Bitter Feast: Too Many Dick Heads, Not Enough SPICE.

If there's one thing I can say with utmost surety it's that I am awesome at watching TV shows. Well okay, who isn't? You would think that wouldn't you? But the truth is, being awesome at watching TV isn't as easy as you think it is. To use a Top Chef metaphor it's kind of like cooking an egg perfectly. Many people think they can do it, but when the pressure is on, the egg well....isn't that perfect after all. I mean how many times have I gone out to breakfast and had my sunny-side egg burned brown at the edges?

Watching TV is like an art form--which may or may not involve the ability to effortlessly slip TV show references and episode plots into day to day conversation. ALRIGHT fine you got me. I'm just using my good TV skills as a way to make myself feel better about being fat and lazy. The truth is, I don't even have cable! But I do have Comcast On Demand which doesn't allow you to do much of anything unless you subscribe to real cable. However. Bravo is one of those cool networks that lets people who have Comcast On Demand watch their shows for free. This means, that I can still enjoy my favorite reality show..Top Chef, despite not having *stupid cable.

**By stupid I mean, oh god, oh god I miss you cable TV and watching bad shows like Teen Mom and Kendra. WHY DOESN'T ANYONE ELSE AGREE WITH ME THAT KENDRA IS LIKE A REAL PERSON?

Ahem.

Top Chef is the bees knees. I remember when I first started watching it sometime back in Season 2, I instantly hated it because it was trying to be too much like Project Runway. Little did we know, Project Runway would someday be turned over to the not-enough-drama Lifetime network and Top Chef would be Bravo's new top dog. Plus, Top Chef is awesome.

Oh right I forgot I'm supposed to be talking about movies. Well the thing is. Bitter Feast combines two of my very favorite things. Well, 3 I guess. Celebrity chefs, Horror and blogging. The film is about a super dick head celebrity chef

who receives a scathing review from an equally dick of a head food blogger.

This prompts DH chef to kidnap DH blogger and torture him in various ways. I should mention DH chef has other problems that set him off besides the whole getting a bad review thing. Oh and DH blogger's kid died from cancer. Which is why he's a DH.

I remember reading about Bitter Feast and being really excited about it. It's like a horror movie for people addicted to Top Chef and the Food Network I thought--and YES it mostly is. The only problem it runs into is that it's a bit dragging. However, it does bring some zesty originality into the plot as far as food is concerned. And by that I don't mean that DH chef forces DH blogger to eat things until he pukes (this isn't Jackass 5.6 or whatever) instead, DH chef forces DH blogger to cook a steak to medium rare perfection with his hands tied!

It's like Top Chef with sadomasochist undertones...and blood! Wait.....Top Chef is pretty much already like that, isn't it?

Hmmph. Well at any rate, I give Bitter Feast huge props for doing something different but for the most part I believe it mostly falls victim to that whole.....boredom thing.

It's just that there isn't a whole lot keeping me glued to the screen. The problem with having two absolute DH characters is that we don't really give a crap what happens to either of them. So while we see DH blogger get beat up and starved to death we aren't really shedding tears. The film is also an hour and 44 minutes long which is TOO LONG for a film that only has one main thing happening throughout its running time.

Aside from that, there just isn't enough oomph. Give me suspense, give me excitement, give me something! Sure, the acting is pretty good, the camera work is nice but what are we really holding out for here? I suppose there is the whole drawing of similarities between DH chef and DH blogger..how they're both so bitter that it's almost worth it if they both would just die. I also appreciate the significance of how they both have pretty stellar lives despite the obvious depressions. For DH chef, he may have lost his cable network show, but he has 2 houses! And one of them has an elevator that opens up into his apartment!

DH blogger lost his kid sure, but he still has the love of a wife who cares deeply for him despite his insane asshole levels. Both of these men are too bitter to ever realize these good things however and so they are essentially dead before the movie even begins. I'm okay with that I guess.

