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OK, do you already know what Rubber is? If not just... go look for a trailer on Youtube. Go ahead, I'll wait. You back now? OK. So this is a real feature length movie that really exists, and that's really what it's about, and I'm really going to watch it now. OK, we have sme chairs in the desert... breakaway chairs apparently, which someone is knocking over with a car... which has some dude in the trunk of it... who is a cop, as is the driver of this other car. Trunk cop gets out and asks the camera why various movies do various things, answering his own questions with "No reason." Why is E.T. brown? Why don't we ever see people go to the bathroom or eat in Texas Chainsaw Massacre? Then he starts getting more abstract. Why can't we see the air? No reason. Why do some people like sausage while others hate it? Etc. Basically, this movie feels the need to justify itself before we start watching it. He then gets back in the trunk and is driven off, while some very confused student types look on, and are then given binoculars, with which to watch... some movie. OK, so this is actually part of the movie, not just a weird intro? Are we just going full on dada already here? Well, here's some opening credits but seriously, I didn't expect a movie about a tire which uses its psychic powers to make heads explode to be so astoundingly pretentious. Yes credits, I KNOW it's French, but still!
So yeah, Bug barren desert here. Population? Tire. Also some old cans, but those aren't moving of their own free will, like the dirty tire in the sand is. RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE! ... and then fall over. But get back up! And fall over. OK- nope. 4th time's the charm? Yes. It seems our malevolent self-propelled tire has finally mastered the art of rolling about, and is now cavorting through the scrub with happy music playing. Then it finds a discarded water bottle. It playswith it a bit, and then crushes it. Now here's a scorpion. Tire decides to squish that too. Now here's a beer bottle! Hmm... it's actually surprisingly resilliant. Tire tries several times to crush it by rolling over it but fails. Then it backs up, vibrates, and causes it to explode with psychokinesis. We cut over to the weird pretentious audience with their binoculars who, I guess, are also watching this movie, and they take a moment to discuss all this. Quit horning in on my schtick you! So yeah, next it finds a can, blows that up, and goes for a nice roll through the countryside.
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Eventually, it comes to a big ol' tree around sundown, and decides to take a nap. By the way, if it wasn't clear? Basically, to create most of this movie thus far, someone has given a regular ol' car tire a push-start, then someone else has followed it around with a camera. It's not like the tire talks or squishes around all cartoony or in any other fashion is not just a regular ol' freaking tire. The audience took a nap too... and also, they aren't college students they're... a totally random assortment of people, who are somehow aware that they are watching is "the film" despite the fact that they are watching the procedings from a distance with binoculars. Anyway, Tire wakes up, gets a drink at a puddle of water, sees a rabbit, blows it up, then goes for another happy stroll, set, to some old upbeat R&B song. Some girl drives by in a car as it reaches a road. Hmm, something new to blow up it seems! Or I guess it just killed her engine somehow, now it's heading over for a closer inspectio but... oh no! A truck comes up from behind and hits it! It's knocked off to the side of the road and lays there a while, but eventually it gets up and oh hey! Crow! BOOM! So yeah. This is a pretty weird movie.
Girl drives on, guy driving the truck stops at a gas station and goes to use the payphone. Tire eventually catches up, most likely seeking revenge. It's just kinda sitting there, watching him get back in his car. Staring menacingly. And... his head asplode. The audience is horrified it seems. Then it's back to the open road, passing a cop car. By the way, this whole audience thing? This had better pay off in a big way. As it stands it just smacks of a lack of self-confidence. Gee, will the audience get what's going on? I'd better throw in an audience and have them explain how they should be reacting to everything. I think I may actually hate them. And they keep talking! I do not like these people no I do not! Anyway, Tire stalks car girl as she stops off at a motel and takes a shower with the door open. Uh... boobs by paragraph 3? It's kind of a borderline case here, plastic shower curtain and a weird angle. Tire watches in pervy fashion, then gets his own room, hops up on the bed, and watches TV apparently. Meanwhile the host of the people watching this is also sleeping in this motel, with a turkey, and getting a phone call to which most of his replies are "Yes, master!" Then he opens a suitcase, finds some knives, and kills the turkey off camera. Meanwhile, the audience has now been standing around in the desert for 2 whole days, and are complaining about the lack of food. A kids goes out to grab "an exploded rabbit" but everyone points out it's clearly a prop and can't be eaten. So Our... host I guess, comes over with the nice turkey he just butchered and prepared, and they descend upon it like a horde of zombies.
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Then a maid at the motel is cleaning, here's the shower running and OH HOW SCANDALOUS! Walks in on Tire in the shower! She turns it off, and tosses him out onto the street. He gets up and reenters, presumably out of vengeance but... dude, I'm pretty darn sure you didn't actually pay for that room, she was totally within her rights to toss you pal. Some androgynous youth sees this from outside and goes to tell his dead, but he doesn't buy it. Meanwhile, yeah, Tire blows the maid's head up and returns to watching a documentary about tortises, until he sees Car Girl heading out to have a swim in the skanky motel pool. Also, Witness Kid here is "On Holidays" it seems... which is kinda weird phrasing for a movie clearly taking place in Arizona or some such place. Anyway, Tire goes for a swim after she leaves. Well, more of a sink really. The audience asks if tires float a while, then all but one of them double over in pain, because it turns out the turkey was secretly poisoned. He'd suspected this, and avoided eating it.
