American Grindhouse

Just saw "American Grindhouse" at The Boston Underground Film Festival and loved it. Very insightful, very fast and very funny. I enjoyed that they have a couple of witty female interviewees, as well. I thought I knew a lot of movies - particularly grindhouse a.k.a. exploitation films, but this movie puts it all into perspective for me.

I thought that this documentary would mainly focus on the exploitation most of us think of from the 60's on to present day. I am glad to say that is has a much more interesting approach then just that obvious plot. It starts at the turn of the 18th century at the dawn of cinema, all and while amusing classic clips. It progresses decade by decade comparing more contemporary films to pre code Hollywood. These are things most exploitation fans would never really think of...'Where did the 70s exploit films come from, and what inspired them?' I personally welcome this lesson, and don't worry you get the schlock and gore too! My point? Even if your a 'know it all' go see it, it's academic with a punch line. Now if I can only find all of these amazing movies they talked about.

This is a terrific documentary for fans of exploitation cinema and B movies. The documentary charts the history of US exploitation films from the beginnings of cinema to the modern day.

It was Tarantino and Rodriguez that revitalised the term Grindhouse when they made their double feature but it took off in the 1960s with the change of mores and loosening of censorship laws.

It allowed filmmakers to exploit and challenge an area of cinema that was designed for discerning adults that like terror, sex, violence and buckets of blood.

The documentary is narrated by Robert Forster and interviews starts, directors and fans of the genre including Joe Dante, John Landis, Fred Williamson, Larry Cohen, William Lustig, Lewis Teague and others.

However it is not just talking heads, you have clips from grindhouse films and especially a good representation of clips from films of the 1960s and 70s.

About as interesting as a loosely-related series of sparse conversations with cult-favorite directors is likely to get. The goal seems to have been the assembly of a "straight from the horse's mouth" oral history of exploitation at large in cinema, but none of the subjects could really nail down the outer limits of what the term meant. So, instead, it became a crash-course history of underground film, decorated at all corners with vaguely familiar old men reminiscing about their glory days. The narrative jumps all over the place, sometimes floating from the '20s to the '90s over the course of a single sentence - that's OK, though, because the sheer breadth of knowledge and a shared recollection of the crazy promotional stunts each film undertook to get noticed makes the journey worthwhile. It's also one hell of a Netflix recommendation engine.

American Grindhouse (2010)

*** (out of 4)

This film begins with people debating on what a grindhouse film really is and after the release of the film GRINDHOUSE it seems like everyone was debating the true definition. This documentary, to me, covers pretty much everything that wasn't accepted by the mainstream. We cover a wide range of films starting with some early silents from Edison and then moving to Hollywood movies like FREAKS as well as trashier things like MANIAC, REEFER MADNESS and then going through other decades. Included are the "birth" films from the 40s, the nudist films of the 60s, the gore period starting with Herschell Gordon Lewis and then moving through the 70s with stuff like THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT and the blaxploitation pictures. John Landis, William Lustig, Ted V. Mikels, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Joe Dante, Kim Morgan, Fred Olen Ray, Fred Williamson, Allison Anders, Larry Cohen, David Hess, Don Edmonds and Jack Hill are just a few of the people interviewed here and they too have a wide range of opinions on the films covered here. For the most part I think this is a terrific introduction to those unfamiliar with the genre but if you have a good idea of these films and their history then it's doubtful you're going to learn much here. I think American GRINDHOUSE would best be used as a training tool for those new movie fans wanting to see about this stuff and be able to see countless clips as well as get some nice recommendations for rentals. I think the documentary does a good job at covering various genres but at just 83-minutes there's really no way it can really dig deep into everything. Europeon films are pretty much overlooked and this is somewhat frustrating especially when certain films are made to appear as if they started a sub-genre when in fact it was usually something overseas. The film also does a nice job at showing how certain production rules in Hollywood is what helped change the exploitation filmmakers and how Hollywood eventually had to drop what they were doing and offer people what they wanted.

It's a far ranging exploration of the exploitation cinema. It takes a history trip from the beginning of film all the way to today. It doesn't really try to limit the scope, and skims through 100 years. It features several talking heads. The most famous of the experts is director John Landis.

This serves as a general documentary of the fringe movie world. The best thing is all the clips of these old movies. The talking heads aren't digging too deep but are generally well informed. Robert Forster does a good job as the narrator. His gruff voice isn't the normal narration but somehow fits the subject matter. This is a steady march through history categorizing all the major movements hitting the big moments. The best interviews are the actual participants who are talking about their own movies. The doc does grind down as the movie has nowhere to go with the arrival of porn. I guess that's another doc. The final section of Hollywood trying to rip off the grindhouse isn't quite as compelling. As a general doc, it hits most of the big points.