Where the rubber meets the road

Rubber is a film about a tire that comes to life and uses psychic powers to destroy cans, animals, and blow up people's heads. Unlike a Tarantino picture, this film's cast (The few who are self aware anyway) have little interest in being in the retro grindhouse B-movie they've been drafted into and try to sabotage the event by killing the audience.

Just seeing the tire learning and doing things is surreal and funny enough. (It goes from experimenting with killing a water bottle, to ogling women's aerobics programs on tv, and having psychotic visions of destruction) But this movie has an amusing cast of bipeds as well.

Some of the good parts:

The tire approaches the sheriff interviewing the motel owner and as an act of revenge, blows up the motel owner's head. only a bit perturbed, the sheriff looks at the departing tire, pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket and reads with no emotion, "Oh my god the kid's right ...the killer is a tire." Then he looks up at the sky in despair, slouches, and tosses the script away.

The sheriff painstakingly jacks up his car and removes a tire only to point at it and tell his deputies, "Alright, this is what our killer looks like..."

The police set up a trap for the tire, by poorly disguising a mannequin as a girl the tire was interested in and attaching dynamite to it. After ringing the doorbell of the tire's stolen abode, they hide in a van where they use a microphone to encourage the tire to blow up the girl. (The girl eventually has to be replaced as the speaker when the dialogue written by the sheriff gets a little too blue) This whole setup is so rediculously elaborate that one of the audience members knocks on the van and asks them what the hell they're doing. (Spoiler alert: This plan doesn't work)


This movie was a blast, and very funny. Kind of comicly bloody too, (I have more sympathy for the animal victims myself) so maybe not for everyone. But very funny all the same.

Before the film, we got a chance to meet Roger, the tire who rolled down the aisle to the front of the theatre and gave an interview with one of the festival coordinators who had the ability to psychically link with Roger. Roger was also able to say a few words to the rest of us too. (Spoiler alert: I think it was somebody else with a microphone)