Rubber is a 2010 French comedy film about a tire that comes to life and kills people with its psychic powers. It was directed and written by Quentin Dupieux. The film was shown at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.

Plot[link]

A group of people in a California desert are gathered to watch a "film." A sheriff, Chad, points out that many moments in cinema happen for "no reason," that life is full of this "no reason," and that this film (both the "film" to be watched by the assembled group and presumably those watching Rubber) is a homage to "no reason."

An accountant then passes out binoculars to the group and rides off on a bicycle. The spectators then start looking through their binoculars into the distance, waiting for the "film" to start. Throughout the film, this group of people is returned to in order to gauge their reactions to what has taken place so far.

In the late 90's, somewhere in the California desert, a tire suddenly comes to life and embarks on a killing spree. At first, it learns how to stand upright and then how to roll. It comes across a plastic water bottle and after hesitating, crushes it. It then comes across a scorpion and crushes it. It then comes across a glass beer bottle but is unable to crush it by rolling over it. It then starts to vibrate intensely and psychokinetically causes the bottle to splinter. It then explodes a tin can, a rabbit, and a crow.

The tire (billed as "Robert" in the credits) then sees a woman drive by and attempts to use its powers on her. However, it only succeeds in making her car stall. As the tire regroups and tries again, a truck comes by and runs the tire over. This breaks the connection, allowing the woman's car to start again, and she continues on her way. The tire finds the man driving the truck which ran him over. Using its psychokinetic powers, the tire blows up the man's head.

Settling into an obscure desert town, the tire comes across the woman in the car. She is staying in a motel and, after watching her shower through an open door, the tire reserves the room next to her's. After the motel maid finds the tire showering and throws it out of the room, the tire blows up her head. Chad, the sheriff from the opening of the movie, shows up to investigate the murders. Chad is both inside and outside the diegesis, sometimes participating in the narrative action and sometimes commenting on it.

The accountant tries to end the movie early by feeding the audience a poisoned turkey, but one of them, a man in a wheelchair, doesn't partake and survives. Chad witnesses the tire kill the motel owner (who has mistreated it), and leads the cops on a "tire-hunt". Meanwhile, the accountant tries to poison the man in the wheelchair with more food, but ends up eating it himself and dying.

As the tire is running from the police, it comes across a group of people burning a large pile of tires. As a result of this, the tire embarks on a large killing spree. The cops find the tire watching an auto racing program in a house, having killed the occupants. Chad rigs a mannequin (resembling the woman the tire is interested in) with dynamite, intending for the tire to blow the mannequin's head up, thereby detonating the dynamite and destroying itself. However, when the tire destroys the mannequin's head the dynamite does not explode. Enraged, Chad shoots and kills the tire with a shotgun. After Chad leaves, the tire is suddenly reincarnated as a small tricycle. After killing the last audience member (the man in the wheelchair), the tricycle recruits several tires and rolls to Hollywood, where the film concludes.

Cast[link]

• Stephen Spinella as Lieutenant Chad
• Jack Plotnick as Accountant
• Roxane Mesquida as Sheila
• Wings Hauser as Man in Wheelchair
• Ethan Cohn as Movie Buff Ethan
• Charley Koontz as Movie Buff Charley
• Hayley Holmes as Cindy
• Haley Ramm as Fiona
• Daniel Quinn as Dad
• Devin Brochu as Son
• Tara Jean O'Brien as Martina the Cleaning Lady
• David Bowe as Mr. Hugues
• Remy Thorne as Zach
• Cecelia Antoinette as Woman
• Thomas F. Duffy as Deputy Xavier
• Blake Robbins as Deputy Luke
• Pete Dicecco as Deputy Pete
• Courtenay Taylor as Deputy Denise
• James Parks as Deputy Doug
• Gaspard Augé as Hitchhiker
• Pedro Winter as Tire Burner
• Robert the Tire as Tire

Release[link]

The film was shown on May 15, 2010 at Cannes Critic's Week.^[2] After the film was shown at Cannes, it was picked up for US distribution by Magnet Releases.^[3] Rubber has its premiere outside of France on July 9, 2010 at the Fantasia Festival.^[4]

Rubber was shown at the Sitges Film Festival where it had a positive reception.^[5] The film was shown in Toronto at the After Dark Film Festival. Fangoria magazine stated the film "deeply split" the audience reaction saying that Rubber earned "huge laughs and applause as well as the only boos heard by Fango at the fest."^[6]

The DVD and soundtrack were made available to purchase from March 14, 2011 from Ed Banger merchandise website coolcats.fr.^[7] The DVD and Blu-ray were also made available to pre-order from other online retailers such as Amazon and released June 7, 2011.

