A Tale of Two Movies

I saw two movies in the last week: An Inconvenient Truth and Grindhouse. Both movies were so remarkable that I feel I must remark on them.

Let's start with An Inconvenient Truth. I've been waiting to see this for a while, since we rarely go to movie theaters ($9.50 for a ticket- each- plus how much an hour for a babysitter? I can borrow DVDs from the library for free!) and the request queue for it was huge. Finally making it to the top of the list, we watched it last night.

This movie was everything I expected and then some. Al Gore was singularly impressive and his message even more so. The gravity of it is more than a little sobering and frightening. The sky actually is falling, and we're doing almost nothing to prop it up. It's not a liberal issue, it's not a political issue- it's a Human Problem and all humans need to act. If you haven't seen this movie, you should. No- you must. Then we all must get moving on it.

*Cool side note- the University of Delaware yesterday unveiled their new hydrogen fuel cell bus. Go Blue Hens!

*Hopeful side note- Al, run again. Please. We need you.

The second movie was Grindhouse. For this, we paid the $9.50 per ticket and bummed some free babysitting off a relative because it just wouldn't have been the same seeing it without a crowd in a theater. It was packed full on a Friday night in Edison so we ended up with rotten, crane-your-neck seats where we were stuck for three hours.

And what three hours they were. It was an assault on the senses from the first moment.

Grindhouse is a double feature. The first movie, Planet Terror, is insane. The action never really stops or barely slows down at all. Freddy Rodriquez is great in this campy, funny, gore-filled horror ride. I have never seen a better use for a missing reel, either , not ever. A go-go dancer with a machine gun for a leg? How could you possibly go wrong?

Then come the previews between the movies, which were almost as bloody, if not more so. Keeps the momentum up and the laughs rolling.

The second movie, Tarrantino's Death Proof, is true to his style. He spends a long time establishing characters- way too friggin' long, in my opinion, since we're pumping adrenaline from the first movie & trailers and in no mood to listen to women talk, and talk, and talk, and establish side plotlines that have no business being there.

But once he establishes the characters, he begins the killing. Then we establish more characters, and the real joyride begins. Fear and joyride, that's what the last half hour of this movie is, and it's truly spectacular. Kurt Russell reminds us why we loved him as he has the ability to be every part of the spectrum without really changing much more than his smile. Amazing.

*Side note- I don't like horror movies. How did I end up here? And why did I enjoy it so much?

So, to sum up: Al Gore puts the fear into us, and Rodriguez and Tarrantino ratchet up the fear and gore. I highly recommend both movies, for very different reasons.