Movie Review Death Proof

Death Proof (2007) 

Directed by Quentin Tarentino 

Written by Quentin Tarentino 

Starring Kurt Russell, Rosario Dawson, Vanessa Ferlito, Rose McGowan, Zoe Bell, Mary Elizabeth Winstead

Release Date April 6th, 2007 

Published April 5th, 2007 

Quentin Tarentino is the preeminent film artist of the modern era. A savant like talent who learned filmmaking by watching movies, Tarentino has turned applied knowledge into great art and even now in his tortured partnership with Robert Rodriguez on the twin bill Grindhouse, Tarentino takes his applied knowledge of low filmmaking and turns it into yet another masters class in filmmaking.

Death Proof is an homage to a certain kind of 1970's drive-in slasher movie that is actually still being made today on the fringes of the straight to video biz. The film stars Kurt Russell as Stuntman Mike a Hollywood stuntman well past his prime.

With the advent of CGI guys like Stuntman Mike are a dying breed and you can hear the resentment in his voice as he recounts his history in the business, back in the day, when he was a double for Lee Majors! He still works from time to time but he knows that his days are numbered. It is this resentment that may explain, in some odd way, why Mike takes his anger out on unsuspecting women. Luring them into his tricked out stunt car which he claims is death proof, Stuntman Mike intentionally crashes the car and kills his passenger. The car is only death proof if your in the drivers seat.

Setting his sights on a verbose group of women in a bar, a radio DJ and her three friends, Stuntman Mike first seems like just another creepy patron hitting on younger girls. When they end up rejecting his advances he takes it out on them in a horrifying car chase. Then the scene shifts to a diner in Tennessee where four different women; working on a film crew, are sitting around discussing movies and men. Abbie (Rosario Dawson) is the makeup girl, Lee (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Kim (Tracie Toms) and Zoe (Zoe Bell) are stunt women.

Zoe is visiting and has heard that a local man is selling a 1970 Dodge Challenger, just like the one Barry Newman drove in the movie Vanishing Point, in pristine condition, right down to the color and the four barrel engine. Zoe wants a test drive and something more. Little do the girls know that Stuntman Mike is nearby and wants a piece of the action.

That scene leads to one of the greatest car chases you have ever seen in a movie. Tarentino's filmmaking skills create a visceral, emotional, physical experience. These chases are as good or better than even his dialogue which is, as usual, dense and filled to overflow with pop culture bacchanalia.

The characters in the first half of Death Proof, aside from Stuntman Mike, are a verbose and intelligent lot who have interesting, involving conversations that sound mighty familiar. Peppered with references to the Acuna Boys (Kill Bill), foot massages (Pulp Fiction) and Red Apple Cigarettes (every Tarentino film), these conversations are so inside baseball they could make Kevin Smith Blush.

I'm not saying that Death Proof is for Tarentino fans only, it just deepens the experience if you get the references. This is a terrifically smart and entertaining and exciting movie regardless of whether you are a Tarentino fan. Besides, the chases scenes are essentially wordless and are the most entertaining and invigorating part of the film.

Everything about Death Proof works. This is among the best work of Tarentino's career and one of the best movies you will see in 2007.

Movie Review On_Line

On_Line (2002) 

Directed by Jed Weintrob 

Written by Andrew Osborne, Jed Weintrob  

Starring Josh Hamilton, Harold Perrineau, Vanessa Ferlito 

Release Date June 27th, 2002 

Published August 15th, 2002 

While I have never been one for the chat rooms or webcams, I am an online animal of a different stripe, I still feel that I can relate to the lonely, late-nite web surfers of Jed Weintrob's On_Line. Waiting for Homer Simpson to announce a new email has arrived in my box is a nightly waiting game that I devote maybe a little too much time to. My list of email friends is longer than my list of actual friends. However I have never and will never do the online dating or sex things that are the subject of most of On_Line, a witty and unique comedy.

Josh Hamilton stars as John, the proprietor of two very different websites. One is a personal webcam where he unloads his feelings at regular intervals. The other website is Intercon X, a sex site where people pay to have cybersex via webcam. John runs Intercon with his roommate Moe (Harold Perrineau), who implores his recently dumped roomie to step away from his webcam and meet people in real life.

Moe himself has no trouble meeting real live girls, rolling an assortment out of his bedroom nightly. His latest tryst might be a little more serious than usual; a coffee shop waitress named Moira (Isabel Gillies). She too has a life lived online where she spends her time visiting a website dedicated to suicide webcams. People log in to see people kill themselves or in Moira’s slightly more healthy way, try to talk others out of doing it. She has made good friends with a suicidal gay college student Ed (Eric Milligan). Ed also happens to be a frequent visitor to Intercon where he is in a torrid affair with an older man played very well by character actor John Fleck.

Moe finally does get John away from the computer for a date with Jordan (Vanessa Ferlito) who happens to run a webcam through Intercon where she has cybersex with strangers for money. She and John have an intense encounter online but in person, they have nothing in common and their date is an absolute disaster. They do have one thing in common, though they don't know it, they both obsess over the same oddball webcam chick named Angel.

The film was written and directed by a terrific up and comer Jed Weintrob. Weintrob has a superb visual eye using both the webcam aesthete and the flash cutting of a handheld digital camera between the two as characters chat via the webcams. The cuts are quick and timed to the beats of the conversations taking place. The script has a good sense of our ever-fracturing relationships with real people. As this technology evolves, it plays well into Generation X's numerous neuroses that make meeting people in person a form of torture. The technology allows people to hide behind a persona that, if punctured, can merely be deleted.

There are some troubles in the script however, such as a scene early in the film that tips the story's hand in regard to Moe and Moira’s relationship. Also, the relationship between Ed and Al unfolds in a way that some might find touching but that parents of gay teens might find disturbing.  Those problems aside, I liked On_Line a lot. The film is smart, sexy and humorous. It's very modern and well acted, especially Josh Hamilton who doesn't get enough attention. The guy consistently does good work but hardly anyone ever sees it. Director Jed Weintrob has a bright future and I can't wait to see what he does next.