Rubber has grossed $100,370 in domestic theaters on a limited release as of 12/4/2011.^{[clarification needed]}

Reception[link]

The film received mixed reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, it received more positive than negative reviews, currently holding a 68%. indieWire called the film "one of the more bizarre experiments with genre in quite some time." and that it "does begin to wear out its welcome around the sixty minute mark, but you can’t blame Dupieux for giving it a shot."^[8] The Telegraph wrote a negative review of the film, saying "How could it not be brilliant? By, at 85 minutes, being an hour too long. By being arch rather than schlocky. And by wasting too much time on dull dialogue celebrating its "No Reason" philosophy."^[9] Variety also gave a negative review, saying that Rubber is "Neither scary, funny, nor anywhere near as clever as it seems to think it is, pic offers auds few reasons to want to see it beyond its one-joke premise."^[2]

Outside Cannes, the film received positive reception at other film festivals. Twitch Film gave the film a positive review saying it was "impeccably shot, scored, and designed" and "The film is intellectual wankery of the highest order in the sheepskin of a B-film of the lowest order".^[10] The Huffington Post wrote that Quentin Dupieux "succeeds in creating an entertaining, sometimes even tense horror film with the very same footage he lightly mocks. The result is an uber-cerebral spoof that is at once silly and smart, populist like a mildly trashy B-movie yet high brow like absurdist theater."^[11]

Soundtrack[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Rubber at the Internet Movie Database
• Rubber at AllRovi
• Rubber at Box Office Mojo
• Rubber at Rotten Tomatoes

Mr. Oizo
Background information
Birth name	Quentin Dupieux
Also known as	Mr. Oizo
Born	(1974-04-14) 14 April 1974 (age 38)
Origin	Paris, France
Genres	Electronic, Techno French house, Experimental electro
Occupations	Producer, DJ, filmmaker, composer, songwriter
Instruments	Synthesizer, sampler, drum machine, computer
Years active	1991–present
Labels	Ed Banger Records (2006–present) F Communications (1997–2006)
Associated acts	Uffie Feadz Busy P SebastiAn Boys Noize
Website	Mr. Oizo on Myspace

Mr. Oizo (French pronunciation: [ˈməsjø ˈwazo] born 14 April 1974) is the stage name of French electronic musician and film director Quentin Dupieux^[1]. His pseudonym is a corruption of the French oiseau, meaning "bird". He is currently signed to French electro record label, Ed Banger Records.

Beginning[link]

Quentin Dupieux was born on 14 April 1974 in Paris, France. At the age of 12, he found a camera and started taking photographs. At 17, he began to play music to illustrate his images, and bought his first synthesizer. In 1997, Laurent Garnier of F Com bought a car from Mr. Oizo's father.^[2] Garnier then found out about Dupieux's talents and let him direct the music video for his song "Flashback". Later Dupieux was signed by F Com Records where he released his first EP, "#1".^{[citation needed]}

"Flat Beat"[link]

"Flat Beat" was a track with a repeated bass loop. As stated in an interview with XLR8R magazine he said that it took him two hours with a Korg MS-20 to make. Dupieux is however most known for this track, which became a hit throughout Europe in 1999 and was featured in a series of Levi's jeans TV commercials. Dupieux also directed the advertisement, which featured a yellow puppet named Flat Eric nodding his head to the sound of the track while riding in an old beat-up car. After "Flat Beat", Oizo spent two months creating his first full album, Analog Worms Attack. The Flat Beat EP has sold over 3 million copies.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Analog Worms Attack

Analog Worms Attack was Oizo's first album, released in 1999. The album's namesake was derived from the album's production – it was composed entirely using analog equipment. The record scratching effects were provided by Mr. Oizo's friend, Feadz. "Flat Beat" appeared as a bonus track, after the five minutes of silence following the final track "Analog Wormz Sequel". There are a total of three singles off of this album. A version of "No Day Massacre" without any record scratching exists on the Flat Beat EP, titled "Monday Massacre".

