Movies - Rubber Johnny

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	Movies - Rubber Johnny

Rubber Johnny is a 6 minute experimental short film and music video directed by Chris Cunningham in 2005, using music composed by Aphex Twin. The name Rubber Johnny is drawn from a British slang for "condom" as well as a description of the main character. The DVD comes with an art book, containing stills from the film, as well as conceptual drawings, photographs and more.

The concept for Rubber Johnny came from Cunningham imagining a raver morphing as he danced. The idea evolved to the present film, in which Johnny (played by Cunningham) is an isolated mutant child with a huge overgrown cranium, strapped into a wheelchair and locked in a basement. Capable of morphing his body, he spends his life trying to amuse himself and his dog, a terrified chihuahua.

The film was originally intended to be a 30 second TV commercial for the Aphex Twin album drukqs, . However, Cunningham grew to like the concept more and more and decided to expand the concept into a longer length (the original commercial remains in the film in an altered form.) The film was shot partially in infrared night vision on digital video. The film's music is "afx237 v7 (w19rhbasement remix)", a remix made by Cunningham; the credits music is "gwarek2", also from drukqs.

Controversy

Rubber Johnny was originally intended to be released in the UK on May 23, 2005. However, the release date was pushed back to June 20, 2005 because the original printers selected by Warp Films "" It was released in North America on July 12, 2005.

It is also worth noting that portions from the film have appeared on various websites; in one case, it was labelled "the creepy film everyone's talking about" - Snopes.com also had to clear up rumors about .

Several images in the DVD packaging of Rubber Johnny include portions of genitalia; allegedly Cunningham photographed his own. The front cover features a testicle; another image contains the shaft of the penis.

Synopsis

Rubber Johnny documents a 16-year-old, inbred mutant's solitary existence, locked in a pitch-black basement by his ashamed parents. They are TV-addict rednecks who occasionally feed Johnny and yell at him for making noise. Johnny's only company in the basement is his little horrified Chihuahua dog. His dog's I.Q. far outstrips Johnny's, who is a completely insane, bi-polar imbecile.

The film starts out with a doctor trying to communicate with Johnny. Johnny seems rather unfocused, and answers "no" to every question. He then starts repeating something which sounds like "mama", to which the doctor asks whether he wants to see his mother. Johnny becomes nervous and violent and the doctor has to calm him down with a sedative injection.

At this point the actual music video begins. After the introduction of a blinking neon light, a rat climbing over a text decal of "WARP FILMS PRESENT", we see reversed footage of a condom with "Rubber Johnny" written on it being pulled off of a penis shaped balloon, or perhaps some sort of dildo. We then see the dog eating food from his dish and watching Johnny lying in his wheelchair with his huge head hanging out, moaning the word "Aphex". As soon as the music kicks in, Johnny starts to "dance" in his wheelchair, acting and morphing to the beat of the music, observed by the seemingly discomfited dog. At one scene he appears to insufflate a line of a white powder (presumably cocaine, although James has hinted it as being 'a ridiculous amount of methedrine'). The video is interrupted twice by someone (apparently the father of Johnny, according to the credits) opening the basement door and throwing various insults at Johnny. Although during both interruptions he is rather calm, the second time he's lying almost lifeless in his wheelchair, as he was in the beginning of the film. The second part of the video contains scenes of Johnny's face, hand, and foot rapidly hurtling towards the direction of the camera lens, but collides with by what appears to be a glass plate, and after each contact, leaving behind bits of his face, of which seems to have taken on a viscous consistency.

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