..whereby Salon tells us whether or not Stephanie's in the mood for teh Cheese or fake Exploitation™?

I reference this portion of the review: "No matter how many horrors or perverse delights these movies parade before us, the filmmakers' unspoken and completely bogus subtext is always: 'We didn't mean to show you naked boobies or exploding sternums -- honest!' That obvious self-deception is part of the game, and part of the fun."

The whole "I can read the director's mind" type of review has to stop. How do you know what Tarantino's (director of the last half of "Grindhouse" and one scene in "Sin City") "subtext" was in his movies, especially if its "unspoken and completely bogus". I'm thinking that, if asked, Tarantino would say something to the effect of "Hell yes I meant to show you what I put in the film! Why else put it in the film?" Why have a completely superfluous character be a cheerleader in his portion of "Grindhouse"? Why all the intentionally missing portions of film, fake print scratches and bogus trailers for non-existent films?

Or was all that "Grindhouse" intentional unintentionality just unintentional enough? And how unintentional was the "Shoot 'em Up" directors intention? How can I trust Stephanie to know the difference? Where does the cheese-factor come in? I mean they called the movie "Shoot 'em up" for God's sake!

Ms. Zacharek, when you don't like a movie you don't always have to come up with an argument for why it's not a good film. I call bullshit on your assertion that good "nasty action thrillers" need to have pretensions toward some sort of morality in order to be good. You obviously were turned off by the immoral excesses of the movie, but rather than just saying that you construct a highly dubious argument for why the type of cinematic abandon displayed in "Shoot Em' Up" is a mark of low quality. Are you worried about seeming judgmental or moralistic by admitting that the movie turned you off? Just because you don't like a movie it does not by definition mean that the movie is bad or no fun, it just means that you didn't have fun watching it.