Of the three, though, Rodriguez seems to get the least love, critically speaking at least. It's not surprising really, as his films don't fit the preferred indie aesthetic as well as Tarantino's or Smith's - less emphasis on dialogue and character, more on powerhouse camerawork, editing and action. This much is immediately evident viewing El Mariachi alongside Reservoir Dogs and Clerks. That Mariachi is in Spanish is the least of the differences; Rodriguez's movie hops locations like nobody's business, from the desert to the street to the bar to the hotel to the back of the truck to the villa, squeezing in madcap stunts and bizarre dream sequences along the way. Tarantino and Smith's first efforts, as I'm sure they'd agree, are totally pedestrian by comparison. Add the fact that Rodriguez shot the whole thing totally solo, with nothing but the $7000 budget he scraped together in part by participating in human medical testing, and a legend was created.

That said, I'm not the biggest fan of Mariachi. While it's of course very impressive that RR pulled off what he did in the manner he did, the film itself I find a wee bit lacking in plot, character and intellectual content. This is surely the most common complaint of Rodriguez - that his films are all style and no substance. That probably is true. But as RR has repeatedly demonstrated in his prolific career, substance can be of little significance when you've got that much style...

To see what I mean, look no further than Roadracers. I'm not sure how widely seen this film is, seeing as how it was made for TV and has yet to get a DVD release (except in Europe and Australia, bizarrely), but up to 2004 it was my personal favourite Rodriguez movie. Conceived, scripted and shot in a matter of weeks, it was part of a series for Showtime, produced by the late great Debra Hill. The idea was simple: get a bunch of great directors who hadn't done much of note for a while (including William Friedkin and John Milius), have them take their pick from a list of 1950's juvenile delinquent titles, and let them make their own mini-masterpiece of rock 'n roll exploitation. The series was called Rebel Highway - and the results were by and large so bad they bordered on the unwatchable. Good job, then, that Hill was smart enough to hire Rodriguez, fresh from the success of Mariachi and in prep for Desperado, with enough time to kill to throw a TV movie together.

But Roadracers is not your typical TV movie. It's quintessential Rodriguez: a largely insignificant plot serving as little more than a backdrop for a veneer that is oozing with cool. Christ, it pulls off a minor miracle in making David Arquette seem like the coolest man in the world! Cruising the streets, hanging out in a crummy diner, smoking endlessly...truly, few if any films have made smoking look as cool as Roadracers does. If, as it looks, the current campaigning to get any films featuring smoking immediately bumped up to a restricted rating is successful, then Roadracers is no holes barred full penetration hardcore porn. Check out Arquette blowing out a smoke ring, watching it float away, then leaning in and sucking it back up... there's just no other word for it, it's just cool.

Additionally, there are two key things Roadracers introduced into my consciousness. One - the term 'tea-bagging.' Two - Salma Hayek. In using Roadracers as a grandiose screen test to show the Columbia execs that she could pull off the female lead in Desperado (fuck knows who they wanted, Sharon Stone maybe?), RR effectively launched Salma's career, starting her on the path to her current position as one of the most powerful Latinas in Hollywood. And, of course, giving us one of the foxiest leading ladies in film history. Hurrah!

Ah, Desperado - it was that movie that really made me realise this was a director to watch. The bluesy soundtrack, the Hong Kong flavoured gunplay, the sizzling sun-drenched setting, a badass turn from Antonio Banderas (another guy whose career owes a significant debt to RR): all the ingredients of an action classic. Whenever you think it's shot its load, it springs another bout of hot frenzied action on you - if Antonio's guns racing up his wrists Travis Bickle style wasn't ridiculous enough, wait until his buddies show up with machine guns and rocket launchers disguised as guitars. Unfortunately, RR felt the need to pepper the action scenes with a lot of tedious, pompous dialogue about the futility of vengeance. Frankly, one doesn't sit down to watch a display of stylised cartoon violence and expect to be lectured about why violence is bad. We're smart enough to know it's just a movie - aren't we? Just treat those scenes as opportunities to dash for a piss and/or hit the fridge for another beer, and they're easy enough to get over. But make sure you're back in your seat before Antonio and Salma get it on in soft focus, working their way through a bewildering number of positions to the searing guitar of Carlos Santana; a succession of teasing glimpses through slickly cut cross-fades (one of RR's signature flourishes), it's a sequence that digital freeze-frame was invented for. Sure, it's a bit corny, but... Salma Hayek is naked.

Now, considering that Salma is known to have told RR before they starting making movies together that there were only two things she wouldn't do - nudity, or snakes - it would be quite easy to start speculating as to just how cruel, manipulative and misogynistic this man might be, considering how promptly he got her to do both... but that would be a bit disingenuous of me, considering I'm very glad he did. If he hadn't, we wouldn't have the unforgettable dance scene that helps lift his next movie from a weird combination of crime caper and splatter fest to one of the most iconic, unconventional vampire movies ever.

However, to be frank, the first time I saw From Dusk Till Dawn I wasn't too impressed. I knew the vampires were coming, but I wasn't expecting such a schizophrenic viewing experience. Being more aware at the time of Tarantino (and in '96 who wasn't?), I was expecting a leaner, less extravagant, more intellectually enriching time, and was bewildered when all that went out the window the moment Salma's head went serpentine. But by the time of my second viewing, over hard liquor with some friends, I had an epiphany: real-world logic and good taste are superfluous when a movie is this much fun. And over a decade later, From Dusk Till Dawn has never stopped being fun to watch. Even Quentin Tarantino having a significant speaking part can't ruin things. Also, it added George Clooney to the list of people launched into the movies courtesy of RR - not to mention that heavily inked chunk of badassery Danny Trejo, here given dialogue ("Lowly dog, bow your head!") after his silent role in Desperado; and of course Cheech Marin, another Desperado alumnus enjoying a new post-Chong career as one of the RR stable, here playing no less than three roles, most notably the ridiculously quotable doorman: "Come on in, pussy lovers!"

RR's next, The Faculty, is kind of an oddity; easily his most mainstream and compromised work. It's a proficient bit of sci-fi horror with a decent ensemble cast, but it's clearly not his movie; it's Kevin Williamson's all the way, the overall look and feel being far closer to Scream than anything RR's done before or since. Indeed, by the late 90's there was a definite sense that he was slipping into high-profile director for hire status, getting linked to Daredevil, being asked by Kevin Smith to do Dogma. Then the Spy Kids series; now, as amiable (if incoherent) as those are, when RR did that trilogy back-to-back I can't have been the only one hearing alarm bells. I mean, what screams sell-out more than 'kid's movies?' Can anyone say 'John Hughes?'

Then Once Upon A Time In Mexico... and my heart broke. There are no two ways about it, it is a poor, poor movie, and a really shitty way to wrap up the Mariachi saga, which up to that point had been defined by wild action and enthusiasm, only to be let down a dour, joyless final chapter. There are a few good action scenes, but they don't make up for the oversized cast, convoluted plot, and distinct deficiency of heart and soul. (The underuse of Salma is a major factor in this - and it's not just my penis saying that.) And worst of all for a Rodriguez movie - it looks bad. The digital photography he had begun championing looks like a home video, made all the worse by the abundance of bad CGI.

There was such a feeling of defeat watching that film. I thought it was over. I thought the RR bubble had at last popped.

But then, along came Sin City - and the bubble was back, bigger than ever.

Sin City is RR's masterpiece; the film he was born to make, and the one he should by all rights be remembered for. Of course Frank Miller has to take the lion's share of the credit - it's his baby, after all - but it was Rodriguez who figured out how to realise Miller's vision so accurately, so lovingly, and with - you guessed it - such natural fucking cool!

Virtually everything works. The sumptuous, otherworldly black & white cinematography and the down 'n' dirty music set the tone just right. The central performances - Bruce Willis, Clive Owen, Benicio Del Toro, Rosario Dawson, Jaime King, Carla Gugino, Brittany Murphy, and in particular Mickey Rourke - are the best work any of the actors have done. It's a sad irony to me that Jessica Alba seems to be most recognised as the icon of the film, when she's clearly the only real weak link - sure, she's pretty and well put together, but she can't act her way out of a paper bag. But when everything around her is going so well, I can turn a blind eye. RR really struck gold with this one. It's puerile and juvenile enough to suit his trashy sensibilities, but has such a unique vision that it can't simply be dismissed as just another dumb action film. It's one of the only times I've sat in a cinema and known that I had truly never seen a movie like it before.

And so, to Planet Terror. (Yes, I know he did another kid's movie after Sin City, but I haven't seen it so cut me some slack. Anyway, I hear it sucks arse - which is the same reason I've chosen to disregard Four Rooms.) When it was announced that Rodriguez and Tarantino were collaborating again on Grindhouse I got very excited indeed, but I must admit I was a tad wary on learning they were writing and directing independently of one another, as it's fair to say RR isn't that great a screenwriter. Most of his better work - Sin City, FDTD, Roadracers - was either someone else's script or a collaboration (Roadracers having been co-written by Tommy Nix, who sports a memorable cameo in Planet Terror as a hospital orderly), and when left to his own devices as with the Mariachi and Spy Kids trilogies, the results have been at best variable. How nice to see, then, that the script for Planet Terror really does the job. It doesn't hurt that the film isn't meant to be taken too seriously, but the numerous tumultuous relationships - Cherry & El Wray, Sheriff & JT, The Drs Block - are handled surprisingly well, with more depth and emotion than I was anticipating. Again there's a great ensemble cast, from such fanboy favourites as Michael Biehn, Tom Savini and Michael Parks, through to the relative unknowns - Freddy Rodriguez (no relation) is a particular revelation. The action is appropriately OTT, with as much mind being paid to traditional zombie conventions as were paid to vampire conventions in FDTD (i.e., virtually none), which is refreshing in an era overloaded with repetitive walking dead flicks sticking slavishly to the Romero model. And while Planet Terror does have one particularly dark 'guns are bad' moment, there's precious little of the overbearing preachiness that soured Desperado.

Planet Terror also showcases the woman that looked for a while to be RR's new muse, whom it's almost impossible to discuss without coming dangerously close to tabloid territory - Rose McGowan. If you don't mind we'll sidestep the gossip column bullshit here, and focus on the key question of what she does for the movie. Answer - she rocks it. Cherry Darling has to be the most iconic character that RR has dreamed up since the Mariachi, and McGowan deserves credit for bringing her to life so endearingly. It may be a trifle grating that we don't get to see the goods (she's playing a stripper, for crying out loud!) but when she starts blowing away sickos with her machine gun leg it's an instant classic moment, burned deep into the collective geek consciousness. And long may it remain, for I suspect Planet Terror is one of those movies whose reputation will only grow with time.

This one's for Ben. Enjoy.

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Guitar cases full of guns, snake-charming vampires in bikinis, hard-boiled bad asses in trench coats, and machine gun-legged zombie killing strippers - I can't see a day when they won't be cool as shit.