Hell Ride

Pistolero and his gang in Hell Ride (Dimension Extreme)

Hell Ride (opening August 8 at Landmark's Hillcrest Cinemas) feels like it could have been included in the Grindhouse movie package. Produced by Quentin Tarantino, the film works hard to recapture the feel of the 60s and 70s motorcycle films like The Wild Angels, Hells Angels on Wheels, The Rebel Rousers or even the seminal Easy Rider as it whips up a grindhouse style pastiche of the three b's in life: babes, booze, and bikers.

Midnight Movies: Pulp Fiction

"I'm sorry, did I break your concentration?" John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction (Miramax)

What's great about these midnight movies and library screenings is that it afford me a chance to dig back into the archives and revisit films I love. This Friday and Saturday at midnight, Landmark's La Jolla Village Theaters will present Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. In 1992, Quentin Tarantino burst onto the film scene with the brash, ultraviolent Reservoir Dogs. (I remembering being pregnant when the film was screened for the press and the publicist was concerned that I might go into early labor or something horrible if I saw such a violent film. I didn't but my son is now addicted to violent action films.) The film paid homage to Hollywood B movies and Hong Kong action films. It also signaled Tarantino as a talent to watch. His second film Pulp Fiction went on to win a prize at Cannes in 1994, and make clear that he was going to continue to make an impact on the film scene.

Jean Luc Godard once said that every film must have a beginning a middle and an end but not necessarily in that order. Tarantino's Pulp Fiction reaffirms that point. Pulp Fiction interlaces three stories inspired by the lurid, popular crime fiction of the 30s and 40s - but with a fresh, hip new sheen. The film opens with a couple (Amanda Plummer, Tim Roth) contemplating a career change, which involves giving up robbing liquor stores in favor of robbing coffee houses... But hold that thought... because the film abruptly cuts away from their story to a pair of hit men (Samuel L. Jackson, John Travolta) who arrive early for a job and bide their time by arguing over the sexual implications of a foot massage. (Think back to a similar style of conversation in Reservoir Dogs in which a gang of crooks argue over tipping.) Next we meet a double crossing fighter (Bruce Willis), the hitmen's boss (a memorable Ving Rhames), and the boss's wife (Uma Thurman in a Louise Brooks bob). Then after a violent climax, the film doubles back to the opening scene with sly, satisfying elegance.

George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead

The dead are coming back to life... again. Diary of the Dead (The Weinstein Company)

Let me be upfront about this – I love zombie movies. I don’t know what it is about the lumbering undead that I find so endearing but they definitely charm me. And George A. Romero is THE master of zombie horror, having essentially created the genre with his 1968 black and white film, Night of the Living Dead. (There were some zombies before Romero but he defined them as we know them today, and anyone who saw him at his panel at last year's Comic-Con should be convinced of his master status in the horror genre.) This year, the 67-year-old Romero delivers his fifth zombie film, Diary of the Dead  (opening February 15 exclusively at the AMC Palm Promenade Theaters), so run, don’t “shamble,” over to catch the undead’s latest uprising.

The great thing about Romero’s zombies films is that you can enjoy them in any of a number of ways. If you just want a zombie gorefest, he delivers a bloody thrill ride of horror fun. But his films can also be appreciated as truly independent filmmaking in which Romero has complete control of everything; his films serve up primers on how to make a film on little or no money outside Hollywood. And finally, if you want something a little meatier, you can always find social commentary mixed in with all the blood and gore. Romero’s latest, Diary of the Dead, satisfies on all three levels.

George A. Romero Interview

George A. Romero reanimates the zombie genre with Diary of the Dead (Weinstein Company)

When George A. Romero made The Night of the Living Dead in 1968, he essentially invented a genre. But potential distributors were not initially impressed. In fact, they asked him to change the film's bleak ending. But he simply said, “F--k you.” That pretty much set the tone for Romero's relationship with the mainstream film industry. Like John Waters, he's a filmmaker who has remained outside the industry (Pittsburgh for Romero and Baltimore for Waters) making the films he wants. This year he delivers the much-anticipated zombie outing, Diary of the Dead (opening exclusively at the Palm Promenade Theaters).

