“My wife likes Rubber.” As soon as it came out of my mouth I knew how weird that phrase sounded. I was referring to the movie not her fetish for latex. The movie Rubber came up today in discussion with a friend of mine at Fantastic Fest about festival films we were jazzed to see. The new film from Quentin Depieux, the director of Rubber, was high on our list.
I had seen a teaser earlier this year for Dupieux’s latest project, at that time called Wrong Cops, which featured Marilyn Manson in the role of a homeless transsexual. The film quickly disappeared from the Internet and I wonder if it wasn’t just an elaborate hoax engineered to fuck with people’s heads. It would be in keeping with Dupieux’s style.
Depieux’s debut flick was an offbeat film about an automobile tire with homicidal tendencies. What seemed like a one-joke premise turned out to be a pretty tight little thriller directed by someone who seemed to be channeling 70s B-movies - the ones where automobiles and trucks come to life - through a warped post-modern, surrealist lens.
Depieux’s latest concoction Wrong (no “Cops”) looks like another winner (advance word is very good) and for those of you in Austin this weekend it will playing at Fantastic Fest on Sunday. It’s also been picked up for distribution by Austin’s very own Drafthouse Films, which has been on a tear recently releasing several outstanding titles including Klown, The Ambassador and the upcoming Wake In Fright.
From the folks at Fantastic Fest:
Visionary filmmaker Quentin Depieux’s first feature Rubber might have been a bit of a commercial bust in mainstream America, but among the oddballs who make up Fantastic Fest, it is the stuff of legend. Wrong further celebrates Quentin’s unique brand of absurdism with a heavy flourish of incredible visual style. To me, Wrong is so very right.
Wrong features one of my favorite actors, Steve Little, Kenny Powers’ hapless sidekick in Eastbound and Down.
By the way, the poster for Wrong was created by one of DM’s favorite graphic artists, Jay Shaw.