One year ago, Hugo Weaving intoned sotto voce behind the visage of Guy Fawkes, “Artists use lies to tell the truth, while politicians use them to cover the truth up.” Perhaps. But what happens when artists use lies to tell … lies?

V for Vendetta, the film from which the afore-mentioned, lofty quote is drawn (Pynchon and Jung references notwithstanding), as well as Children of Men had the dystopian audacity to engage in the now seemingly naïve realm of ideas. For their efforts, the filmmakers were rewarded with dismissive reviews and lackluster interest at the box office.

Vendetta inspired “Thumb suckers of the world unite …” from The New York Times, and “a dunderheaded pop fantasia” from The New Yorker, while Children of Men drew “Bloated adaptation” from The Wall Street Journal, “I just don’t get it” from The NY Observer and inspired one reviewer in this very paper to call director Alfonso Cuarón “a true hack.” In fact, both films are hopeful testaments to the power of broad, transcendent ideas through cinema.

Given this rough terrain and high standard set by the critical community, you might think it impossible for any cinematic work to win critical acclaim that didn’t at least have the “intent” of thoughtfulness-meets-visual-art. And most critics would have you believe that their war of ideas is story-versus-style. It is on that paradoxical note that we move into the wildly successful, and critically acclaimed worlds of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez and their new film Grindhouse.

Merriam-Webster defines the term grindhouse thusly: “An often shabby movie theater having continuous showings especially of pornographic or violent films.” A tour of both director’s output—Kill Bill 1 & 2, From Dusk Till Dawn and Desperado, for example—would appear to epitomize this definition more than all the Roger Corman films ever made. Both directors have perfected the art of making visually engaging films without meaningful points into top grossing, American pop culture staples. If Tarantino’s dream, sitting alone behind that video store counter so many years ago, was to be the one to make big budget B-movies, he has succeeded.

The two directors’ so-called aestheticization of violence, exultation of the mundane and attempts to intellectualize the schlock, cannot hide the telltale seams of films that ask you to embrace your non-thinking, non-sensing self. While Apocalypto’s violence is effective because of the narrative’s seductive ability to make us care about its characters and the ideas surrounding them, Kill Bill’s violence (eyeball snatching included) is merely cartoonish, in keeping with the self-aggrandizing play-acting forced upon the characters by the actors’ gleeful complicity with director Tarantino.

Now, after the two directors have exhausted almost all of their childhood B-movie/pop culture references, they are finally coming full circle, dispensing with any pretensions of art house fare to proudly lay claim to what is their true oeuvre—the cheap exploitation film. Grindhouse is split into two features: Planet Terror by Rodriguez and Death Proof by Tarantino. According to the studio, between the features, several “fake” trailers for non-existent movies will be shown. Perfect.

The film’s viewers will be treated to fake film scratches and dust and, on the trailer, fake projector noises (get it, you’re at the grindhouse, motherfucker!). This kind of wink, nudge, hey we’re cool because we’re making fun of ourselves schtick worked back in the ’90s when both directors were relative unknowns, but now we know that the “wink, nudge” is as plastic as Mickey Rourke’s face in Sin City. There is no inside joke, just the posture of cool, laced with the occasional “motherfucking cocksucker,” just so you know they aren’t fucking around … motherfucker. 

Rodriguez recently told the media that B-movie legend John Carpenter’s (They Live, Halloween, Escape From New York, The Fog) music was often played on set during filming to set the mood. Ironically, invoking the name of Carpenter forces us to admit that “actual” B-movies are pretty entertaining without the glossy treatments, fake film scratches and A-list stars pretending to be B-movie nobodies. That said, it’s quite possible that the only significant difference between Snakes on a Plane and Grindhouse (the former starring Tarantino’s favorite muse Samuel L. Jackson) will be just a couple of extra motherfuckers (see a pattern?) thrown in here and there. Thus, Snakes on a Plane is likely a more authentic B-movie than Grindhouse could ever hope to be. For the record, Grindhouse stars: Bruce Willis, Kurt Russell, Nicolas Cage, Rosario Dawson, Naveen Andrews (of ABC’s “Lost”) and Rose McGowan. Welcome, once again, to the blockbuster B-movie.

Despite themselves, Tarantino and Rodriguez have the right idea. As the tools for filmmaking have become cheaper and more malleable, now is the time for rough, ugly, experimental films to shine again as they did in the ’70s. The problem for these directors is that they are just too rich, too well-connected and too self-aware to produce films that are truly spit and chewing gum, bleeding-edge like Eric Nicholas’ Alone With Her, Vincent Gallo’s The Brown Bunny or Shane Carruth’s Primer—films most American audiences will never see.

Is there a place for the non-thinking, non-sensing movie? Of course. Every piece of art cannot be a didactic trip into social science. But it helps to know when you’re watching a real B-movie, rather than a blockbuster posing as a B-movie. What happens when artists use lies to lie? Nothing very special, and a special kind of nothing.