First, the good news. The trailers were incredible, and I agree with anyone that wanted to see full-length versions of any of them. Granted, "Don't" was a bit of a joke (and a hilarious one at that!), but "Thanksgiving" and "Machete" were incredible. Hell, I'd be psyched for "Werewolf Women of the SS" too!
I'm horribly biased, as a fan of gore AND zombies, so "Planet Terror" won me from the get-go. Rodriguez definitely knew what he was doing; everything from the dialogue and facial expressions to the grainy footage and ridiculous cuts were perfect. He kept me in the zone the entire film.
"Death Proof," however, was a little lacking. It started great; Tarantino's "mis-edits" and hyper-sexuality were right on, I thought. But in the second half of his half, it went from 70's sexplotation to just a regular old Tarantino movie. Granted, it was still pretty solid, but the movie itself broke character and I found that a little distracting. Still, you've got to give him credit for what seemed like a 20+ minute continuous shot. Wow. Still, the end more than made up for the shortcomings. I was spazzing out at the last car chase; I don't think I've ever been so stressed out and nervous watching a movie in my life.
One of the high points was a kid that looked 12 sitting a few rows in front of us. He was cackling the entire movie, which made the absurdity of some parts even funnier. Nothing beat his comments after the "lap dance" in "Death Proof"; he screamed out "You gotta be kidding me!" Classic!
