone turns in a great showing for their performance, save for one. And it was the guy who played the, I guess, car salesman, I think? Anyway, he was the only one who turned in a bad showing. But he's only in the movie for about 3 or 4 minutes tops, so he's not going to drag the movie down with his performance. That awards goes to the terrible writing. Sorry, but I had to harp on it just a bit longer. Anyway, I'll stop talking about that and move on to cinematography.

For the most part, the cinematography is pretty good, but I do have an issue with consistency. I mentioned earlier that this movie, and probably "Planet Terror", were films that were paying tribute to those 1970's "Grindhouse" movies. For those of you who don't know, the term 'Grindhouse' was used for theaters back in the 70's to showcase low budget films. I'm talking about stuff such as horror, exploitation, slasher flicks, and possibly porno, but I'm not totally sure about that last one. Point is, that's what this movie was trying to pay homage to. And, for like the first hour, this movie does do that. But after this movie jumps ahead 14 months later, the movie goes to black and white. Which, I'm not totally sure why. And that only lasts about ten minutes before the movie switches to perfect color picture quality for it's entire run. Why? If this movie was trying to pay homage to 70's "Grindhouse" movies, then why did this movie switch over to black and white and then perfect color? It really makes no sense to me. And it's even worse in black and white, because as I mentioned earlier, the girl who had her feet sticking out of the car, I thought it was the same girl who had her face peeled off from the crash, but you couldn't tell it was the same person, because the black and white setting makes it look like it was the same person, even with the blindfold. At least, until the movie decides to go to clear color picture quality and reveals that it's a completely different actress. No! You do not do that and confuse the viewer with someone else because you wanted to switch it to black and white because fuck you, that's why. Now, beyond all of that BS, the cinematography in this movie is really good. It's just the inconsistencies with those transitions make almost no sense and defeats the purpose of paying homage to those 70's "Grindhouse" movies.

Special effects in this movie, what few special effects there were, are really good. But then again, most of it is just blood effects and the props used for the body parts coming off are really well done. The car chases are performed really well, too. They're boring as hell, but they're not done poorly, so I can, at least, give the movie that.

Camerawork is really good. The lightning is well lit. The soundtrack is fantastic. In fact, that is the one true positive that I garnered out of this movie is that the music is great. Especially one song in particular which was called "Down in Mexico". I had to look up who performed that song, which was a group known as "The Coasters". That song was catchy as hell and I may have to download that song at some point. Mind you, now, that doesn't take away from the rest of the music in this movie. It's just that one song that stuck with me, is all. Sound-mix is almost done competently well, save for whenever characters had to talk through the rain in the first half of the movie. Because the sound of the rain comes down so fast, I could barely hear what the characters were trying to say because the rain almost drowned out their dialogue. I was considering turning up the volume on my TV just to understand what they were trying to say, but thankfully, the movie doesn't spend too much time outside in that scene, so it's not like you are going to completely be tuned out of the scene with the rain.

So...when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Death Proof"? Uh...no. If you want to watch a better "Grindhouse" movie, go watch "Planet Terror". It may be flawed, but I had a lot more fun watching that movie than watching this. This movie really sucked. With shallow and lifeless writing, along with shallow characters, this movie really falters in both areas. And now, I'm going to have to be more cautious the next time I watch a movie from Quentin Tarantino. Because this movie, so far, is by far his worst movie. And now, I kinda want to go and re-watch "Planet Terror" because I feel like watching a better "Grindhouse" movie and pretend that this movie never happened.

Anyway guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all in the near future. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Promare

Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight guys, I'm going to be checking out a Japanese animated film from 2019. That movie is "Promare".

Now, I've wanted to watch this movie since it was announced last year. However, it was almost hard to even find a copy of this movie until about a month ago whenever my local movie store was carrying at least one new copy for it, and so I decided to jump in on it when I had the chance.

Now, I only know one thing about this movie. And that is that this movie was created by a studio called Trigger. For those who don't know, Trigger was the same studio that created "Kill La Kill" and "Little Witch Academia". I loved "Kill La Kill", though I've never seen "Little Witch Academia", so I can't comment on it. Not only did they make those two series, but this is also their first attempt at a full length feature film. Which could go one of two ways. It could be really awesome, or it could be a massive letdown.

