WTF! Man, the Weinsteins suck... much like Kill Bill, Grindhouse is being released as TWO DVDs at first, with a deluxe edition way off. However, unlike Kill Bill, this makes less sense since these movies were released together! So if you want to replicate the experience you had in the theater - you can't! These DVDs don't even include "Don't" or "Machete"! This sucks. The do have the "missing reels" though, and are available in those new-fangled steel keep cases that are all the rage now.
rick [email] said at 7:55 PM 08-02-2007: The only surprising part about this is that Miramax is the one paying for it. I would have thought someone might have been wary of the effect on P.R.
milky [email] said at 9:35 PM 08-02-2007: Of course the Weinsteins suck. They cooked the books at Miramax and bolted, and now they haven't had a memorable hit yet...no one that I would care to watch, anyway.
milky [email] said at 7:34 PM 08-03-2007: My best understanding is that they produced a ton of films and shelved them, then inflated the stock by claiming the funds to be received from said shelved films would be worth what their previous hits were. That, and they inflated the numbers for budgets and marketing...the books had huge numbers and the cost spent was very lower.
They didn't leave the Disney union over creative differences. They were totally fucking around over there.
josh [email] said at 9:37 AM 08-05-2007: yeah after you mentioned this i read a few articles about this. it wasnt the stock as much as a bad deal disney made that gave the weinsteins a budget/bonus based on profits. so years they needed more budget/wanted more profits, they would shelve money losers. years they didnt, they would dump tons of movies and lose millionsssss. pretty bad business.
josh [email] said at 1:32 PM 08-03-2007: which mystery disc contains Machete, the Rob Zombie trailer, and Don't? Because, as I said, they aren't on either disc.
reggie [email] said at 9:55 PM 08-03-2007: most likely. I wish companies would just release the end all be all editions right out the gate. Just get it out there.
For instance, I recently bought Oliver Stone's "Alexander Revisited: the Final Cut" which was his second pass at the same movie. I know the first version was widely panned and I believe the first Director's Cut was shorter than the theatrical version but still widely panned. This version, however, has received some more respectable reviews. It's three and a half hours long with an actual Intermission at the end of the first disc. It's pretty cohesive, it's got a good narrative flow -- which I think was the problem with the first two versions -- and has that "Spartacus" epic movie feeling that Stone wanted all along.
The point is, most people are probably going to shun this third version of the same movie because they hardly cared the first time around. Now it just looks like self-indulgence (which it is) and greed (which it isn't.)
I don't know what I'm getting at...oh yeah why not just wait and get it right the first time?
reggie [email] said at 2:47 PM 08-04-2007: I liked this version. I'd avoid the other two cuts and just watch this one. It wasn't great at all but it works and you can at least get the best sense of what attracted Stone to the project.
The battle sequences are pretty good, he does a solid job of showing Alexander's military prowess.
I'm not a Colin Farrell hater, he can be good in the right parts. Not sure if this was the one for him though.
At first I didn't see this as a typical Stone vehicle but given the military aspect as well as the political maneuvering/manipulation that goes on...it makes perfect sense.
Like I said avoid the other versions, just check out this one. It's nowhere near JFK, Nixon, Born on the 4th, NBK, Platoon or Wall Street but it's better than U-Turn (actually I didn't think World Trade Center was that horrible, just kinda blah.)
It was a review of this version in Film Quarterly that sold it for me.
josh [email] said at 3:39 PM 08-04-2007: hmm i may have to check it out. i like colin farrell but he seems better suited for modern roles to me... i liked him in minority report
reggie [email] said at 4:15 AM 08-05-2007: He was excellent in Tigerland and as much as the movie was ripped, I thought we was good in Phone Booth (both are Joel Schumacher movies.)
reggie [email] said at 10:06 AM 08-08-2007: Yeah, Talk Radio was pretty awesome. I caught that on tv for the first time a few months ago (ironically, right around the time of the Imus debacle.)
rick [email] said at 8:29 AM 08-05-2007: The film has good acting but the narrative is lacking. I would have appreciated it more if the film had shown more of the context in which Alexander was living. And it left out a lot of little details that I always thought were sort of interesting about Alexander.
reggie [email] said at 10:43 AM 08-05-2007: Now are you talking about the theatrical cut or the three hour and forty minute final cut?
