Nuclear waste

Noel Vera

Robert Rodriguez's latest feature "Planet Terror" (2007) is his
attempt to re-create the feel of his (and Tarantino's) much-beloved
grindhouse days, when moldering movie theaters with ripped seat
cushions and unsavory smells might show a double feature of, oh,
say, Gerry de Leon's "Women in Cages" (1971) with Jesus
Franco's "Vampyros Lesbos" (same year) (I'm not sure they ever
actually did such a pairing, but it makes a nice progression). In
American theaters, Rodriguez's movie was paired with Quentin
Tarantino's own homage to exploitation films ("Death Proof")),
stitched together with a slew of fake trailers (Edgar
Wright's "Don't," Eli Roth's "Thanksgiving," and--funniest of all,
at least on paper--Rob Zombie's "Werewolf Women of the SS") and
released as a three-hour extravaganza, the closest you'll ever get
to the sights, sounds, feel and smells of a second-run theater in
the glory days of the '70s and '80s.

The movie didn't do well in the United States; apparently audiences
liked not smelling urine in the aisles, liked knowing that the
stickiness in the seats is caramel and not something altogether less
savory; I also suspect that the audiences preferred their movies to
clock in at a shorter running time (the latest "Pirates of the
Caribbean" and the recent "Transformers" were pushing it, but didn't
push too hard). Many didn't get the joke--people were leaving after
the end of "Planet Terror" until theater managers had staff posted
at the exits reminding people that a second feature was still to
come. Splitting the film into two discrete features for Asian--and
Filipino--audiences is probably a smart move; we're not familiar
with the double-feature concept, and I doubt if we'd sit still for
anything longer than two and a half hours.

Ergo--"Planet Terror," with maybe one or the other of the trailers
included, and without Tarantino's contribution to the project. It's
not a bad picture per se, or at least not unintentionally so--a
silly concoction Rodriguez has whipped up, about the military
allowing noxious gases to escape and create zombies, and various
citizens banding together to survive, much of its details borrowed
from George Romero and Lucio Fulci, among others. Easily the best
idea in the movie is having Rose McGowan as Cherry Darling ("Sounds
like a stripper name" "no, it sounds like a go-go dancer name;
there's a difference") lose one leg to one of the undead, to be
eventually replaced by her former boyfriend El Wray (a fairly
intense Freddy Rodriguez) with an M-16 assault rifle / M203 grenade
launcher (one wonders at the use of a gun barrel--which anyone with
any sense will tell you to keep raised and away from dirt, to
prevent clogging--for a leg (though beyond that one wonders about
the wisdom of wondering about such questions in a flick full of
bubbling zombies)).

I like the idea of a beautiful woman (for a thick, unsubtle layer of
added irony, a dancer with dreams of being a stand-up comedian)
hobbling around with a kickass weapon for a limb; don't think much
of McGowan as an actress, so any appendage taken away or added can
only improve her performance (not that she's asked to perform here,
not in the thespic sense, anyway). I like the hot-pizza quality of
the zombies, particularly the body parts melting away like gummi
bears under a blow-dryer--one of Rodriguez's finest moments is
talking (or he could have volunteered, for all I know) fellow
director and good friend Tarantino into appearing onscreen as a
rapist soldier whose ability to rape literally drips away in gooey
strings.

Much like Tarantino's enthusiasm, the picture's pacing ultimately
droops, then sags, then keels over for want of anything more
interesting to show us ("Zombies; chick with assault-rifle leg;
dripping testicles; and then?"). Rodriguez sets up an expectation
for more and more outrageousness that he just can't quite keep up.
It's a problem with which Rodriguez has struggled for most of his
career--his faux-epic "Once Upon a Time in Mexico," is all
consistently engaging set-up, stylish climax, and precious little
story development in between two fairly impressive bookends. Here it
takes a tedious amount of time (despite an intentionally
induced 'missing reel') before El Wray finally jams the rifle onto
Cherry's stump, and while that does remain a memorable moment,
Rodriguez fails to follow it up with anything equally satisfying--
mostly survivors beating a Howard Hawks-style retreat to an escape
helicopter, soldier zombies in hot pursuit.

Rodriguez--and Tarantino, acting and co-producing beside him--are
out for a lark; unlike Romero's recent "Land of the Dead" (2005), or
Joe Dante in his brilliant short "Homecoming" (released the same
year), Rodriguez is not using the zombies for anything more than as
convenient plot device. Well, there are brief references to WMD-type
chemical agents, military cover-ups, and Guantanamo-style
intimidation of prisoners, but the tone of the scenes--the attempt
to play up the luridness--suggests more opportunistic headline-
grabbing than any earnest attempt to actually explore contemporary
issues.
Rodriguez is I think a more skilled filmmaker than Tarantino (who's
essentially a clever scriptwriter with a voluminous catalogue of
movies from which to draw on for visual technique) with serious
storytelling problems (alongside with an inability to develop his
stories, he has a serious problem ending them).

Maybe my biggest problem with this whole exercise is the sheer
superfluity of it all, at least to Filipino audiences. We have our
own grindhouses in Manila, where insanely overcrowded theaters are
the norm, cats meow from the darker corners, steamed buns filled
with unidentifiable meat (why do you think there are cats in the
theaters?) and balut (boiled duck eggs with a recognizably developed
fetus) are sometimes served at the refreshment counter, and I'd once
seen a toddler urinate straight into a plastic vending cup he'd been
drinking Pepsi out of (I couldn't approve of his hygiene training,
but I did admire his marksmanship). As for the movies themselves--
overripe women emerging from giant eggplants (with gallons of tomato
sauce dripping from both); green muscled men with giant pythons
sprouting out of their shoulder blades; mermaids, Wonder Woman look-
alikes, obese giant men, James Bond-like midgets, bald vampires in
punk shades. Filipino pulp films and the nightmarish Manila theaters
that screen them are perfectly capable of providing their own
inimitable experiences, thank you very much (I haven't even
mentioned provincial theaters); Rodriguez's movie can only be a
redundancy inspired by an irrelevancy.

(First published in Businessworld, 7/20/07)

(Comments? Email me at noelbotevera@...)