I did quite enjoy how the movie ended though and I will not spoil it because it is actually kind of unpredictable in a.....predictable way. Wow that only made sense in my head. Anyways, I didn't hate Bitter Feast but I wasn't insanely crazy about it either. It did instantly make me want to watch another episode of Anthony Bourdain's latest show the Layover though.

Sigh. Tony, Tony Tone. Not only are you one cool motherfucker, but you hold the same amount of distaste that I do for hipsters, burgers cooked medium and human statues. Why can't we be together? Hey, I'd settle for a friendship here.

The Bleeding House: NOT About Periods

The poster art for The Bleeding House has been slowly seducing me ever since I first saw it skulking around my Netflix suggestions.

I tried to ignore it and its mediocre 3 star rating but in the end, that cover art just wouldn't leave my thoughts. The movie certainly seems to warrant a 3 star rating---it's neither bad nor groundbreaking, but it does have something about it that interests me.

Of course like all good things that interest me, I have no real idea why. Maybe it's because it's so radically different than most home invasion type horror movies. Or because it really does have something beautifully brutal about it. Whatever it is---I don't hate it.

The Bleeding House is not about a house full of girls having their periods, much to the chagrin of my 13 year old sense of humor. Instead, it is about a broken family who one night offer their home to a strange man claiming to be having car troubles. As we soon find however, this strange man has an entirely different agenda planned and that he's religious and speaks with a twang.

I wasn't sure what to think about the uber religious Nick. I knew right away he would unsettle me because I recognized him immediately as the creepy alien in Men in Black who's alien wife gives birth to a squid. Why does he always creep me out? I blame his t-shirt and his soft and feminine features.

As Nick, Patrick Breen is okay but there's a part of me that feels he's trying just a little too hard. Maybe I find that southern gentleman thing a little cliche but also, why does every religious nut job have to have that painstaking southern twang? Ultimately the character of Nick became a major thorn in my side. I wasn't buying his motives and he wasn't giving it enough oomph to really sell it.

On the plus side, there is plenty of brutality.

In fact, The Bleeding House can get pretty bloody. There's a lot of throat slashing, a gory head bashing with a rock and the ultimate---death by the complete draining of one's blood. Here is where I think The Bleeding House really hits on something great. The act of slowly killing someone by draining all their blood is quite tedious.

It feels exhausting and carries a certain amount of seriousness with it. Of course, I do feel like that whole process could have been explained better. You never really get a strong grasp of what the purpose of all that was, and it would have been nice to see his craziness come full circle.

None of the brutality however compares to the daughter, Gloria.

She immediately poses herself as an enigma. Catching birds in boxes, tacking dead bugs to her wall. Is she the reason that all the knives in the house must be locked up? Actually, to back track---the entire family is an enigma.

We sense that something is not right but we don't get a true sense of why until much later. There's some hushed talk about a fire, and some vague form of sickness that their family carries. Gloria however is entirely too interesting to let go. Of course, we find out why eventually and it's a bit of a surprise. It's also maybe too much of a surprise now that I think about it.

I guess what I'm getting at is that the surprise about Gloria's character isn't really a surprise at all, if that makes sense. Alright you're right that doesn't make sense. Hmm let's say that Gloria really surprised me because A. she's a girl and B. she's a lunatic. I find that all too often, the sweet yet troubled teenage daughter is a bit of a wet blanket. She seems helpless, and boring, too cookie cutter or something of that nature. Instead, the crazy family member is always reserved for the black sheep brother. Therefore, it was oddly refreshing to get a character like Gloria thrown to us and for once to have her turn out exactly the way that we expect her to.

Ultimately, The Bleeding House is anything to write home about. Which by the way, wouldn't it be neat if we really wrote home about cool things still?