And it left out a lot of little details that I always thought were sort of interesting about Alexander.
Details like what? I'm just curious 'cuz if you're not talking about the extended version then maybe some of those details are there. I mean at three plus hours there's a lot of ground that's covered.
rick [email] said at 12:38 PM 08-05-2007: Theatrical cut.
I mean like a lot of the little battle tidbits (for example once while either in India or Pakistan, the army was hesitant to attack a fortress, so Alexander called them sissies and scaled the fortress by himself thus shaming his men into attacking)and like the context that Alexander was operating in. They did decently with the courtly intrigues.
reggie [email] said at 7:23 PM 08-05-2007: Hmm, again having not seen the theatrical cut, there are scenes that do seem to address that in a different way, particularly one action he takes during the battle scene in India.
rick [email] said at 7:45 PM 08-07-2007: In the theatrical cut, they made it seem as though he lost that battle when in fact, from what I have read, he won it.
kiche [email] said at 11:52 AM 08-03-2007: i'm not completely opposed to this.
i am wondering, though, whether they will eventually put out some sort of "ultimate collectors box set" that contains the uncut versions of the movies and the theatrical version. hopefully also containing the "hobo with a shotgun" trailer shown in canada.
this is ultimately what i am interested in getting.
josh [email] said at 1:33 PM 08-03-2007: maybe, but how long has it been for this ultimate edition of kill bill to come out? it's still not out yet, i don't think.
reggie [email] said at 1:41 PM 08-03-2007: No it's not. However I don't want Tarantino to have any further distractions from Inglorious Bastards. I'm happy to wait for a Kill Bill Deeeelux edition if it means he finally finishes that jonx.
reggie [email] said at 1:52 PM 08-06-2007: This is from Wikipedia: The title is taken from the 1977 movie Quel maledetto treno blindato. The film was directed by the Italian director Enzo G. Castellari and was known in the United States as Inglorious Bastards. Tarantino's film is not intended to be a remake, but rather a homage to the earlier film, as well as Eastern Condors, The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, Where Eagles Dare, Cross of Iron and other war movies.
josh [email] said at 5:31 PM 08-06-2007: yeah its not an exact remake, but it's the same concept. its as much of a remake as the new dawn of the dead movie was a remake... took the premise and situation and added different characters and plot elements.
reggie [email] said at 1:02 AM 08-04-2007: it's just that he's been talking about this movie since Jackie Brown. i just want to see him get it out of his system.
reggie [email] said at 12:33 PM 08-04-2007: I don't know now, I do really want to see the Tarantino-ized version of a WWII movie. Don't care if it's this or something different.
reggie [email] said at 2:55 PM 08-04-2007: Hey, I'm the ripe old age of 30 now. Just yesterday I forgot how to tie my...wait, where am I? what's this weird looking typewriter I'm looking at?
milky [email] said at 4:15 PM 08-04-2007: Josh, have you seen any of Castellari's movies? They all seem like they'd be fun to watch...Especially with Fred Williamson as a constant. Are they good on at least a B level?
I think I'd rather watch the real grindhouse stuff over anything QT is doing. Seems more appealing.
josh [email] said at 4:35 PM 08-04-2007: Keoma is awesome. I haven't seen too much else. The New barbarians, i think that was OKAY. But maybe I am thinking of the Bronx Warriors... whichever one i saw it was pretty dumb but okay. You can get alot of his stuff on netflix.
milky [email] said at 9:19 AM 08-05-2007: I appreciate the B-movie like the next film fan. If I wanted to watch a Fellini film or a Rob Cohen film, I'd really be stuck as to which one to watch first...and I'd definitely see both of them.
