Self-Loving

The 2007 movie Lars and the Real Girl depicts the sweet sadness of an awkward guy's romance with a sex doll. Watch Out, a new film directed by Kansas-based provocateur Steve Balderson, lurks on the seedier end of the movies-about-inflatable-fuck-toys spectrum. Interpreting a line from the trailer ("The only way to survive is to love yourself") in the most graphic manner possible, narcissistic protagonist Jonathan Barrows (hirsute MySpace heartthrob Matt Riddlehoover) has butter-packet-lubricated sex with a male doll bearing his pasted-on face. It's not that Barrows lacks willing partners: Men and women proposition him so often that he muses, "To be desired by everyone is to become God." Wide-release shockers such as Choke might out-gross Watch Out, but they'll never match its gross-outs. Watch Out screens at 7 tonight at Liberty Hall (644 Massachusetts in Lawrence, 785-749-1972). Tickets cost $10.
Mon., Oct. 13, 7 p.m., 2008