"Grindhouse" footnote: Easter egg?

Despite successfully keeping the film out of the grasp of local alternative weekly reviewers, “Grindhouse” still laid an egg over the Easter weekend. It is a deflation of overhyped expectations on a par with last year’s (not as overpraised as “Grindhouse,” but nonetheless enthusiastically received by critics who should have known better) “Snakes on a Plane.”

Some argue that “Grindhouse”  did okay given the fact that its 191 minute length limited its engagements, but it certainly had enough screens for those so inclined to see it and length never seemed to limit the grosses of plus-3-hour films like “Titanic” or Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” films or even the latter’s critically snubbed “King Kong” remake.

Perhaps opening the film on Good Friday might have proven a miscalculation. It seems on such holy days people prefer puerile, unpretentious comedies like “Blades of Glory” to puerile, pretentious faux exploitation films like “Grindhouse.” Or if holiday filmgoers have a craving for graphic sado-masochism, they want it mixed with a heavy dose of piety, as as was the case back in 2004 when “The Passion of the Christ,”  after an Ash Wednesday bow, flogged its way to the top of the box office four weeks later on the Easter weekend.