Sept 1-7 John Waters Best of the Year Week: To be fair, these movies aren’t ALL funny, but JOHN WATERS is funny. He’s become more of a writer and public commentator these days. Still, he helps keep the arthouse from taking itself too seriously with his annual top-ten lists, while celebrating the comically serious.

Tobacco Force — Benzene (Gilles Lellouche), Mathanol (Vincent Lacoste), Nicotine (Anaïs Demoustier), Mercure (Jean-Pascal Zadi as Mercure and Ammoniaque (Oulaya Amamra) — have just blown a giant turtle to pieces with their cancer attack, covering themselves with gore, when they get a call from their commander, Chief Didier (Alain Chabat), who is pretty much a rat. He wants them to go to a retreat for a week to improve their teamwork, because Lézardin (Benoit Poelvoorde) is coming to take over the planet.

So yes — a sentai show about a team who uses the powers of tobacco to destroy evil, even having a robot — Norbert 500 — who drives their van and helps them clean themselves off when they get messy.

As they bond, the team tells stories to one another, such as a woman whose thinking helmet turns her into a slasher or what happens when a man gets his foot stuck in a wood chipper. None of these stories have an ending and neither does this movie, as a new robot — Norbert 1200, sent to replace the suicidal Norbert 500 — arrives to help them defeat Lézardin. While waiting for the robot to start a program, Chief Didier keeps calling to tell them that the issue has resolved itself, as the bad guy’s family has killed him. There’s also a talking barracuda who gets grilled.

This was directed, written, shot and edited by Quentin Dupieux, who also made Rubber. It’s delightful, just a weird movie that hangs out with you, always changing until the end.

John Waters said, “Can a movie be both stupid and effete yet unironic? Only the French can pull that off, and this moronic auteur of ignoramuses does it again. Brilliant performances and dumbbell dialogue equal a superhero movie for idiots that surpasses all the tedium of Hollywood blockbusters.”