Dear Mom,

Today I ate a sandwich and then I watched The Wonder Years. Winnie Cooper moved away and I got sad. But at least my sandwich was good. Wish you were here

Love,

Andre

The Bleeding House is just alright with a few added notes of awesome here and there. It does end up feeling a bit tedious by its end and the ending battle was a little too dark to really be blown away by. And by dark I mean I couldn't see anything that was happening. No really, what was happening there? So in closing, be seduced by The Bleeding House's cover art if you wish. It won't be the biggest mistake you'll ever make and then after we can have a discussion about Gloria and how she confuses us. And we could also maybe talk about that unsure feeling of whether or not we liked it. AND then we can talk about boys and do our nails. Yay!

Red State: Bagels? Don't Trust Them.

Red State is weird. Like...bacon and chocolate weird or latex porno weird. In theory a good idea but ultimately it leaves you confused and unsure about the world and your body. What did I think of Red State? I DON'T KNOW. I think that there are a lot of guns. I think that religious people are scary (but we already knew that). I think I feel confused and betrayed about the fact that Senor Esteban Vihaio is not actually Mexican.

Not a Mexican

See?

I think that John Goodman is suddenly really old. I think that Kevin Smith must have a girl crush on Breaking Bad. I think that a bagel is theoretically a good breakfast but when all is said and done, it's really just empty calories. In short---I am confused!

Don't be fooled

I don't know a lot about Kevin Smith movies. In fact I just did a quick tally of how many times I've been truly exposed to Kevin Smith and I'm pretty sure that total is 1. Well I guess 2 now, and if you count that time he starred on an episode of Degrassi--- that equals 2 and 1/4 instances of Kevin Smith exposure. Oh well, we can't have it all I guess. In truth, I've been a tad turned off by Kevin Smith as of late and all of his plots to charge people a million dollars* for a ticket to see his movie. Not everyone has a million dollars okay Kevin?

*Not really a million dollars, but it was enough to make me scoff.

Anyways, Red State was supposedly a completely different film for Kevin Smith. Not that I would know or anything but that's what they tell me. The good news is that I think my lack of insight into the work of Kevin Smith puts me at an advantage here. That's right no bias on this woman.

So. Red State. Based loosely on that wacko Fred Phelps, Red State is about a nutty religious group that blows things way out of proportion. They like to kidnap sinners and gay people and kill them and they also have an entire room full of machine guns--because we all know that ultra religious people are living and breathing hypocrisies. After a ritual kidnapping and slaying goes wrong however, all hell breaks loose and the shit really hits the fan.

Contrary to popular belief (my belief) Red State is not a film about religious zombies and/or a rampant free for all where the religious group takes over the entire town and everyone gets all sweaty and bloody. I blame the posters. Red State is however extremely gunny, which is a word I just made up and it means, that there are a lot of guns. A lot of gunfire, and a lot of crazy religious nut bags shooting at cops and calling them cock suckers. I really did not expect this to be so chaotic but I suppose it's all part of the appeal.

I will say that it's pretty obvious during Red State's running time that Kevin Smith has a strong opinion about both religion and government. There's not really a good side to anything here--and as much as we want to be on the "good guys" side, I think you'll find that it's tough to figure out who that is. Although I will say they don't call him John Goodman for nothing. HA. P.S. Why doesn't John Goodman feel that it's necessary to wear a helmet in times of religious skirmishes? He was really getting me worried.

So yes blah blah who is the good guy? Blah blah, innocent people are being killed either way. Blah. I guess I'm kind of over this whole message in a movie thing that happens sometimes with films like this. It's not like Red State is particularly enthralling either. To me it often times felt like it was coming to a standstill. I was also let down by how things played out there at the end. Things felt very sudden and rushed didn't they? In fact, a lot of the movie felt rushed. It felt like Kevin Smith had all these ideas and all these little inputs of commentary and irony but they didn't feel like they were fleshed out.

