Cinematical

There was an interesting piece in yesterday's Times about Grindhouse. The writer, Whitney Joiner, got some good access to the post-production facilities and had a chance to talk to the filmmakers about what they were aiming for with this project. Joiner also confirms what we've heard before, that in addition to adding scratches and dust to the print to dirty things up, Tarantino and Rodriguez have each "purposefully cut out" a segment from their films, to "play with the audience." They want to remind us of what it's like to watch a film in a one-dollar theater, where anything goes.

"When it pops up 'Missing Reel,' the entire theater is going to scream," Tarantino said. "They might very well be screaming my name: 'Quentin, you bastard! We hate you!'" The piece also gives a brief outline of the Josh Brolin/Marley Shelton needle-pricking segment, as well as the Kurt Russell muscle car-that-can't-be-crashed segment, which is a riff on the fact that automobile stuntmen can build cars that are more or less un-crashable. "You could drive it 100 miles an hour into a brick wall just for the experience," Tarantino says.