"...its pacing and structure continue to confound me..."

It's not a Syd Field-approved Hollywood three-act, but it's a pretty common narrative structure in fiction. The story is split into two acts, right down the middle, with events and characters paralleling each other. One goes one way (establishing precedent and creating expectation), one goes another (subverting what was previously established).

What's to confound?

And as far as the dialogue goes, I think it's his best work. Dude finally learned how to write women.

Oh, narratively, I get what he's doing, I'm just bewildered as to why he does it that way. As a film, Death Proof's structure gives it no momentum (in a movie that's supposed to be all about momentum!), and as an homage to grindhouse, the loopy, self-indulgent format has no authenticity. Tarantino hammered the last nail into the three-act structure a long time ago (even pre-Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, with his original script for True Romance), but in those instances, he had narrative- or character-based reasons to do so. Here, the script just seems like a hurried first draft, and the fact that the movie doesn't even really start until 45 minutes in (Jungle Julie, et al., would have been better used as a five minute set-up to kick off the film, not given half the film to whine and send off text messages) just exacerbates things.

As for the dialogue, it's great, as almost always with Tarantino; problem is, there's not much reason for most of it to be there. Again, most of these problems are in the first half, where Jungle Julie acts bitchy and whiny while Butterfly and Shanna tag along. Once shit gets rolling with Rose McGowan and the stuntwomen (and, obviously, Kurt Russell), the dialogue isn't just fun to listen to, it also serves a purpose. (And I have to say that Tarantino has written good/realistic dialogue for women before, most notably in Jackie Brown. And then there's the amazing Vincent/Mia dialogue over the Jackrabbit Slims table.)

My favorite part of this movie was when the dude in the theatre yelled "Get to the fucking point!"

Okay. Let's crack this open.

Reservoir Dogs opens with seven guys sitting around a table arguing about Madonna and tipping. For ten minutes. It's only later you find out they're jewel thieves preparing for a heist. Pulp Fiction's primary storyline opens with two guys in a car talking about hamburgers and European movie theaters and the pilot process. It takes fifteen minutes before it's reveled that they're hitmen on their way to murder someone.

Both of these movies are crime dramas -- basically occupation fantasies, right? -- so the most important detail of each of the characters is what they do for a living; namely, rob and kill people. But Tarrantino holds off on dealing with that and forces the audience to get to know them as people first. It's his trademark move; bringing depth to traditionally shallow character types by having them engage in a bunch of small talk.

Death Proof is a horror movie. The girls in the first segment are The Victims. That's their story function, and they're a necessary element of the genre. They exist solely to be killed so that Stuntman Mike is established as a real threat. But while a typical horror movie would, as you suggest, kill them off in the first five minutes, Tarrantino instead spends a half an hour forcing us to hang out in a bar with these girls. And just when we start to feel like we know them--

He kills them. Horribly. And regardless of how annoying we may have found some of them, we FEEL it when they die. And suddenly we don't like Stuntman Mike anymore.

He then follows that by introducing us to a new group of girls who are instantly -- and INTENTIONALLY -- more likable, and right off the bat, BAM!, we're emotionally invested in them. We really, REALLY don't want Stuntman Mike to kill these ones. No, not these ones! They're cool! As a result, we're way more scared and anxious during the car chase, and way more exhilarated by the ending.

I guess I'm saying that the second part wouldn't have been as good without the "problems" of the first part, and that those "problems" weren't mistakes or exercises in self-indulgence. Tarrantino knows what he's doing, and I really do think he brought his A-game to Death Proof.

Damn, Beaton. Nice. I don't disagree with any particular point in your last comment.

But I do think that--regardless of what Tarantino's trying to do, or how he constructs the two halves of the film to work with and/or against each other--ultimately, and most importantly, the first half of Death Proof simply isn't as engaging as it should be. The first chunk of the film should be entertaining on its own merits, not those of the half after it. But it isn't. (Caustic's comment about the flick getting to the fucking point already is hardly a rare or unjustified one.) I get what Tarantino's trying to do, I just don't think it works as nearly as well as it should, or nearly as well as he thinks it does. (Case in point: I hate watching that amazing car crash--I flinch/cover my eyes every time, just 'cause of the gore factor--but from the perspective of someone who just sat through however many minutes of abrasive, unlikeable characters whining with a superfluous Eli Roth, I like Stuntman Mike more once he kills those girls, which I'm pretty sure wasn't what Tarantino was going for.)

Anyway, I think you're right about a lot of stuff, Beaton, and it's pretty rad to be able to talk/think about this stuff. We just disagree on whether or not this is Tarantino's A game. (Man, I've seen the guy's A game before, and it doesn't involve having to justify anything he's doing or any of his choices. When he's on, everything he does just works. And there are moments when he's on in DP, but none of them are in the first half.)

You guys really need to stop jacking each other off...

My thought upon seeing Death Proof was this: Most grindhouse movies were awful. Like, some were good in a so-bad-it's-good sort of way, but a lot of them were just fucking bad. Maybe the editing was shitty, maybe it was the dialogue, maybe the acting, but there was some movies you look at and think "whoever did this was an imbecile".

Honestly, that's the approach I thought Tarantino was taking. He was going for an authentic grindhouse feel to the movie, which meant that you had to wade through 60 minutes of dreck to get to the kickass. Which is okay I guess from an artistic standpoint, I just didn't think it worked from an entertainment standpoint.

The mistake was putting Rodriguez's film first. The slower paced film should have been first. Also, while the first act of Death Proof is very realistic, the second act turns into near-fantastical ridiculousness. It's fun and I was almost in tears I was laughing so hard as they were beating this shit out of Russell, but still, it seemed like a cheap gag.

I agree that the first act is pretty damn talky, but to a degree it sets up the later tensions. But it could have been tightened up a lot and the dialogue needed to be owned by the actors, but they never made it theirs. It sounds like Tarantino in a wig.

Kill Bill Vol. 1 was good...Death Proof had a lot of potential but Tarantino is an egomaniac and had to prove to everyone all he knows about film history...Whatever! Stop the jabberin' and show the action Quentin...Furthermore, QT thinks he's so hip...Wow! he put the 5.6.7.8's in a movie...c'mon, I saw them live in 1993...and Chartreuse has been popular for quite some time...but thanks for the effort...
For my money Rodriguez's 'Planet Terror' was a hell of a lot more fun...no ego, just plain 'ole entertainment...Quentin would be wise to take notes from his buddy.

"QT thinks he's so hip..."

Yeah!

*sniff* . . . stupid Tarantino . . . thinks he's so cool . . . you're not so big, mister big-shot Hollywood whatever-the-fuck . . . [blows nose loudly] You ain't bad, Quentin! You ain't nothin'!

So if he didn't put "the 5.6.7.8's" in the movie, it would have been better? Or hipper? So fucking hipsterish of you. "Oh, you made a movie with an obscure band, well, I saw that band when they were way more obscure long before you did."

And "stop the jabberin' and show the action"? Are you sure you know who QT is?

"Chartreuse has been popular for quite some time" Yeah, you could say that, I was drinking it back in the 1600's, what about you?