Beyond that, I know nothing about this movie. I could read the back of the DVD case, but to be honest, I kinda want to go into this movie as blind as possible. I really want to like this movie, but I am prepared for the worse if this movie turns out to be a massive disappointment. But the only way I'm going to know if this movie is any good or not, is if I shut up, and I push play. And I'm going to do that right now. So without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Promare."

9 minutes later

All right guys, I'd just like to say that Varys's rescue mech is pretty fucking awesome. I just have to question the logic of putting these people, who were trapped in this fire, inside of a squared container. It just seems very unsafe transporting a ton of these people while the mech is moving. It just feels very uncomfortable. I totally understand that I'm complaining about something incredibly minor, but the thought of it just came to me, you know?

19 minutes later

OK...well, I wasn't expecting the Freeze Force to come in and arrest the pizza chef for being a Burnish. I'm wondering how they even knew that to start with? Again, it's probably a trivial thing to think about, but it's beginning to bug me a little bit.

2 minutes later

So, let me see if I understand this. They arrested the pizza maker because he was a Burnish. And they also arrested the owner who was harboring a Burnish. Mind you, the Burning Rescue team has legitimate reasons for explaining that this Burnish wasn't a terrorist. And this douchebag's reasoning is that he's letting the courts decide that themselves. So basically, this movie's another discriminatory story. You know...as tiring as this concept is, I am going to let it slide and hope this isn't just the main conflict, because so far, the movie has been pretty good. I just hope and pray that that isn't all what this movie has to offer.

17 minutes later

So this governor's reasoning for doing these experiments on the Burnish is because the magma in the Earth's core is about to erupt soon. So instead of trying to stop the magma from flowing, their answer is to migrate 10,000 people to another planet. OK. I have a question. How do we know they they don't have the current technology to stop magma from erupting? Don't you think you would try to at least to consider all other possibilities before migrating as a last resort? I'm really curious, guys. And I hope this attempts to explain that.

11 minutes later

All right, guys. Now might be a good time to mention this. This song that's playing right now, which has been played for like the second or third time, is really catchy. So I can at least say that the music in this movie has been really cool, and I'm really liking it.

15 minutes later

So guys...I've now learned why this movie is called "Promare". I'm not going to question the science on it, because that would hurt my brain if I did. But at least I know where this movie gets it's title from.

The Review

Well guys, that was "Promare". Let me shut that off...OK. You know, I wasn't sure what I was getting myself into when I decided that I was going to cover this movie for Reaction & Review. And after watching this, I'm rather...impressed. But I think I should explain myself better by talking about the writing.

You guys may have noticed during the reaction portion that when I was watching this movie, I stated that I was hoping that this movie would not go down the same tired route where we have a race, or in the case of the X-Men, mutants, because that's what the Burnish in this movie are called, that were responsible for burning half of the Earth 30 years ago. And that we would tread the idea of while there are some Burnish are terrorists, not all of the Burnish are like that, as shown with the pizza maker. Because, I am and sick and tired of movies and TV shows, trying to portray a race that are different from humans as these evil, inhuman monsters only to show that not all of them are like that. And I was afraid that this movie would be a preachy mess about how we should treat everyone as equal.  Thankfully, this movie doesn't go down that route too much. Because, we have a story that is rather interesting. I already mentioned the Burnish and how they burned half of the Earth 30 years ago. We also have this rescue team known as the Burning Rescue, whose job is to stop these Burnish from, well, burning shit down. Later on, we have a character named Lio, who's sole reason for burning stuff is to stay alive. Otherwise, they die out. That is, of course until later on when you figure out what the origins of the Burnish are and why this movie is called "Promare". And I'm not going to go any further than that because that would result in spoilers.

In terms of characters, we get a surprisingly lack of character depth coming from the Burning Rescue team. I'm talking about people such as Ignis, Lucia, Varys, and to a certain extent, Aina. The only reason I mention Aina is because there is a plot-point in the movie where her sister, whom is a scientist, that works for Governor Kray, as she's responsible for running this huge Ark, and also running these experiments on the captured Burnish. The only ones who get any character depth are our main characters, Galo Thymos and Lio Fotia. And we also get a bit of development on Governor Kray. Again, I can't go too deep into his character without spoiling anything, so I'll leave it at that.

