Reply #25: Rodriquez [View All]

[jobycom]

My eleven year old daughter commented at how bad the Spy Kids franchise was getting. Once Upon a Time in Mexico was horrible-- not original, not subversive, just one violent cliche after another. I just got back from Hitchikers, and they showed a preview of another Rodriquez film coming out, called Shark Boy and Lava Girl, or something like that. The audience was laughing at the trailer, and I don't mean laughing at it because it was funny. You could hear some people saying "Oh come on!"

I think Rodriquez thinks he's doing what Tarantino is doing, but he misses it. Tarantino does a cool combination of farce and drama together, and he's an obvious student of the types of films he does. With Kill Bill, for instance, not only is the story interesting, and at points moving, but there is a self-conscious mockery of the very types of films Tarantino is creating, similar to what Tim Burton or Ethan Cohen do. With Rodriquez, he just tries to freak people out, or gross them out, or throw in some brutal, senseless death (the woman on the balcony in Sin City, the chef in Once Upon a Time, etc.) just to show how quirky and irreverant he is. To me he's not quirky, he's just a farce, and not on purpose, the way Tarantino is, but on accident, and without knowing it.

Anyway, that's my opinion. I'm sure it's wrong, it usually is. :-)