[edit] Moustache (Half a Scissor)

Moustache (Half a Scissor) was Mr. Oizo's second studio album. Released in 2005, the album was composed exclusively using computers as he had by that time decided to eschew the use of analog equipment. The extensive time it took to remodel his studio and master the use of computers in composing electronic music is cited as the reason for the long hiatus between Analog Worms Attack and Moustache (Half a Scissor).^{[citation needed]} Before its public release, a promo CD was released onto the internet featuring three tracks not on the original release: "CPU","Nazis", and "A Nun".

Some songs on the promo differ from the released album versions. For example, "Nurse Bob" is much longer on the final release whilst the promo version splices vocal samples into a much shorter version. This is his only album not to have its debut release on vinyl; in January 2011 it was released through Flying Lotus' label Brainfeeder.^[3]

Ed Banger Records[link]

Mr. Oizo's first EP released on Ed Banger Records is called "Transsexual". The EP features a re-working of the 1979 disco track "Do It at the Disco" by Gary's Gang. The track appeared on Mr. Oizo's MySpace page in 2006 under the title Patrick122. On 16 October 2008, a video appeared on Mr. Oizo's MySpace page, a promo for his upcoming album, Lambs Anger. The first single off the Record was "Positif", which was released 3 days after Lambs Anger. On 15 March 2009, the second EP off the album is released, Pourriture, featuring some self reworked titles by Oizo himself, and a remix of Erreur Jean, by Arveene & Misk.

[edit] Lambs Anger

Lambs Anger is the first studio album released by Ed Banger Records, the label Mr. Oizo chose after his split with F Communications, who notoriously referred to Moustache (Half a Scissor) as "unlistenable".^{[citation needed]} "Positif" and "Pourriture" were chosen as the album's singles. It includes a track, "Steroids" which features label-mate, Uffie.

Collaborations with Uffie[link]

Mr. Oizo and Uffie first collaborated on her second single, "Ready to Uff" in 2006. Since then he has produced the following tracks for Uffie: "Dismissed", "Hot Chick", "F1rst Love" (which charted at number 18 in Belgium^[4]), "Steroids" and "MCs Can Kiss".

Mr. Oizo provided both production work and songwriting for Uffie's 2010 debut album, Sex Dreams and Denim Jeans. He worked alongside Feadz, SebastiAn, Mirwais, J-Mat and Uffie to produce and write the album. He produced the first single from the album, "MCs Can Kiss", which peaked at number 48 Japan and 97 in France.^[5][6] He also produced the tracks "Art of Uff", "F1rst Love", "Our Song" and "NeuNeu".

Production and equipment[link]

In his early years, Mr. Oizo used a Korg MS-20, an Akai S1000, and an Atari 1040 computer.^{[citation needed]} Mr. Oizo is known currently for strong use of computers in his music. As he stated in an interview with XLR8R, he started using computers to avoid having to plug in four different appliances, and because the result of music is more or less the same.^{[citation needed]} His first album to switch to all computers was Moustache (Half a Scissor). In Lambs Anger, Mr. Oizo used a Macintosh G5 running Logic Pro to compose all of the songs. During his DJ sets, he uses 2 CDJ's.

Filmmaking[link]

Mr. Oizo's first feature film, Steak was released in France on 20 June 2007.^[7][8] On 25 September, Oizo wrote on his Twitter feed that his next film would be titled Rubber. Shooting started 27 October 2009. In the November 2009 issue of Mixmag, Justice stated that they would be working on the soundtrack for Rubber, saying they had to 'finish working on the soundtrack for Mr. Oizo's new film before we start recording for the new album'.

He directed the absurdist thriller Rubber,^[9] which has a United States Video on Demand release.^[10]

His new film, entitled Wrong, will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2012.^[11]

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

Singles[link]

Music videos and filmography[link]

• "Kirk" (1997)
• "M-Seq" (1999)
• "Flat Beat" (1999)
• "Analog Worms Attack" (1999)
• "Inside The Kidney Machine" (1999)
• "Nonfilm" (2001)
• "Stunt" (2004)
• "Steak" (2007)
• "Making Lambs Anger" (2009)
• "Rubber (2010 film)" (2010)
• "Where's the money, George?" (2010) ^[12]
• "Wrong (2012 film)" (2011)
• "Reality" (20??)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Mr. Oizo on MySpace
• Official website
• Mr. Oizo on Discogs
• Lambs Anger Album Review
• Video footage of Making Lambs Anger by Mr Oizo
• Review of Mr. Oizo's 'Pourriture' EP on the Daily Music Guide