I may not know a whole lot about Kevin Smith as a filmmaker, but I can say that I think he's one of those directors that dwells more on underlying messages than he does on actual film making and the art of it. I guess I'm mostly just having a hard time accepting this extreme view point. It's like the movie was a decent critique on the hypocrisy of the Church but then it just morphed into this sudden bout of ridiculous diarrhea and guns. People like that I guess--but didn't anyone else feel like things got a little too unnecessary? Oh wait! That's what religion is...... suddenly and ridiculously unnecessary. I get it now!

Seriously though, I wasn't in love with this. I think it's pretty okay--but nothing great. It verges on this weird sub-dermal level of torture porn for a hot second that takes a nose dive into gunsville. There's some pretty awesome gun violence and I guess it can be funny at times but I'm just not jumping for joy about it. I think I'll go back to watching latex porn....I mean.....eating bagels.

Splinter: Does NOT Star Screech Powers

I often find as I get older and older, that my mind is slowly diverging into what I like to call "difficult territory". By that I mean that sometimes no matter how much evidence may suggest otherwise, whatever I think is true will magically be true. You see this a lot in old people who like to deny the existence of things like technology and the possibility of TV remotes without gigantic buttons. Then of course I saw it tonight when throughout the duration of Splinter, I couldn't help but be annoyed that Dustin Diamond was in this. He's the worst!

Of course, as my good friend and lover IMDB tells me that is not Dustin Diamond--but my difficult and steadily maturing brain suggests otherwise. So for the purpose of my sanity and this review, I will be referring to that guy as Dustin Diamond or if I'm feeling especially sassy, Screech Powers.

There was a brief moment in time when I confused the movie Splinter with Bug. In fact I thought that the premise of Bug and Splinter were the same. Boy was I wrong! Splinter involves one of my least favorite concepts of horror--parasitic invaders that spread and develop like zombie rabies. It also takes place in one main setting throughout its duration. Naturally because I have late onset ADD, I detest such things. By all accounts I should have therefore hated Splinter but I didn't---not really.

In Splinter, a parasitic/mold thing that resembles splinters has found its way into a carrier. When an outlawed crook and his druggie girlfriend kidnap a couple, they end up at a gas station and have a run in with the splinter beast (now resting cozily inside a human). After druggie girlfriend gets killed by the beast and reincarnated into a splinter beast as well, the three remaining characters are trapped inside the gas station with no way to contact the outside world.

While I wouldn't say I hated Splinter, I wouldn't say I was outrageously pleased by it either. I suppose I simply regarded it as a passable movie and certainly one that is effective for its smaller budget. The splinter beasts are gruesome and at times horrific--I think so anyways but it's hard to say because for the most part our glimpses were hindered by some very frantic camera work. I think I may have seen some awesomely gross ribs poking out and some crazy double jointed things happening at the end for instance--but we can't be sure. Whether all this frantic camera business was a means to cover up some less than stellar CGI work or because they intended for the gruesome beasts full look to be mysterious we will never know. Although something tells me its the former.

I say this because during a few moments of some splinter hands and arms running rampant, the CGI was not very pleasing. In fact, the splinters themselves seemed overly cartoonish at parts and that kind of bummed me out. It's not that I take great pride in bringing down a lower budget film based on special effects that it couldn't shell out all the money in the world for--I'm just saying that I think Splinter would have benefited quite nicely by a few close up, and longer (key word longer) shots of the splinter creatures. I feel like it would have brought some well needed and enjoyed scares.

Scares and suspense is perhaps what I felt I most lacked when watching this. I didn't get a real sense of worry or anxiety. I didn't particularly like any of the characters much, and the entire situation seemed very annoying at times. Like how there were no keys in the sheriff's car, and yet the headlights remained on. Or how the bad guy smashed the telephone. OR how for whatever reason a gas station in the middle of nowhere saw it fit to outfit the backdoor with a chain gate locked with a padlock (in addition to a door lock). It just felt like a lot of unnecessarily unlucky things happening and that bugs me. Just like in The Net--EVERYTHING goes wrong!