But as I mentioned, the majority of the Burning Rescue team doesn't have much of any character depth to speak of. And because of that, they all come off as rather shallow. However, I'm going to give some of that a pass, because the story here is interesting enough to keep you interested. I do have to warn you though, that you may run into a number of logic issues that may or may not make sense. A perfect example being the twist of the origin of the Burnish. Or how Governor Kray says that they don't have the current technology to stop a magma flow from erupting in the Earth's core. Like, if you think about that kind of stuff for too long, then this movie might suck. However, the best I can easily say is that it is a science fiction movie, so...you kinda have to roll with some of the goofy science. And trust me, if you're able to look past all of that, then you still have a really interesting story that is going to keep you glued to the screen. Because, even with the stuff I mentioned in terms of writing, none of it is going to destroy this movie for you, unless you're some weirdo who cares too much about science. Then in that case, you probably won't find any enjoyment out of this movie. But, in real honesty, all of that is completely trivial.

Now let's talk about the voice acting. I did watch the English dub for this movie. And the dub here is really good. Almost everyone turns in an excellent showing, save for one voice actor. And as soon as I heard his voice, I had a strong feeling he was going to suck. And unfortunately, I was right. That one voice actor is Steve Blum. And the reason being is that it's the same problem that I've had with Blum throughout most of his voice acting career. He almost never gives any kind of pitch when it comes to his voice work. And the only voice I hear is Steve Blum and nothing different that makes his voice stand out from everyone else. Mind you, we have veteran voice actors in this movie such as Johnny Yong Bosch, Mike Pollock, and Yuri Lowenthal, and they were able to turn in better showings than Steve Blum. Why? Because they showed me that they still give a shit about turning in a showing that isn't lazily phoned in. Steve Blum, on the other hand, still showed me that he still gives out the same two or three pitched voices that he's been carrying out in the 20 plus years that I've heard his voice. And I can officially say that Steve Blum, at least to me, has lost the will to act. And when the day comes that he stops getting voice-work, is the day that nothing of value will be lost. Now beyond Blum's lazy acting, everyone else turns in a great showing. And I can say, without a doubt, that the dub for this movie is really good.

Now we come to the animation. And...the animation here is it's biggest positive, but also it's biggest curse. One thing that I should mention is that the art style is almost lifted directly from "Kill La Kill". So you're going to get a lot ultra clean, ultra crude, and very flashy animation from that same show, including the character designs. And I know that there are those who are not going to like that style of Japanese animation. So I do have to warn you that if you are not into this kind of flashy animation, then you're probably not going to like the look of this movie. This movie also utilizes a ton of CG. And by that, I mean you will see shots of vehicles, mecha battles, buildings, and a lot of it is a ridiculous mixed bag. Because the stuff involving the mecha battles and vehicles looks really good. And then you'll have shots of the buildings that really stand out. And I don't mean that in a positive light. Because the CG looks as if it was almost rendered for a PlayStation 2 game. And that's not necessarily a good thing. However, most of those shots are at the very beginning of the film, so it's not a big enough deal where it'll take you out of the movie entirely. You might notice it, but it's overly trivial in the long run. And then you'll have shots of a line of fire hydrants and they, somehow, look worse in CG than the fucking buildings. Which, I didn't think was possible, but somehow, they managed it. But again, they only appear for about a few seconds before moving on to something else, so again, it's not going to take you out of the movie, but overall, the CG is a mixed bag at best. And honestly, some of it could've been rendered a lot better.

The music here is great. Both in score and in soundtrack. I could remember one song that played when I fired up the DVD menu for the movie. And that song plays about two or three times throughout the movie and it is really catchy. I may have to download the song at some point. And the sound-mix is done very well.

So, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Promare"? Totally. I mean, hell yes, I can recommend it. However, I do have to mention again, that if you're not into goofy science-fiction films, or if the animation style is not your thing, then there's no way I can recommend it. But honestly, like I said, all of that is trivial in the long run, if you're able to look past those minor issues. This movie is certainly really good. And for a first outing from Trigger, I have to say, I am genuinely impressed. And if they decide to make more movies, I highly encourage it, because I want to see what else this studio can do. And if they're able to turn out a great film like this one, then I think this studio will have a bright future in the animation film industry.

Anyway guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all in the near future. Peace.