Quentin Dupieux has 3 movies streaming now: this is Wrong, and I end up asking you to review Wrong Cops for me so I don't have to

Wrong isn’t as bad as Rubber, but still . . . come on, man, I mean, the whole working in an office with the sprinklers going off? It’s raining water down on everyone while they continue to type on computers and work with paper? While water rains down on them? It’s stupid, and I say that only because my frustration level is elevated. I haven’t seen a movie before that was so bad that it made me angry, but this one did it. When I reviewed Mr. Nobody I talked about the moments of weird things that are never explained and how that was irritating:

There’s a fine line between being weird and letting it stand on its own, and being weird and needing to explain it. I don’t know how to work the line; I just know what succeeds and what doesn’t. This movie fails because at the end I wanted answers.

-           My review of Mr. Nobody

well the same goes for this movie. The moments of weirdness in this movie just come off as moment of stupidity and this in turn really ruins the other moments of the movie that aren’t stupid, and in fact follow a bit of a plot, and are even at times a bit creepy. The positives in this movie are few and far between, and since the negatives are more prominent they outweigh the good and in the end all you remember are the stupid points.

            Where Rubber was stuck on its one trick plot, this one actually has a story more fleshed out, but just like with Rubber, the story brings in other subplots, and where most of them fail, his relationship with his coworkers, one of them is pretty good, and that’s his relationship with his neighbor. The one interesting character and they have him leave for most of the movie, popping up to give his friend the main character a call that were it in another movie, would have been pretty dang creepy, like their conversation in the beginning. However, it is not creepy, it’s just an irritating sign of how cool this movie could have been, but is not.

            I could understand were one to say that it’s just the director’s style, none of his movies will be easy to understand, and I say bullshit. Were it his style, why did it change from Rubber to Wrong? Wrong has a story, a beginning, a middle, and an end (at least the main lost dog plot does), why not stick with something along the lines of Rubber? Keep to something totally pointless, instead of going mainstream and making a movie with a plot and then sticking moments of pointlessness in it? Were it like Rubber I may have not hated it, I may have liked it because as you said – it’s his style. (Okay, I probably wouldn’t have liked it, but I may have not liked it instead of hated it, maybe.)

            I’ll be honest; I’m not looking forward to Wrong Cops. I’ll watch it, but seriously, I’m only doing this for you, those who click on this link and read my blog – or, well, maybe just click on the link but read none of it.

            Hey, how about this, why don’t one of you watch Wrong Cops and review it for me? I’ll post it on my blog with your name in the title and then I’ll link-dump it like I do my own reviews. Or, if you have a blog I’ll link to your blog . . . or something, really, people, I just don’t want to watch Wrong Cops, and if you get off on me watching something I don’t want to, just for you then fine, don’t respond to my request for a guest review, just make me watch it. Just so you know, though, if you do make me watch it, I’ll hate you just a little bit more than I already do. So yeah, think about that you bastard.

Quentin Dupieux has 3 movies streaming now: this is Rubber

 I like weird movies.

           

            I have no problem with weird movies. I enjoy most of David Lynch’s movies, and for the most part I’d consider his movies weird. The story . . . the characters . . . his movies are just weird, and like everything there’s a spectrum when it comes to weird movies and David Lynch pretty much owns it. You have Twin Peaks weird: weird characters but a pretty straight forward story, then you have his Inland Empire which is too weird for me, and in the middle of it all is Lost Highway, Eraserhead, etc. It’s a fine balance between story, characters, and style, and when they all click you get Eraserhead, even the Coen brothers’ movies like Raising Arizona, or Barton Fink, are weird movies that are perfect in every way.

So like I said, I like weird movies. I did not like Rubber –

I actually rated it on Netflix as hating it.

            Rubber starts off with a speech about popular movies and how they all have a thing; a character, a plot point that has no reason for being there. It’s a humorous speech, and it’s an interesting set up for a movie that is apparently centered on the whole “No Reason” thing of all movies. There’s no missing the point, what you’re about to see – a movie about a killer tire – is the epitome of “No Reason”. The main problem with the experiment (because that’s what this movie feels like, an experimental film) is that I began to wonder: Why watch the movie at all? None of it has a reason, none of it has a point, and in turn there is no reason or point in me watching this movie, other than to see a tire roll around killing things and people. I guess some may see that as a reason to watch a movie, and even though I did watch this movie, I fail to see the reason for me doing so (I did, so you wouldn’t have to).

            Of course it can’t just be a string of scenes of the tire killing people, so the movie mixes in other things, the only problem is that those other things are more interesting than the main plot of the movie.

            The group of people in the desert watching the tire, and their comments and the man hosting their viewing party are all much more interesting than the tire they are watching. A group of people in the desert watching horrible things happen regular people is an interesting set up, except that what they’re watching isn’t interesting.

            The movie is short but still not short enough, and I think that were this a short film it would be a lot better. The story is not something that could hold a whole movie, but somehow it got made, and for all the negative points about the movie the one positive is that it is original and pretty well made and the actors all do a pretty good job.

It’s an interesting first film, just not a good one,

but still I’d check out more from the people behind this one.