"Grindhouse" footnote: Easter egg?
Despite successfully keeping the film out of the grasp of
local alternative weekly reviewers, “Grindhouse” still laid an egg over the
Easter weekend. It is a deflation of overhyped expectations on a par with last
year’s (not as overpraised as “Grindhouse,” but nonetheless enthusiastically
received by critics who should have known better) “Snakes on a Plane.”
Some argue
that “Grindhouse” did okay given the fact that its 191 minute length
limited its engagements, but it certainly had enough screens for those so
inclined to see it and length never seemed to limit the grosses of plus-3-hour films like
“Titanic” or Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” films or even the latter’s
critically snubbed “King Kong” remake.
Perhaps opening the film on Good Friday might have proven a
miscalculation. It seems on such holy days people prefer puerile, unpretentious
comedies like “Blades of Glory” to puerile, pretentious faux exploitation films
like “Grindhouse.” Or if holiday filmgoers have a craving for graphic
sado-masochism, they want it mixed with a heavy dose of piety, as as was the
case back in 2004 when “The Passion of the Christ,” after an Ash Wednesday bow, flogged its way to
the top of the box office four weeks later on the Easter weekend.