The Japanophile U.S. director talks about his love of trashy '70s cinema and why his latest film looks like it was put through a blender
Quentin Tarantino is back, and if you thought he had exorcised the spirit of exploitation cinema from his soul with the "Kill Bill" films, well, think again. His latest project is "Grindhouse," a double-feature homage to sleazy 1970s B-movies, which has him working with friend and fellow director Robert Rodriguez, each offering up a film.
"Grindhouse cinema" is a term that's been bandied about more frequently since the release of "Kill Bill." It refers to the run-down, seedy cinemas of the '70s, often located in dodgier parts of town, that showed nothing but exploitation flicks, from soft-core sleaze ("Valley of the Ultravixens") to sick-inducing splatter ("The Corpse Grinders"), blaxploitation ("Coffy") and sexploitation ("Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS"). The "grindhouse" nickname derived from the fact that many of these cinemas were striptease clubs in an earlier incarnation.