I will say the arm amputation scene was pretty remarkable. And let me also say here that I hope I never get myself into a situation where someone has to cut my arm off with an Exacto knife and then lop through the bone with a concrete block.

One other thing I appreciated quite a bit, was the stupidity of the boyfriend rather than the girlfriend. Here the tables are turned as the girlfriend seems to be the more fearless and even the more manly of the two. She for instance changes the tire of her car while Screech mumbles something about it not being his car. He of course tries to prove himself later on my intentionally giving himself hypothermia but then he gets all gimpy and it's really a lost cause. Still though, there's that fun thing happening where a less than attractive and nerdy guy (sorry Screech...it's the Jew fro I think) gets set up with an extremely hot girl. Just once I'd like to see a not overly attractive girl with some hot guy...okay?!

At any rate, Splinter is OK in my book. It's an interesting idea that feels like it shouldn't be original and yet it does end up being so in the end. It's not riddled with tons of cliches, there aren't jump scares every 5 seconds and the end is somehow heartbreaking despite what Jimney Cricket tells us in our heads. I guess it's true what they say after all. If you're trapped in a gas station with the man that kidnapped you--you become friends and boy, that's real nice.

Rubber: Also Okay

I like to think I have a pretty open mind about things. Or at least I did until that day I flew on a plane next to a woman who was dunking her Doritos into a jar of Salsa and licking the cheese powder off her fingers. These days, any movie over an hour and a half long makes me cry and any movie that willingly confines itself to one particular thing makes me bite my fingers in nervous anticipation. As is usually the case, I come away liking these films despite how much my conscious assumes that I will hate them. Rubber however seemed like a different story.

The basic plot of Rubber is that a tire with a mind of its own goes rolling around the desert and kills some people. I'm all for switching things up of course, but for some reason every time I make a list of inanimate objects that I would like to see kill people for an hour and 30 minutes, a tire never makes the cut. It's not that I have anything against tires per say, but I do have something against boredom. However, people were oddly raving about this film. Many even mentioned how they never thought an entire movie about a tire could be interesting but here Rubber had done it.

Was it possible that I was wrong about Rubber? Was it possible that I gave up on it too soon and that maybe there was in fact some heart and soul hidden somewhere in that rubber tire? Only one way to find out.

As it turns out Rubber is okay. Maybe I'm just getting more cynical with every day that I'm not eating a delicious sandwich, but something about Rubber just wasn't a game changer for me. You should know before I get into things that Rubber isn't JUST about a tire rolling through the desert. There are other people involved and as it so happens the best part and character in the film happens to be the tire. Make of that what you will.

The movie does that thing that is cool to do these days where it flips conventions on its head. We start out by getting a lecture from a cop who points out that the movie we are about to see is deeply rooted in the "no reason" style of film making.

He uses examples like the color of E.T.'s skin, the romance in Love Story and something about Jewish people in Schindler's List...or was it the Pianist? Or both. Anyways, all of these examples didn't exactly say "no reason" to me, and maybe that's where I first became dubious of Rubber. E.T.'s skin is obviously brown because that colored complimented the rest of the colors in the film. You can't have a bright green alien in a drab and average looking suburban neighborhood right?

The thing about starting off by saying that your film is rooted in a no reason style of film making is that you've pretty much just set yourself up for an awesome way to defend any and all criticism coming your way. If someone blatantly states that everything in their film does not have a reason for being there, people can't make points about something about the plot not making sense. Of course it doesn't make sense---it's all nonsense! Nothing means anything. There is no reason for anything you are about to see. Do you see how annoying that kind of is to me?

At any rate, the other neat thing about Rubber is that there's this whole group of spectators watching the tire do his work.

