THE CHUMSCRUBBER (2005)
Here's one I wrote ages ago and just found it on my hard drive just now, apparently having never got round to posting it.
This one seemed to pass a lot of cinema audiences by and I'm not that surprised. Having just watched it myself, I'm not entirely sure what audience it's aimed at.
It's another entry in the recent "quirky teenagers"/"isn't suburbia weird" genre (see DONNIE DARKO, THUMBSUCKER, etc.) where previously popular types of humour (slapstick, satire, clever jokes) are replaced by weird people doing eccentric things at inappropriate times. And it's not that funny. This is a problem since many of the events in the film are so ludicrous that one can only assume it's supposed to be a comedy. And yet, it seems to be aiming for some kind of satire/drama affair that never quite materialises, being swamped instead by the self-indulgent strangeness that dominates proceedings.
It felt to me like the people responsible for this film had a few ideas they found interesting, couldn't really think of a good enough film to encompass them all and decided to paper over the cracks with the aforementioned quirkiness. On top of this, the villain of the film (whose name I have already forgotten) was, even for a teenager, the least threatening villain I've ever seen and the relevance of the computer game that features in the film (and gives the movie its title) is entirely lost on me.
Ever had a conversation or heard a joke, and felt like you were the only guy in the room who wasn't in on it? That's pretty much how I felt while watching this waste of time. It's a film that feels like it was designed to be a cult movie, and it will probably fail miserably.
(I saw this as the first half of a double bill - the second half was DONNIE DARKO. That only emphasised the weaknesses of the first film to me, but you may compare as you see fit...)
This one seemed to pass a lot of cinema audiences by and I'm not that surprised. Having just watched it myself, I'm not entirely sure what audience it's aimed at.
It's another entry in the recent "quirky teenagers"/"isn't suburbia weird" genre (see DONNIE DARKO, THUMBSUCKER, etc.) where previously popular types of humour (slapstick, satire, clever jokes) are replaced by weird people doing eccentric things at inappropriate times. And it's not that funny. This is a problem since many of the events in the film are so ludicrous that one can only assume it's supposed to be a comedy. And yet, it seems to be aiming for some kind of satire/drama affair that never quite materialises, being swamped instead by the self-indulgent strangeness that dominates proceedings.
It felt to me like the people responsible for this film had a few ideas they found interesting, couldn't really think of a good enough film to encompass them all and decided to paper over the cracks with the aforementioned quirkiness. On top of this, the villain of the film (whose name I have already forgotten) was, even for a teenager, the least threatening villain I've ever seen and the relevance of the computer game that features in the film (and gives the movie its title) is entirely lost on me.
Ever had a conversation or heard a joke, and felt like you were the only guy in the room who wasn't in on it? That's pretty much how I felt while watching this waste of time. It's a film that feels like it was designed to be a cult movie, and it will probably fail miserably.
(I saw this as the first half of a double bill - the second half was DONNIE DARKO. That only emphasised the weaknesses of the first film to me, but you may compare as you see fit...)
posted by Alan at 2:47 pm
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