A Mass of Movies... two and a half quick reviews

It's not normal I see multiple things worth posting about in quick succession, but this is one such time.

First, the review-and-a-half. I meant to see Grindhouse when it hit the theaters, but I never got around to it. Just as well... Death Proof, one half of the set, was one of those rare films that I couldn't force myself to sit all the way through due to its badness. Terrible dialogue between shallow characters going on interminably to start a film does that to me.

If I had hit Grindhouse in the theater, I might therefore have missed Planet Terror, which is a fun, campy sort of film. It comes at you as only good "bad" films can, starting out doing its best to take itself seriously despite the "apocalyptic plague" storyline... but gets more and more silly as it looks to one-up the last scenes. In particular, "hero leading the convoy on a pocket cycle" and "gun-leg girl rocket-jumping over a wall" had me laughing out loud... it's not quite "Army of Darkness" silly, but it does quite well.

Finally, work being slow today, I hit Kung Fu Panda at the local theater. Yes, it's a pretty predictable storyline, but it's well executed... and Jack Black and Dustin Hoffman (the two that get the most screentime) obviously had fun doing the voicework. Even at today's prices, it's worth a matinee showing at least.