Meanwhile, Witness Kid picks a pizza up for his disbelieving dad, and spitefully, adds some explodey crow to the top. Later, when a cop is called in to investigate, the kid explains the whole thing, suggesting perhaps the tire drowned. The cop (who explained the dadaism before) takes all this down, then goes "Oh hey, it's been 6 hours. The poison has taken effect, the spectators are dead, so we're all done here. Pleasure working with you! Let's all go home now!" He then goes and tells the rest of the cast (a bunch of other cops and some paramedics) that we're done and everyone can go home. Nobody else seems to be aware that they're just characters in a movie though and stare at him like he's crazy. He tries to convince them, pointing out the weird props they have, and has someone shoot him to prove it. So, they shoot him, big bloody wound, he acts totally uninjured, explaining that it's just blanks and blood squibs and such. They're all "But there's still a headless corpse in this body bag!" Uh... so we go on with this weird forth wall breaking thing a while, but eventually Turkey Butchering Presenter there comes up and casually points out to him that one member of the audience is actually still alive. He applogizes, comes back to Dad there, apologizes for jumping the gun, and resumes interrogating him. "You're bleeding." "Oh just ignore that." So interview interview interview, and the tire blows Dad's head off. Cop pulls out his script from his pocket, and apathetically recites "Oh god, the kid was right. The killer is the tire."
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Then the tire finds a mirror, and does some introspective soul searching. I'm still not prepared to call this the weirdest movie I've ever seen though. Not by a long shot. Kid comes along and finds Tire, asking if it understands the gravity of the situation, and whether it can talk. It can't though, so... yeah. 4th Wall cop goes and takes a tire off his car to show all the other cops what their suspect looks like. They ask perfectly reasonable questions, like what brand of tire it is, how worn it is, and if it's definitely black, as opposed to maybe white walled. Presenter brings the surviving audience member some more poisoned food in desperation to make the movie end apparently. He says he isn't hungry and gruffly dismisses him. He just wants to watch the end of the movie. "But, it's not going to end." "Well, I'm watching it anyway. I'm enjoying it." So they stand around and watch an exciting police chase we don't get to see... OK, now we do get to see and it's not that exciting. Just Tire rolling down the road with a cop car in pursuit. It catches up, both stop, Tire turns around, and... YOUR HEAD ASPLODE! Presenter is now opening up, hanging out, and eating a bunch of stuff from the big platter of food as he tells some rambling childhood story. Yon childhood story ends with him arbitrarily caving his brother's head in with a rock. Oh and then him dying from all that poison he ate. Not the brightest guy is he.
You know, I'd kinda just prefer to watch a murderous tire movie than some kind of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead sorta thing. Can we please get back to some of that? Ah here we go. Tire finds a tire fire. Also, did we just kinda give up on that girl he was stalking? And... OK. Tire, angered by this, apparently decides to go on an off-camera killing spree. Just big piles of head exploded corpses littering the streets for cops to discover. And also, Tire sitting in an easy chair watching him some NASCAR on TV. Oh and since we've gone too long without being artsy, 4th Wall cop is playing chess with someone, makes an illegal move, and they get into this thing about how well, he can do it, in the sense that it's literally possible and all... and we're done already with that? OK. So the cops' plan is to strap dynamite to a manikin dressed like Girl and ring the door bell. They also get Girl to voice it via speaker. English is clearly not her first language by the way. She also doesn't approve of the dialog she's been given. So 4th Wall cop takes over. "I have been a very naughty girl. I need a good thrashing. Go on, kill me!" This largely blows the deal. So they let her take over and improvise. Audience guy comes over and knocks on the door of the van, and interrupts them to question why they're bothering with all this, instead of just opening fire on the dummy. He's OK with the notion of having the tire hoist by his own petard and all, he just wants them to speed things along. Someone points out that if he had just eaten the turkey earlier, we'd be done already now, so he can't really complain about dragging things on. He concedes that this is a fair point. Also, Tire blows manikin's head off uneventfully. Cop just goes screw it, heads in with a shotgun, and murders the tire. Audience member complains about this being a totally unsatisfying ending and demands some kind of twist. Cop's pretty much done though. "Hey wait! It's not the end! He's been reincarnated as a tricycle!" Tire, well, Trike now, sees him sitting there though, and despite his protests that he isn't a real character here, his head asplode. Everyone basically starts going home, then trike comes by to see girl, and kinda gives her a nod before driving off down the road, with ominous Terminator style music playing. And I guess we're just going to stick with that a while. OK. I'm not complaining. I like me some ominous techno backed slow cruising down roads. Especially by something so absurd. And oh hey, it passes some more abandoned tires which get up and join it. Then... we have a title screen. Again. Now they're cruising into some suburban neighborhood... and heading down the sidewalk. Uh... this has been going on an alarmingly long time now. Oh hey, they're headed into Hollywood. So I guess it was just scrubby Californian desert. And... it's arbitrarily over now. Or at least, we're playing credits, over the exercise video the tire was watching, and clips of the main cast, and more fun techno. No wait, entire cast. Also, huh. I have to screen grab... something here. Hmm. Also? Apparently the tire was played by "Robert."
