The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, January 23, 1996 - 9

New 'Du
By Michael Zilberman
Daily Arts Writer
"From Dusk Till Dawn" marks the
time span in which two murderous
thieves on the lam - the Gecko broth-
ers - blow up a store, head for the
Mexican border, take a hostage, lose
her, take three more hostages, bond
With them - and that's BEFORE they
4EV w.
From Dusk
Till Dawn
Directed by Robert
Rodriguez, with
George Clooney and
Quentin Tarantino
At Showcase
encounter a nest of vampires.
If this sounds like a writing exercise
from Quentin Tarantino's adolescence,
you're right on target: It is, in fact, the
very first script Tarantino got paid for,
resurrected in 1995 by close pal Robert
Rodriguez ("Desperado").
Granted, the script itself is fairly crude
- you can practically hear all plot
engines creak and shift gears as the
movie changes from a melancholic road
comedy into a hyperactive blood bash.
Thankfully, each of the two halves is

sk' is bloody good

sufficient enough to sustain our atten-
tion.
The road-movie part is distinguished
mostly by, believe it or not, Tarantino's
performance. This time around, he re-
frains from his usual motor mouth ob-
noxiousness and lets the silence build
up to an appropriately creepy effect.
He's not afraid to present his character
as an absolutely charmless bastard - a
sick, spookily infantile screw-up who's
as pathologically attached to his older
sibling (George Clooney) as he is hos-
tile toward the rest of the world.
Harvey Keitel, bearded and bespec-
tacled, plays the priest the Geckos take
hostage as dignity and restraint incar-
nate, a Christian version of a Zen mas-
ter. And Juliette Lewis (as his daughter)
is at her best when playing terrorized
nymphets (she's more appropriately cast
here than she was in, say, "Strange
Days").
The second part of the film starts
with the entrance of Salma Hayek, as a
demonic lap dancer in a seedy Mexican
bar. Hayek has become Rodriguez's
personal muse of sorts, but his choice of
roles for her remains somewhat puz-
zling (she appeared in "Four Rooms" as
a dancing torso on TV). Here, she
fondles a snake, promptly transforms
into a slimy yellow creature, bites into
Tarantino's neck and the fun begins.
The movie spins wildly out of con-
trol, body parts fly hither and yon and

we are treated to a hysterically funny
film-school student's vision of hell,
complete with a rock band. The most
intriguing thing about the grand finale
of "From Dusk Till Dawn," with its
Nintendo violence, is that it doesn'tjust
pay homage to Sam Raimi's brand of
tongue-in-cheek horror; instead, it hap-
pily acknowledges every lousy, no-bud-
get, Super-8 vampire movie inspired by
it.
And while it doesn't exactly do for
supernatural thriller what "Shoot The
Piano Player" did for film noir, it's
definitely funnier than Mel Brooks' re-
cent"Dracula" outing. In fact, Tarantino
and Rodriguez seem to have perfected a.
special brand of gagless humor: It lies
in manic excess with which they pile up
scene after scene, in the absurdity of
exchanges, in little gimmicks that carry
over from movie to movie. They've
managed to create their own dimension
distinguished mainly by minuscule pop-
culture artifacts.
We see a universe where people
smoke Red Apple cigarettes and eat Big
Kahuna burgers (both brands made
cameo appearances in "Four Rooms"
and "Dusk"). In this universe, everyone
issues tough-guy declarations, men dis-
cuss "vehicles" and "beverages" and
women don't talk much at all. And a
battle with vampires is won not by the
strongest, but by those who saw the
most movies about them.

Would
you like
to write
stories for
either
Theater
or Fine
Arts?
Then call
Melissa or
Ted at
763-0379.

George "Heartthrob" Clooney bites the bullet.

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