The Premiere 2007 Preview
Grindhouse
Starring: Kurt Russell, Rose McGowan, Freddy Rodriguez, Rosario Dawson, Marley Shelton, Naveen Andrews, Josh Brolin, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Sydney Tamiia Poitier, and Zoe Bell
Directed by: Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez
(The Weinstein Company, Dimension Films; April 6)
Don't be bummed if you're too young to remember 1970s trips to the theater of last resort to catch the sleaziest in exploitation cinema. Tarantino and Rodriguez aim to re-create that experience for you — right down to the double-feature format, crappy print quality, and (mock) trailers for even lower-rent fare. But, said Tarantino at Comic-Con, "this isn't some Twilight Zone: The Movie thing. This is my next movie, and Robert's next movie." Added Rodriguez, "I wanted the whole world to have a [movie] night at Quentin's house. That'll be the idea." In his approximately 90-minute feature, Death Proof, Tarantino casts Russell as Stuntman Mike, a sicko who kills women with his skull-emblazoned Chevy Nova. Look for Dawson and friends (including Bobby's Winstead), as the cast and crew of a cheerleader movie that Mike is stalking, to present a major speed bump. "This is going to be Quentin's badass chick flick," promises Dawson. In his 90-minute segment, Rodriguez visits Planet Terror — actually a town suddenly overrun by quasi-zombies. Bad news for McGowan's Cherry, a stripper who's lost a leg. (Like Shelton, who plays an adulterous anesthesiologist, McGowan appears in both movies.) "Eventually she's called upon to save the universe," says McGowan of Cherry. "So she gets a machine gun leg."

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