The RoomOnce in a while, a film comes along that challenges your conceptions of art, redefines your idea of drama, and alters your reality by the sheer magnitude of its vision; sadly, The Room is not one of these. Tommy Wiseau's opus has become a talked about oddity over the years, pretty much because it stands as a kind of awkward centerpiece in the realm of independent film. Some movies are born bad, others have badness thrust upon them. The Room will never fool you into thinking it has any genuine artistic merit, any real depth, and yet it holds a bright place in the firmament of "so bad, it's good".
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There are few filmmakers like Tommy Wiseau (thank God), ones who take on the monumental task of writer, producer, director, and even star of a movie, as he does in The Room as the tragic Johnny. I'm not saying it's not work; I mean, you've got to get people to show up and read lines and stuff, and even pretend to get angry. There's finding the right kind of background music for the awkward love scenes (plural) a mere fifteen minutes in...or at least the most reasonably priced. And if someone were to miss the football during a take...well, you have to do another take, and that's just a waste of time. It's easy to make fun of The Room--really, it is, try it--but it's part of the experience. I'm not saying it has achieved Rocky Horror Picture Show level of "audience participation" as of yet, but people who attend do have some "traditions" to experience the film in a non-standard way. For example, don't be surprised if people start randomly showering the theater with plastic spoons--a reference to a framed picture of a spoon in one of the shots...yes, a spoon. Another staple is to shout things at the screen, responses to the absurdity of the characters and plot, stuff like shouting "best friend" whenever someone utters the frequent phrase. Or singing along to Johnny's birthday song, singing the Full House theme when the similar, establishing shot of row houses in San Francisco pops up. Or singing the Rocky theme when Johnny and his "best friend" (shout here), Mark (Greg Sestero) jog up the stairs, their rivalry mounting. Or repeatedly shouting "the door is ajar" during scenes when characters leave the front door open...and believe me, it happens a lot. In fact, I just got back from the last midnight show of The Room at the Cleveland Cedar Lee tonight; petition your local theater to try affording The Room the same treatment--you may be met with a quizzical look, but it sure beats watching paint dry.
The Room has been described as a "dark comedy"; if this is true, it is an unintentional one, but does that make a difference? Just as there is something funny about watching a bad play, there is a sense that this is--in and of itself--a kind of entertainment. I tend to think that the comedic descriptor was an amendment to the marketing of The Room, but it is preferable than even attempting to take the film on any degree of seriousness. Defining The Room really comes down to defining a "bad movie", so in a way it can claim the philanthropic role of being an educator of film enthusiasts--what not to do when you roll film. The complete assembly of gaffs and goofs is in attendance here: plot threads which get abandoned without any resolution, inconsistencies in the characters behavior. Johnny's "future wife", Lisa (Juliette Danielle), gets written off as a "psychopath" for cheating on Johnny by seducing Mark out of little more than boredom, but maybe she's not bad...she's just written that way. And for a movie which has no business employing special effects, there is an abusive amount of poor chroma keying in The Room. There are characters who show up without introduction--or apparent relevance, just to comment on the events unfolding--and Mike can certainly keep his comments in his pocket. As weird as this is to say, this reminds me of a Robert Altman movie, where there are characters who exist in the world of the story, and are not paraded forth and introduced for our benefit...only, that doesn't really work for Wiseau's movie; these guys feel like walking continuity errors. Upon its release, Tommy Wiseau advised his patrons--such as they are--to not only pay to see the room, but to see it twice. I eagerly await the day when news of a follow-up to The Room creeps its way onto Kickstarter, with what are I'm sure to be reasonable stretch goals; top reward better be the recognition of being his "favorite customer".
Recommended for: Fans who used to get a kick out of sifting through the VHS/DVD bargain bins, looking for the cheapest thing they could get their hands on, not expecting Shakespeare but getting a jolly good laugh at a movie that is funny because it is bad and pretends (we hope) to take itself seriously.
The Room has been described as a "dark comedy"; if this is true, it is an unintentional one, but does that make a difference? Just as there is something funny about watching a bad play, there is a sense that this is--in and of itself--a kind of entertainment. I tend to think that the comedic descriptor was an amendment to the marketing of The Room, but it is preferable than even attempting to take the film on any degree of seriousness. Defining The Room really comes down to defining a "bad movie", so in a way it can claim the philanthropic role of being an educator of film enthusiasts--what not to do when you roll film. The complete assembly of gaffs and goofs is in attendance here: plot threads which get abandoned without any resolution, inconsistencies in the characters behavior. Johnny's "future wife", Lisa (Juliette Danielle), gets written off as a "psychopath" for cheating on Johnny by seducing Mark out of little more than boredom, but maybe she's not bad...she's just written that way. And for a movie which has no business employing special effects, there is an abusive amount of poor chroma keying in The Room. There are characters who show up without introduction--or apparent relevance, just to comment on the events unfolding--and Mike can certainly keep his comments in his pocket. As weird as this is to say, this reminds me of a Robert Altman movie, where there are characters who exist in the world of the story, and are not paraded forth and introduced for our benefit...only, that doesn't really work for Wiseau's movie; these guys feel like walking continuity errors. Upon its release, Tommy Wiseau advised his patrons--such as they are--to not only pay to see the room, but to see it twice. I eagerly await the day when news of a follow-up to The Room creeps its way onto Kickstarter, with what are I'm sure to be reasonable stretch goals; top reward better be the recognition of being his "favorite customer".
Recommended for: Fans who used to get a kick out of sifting through the VHS/DVD bargain bins, looking for the cheapest thing they could get their hands on, not expecting Shakespeare but getting a jolly good laugh at a movie that is funny because it is bad and pretends (we hope) to take itself seriously.