A Grindhouse Initiation

When Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino announced they were making the movie "Grindhouse," I was thankful they had the clout to do it. I grew up with low-budget movies on television that today go under a variety of different names: B-movies, exploitation films, drive-in movies and now grindhouse films. All these terms cover a wide variety of genres. Kung-fu (or "chop-socky" flicks), horror, teen sex comedies, rednecks running amok, and much more, all done low-budget, fast and furious.

These films played the drive-ins when there were hundreds of them all across America, and in the sleaziest theaters imaginable. Before 42nd Street in New York was cleaned up, the theaters in that area showed double and triple bills all night, grinding 'em out one after another (also grinding up the prints, which ended up pretty beaten and scratched over the years, a battered look "Grindhouse" the movie replicated to give it the right feel).

A lot of people don't see the entertainment value in these films, but for the fans, we know what we love about them. They're usually wild, funny (intentionally and unintentionally), outrageous, very un-PC (even by today's standards), shocking, balls-out fun. There's also a lot of interesting things you'll discover in them if you watch carefully enough.

Quentin Tarantino outside Los Angeles' Beverly Theater for the Grindhouse Film Festival.

Yet, when I was growing up, I thought my love of these movies was one of the many things that made me an outsider. Eventually, I realized there were other people who liked this stuff too, but figured it was only a small handful of fellow geeks. Finally, when Quentin Tarantino hit the big time, it was a revelation, because it was obvious he was a big fan of these movies, and much of his balls-out sensibility came from them.

As Tarantino recalled in the book "What It Is, What It Was:" "I think if you look at my work, it's not really taking that much from the mainstream cinema. What I've taken from exploitation films in general is that anything can happen."

Back in the day, studios would lecture filmmakers that a comedy had to be totally funny, and a serious moment or a downbeat ending would just confuse people, or lose the audience. Grindhouse movies didn't have to follow the rules, and they often had the most outrageous twists and turns you'd never expect from mainstream films. And as I learned, these films aren't all just about gore and T&A. At times they can even be, dare I say, moving.

In his report on several Grindhouse shows, blogger Dennis Cozzalio was actually moved by the ending of "Revenge of the Cheerleaders," and I had a similar experience with "The Mighty Peking Man," which Tarantino re-released to theaters years ago through his company Rolling Thunder, which is now defunct. The film was a silly rip-off of "King Kong," complete with a guy in a baggy gorilla suit, and it was a laugh riot most of the way through, except for its surprisingly sad ending. Hey wait a minute...I really cared about these characters? I felt sad when one of them died? I guess I did.

But when it's all said and done, you ultimately go to see these movies to have a great time, and more often than not, that's what they deliver. If you don't know how to have fun, a grindhouse show ain't for you. Go ahead, treat it with snobby condescension, treat it like it's beneath your film snob sensibilities. You have no idea what you're missing.

Now in celebration of the release of "Grindhouse" the movie, the New Beverly Cinema has been taken over by the Los Angeles Grindhouse Film Festival, presented by Quentin Tarantino, which began on March 4, and will end on May 1. I attended a number of these screenings, and here's what I've experienced so far.

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