They watch it as we are watching it and comment on things as we would comment on things. It provides a nice break from the monotony of the tire but then again, these parts weren't exactly hilarious or anything. It was different yes, but something about it annoyed me. Probably the fact that it made no sense and that while watching it I knew that I couldn't point it out as something that makes no sense because it's not supposed to. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

When all is said and done the thing about Rubber is that it is extremely original, well shot and contains some awesome, awesome special effects and gore.

No one will tell me how they made the tire roll by itself so I will assume that either A. someone wearing a green screen suit stood next to the tire and rolled it or B. the tire was really alive. Regardless, it looks pretty balling.

But once Rubber came and went through my senses, I realized that I didn't really feel too strongly for or against it. I appreciate it for what it did and how it did it. It's true---they really did accomplish something here by making a film about a tire not a complete waste of time. But ultimately, I just felt an overwhelming sense of meh. Some of the writing was excellent while some of it wasn't great. Some characters nailed their lines while other characters I wanted to hit over the head with a leg of lamb. It was all just a very up and down movie watching experience for me. I feel sad about it too because I know a lot of people really enjoyed this. Maybe it's one of those movies you have to watch with people and not alone on a Friday night while lamenting over the fact that CVS does not carry Ben and Jerry's Milk and Cookies. Yes, that must be it.

The Car: Brush Your Teeth, Shake Your Ass

I've been known to turn a nose up at killer car movies in the past. The reasons extending from a long list of, "Well.....it's kind of boring isn't it?" or "You know...I don't really like driving very much at all" or even, "Being in a car when my Mom is driving makes me car sick so..." Yes I've come up with every excuse in the book which is surprising seeing as how I genuinely like killer car movies once I actually sit down and watch them. The Car had something else going for it though. Something other worldly. Something....mustachioed. Something, James Brolin. And so I couldn't ignore its heavenly cries any longer.

Truth be told, The Car has a whole lot of awesome questioning going on. As in, "Wait a minute why is this so awesome?" There's pretty much nothing about The Car that should be good (other than James Brolin's facial expressions)

and yet I find myself rewinding it and reliving some of the greater moments over and over again. Yes mostly it's because the writing is insanely ridiculous and perfect in every way possible, but also I think it's because The Car has this weird burst of character emanating from it. So it may not be the greatest film ever made--but at least it's a film that you will remember and that's saying something.

In a nutshell, The Car is about a dastardly black sedan terrorizing a small town. Apparently the car has no driver and mows down bikers and hitch hikers without any kind of after thought. Again, this isn't surprising since apparently...no one is driving it. James Brolin and his fellow cops then embark on a mission to bring the car down. Many explosions will follow.

While there isn't a whole lot in the way of blood, gore and actual physical scares--The Car does something here that is reminiscent of some of the greatest horror films of all time. It creates a sense of dread that almost seems to drive us mad. Due to this, the car in The Car--isn't just a car any longer, it's an actual villain whose presence immediately makes our stomachs turn. Although the film is largely a bit silly--you can't deny that there are honest to goodness scenes of fear in this. Most notably in my opinion, is the scene where Lauren is on the phone with Wade. She is in agony over the fact that she thinks the car is close and that she can even hear its engine. All the while we see the headlights in the distance growing steadily bigger.

Dramatic irony if I ever saw it....

Perhaps even better than this, is the scene with the school kids practicing their marching band routine. This is a scene that I actually give a ton of credit to.

This is because not only was it harking back to the fabulous and quite perfect scene of the school kids and the birds, but it also manages to make you feel incredibly antsy and extremely fearful of the outcome. It's not uncommon in horror films to want your characters to die. Here though I was dreading the fact that the car could easily mow down all these kids within seconds.

It was one of those scenes that can be linked to any number of films where children are in perilous danger. Think Jaws, Frankenstein, The Birds or even a film like Halloween.

Also notable is the nice way that film uses the car's dust trail to create a sense of warning and danger.

