The Room

2003 masterpiece

Rating: 1/20

Plot: Johnny loves Lisa. He treats her right, too, promising her a bright future, bringing her flowers, and having some really awkward sex with some awful background music. But Lisa is sleeping with Johnny's best friend Mark on the side. Meanwhile there's Denny, a seemingly random kid, is having some problems with the drugs. There's no way things can end well. They sure didn't begin well. And the middle part? Yuck!

The Room is very much Tommy Wiseau's baby. He wrote, directed, and starred in the thing. He even put his big ol' face on the poster. Just look at him acting on that poster? Yes, he's that terrific the rest of the movie, especially if you're impressed with poorly-written lines spoken in this unidentifiable accent. It's a performance of Torgo Award proportions, and if this work of art--like a soap opera blended with the crafts of the mentally challenged--isn't the worst movie I see all year, I'll be surprised. This is trainwreck bad, from the opening badly-delivered line "Hey, Babe" spoken as our protagonist (the big face on the poster) walks into the room (variations of "Hey, Babe" are peppered throughout the dialogue, by the way) to the tragic denouement. The story's slow, most of the time threatening to go nowhere at all, yet it somehow still manages to meander like with the superfluous subplot with Denny, a subplot that I don't believe was every resolved. You also get a whole bunch of scenes with characters playing catch with footballs while standing about seven feet from each other. It reminds me of a middle school play production where the director decides he doesn't want the performers to just stand there and deliver lines and feels the need to give them something random to do. These characters sure loved their football though. Apparently, this has grown into a Rocky Horror type cult flick where people go to midnight screenings dressed as the characters. They throw plastic spoons at the screen and toss footballs around while wearing tuxedos. The spoon thing, by the way, is because there are these odd framed pictures of spoons decorating the room. No, not that room. Another room. Actually, I don't even know why this movie is called The Room. Wiseau said it's because he wants his audience to feel comfortable or something, but he also said that his characters play football in the movie because it's fun and a real challenge without the proper equipment. And he apparently claimed that the whole thing was meant as a comedy all along which might make him a genius. All I know is that I really enjoyed watching The Room, and it got more laughs out of me than any Steve Martin movie I've ever watched. And I'm not the type of person who generally finds continuity errors the first time I see a movie, but there's a great one early in this involving an apple, a Denny, and a staircase that is too obvious not to miss. My favorite line (contender for line of the year): "Hi, doggy."

I think all of my readers should see this movie as soon as possible. You can thank me later.