The 4-Disc Blu-ray release of Grindhouse from Via Vision Entertainment was originally produced as a Limited Edition of 2,000 units only, with a set of 8 photo cards and a thick, lenticular case. That set appears to be out of print on Via Vision’s website, but is still available elsewhere. The standard edition replicates the insert and disc-based contents, but with a slipcover instead.
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This is a substantial amount of bonus materials, culling together most, but not all, of the previously-available extras on DVD and Blu-ray. The BD Live option is no longer viable, but there are also some scattered extras from various releases across the world that didn’t make it onto this set, specifically in Japan. That Blu-ray release contains a number of on-set and red carpet interviews with the cast and crew, as well as B-roll, and several Japanese TV spots and trailers. The German Blu-ray release includes a Music Jukebox option, the What is Grindhouse? featurette, and several US TV spots and trailers. The Tarantino XX: 20 Years of Filmmaking also includes an additional Extended Music Cue, which is Unexpected Violence by Ennio Morricone. Outside of that, everything else is here and accounted for in one package.
Despite my own personal mixed feelings about how well Grindhouse holds up in light of events that came much later that are not its fault, it’s still a great package that’s been highly influential on filmmakers of all sorts. Via Vision’s Blu-ray package offers the finest visual and aural quality available with all of the various versions and a massive extras package to boot, making it the definitive release of the film on Blu-ray.
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It’s almost criminal that Grindhouse wasn’t the success that it should have been when it hit theaters back in 2007. The theories as to why are numerous, including audiences being confused about the concept and not understanding that it was actually a throwback double feature experience; that it didn’t have the best advertising; or that audiences simply weren’t interested in it. The truth is that it was a little bit of everything.
For me, the main problem is that Death Proof just isn’t that good… I might overlook that and consider getting the set but I tried rewatching Planet Terror and ran head first into this:
On a very crucial side note, it’s important to bring up that this is one of many films from The Weinstein Company, and one starring Rose McGowan, who was the most vocal initially about the horrible things that went on at that company and others under the watch of Harvey Weinstein before charges were finally brought against him. And though it fits into the exploitation aesthetic, one must also acknowledge the exorbitant amount of misogyny on display in this film, which for me personally, co-mingles with the real life events in a way that’s difficult to separate. I’m a firm believer that one must always try and observe a film of its own merits with bias, nostalgia, and personal politics set aside as much as possible, but we must also acknowledge the pain and suffering of those in front of and behind the camera who were ignored during this production and others like it.
During the opening credits a Rose McGowan is on stage, scantily-clad and weeping right under the words “Harvey Weinstein”. I had to turn it off. So it would be a largely unwatchable boxset for me. Pity as it was a fun idea but still…
I remember watching it when it came out and being so excited but after twenty minutes I realised “oh QT can make shit movies” and that I was no longer a teenager that would cream at anything QT touched. The illusion was broken.
Yeah, until then he’d been hitting it out of the park and it felt like every film he was ever going to release was guaranteed to knock it out of the park. Then came Death Proof…
As far as I’m concerned he’s only made one great film since, Django Unchained, so I see Death Proof as some kind of turning point.
I pretty much feel the same. I loved Pulp Fiction, then my friends turned me onto Reservoir Dogs, then unbeknownst to me I saw Natural Born Killers and couldn’t figure out why I liked it so much, of course who can’t love From Dusk Till Dawn, I was in! At university I acquired a copy of Jackie Brown and loved it. That was kinda it for me. By Kill Bill 2 I was getting a little weary but was mature enough to understand not everything can be to everyone’s liking all of the time. I was willing to give him another go. Then I saw Death Proof in the cinema. I lied to myself for weeks afterwards telling myself that I didn’t understand the art, my friends didn’t understand the art, the reviews didn’t under the art. I saw QT lash out at anyone that said anything against it in interviews. It was kinda sad.
I love the early movies, I still do. The latest ones just feel like he likes the smell of his own farts. The stories about him on set with Uma Thurman turns my stomach. But he has his own cult around him. Such is life.
Then I saw Death Proof in the cinema. I lied to myself for weeks afterwards telling myself that I didn’t understand the art, my friends didn’t understand the art, the reviews didn’t under the art.
I saw it and went “all those people that said he had a foot fetish were right”. Also “and the rest was pretty poor too.” My love for his earlier works didn’t buy him enough slack for me to try and justify it.
By Kill Bill 2 I was getting a little weary but was mature enough to understand not everything can be to everyone’s liking all of the time.
I enjoyed it because I like Japanese and Chinese exploitation films but it didn’t need to be 2 films and at veered away from his earlier films where you’d appreciate his jackdaw eye for excellent ingredients that he forged into something new and interesting (as George Lucas does) and too close to a Family Guy style “I liked that because I got the reference to that thing that I liked better”.
The latest ones just feel like he likes the smell of his own farts.
In some ways it’s a classic story of a creator who comes in with fire in his veins, dropping hit after hit. At some point, they often seem to buy the hype that they can’t go wrong and everything seems to get very self-indulgent.
I thought Death Proof was a one-off misstep as he was trying too hard to ape, then subvert genre movie tropes. Then “twist” at the end of Inglorious Basterds made me go “oh fuck off” almost out loud and he did the same rewriting of history in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (the handling of the Bruce Lee scenes were painful no matter how he has tried to explain it since). I left both films very disappointed. Hateful Eight is an odd one as I still fail to see what the point of it was - it felt like more of a meandering sketch of a film not the finished product.