It acts as the shark fin so to speak and its presence often creates violent yelling at the TV screen. If only people would look around when they are keeping watch then we wouldn't have this problem.

For all the strangely good things going on in The Car however, there is of course some hilarity. There's a lot of bad writing here that almost makes me feel embarrassed for the actors that are forced to utter it. There's also a lot of confusion happening, like why for instance there is this awesome streak of blood when we all know that all the car did was push a girl off the cliff.

There's Kathleen Lloyd's character of Lauren who seems to be just a little too vocal about well--about everything really. She's one of those cringe worthy characters that thinks she's hilarious because she can utilize a Brooklyn cop accent. Funny? More like cheese city. She also has a great scene where her superior shows her a drawing that one of her young students did. A drawing of Lauren naked at the chalkboard. Lauren laughs it off and makes jokes about how big he made her boobs, but all of it is kind of face palm inducing.

I also enjoyed the "Stalker Alert" moment that we had in Lauren's house.

Clearly we know what she does in her spare time.

And of course how could we bring up hilarity and not mention James Brolin. He utters what is perhaps the most perplexing line out of the whole film. It goes something like this, "Ever notice it's impossible to brush your teeth without wiggling your ass?" To which Lauren shakes her head and says, "Everybody knows that!"

.........maybe the invention of the electric toothbrush has changed this universal knowledge on us, but remind me again why "everybody knows" that this is true? I mean IS IT true?

And how can we forget the stunt double moment of the year?

Yes, The Car has its moments. Other than it being hilarious in parts, it does actually have its fair share of problems. Mostly in the confusion area surrounding the car. One of my main problems with the film overall is that it doesn't really explain anything very well. At one point Luke launches into this whole theory of why the car can't drive over hallowed ground but he never finished the theory. Naturally I was rusty on my whole who can and cannot walk on hallowed ground knowledge so the only thing I thought of was witches (Thank you Hocus Pocus). But apparently it means the devil.

Now that is pretty neat except for the fact that this movie literally offers up no explanation about why the devil is terrorizing this town, or why he chooses to drive a car, or why anything. Technically you could make up some theories and think about why, but The Car isn't exactly the type of movie to make you think, if you know what I mean.

The plot synopsis hinted at the real cause of the car being this unbelievable, scary thing-but barely anybody talks about it. I wanted MORE. I wanted to know why. Man, I just wanted some answers and unfortunately we got zippo. In fact, unless you are smart enough to draw the conclusion that the car is the devil, the only real explanation you'll get is this giant fire explosion.

Let's play what do you see in the fire?

Personally I saw a dragon--which I thought was pretty cool until I realized that a dragon driving a car would be pretty silly. Then I thought oh well I guess it's a snake.......but again how many people are really capable of connecting snakes and the devil today? People can't even tell you where Texas is located on a map. So anyways...this is all the explanation we get. Devil, snake, dragon, weird old man face I spotted in the lower right corner. It's a bundle of gee, thanks a lot The Car for clearing that up *Sarcasm*.

The film also has a real knack for introducing side plots that do not matter in the slightest. Like the side plot of Luke's drinking, Lauren and Wade's relationship, what happened to Wade's wife? The man who beats his wife, the same man who is mean to Indians. I mean, why are we led to believe that Luke sneaking out to drink on his 2 year anniversary of being sober will be an important part of the overall story when it's not? Or MAYBE the devil chose to terrorize this town because people can't stay sober and because people beat their wives....hmmmm but wouldn't the devil like that stuff? I'm so confused!!

Overall The Car has its pacing problems, it has its confusion and it certainly is not a fan of explaining things. Little of it makes any sense at all really, but you can't deny that the film doesn't have at least a little something going for it. The car IS ominous, and it is menacing and scary. The film is hilarious is in its own way and it does have this strange little bit of charm. Again, I think the whole point of The Car is James Brolin.

Would this movie have ever come to life has he not been involved? I think not.