Growing up in Bowling Green, I have fond memories of the Riverside Drive-In, which often featured films like &#8220The Unseen” and &#8220Swap Meet” (even if my family never allowed me to see those films).

Those days are long gone, but thanks to &#8220Grindhouse,” fans of 1970’s schlock films get a second chance to live the good old days. The Robert Rodriguez-Quentin Tarantino double feature gleefully pays homage to the B-movies of their childhood, creating an experience unlike any other film in recent memory.

Rodriguez gets the three-hour plus extravaganza started with &#8220Planet Terror,” a cheesy horror film about a chemical weapon that turns a small Texas town into a feeding ground for blood-thirsty zombies.

Several townsfolk decide to fight back, including a mysterious loner named Wray (Freddy Rodriguez) and his go-go dancing ex-girlfriend, Cherry Darling (Rose McGowan).

Tarantino’s film &#8220Death Proof” tells the story of a psycho named Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) who stalks and kills beautiful women with his car.

&#8220Grindhouse” also includes four fake trailers – including &#8220Werewolf Women of the SS” by Rob Zombie and &#8220Thanksgiving” by Eli Roth (a sick, twisted creation that is 100 times better than his feature films &#8220Hostel” and &#8220Cabin Fever”) and even a fake ad for a Mexican restaurant.

Everyone involved captures the feel of the ’70s era releases with great success. Rodriguez uses every detail imaginable – film scratches, scenes that look slightly out of focus and even including &#8220missing footage” that happens in the middle of a steamy sex scene (with the film skipping far enough ahead that several plot points are missing).

Tarantino’s film, which I’m sure will turn some people off because of its deliberate pacing, is more of an appreciation of ’70s car-chase films like &#8220Vanishing Point” (which the film references) – except Tarantino manages to take the general idea and add his own touch, taking the genre to a whole new level. The final car chase (which includes real life stunt woman Zoe Bell on the hood of a car) is among the most exciting 10-15 movie minutes in recent memory.

The directors may be the stars of &#8220Grindhouse,” but the actor is just as impressive.

McGowan has always been a favorite of mine, but she is the perfect blend of sexiness and girl power – especially when her character adapts after losing a leg by turning into one of the most unlikely action heroines ever.

Russell is just as good as Mike, a character that’s sort of reminiscent of his role as Snake Plissken in &#8220Escape from New York.”

I will admit that &#8220Grindhouse” is definitely not for everyone. It’s crude, bloody and at times offensive. But I couldn’t help but appreciate the attempt at recreating a by-gone era. Rodriguez and Tarantino (as well as the other film makers that created the fake trailers) clearly have a soft spot in their hearts for those cheesy B-movies that were so popular in urban theaters and drive-ins. I couldn’t imagine any other way to show that love than &#8220Grindhouse.”

If only it could have found a way to include Smell-o-Vision. That’s about the only thing missing in an otherwise perfect concoction of nostalgic joy.

DVD dandy of the week

This week’s dandy is &#8220Bobby” (B-), director Emilio Estevez’s ambitious, yet flawed drama that evokes memories of films by the late Robert Altman and Paul Thomas Anderson.

&#8220Bobby” centers around the June 1968 assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel in California.

Instead of focusing on Kennedy, Estevez (who also wrote the screenplay) chooses to focus on 22 people in the hotel during that fateful day. And there lies the biggest problem with &#8220Bobby.”

Some of these stories are quite effective. Lindsay Lohan is very good as a young woman who marries a high school friend (Elijah Wood) to keep him from having to go to Vietnam. Demi Moore also has some nice moments as an aging alcoholic actress performing in the hotel lounge.

But there are plenty of stories that don’t work as well.

I’m still not sure what the point was of a subplot involving Helen Hunt and Martin Sheen as a couple trying to rekindle their relationship, and a comic interlude involving Ashton Kutcher as a hippie drug dealer just seems out of place.

It’s nice to see a cast with so many big names (an added bonus: It will really help in your mastery of &#8220Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”), but after a while the novelty becomes a distraction – and some scenes just dragging endlessly.

Estevez could have easily trimmed his cast of 22 in half, and the results would have been more effective.

To its credit, &#8220Bobby” builds to an emotionally charged final act, in which Estevez inserts actual footage of Kennedy’s assassination. Estevez is clearly trying to convey the idea that the world could have been a different place if Kennedy had survived, paralleling those ideas into today’s world. It’s kind of a soapbox approach, but it actually works – making &#8220Bobby” just good enough to be worth a look, even if it could have been so much more.

&#8220Bobby” is rated R for language, drug use and some violence and is available on DVD.