Rubber
(The story of a homicidal psychokinetic tire named Robert)

The Tired ROSSMAN

You're going to think that I made this movie up. You seriously will not believe me when I tell you that this flick exists, and that I actually saw it. I question myself whether I really saw it. It's just one of those things where you wonder "who the hell came up with the idea, and who actually gave this person enough money to hire real actors and special effects people to film it?"

Rubber is a movie about a tire that comes to life in the middle of the desert and kills people with its "mind."

There, see, you already doubt me that this is a real flick. Jesus, that synopsis just sounds like the most retarded thing since Corky had a love child with Nicolas Cage's career. It's sounds dumb. It sounds like maybe it could be the plot of a short story written by an eight year-old with no friends. It sounds absolutely ludicrous... And it is. But it did entertain me for almost its entire run.

And even though this is one of the most insane independent films I've ever had the privilege/misfortune to stumble upon, it looks pretty damn good. This is far and away no straight-to-SyFy Channel, lowest of the low dung-heap cinema here; Rubber looks and feels like an actual movie. Hell, it IS a real movie, even though it's just about a tire that rolls around and kills people. The exploding birds, bunnies, and people look pretty damn gross and professionally ka-boomed, and the cinematography and hell, even the acting is just what it needs to be (notice I didn't say that these parts were "great" or "stupendous" or anything).

My biggest gripe with this flick though is that I'm not sure I fully GET it. Yeah, I think I know what they were trying to do and attempting mock with the whole premise, but they didn't go far enough with it — not in my opinion at least.

Want to know what goes on in Rubber?... Wow, that sounded kinky.

Rubber starts off with a car pulling up a desert road, knocking down a bunch of chairs. The car stops and a man in a sheriff's uniform is let out of the trunk (still not making this up). This man then approaches the camera and states matter of factly how so many of the best acclaimed movies out there have large plot elements that don't make sense (like why is E.T. brown? Why do certain anti-types fall in love in every movie ever filmed? And why was Godfather Part III even made? [okay, that last one I made up]).

Then we find out that the sheriff was actually talking to the audience IN the movie: a motley crew of young teenage girls, old wheel-chair-bound men, a dad and his son, and a sassy, fat, black lady amongst others. Everybody in this movie audience is then handed a pair of binoculars, and they start peering through them into the empty-looking desert below. Soon they all get excited when they witness a lone tire shake itself out of being almost completely buried in the sand, and they can't believe their eyes when it starts to roll around on its own... Then they get a little creeped out when it starts breaking bottles, then killing animals... WITH ITS MIND!

Things then switch back and forth between the witnesses up on the hill and the tire as it rolls around, and eventually tries to kill a hot brunette in a shitty little convertible. The tire is thwarted by a trucker though, but it gets back on its treads and hunts the babe down to a godawful motor inn just a bit down the highway. Then it watches her shower. Then it keeps her up all night by blaring the TV in the room next to hers... I cannot emphasize enough that I am NOT making this crap up.

After a while the presenters of the tale (the sheriff and his gopher) start fucking with the movie audience because they're just tired of this shitty play and want to go home. Then the thing just turns fucking loony tunes with no apologies... That was really only the first half of the movie that I just described to you, and I even left out a whole shit-ton of the weird crap that goes on during that time. Rubber is a psych-ward patient's fever dream. It has no qualms about being the strangest picture that it can possibly be... But once again, I just wish it went stranger still. For as bizarre as it was, it just didn't go faster or farther with the wackiness.

In the end, I find that I have to give Rubber a "Meh." It was interesting, and it was superfuckinginsanely weird, but for as weird as it was, it should have just gone balls-out to eleven. As it stands it's only about an 8. FYI, Being John Malkovich is about a 10.5.

Really, only call it up on Netflix when you're drunk, or when you have to convince your idiot friends that their idea for the world's most ridiculous movie sucks in comparison to this mothafucker.

The MEGAPLAYBOY

I gots a movie for ya, ya whore! It's called "Rubbers," and it's about 2 hours and 12 minutes long. That's long enough to show each rubber I've ever used for one second of screen time, ya whore!

It'll still be less disgusting and three times as exciting as this piece of shit that the Rossman made me watch about a tire named Bob or some shit. Fuck that goddamn tire!

Seriously, yo, fuck that tire up its rimjob! Movie sucked, bitches! Peace out!

The Amazing DR. DAVE

Oh no... I'm afraid that this movie is actually a docudrama based off of one of my experiments that went awry about 10 years ago. You see, I tried to trap the soul of my noisy neighbor, Mr. Propier, into the chassis of his 1970 Dodge Charger (that he kept parked on his front yard), but something went wrong and he died. So then I just transmuted his annoying bitch of a wife's screaming personality into one of the car's tires. Then she just went nuts. She broke free from the wheel well and went rolling around the city running over people and small dogs. This went on for about 2 months before the cops found her and tossed her into that old tire fire just south of Brigand Street.

May she burn in Hell. Luckily they never tied that woman-in-a-tire's rampage on me, but apparently some horrible screenwriters remembered the tale and decided to celebrate it with a subpar comedy. Bah. At least my name is nowhere near it's credits.

No sir, I don't like it.