The Room: The Best Bad Movie Ever

I've recommend some great bad movies on this blog. While you still should see Sleepaway Camp and Troll 2, you absolutely must see The Room.

The Room was made in 2003 by Tommy Wiseau. It's an instant cult classic and has slowly been gaining popularity since, screening once monthly at a theater in Hollywood. I heard about it last week from Ted, who made me promise to learn nothing about the film but just see it. Coincidentally, a couple of days later, I made plans to see Stacy, and she invited me to see the monthly screening of The Room. I assumed she had heard about it from Ted as well, but that was not the case. I felt like fate was telling me I had to see the movie, so even though I had to catch a plane the next morning, I went, abiding by my promise to learn nothing about it first.

In fact, if you're willing to take Ted's recommendation (and mine as well), perhaps you should just stop reading this post now and see it first. If you need more convincing, read on.

While standing in line for tickets, I overheard the person behind me get upset that he had left his bag of plastic spoons in the car. I snickered at the absurdly out of context statement until I realized that there were other people present holding bags of spoons. So wait - the audience brings props? It's that kind of film? Suddenly, I was more enthusiastic than ever.

Indeed, The Room is the Rocky Horror Picture Show for this generation. Hundreds of people showed up to the midnight screening with props in tow, many of whom have seen the film several if not dozens of times. There were so many people that they had to devote four of the five screens to the film.

Make no mistake, The Room is laugh out loud horrible. It was fun watching it with the interactive audience (perhaps almost as good as the Snakes on a Plane premiere) that heckled and shouted corresponding jokes, but I'm confident it would be nearly as entertaining just watching it at home with a couple of friends.

Apparently, Wiseau claims he made the film bad on purpose, but I don't buy that explanation. Camp is best when it's unintentional, and this film is some of the best camp I've ever seen. As I see it, The Room is a vanity piece. Wiseau believes he can act, write, produce, and direct, yet he largely fails on every account. Any decent director would immediately cut Wiseau from the film since his on-stage performance is awful. Unparalleled, but awful. Case in point:



Because Wiseau is wearing all of the hats, however, there's no one to stop him from making himself the emotional center of a pointlessly melodramatic tale. Speaking of which...



So good! The one thing I will give Wiseau credit for is managing to raise six million dollars to make the film. How he got anyone to financially back this turd of a flick, I'll never know, but it does indicate potential success as a fundraiser.

The Room (the title, by the way, makes no sense since the film takes place in a couple of rooms and a few outdoor locations) starts with three long, intense sex scenes with minimal transitions. Though they're soft-core in nature, I still wished they had left more to the imagination. The audience wriggled in discomfort between fits of laughter. The awkwardness subsided once a spoon made its first appearance on screen; each time a spoon appeared, the audience threw plastic spoons into the air/toward the screen. At moments, I was literally getting pelted with spoons, which was fun.

If you want a plot, you're barking up the wrong tree, here. Not much happens, and the few times I suspected a story line might be emerging, it just disappeared altogether, leaving the ambiguous conflict unresolved. The main characters are inconsistent in their behaviors, and the secondary characters appear on screen without an explanation as to their role in the film. I'm partial to the guy who shows up for the first time in the last fifteen minutes of the film, speaking as if he knows everybody's business and was there for all of the previous drama, even though he was never present for it. A repeated audience retort to a new, unexplained character coming on screen was, "WHO ARE YOU?!" - a genuine sentiment, if you ask me.

Other scenes are entirely irrelevant like this one, where the actors seem to be saying their lines as quickly as possible:



"I didn't recognize you... [Are there really other people that look like this man, who someone in the audience inappropriately yet astutely compared to a burn victim?] you're my favorite customer."
"Hi, doggie."

What? I still love it. I love the characters' proclivity for tossing a football around mere feet from one another. I love that the male characters are randomly wearing tuxedoes while playing football one day without any explanation. I love that the living room's television set is positioned right behind a chair such that no one could actually watch it. Most of all, I love the last sentence of this clip:


Sharing your terminal illness diagnosis as an afterthought is gold.

Before the movie began, Nikki went to the concession stand and bought a couple of large sodas and popcorn. Unfortunately, she forgot to grab straws, and found herself with her arms full. She asked to no one in particular for some assistance, and Justin Long, (the Mac guy) without Nikki even having to get specific about what she needed help with, grabbed her a couple of straws. Awed by his celebrity, she stuttered that he could just put them on top of the box, but he insisted on taking the wrappers off and putting them into the sodas. (She should have eBayed those!) Long was there with Drew Barrymore, along with a couple of other celebrities like Alia Shawkat (Maeby from Arrested Development). See, this film really is trendy.

We also were treated to a special guest appearance: Wiseau himself was in attendance. He took questions before the show, but didn't really answer them. Instead, he just said random phrases of his choosing in response, or criticized the questions for not being creative enough. Certainly, no one is as creative as Wiseau. The interaction just confirmed that he's legitimately off his rocker and that there's no chance he was clever enough to make an intentionally bad film with the idea that it would gain him some notoriety six years later. Instead, Wiseau is typical of the modern day celebrity, embracing whatever type of attention comes his way and revising history to his own benefit.

If you can find a way to see The Room, you've gotta. If you can attend a live interactive screening of it, even better.