Mike Relm
Mike Relm performing
Background information
Birth name	Michael Wong
Also known as	Mike Relm, DJ Relm
Born	1978
Origin	San Francisco California
Genres	Turntablism Hip hop Dance Electronic
Occupations	DJ/VJ, Director, Editor
Instruments	turntables, Serato Scratch Live, Rane Sixty Eight, Maschine
Website	mikerelm.com

Michael Wong (born 1978),^[1] better known by his stage name Mike Relm, is an American disc jockey, turntablist, and VJ from San Francisco, California. He has performed with notable hip-hop artists Lyrics Born, Money Mark, Gift of Gab, Del tha Funkee Homosapien, and D-Sharp. In 1999 he won the International Turntablist Federation's USA competition. More recently he toured as part of Mike Patton's Peeping Tom project. As a solo artist, Relm is known for live performances which feature a series of audio mashups paired with video images, manipulated in real-time with turntables and Serato Scratch Live.

Mike Relm toured with Blue Man Group from 2007-2008.^[2] He performed at the 2007 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and Bonnaroo, as well as the renowned Audiotistic-Future Sound Festival which featured Outkast and Mos Def.^[3] In 2005 he released a DVD called Suit Yourself, which documents his time on the "Fourth Dimensional Rocketships" tour with Gift of Gab. He most recently opened for Diggnation Live at the House of Blues in San Diego, California.

In addition to producing music, he has been hired to direct music videos, commercials, and short films. He directed the Jabbawockeez in their first music video "Devastating Stereo", as well as Funeral Party in "New York City Moves to the Sound of LA" and "Just Because".

In 2010 he launched his RelmVision channel on YouTube where he features remixes of films, commercials, viral videos, and television shows in which he re-edits visual elements over music he composes. His unique style helped him gain over 120,000 subscribers in under 12 months, and his videos views are in the millions. Notable remixes include Iron Man 2, Old Spice, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, Doctor Who, and Harry Potter. His Punisher/Spirit/Transporter remix won the 2009 Webby Award for Best Mashup/Remix.

Mike Relm will be part of the ritual at The Voodoo Experience 2011 which is held at City Park in New Orleans, Louisiana on October 28–30, 2011.

Remix Discography[link]

• Iron Man 2 (TV Spot)
• Cowboys & Aliens
• Harry Potter
• Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
• The Devil's Double
• 0000
• Happy Endings
• Philip DeFranco
• Aziz Ansari
• Burlesque
• S'leb Suit
• Key of Awesome
• Smosh 2010
• MysteryGuitarMan
• Limitless
• Smosh 2011

Discography[link]

• Radio Fryer (self-released, 2005)
• Spectacle (Radio Fried Records, 2008)

Battle Records[link]

• Jugglin' Jaws (JAWZ001-VINYL, Thud Rumble, 2001)
• Aaahs: Session 1 (WIZ-002, Wizard Record, 2003)
• The Zodyax Scop System

Videos/Films Featuring Mike Relm[link]

• Scratch (Palm, 2000)
• Along Came Polly (Universal, 2004)
• Suit Yourself (self-released, 2006)
• Clown Alley: Relm's first film experience.
• Blue Man Group: How to Be a Megastar Live! (Blue Man Group/Rhino, 2008)

Albums/Compilations Featuring Mike Relm[link]

• Awaken (Electromatrix, 2000)

Other Artistic Credits[link]

• Skratchcon 2000 (documentary film, Director, Co-Editor; 2000)

References[link]

1. ^ Cordor, Cyril. "Mike Relm: Biography". AllMusic. http://allmusic.com/artist/mike-relm-p882515/biography. Retrieved 2011-02-26. 
2. ^ "Britney Spears, Daughtry In News Notes". GrooveVolt. 2006. http://www.groovevolt.com/Newswires/newswire.asp?ID=2307. Retrieved 2011-02-26. 
3. ^ Chen, Jean (2010-08-16). "One Turntablist and some Mandopop Stars: APAHM concert review". Asia Pacific Arts (University of Southern California). http://asiapacificarts.usc.edu/w_apa/showarticle.aspx?articleID=15551. Retrieved 2011-02-26. 

External links[link]

• Official Site
• TinyMixTapes review of Spectacle

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