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Tarantino panned in Cannes
By Robert Mendick, Evening Standard 23.05.07
Tarantino at Cannes: still smiling
Goldie Hawn with hubby and Death Proof star Kurt Russell
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Quentin Tarantino may well be the wrong side of 40 but he still shows no sign of growing up.
The American director, once the toast of Cannes, unveiled his latest movie, Death Proof, to the sound of infighting, backstabbing and merely faint applause. The critics were not too impressed by his latest offering either.
At least the 44-year-old got to walk the Cannes red carpet with actresses Zoe Bell, Tracie Thoms and Rosario Dawson - who exact their revenge in Death Proof on the baddie of the piece, Stunt Man Mike, played by a grizzled Kurt Russell.
Tarantino, one-time wunderkind of US independent cinema, may have won the coveted Palme d'Or for his 1994 movie Pulp Fiction but it is highly unlikely he will repeat the trick this year. Death Proof, described by one critic today as "joyous... shameless trash", is in competition but out of sorts.
Death Proof, a homage to the exploitation movies of the Sixties and Seventies, was conceived as a double bill and released in the US as Grindhouse, incorporating another film directed by Robert Rodriguez.
Grindhouse essentially offered two movies for the price of one but US audiences didn't get it.
Some walked out at the end of the first film, thinking Grindhouse had finished, while others walked out because, at three-and-a-half hours long, it was just too much. Either way it bombed at the box office with the result that its producer, Harvey Weinstein, ordered Grindhouse be chopped in two. Russell, who was also present at last night's premiere with partner Goldie Hawn, expressed his dismay that the Grindhouse concept will be lost to European viewers.
"I'm disappointed for every audience that they won't get the full Grindhouse experience," he said.
Death Proof may not be an improvement. The Guardian today called it a "pretty minor and often silly picture" while the Daily Telegraph said it "takes a while to get going".
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