• Tarantino’s weakest effort to date but still in the archives
  • He serves as his own DP and it is the least accomplished film  of his visually- not sure what, if anything, that means
  • I like the attempt to ape the 1970’s B-movie aesthetics—he’s almost trying to simulate analog—vinyl or Atari here with the cigarette burns in the stock, pops—the film is missing frames (which leads to almost Godardian-like jump cuts in a few spots) and is physically starched film stock—he lays this on heavy up front in the film but it fades as the film goes along—disappointingly trails off
  • It’s a decent treatise on fetishizing—clearly Stuntman Mike has sociopathic fetish (with cars, sex and death—almost like Cronenberg’s JG Ballard adaptation Crash)—but Tarantino lays his fetishes out pretty loudly with the camera’s fixation on feet and the women’s behinds. I mean the credits for the film are resting on a pair of feet.
one of the great images here
  • Tarantino’s first and only film in chronological order with no flashbacks— the narrative rearrangement is part of his trademark for sure
  • Austin is a character in the first half of the film—Shiner Bock beer—Alamo Drafthouse
  • It’s not Pulp Fiction but the dialogue and small talk between the two sets of friends is pretty amazing.
  • Kurt Russell is great- a smooth-talking hard-driving sociopath—does a mean John Wayne impression, too
  • Vanishing Point is mentioned twice in the text—Challenger trunk shot, too—
QT’s trademark trunk shot
  • Masterful (and horrific) editing during the first crash— Tarantino repeats all 4 deaths triggered by showing a close-up of pulling the lights
  • Tarantino clearly relishing writing every word of Michael Parks dialogue- so much fun
  • So this is half of Grindhouse—but this film here- Death Proof– is split really in half as well—the first set of girls go and we’re on to the  next almost exactly half way through the film
  • A great 360 shot at the diner—long take—a split diopter shot of Bell in the background— De Palma’s influence on QT
  • Zoe Bell is playing herself—stuntman vs stuntman—She’s does the stunt work for Uma in Kill Bill  
  • Non-CGI stunt work – we’ll never see this again—the dedication to Analog
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  • This is a revenge film—Django, Inglourious Basterds
  • Recommend