There's a lot to be said for the B-family. I ain't talking the studio F-film (Joe Dirt, Ghost Rider, etc). Just the honest, unabashed B-film. The "little film that tried," or "the little film I hadda make cause we all had to eat to live," or "I got some cash and let's make a quickie rip-off because the original inspired me."
neilbert said at 3:08 AM 08-05-2007: I think that Grindhouse was released on EASTER WEEKEND had a lot to do with it's failure more than anything else.
Furthermore, I think "Death Proof" dragged Grindhouse to it's death. Death Proof was actually a perfect example of a 'Grindhouse' movie; a whole lot of NOTHING going on, someone is killed, usually in a gruesome manner and then more nothing until the next death.
Planet Terror was more of John Carpenter movie; which is proved by the statement by Tarantino: "Quentin said that PLANET TERROR is the zombie film John Carpenter would have done around the time between ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK and THE THING. That's the tone, at least."
I liked Planet Terror and it was a great homage to Carpenter, but it's not a movie that I am going to watch more than twice.
As for Death Proof; it's a movie out of place and time now. The pacing of the old grindhouse movies was sometimes painful, which was something Tarantino faithfully reproduced. I have heard that his original DP script came in at 130 pages (yipes!) and that the now separated DP has a lot more stuff added back in.
I think Rodriguez made a great homage to Carpenter and Tarantino made a great example of a grindhouse film, but neither films were really good; they felt forced and artificial.
The trailers were fucking brilliant though! Too bad they didn't just make those trailers into movies. :)
josh [email] said at 9:42 AM 08-05-2007: i pretty much agree. i wish they hadn't spent 60 million on grindhouse, somehow.... if they had done it for like 15 mill, we could have looked forward to it as a low budget franchise of homages and cool faux trailers... oh well
reggie [email] said at 9:40 PM 08-06-2007: It's also too bad that each director wrote the "Missing Reels" into the script. I don't know how feasible it would've been to have the missing reels pop up at a different time depending on when you went to see it, or what state you went to see it in.
reggie [email] said at 10:25 PM 08-06-2007: I think it's natural for it to rub you, me, Josh or anyone else with our nerdiness factor the wrong way but most people generally just want the movie and couldn't give two poops about the extras. I try to sell people on the extras every day and they generally don't care.
But the super deluxe ones just take time to produce. Like last week 300 came out and we only got a handful of the 2 disc ones and a bunch of the 1 disc ones. Once we were out of the 2 disc most customers looking for the movie didn't care when we told them we were out.
josh [email] said at 12:55 AM 08-07-2007: the 300 thing was totally opposite at target, most people wanted the 2 discer according to the dude working there.
also, its not like it would take any time to "produce" don't or thanksgiving. just throw half the trailers on one disc, half on another. OR just have a no frills DVD that has the movie just as it was thetrically presented, even.
reggie [email] said at 8:13 PM 08-07-2007: Well in this particular case, no it wouldn't take any longer to "produce" those. I was just thinking along the lines of the no-frills Zodiac being released with an advertisement for the Deluxe one to come next year (or Sin City, King Kong or Panic Room.) I thought that was what Milky was talking about but I guess he's talking about Grindhouse.
josh [email] said at 9:09 PM 08-07-2007: yeah i mean i can see it in some cases but in this its annoying. i mean i like it on anniversary DVDs when they have a featurette on like, the movies effect on pop culture or whatever (for important movies, obviously)
reggie [email] said at 9:32 PM 08-07-2007: I guess I just don't really mind the two Grindhouse movies being released separately. I am annoyed that they have different release dates and I guess it is annoying that the trailers aren't on it.
It would be better if they just dropped everything all at once. So that customers could get just Planet Terror, just Deathproof or both in one package.
Which is what you've been saying all along (right?)