“It's not a continuation, it's not sort of a fifth film in the series,” Romero explains, “It goes back to the first night when the dead are coming back. I sort of felt that I had gone far enough with Land of the Dead, and I was ready to get off of that train… There was a collection of short stories, actually two volumes, called Book of the Dead, and they were all stories about what happened on that first night. I came to realize that I could sort of keep doing stories about different people over those first two or three nights.”

10 Best of 2007

Choosing the top ten films of 2007 is like choosing which of your children you like best. I love them all but in different ways. This year the family grew larger than expected and was all over the map. You can listen to my rundown of the 10 best of 2007. I'm also including here some other noteworthy films of the year.

First, I'll mention a few films that might have made my ten best if studios had only decided to release them in San Diego. The trippy anime Tekkon Kinkreet; David Lynch's mind bending Inland Empire; the slyly ironic Romanian film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days; the abortion documentary Lake of Fire; and a pair of Johnnie To Hong Kong actioners Exiled and Triad Election (known as Election 2 in Hong Kong) all dazzled in their own unique ways. But none were deemed worthy of release here. I'm particularly irked by the fact that Johnnie To repeatedly fails to get his films released here. In these two films he served up gangster tales that were darker and more existential than what American audiences probably expect from Hong Kong actioners. He manges to mix action elements with a French New Wave freshness and Wong Kar Wai's lush stylish flourishes. To delivers consistently stunning work yet has failed to convince U.S. distributors to give his films an art house release that extends beyond a few cities. This needs to change.

Grindhouse

Grindhouse (Miramax)

At last summer's Comic-Con, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez brought the house down with a ten-minute teaser of their joint double feature, Grindhouse (opening April 6 throughout San Diego). The double bill of Rodriguez' Planet Terror and Tarantino's Death Proof finally arrives in theaters after a year of intense build up.

Quentin Tarantino, sat on the Grindhouse panel at the Comic-Con last July and told the 6400 people that "I'm actually proud that I make movies that adults respond to the way kids respond to." And that's what Grindhouse does -- it delivers a film that fans will line up to see, watch repeatedly on DVD, and scramble to collect all the toys. They'll also memorize favorite lines and compete to prove they know more trivia or get more of the in-jokes and references than anyone else. And that's the way a kid enjoys a movie -- wholeheartedly and with obsessive passion.

Smokin’ Aces

Jeremy Piven as Buddy "Aces" Israel in Smokin' Aces

Joe Carnahan gained an indie rep with his gritty cop thriller Narc. Now he tries his hand at flashier filmmaking with an over-the-top action film, Smokin' Aces (opening January 26 throughout San Diego). The film stars Ray Liotta, Ryan Reynolds, Jeremy Piven, Andy Garcia and Alicia Keys.

Silent Hill

Silent Hill goes from video game to big screen (Tri-Star)

Silent Hill (which opened throughout San Diego on April 21) was not available for preview to the press. That usually means the studio is afraid that they have a clinker on their hands and want to put off the bad reviews until after opening weekend. So is Silent Hill really that bad?

Reservoir Dogs

Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (Miramax)

Some directors make such startling first films that they cannot help attracting attention. Martin Scorsese's Who's That Knocking?, Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It, Peter Greenaway's The Draftsman's Contract, and Alan Rudolph's Welcome to L.A. are all audacious debut films. Now Quentin Tarantino, still in his twenties, makes his directing debut with a violent and blackly comic homage to B movie gangsters, Reservoir Dogs. His bold assured direction signals Tarantino as a talent to watch.

Reservoir Dogs is the story of a diamond heist gone wrong. The film opens with the eight crooks having breakfast and arguing about what Madonna's "Like a Virgin" means and whether or not one should leave a tip. They could be pals who just hang out like this on a regular basis. But after this casual almost aimless dialogue scene, the film abruptly thrusts us into the chaotic aftermath of the failed heist. Before we can even catch our breath, we find ourselves in the back seat of a getaway car as one of the thieves is bleeding profusely from a stomach wound while another tries to comfort him.