Shearer: 'Machete' does what 'Grindhouse' couldn't

Last month, in my review of Edgar Wright's latest film, "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World," I touched on the subject of movie geeks making movies for fellow movie geeks. While I certainly appreciate where they're coming from, I never will understand the thought process behind trying to bring niche entertainment to a mass audience. 2007's "Grindhouse," a three-hour monster tribute to exploitation and cult film, was a dream come true for me. But it came as no surprise when the film tanked at the box office, failing to attract the kind of crowds that lead to financial success. Directors Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, known for their respective violent cinematic efforts, went all-out in their attempt to show moviegoers why genre entertainment from the '70s and early '80s was so much fun. Still, in the end, the only people the film seemed to resonate with were those who already knew and loved the kind of movies that influenced it.

Part of the "Grindhouse" concept included trailers for films that didn't actually exist. These played before and in between Tarantino's and Rodriguez's segments of the picture, and were highly entertaining blasts of ridiculous action and freakish imagery. Of these fake advertisements, the one for "Machete" stood out of the pack. Starring veteran tough guy character actor Danny Trejo and featuring Cheech Marin as a shotgun-toting priest, the trailer played like a Rodriguez film on fast-forward, as if someone took the most hyper-kinetic sequences from his "El Mariachi," "Desperado" and "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" flicks, duct-taped them together and ran them through an old, beaten-up projector. It was one of the things that managed to stay in people's minds, even those who chose to stay home when "Grindhouse" made its brief theatrical run. Rodriguez knew this, too, and made immediate plans to turn "Machete" into its own complete movie.

The thing about trailers for most exploitation-era films is, what you saw in those compress

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