Pajiba

does anyone know when the movie is coming out???

According to IMDB Jan 2011.

I'm so there!
Looks like fun.

Is the 70's faux-exploitation fad going to end soon? This may be the most irritating idea hollywood has glommed onto in years. You would think the failure of Grindhouse would end this trend before it really got started but bizarrely it just seemed to hybernate. Machete looks stupid, this looks stupid, the Ali Larter vodka ads are entertaining in 30 second doses but that's about it. I just don't get this love affair with poorly made cinema. There is enough accidentally poorly made cinema out there without having to do it on purpose. There was one good thing to come of this; "Black Dynamite". Because it's a damn fine spoof movie the way Mel Brooks used to make spoof movies.

I believe you mean hobotastic.

This film, on the other hand, looks hobhorrent.

That looks 88 kinds of awesome.

Hate to break it to you Fredo, but you're incorrect. Eisener won the trailer contest that Rodriguez held during SXSW, and the Hobo trailer played in several international theaters - mainly Canadian ones but also selected US ones - before Grindhouse.

I know the exploit style isn't for everyone, but it certainly isn't some fad that's just reared it's ugly head. Tarrantino and Rodriguez brought recognition to a style that's been made for decades on shoestring budgets. This isn't some referential faux-exploit nonsense; the entire genre is referential nonsense. Exploitation wouldn't exist with the studio inspiration, and later exploitation couldn't exist without the prior exploitation. All the directors are trying to do one better than what came before, and doing that requires knowing what came before in studio and exploit films.

In other words, the fad isn't going anywhere because it never left. This is the second time such a film got a wide release in the past decade (Black Dynamite was not wide, Teeth was not wide, none of the others were that wide) and it got surprisingly good reviews and made good money for this style. This is the same kind of reasoning as the people who claimed Moulin Rouge and Chicago brought back the American musical. It never left; y'all just stopped watching meaning fewer musicals were released wide enough to be seen and talked about.

Well in a bigger sense, you're right. There isn't anything new under the sun. But the deliberate uglification of movies to make it look like something out of a low-budget 70's movie *is* a current bandwagon.

Adding in fake scratches, putting actors in polyester, and junking up the visuals is just cheap. If you want to play within (and around) the boundaries of a genre, great. Nothing wrong with that. But like every creator who takes a culturally familiar starting point and adds "what if", you better have a compelling "what if" if you expect the audience to remain engaged.

I want to give that hobo a sandwich. I'm not giving him money because I know he'll just drink it up and that's not what I'm about. I suppose I'd give him money if he promised to spend it on ammunition, but he has to pinky swear.

i'm with tyler, there is a world of difference between homage, say like piranha, that used state of the art everything to communicate a pssion for the kind of movies the director was weaned on, and trying to manufacture a simulacrum of older low budget films.

I like a lot of older b movies. they were representative of their era. there is no value in making shoddy xeroxes of them. its not ironic, its not hip and its not fun.

and really, there is a world of difference between a little joke and making an entire shitty movie and then expecting people to spend their money on it.

I'm not sure that you can really say this movie is manufacturing a low budget aesthetic- because it actually IS low budget. It was filming in Halifax and Dartmouth this past spring and summer, and while it's getting mainstream exposure it's got an indie heart and an indie approach. I had friends who did acting, production, special effects and set decorating for free, all because of their love of this movie and Jason, who from all accounts is a fantastically passionate young filmmaker. This isn't in the same realm as Machete because Eisner doesn't have Rodriguez's clout. It was Rodriguez and Tarantino who gave him the exposure to do this production, and to spend the past three years working on a concept, but this is, by no means, a Big Hollywood Movie. Yes, it is simulating the effects of grindhouse and B-movies and is very self conscious of it, but it's also attempting to be loving towards it, and whether or not it is interpreted as loving or mocking will determine it's success, just as Dan concluded from Machete.