DEATH PROOF (2007) ★
One of the greatest have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too maneuvers in the history of cinema: Tarantino makes a sleazy sexploitation film that, over time, refines itself (narratively, formally, and even materially) into a critique of his own sleazy tendencies and a ruthless takedown of misogynist masculinity more broadly. Plus it gets to geek out (endearingly) about car chase movies. Gets a little baggy in spots (there's no way this should be longer than, say, Reservoir Dogs) and there are a few instances where Tarantino still gives in to his own worst instances (the rapey joke about leaving the model-actress with the redneck feels both out of character for these women and out of place in the more "refined" half), but overall the film accomplishes more than being just the "grindhouse" pastiche it was marketed as.
