Scream 3 (2000) 1h 56m

Up front, I love the original Scream trilogy.  The fourth installment was okay but it came a bit too late for me me to associate it with the first three.  I, however, completely forgot about everything in this movie except for who the killer was.  I spent half of the movie texting my husband things like "Parker Posey is in this?!  Jay and Silent Bob are in this?!  What the hell is this film?!"

Scream 3 centers around the filming of the movie's meta cinema, Stab 3.  After Cotton Weary (now a talk show host) and his girlfriend are murdered, the deaths begin to follow the script for the latest Stab installment.  Gail Weathers is instantly there, Dewey happens to be there as a consultant, and Sidney is in hiding and using a false name after the second film.  Eventually the murderer ferrets Sidney out of hiding and she joins the rest of the group to find the killer and try to end things once and for all.

Scream was one of the first major films to really play with meta concepts when it comes to horror.  Through Randy, it established the parameters for what to do and not do.  With Randy having been killed in the previous film, we still get his video store wisdom with the help of a VHS that he left.  I feel like them keeping this consistent, even with poor Randy's death, was a good touch on Wes Craven's part.  The acting from everyone in Scream 3 remains solid which was great to see.  A lot of the time, as a series goes on, the actors begin to phone it in. *cough*WesleySnipesBlade*cough*

There are some over the top moments in this film that are eye rolling but it's all part of the fun of watching a horror movie that establishes up front that it knows it's a horror movie.  I will say that the bow they use to wrap everything up does skate that line of "Oh, fuck you!" once you get how this ties back to the first movie.  Sidney sums it up best though while we're getting the killer's "poor me" speech by saying "I heard this shit before!  Why don't you take some fucking responsibility!"  Honestly, all these murders could have been avoided if just one person would've gone for therapy for their mommy issues.  Actually, I take that back, all of this could've been avoided if Hollywood wasn't a skeezy place.

I give Scream 3 3 Stab 3 DVD covers out of 5:

Day 21: Rubber (2010) 1h 22m

Sometimes you really want something, and you hope and hope and hope that it'll happen.  I was doing that with Rubber.  I was hoping and hoping that this would come up at some point in doing this blog.  Every time I would pass it I felt this want, this desire, to see this film with a murder tire just to understand it.  Why did you haunt me tire?!  WHHHHHYYYYYY?

In truth, 2010's Rubber isn't really meant to be understood.  The very first thing we're treated to is a speech about how some things are really nothing and there is no real reason for why certain things happen or exist in film.  It's a good way to set the entire concept of a sentient tire that either has a psychokinesis or maybe a sound/air pressure ability to make things explode.  I don't recall if it gets explained.

After our speech we are introduced to the "audience."  They are literally a group of spectators that are part of the movie, but watching the movie and commenting on it from a hilltop.  All but one are poisoned but the movie is only allowed to end once they're all dead.  So the film continues.

I think that if this film attempted to be serious, it would fail terribly.  Instead, they knew exactly what they were doing.  They were making a film about a murder tire, and so they had fun with it.  They do a great job of making the tire have these horror movie moments, such as being in a shower to scare a maid.  For what it was, I liked it.  It wasn't amazing, I'm not running out to buy it, but I enjoyed it and I'll tell other people to watch it at least once, just to watch it.

I give Rubber 3 Road Kill Cafe menus out of 5: