I have to believe I'm not the only person who was prompted to see "The Room" in preparation for James Franco's well-received "The Disaster Artist," the story of the cult classic's creation.
Called the worst movie ever made by many, what I think people mean is that "The Room" is one of the most entertaining bad movies ever made. It's certainly not the worst; just try watching a movie like, say, "ThanksKilling" for an example of a movie so bad that it's unwatchable. No, "The Room" belongs to the same category as something like "Battlefield Earth," films so earnestly made yet so poorly executed that they become more entertaining than they would have been had the filmmakers been able to make a legitimately good movie.
One can't really provide a description of "The Room" that will come anywhere close to approximating the experience of watching it. Tommy Wiseau, the film's legendary and strange creator, plays Johnny, who's been dating Lisa for something like six or seven years and who he refers to throughout the entire movie as "my future wife." The problem is that Lisa hates Tommy and doesn't want to marry him, despite bonking him repeatedly. It never seems to occur to Lisa that she could just tell Johnny she doesn't love him anymore, so she instead complains to everyone who will listen to her how bored she is by him and even makes up stories about him getting drunk and beating her. No one seems especially bothered by this prospect, perhaps because Lisa is such an unpleasant person that we don't understand why Johnny wants her in the first place. O.k. maybe it's not so far fetched, since Johnny isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, and his prospects for female companionship that he doesn't have to pay for are probably limited. He clearly is drawn to Lisa's formidable intelligence, because he thinks her suggestion that they invite a bunch of friends to a birthday party she plans to throw for him (despite hating him) is "a great idea," which I guess is if the alternative idea is to invite a bunch of random strangers. And Johnny isn't alone; at said birthday party, she suggest that they should all eat some cake, and the party goers act like that's an idea no one's ever had at a birthday party before.
Complicating matters is Johnny's best friend Mark, who gives a brilliant discourse on gender politics in which he categorizes all women as stupid or evil. Given the women in this movie, he may be on to something. Lisa has the hots for Mark, and they pick the least comfortable spot in the apartment (the bend of a spiral staircase) on which to consummate their passion (though I'm not sure if anything was actually consummated since Mark appears to be humping Lisa's knees). Mark seems like a bit of dim bulb himself, since every time thereafter that Lisa initiates sex his first question is "What are you doing?"
The most mysterious character in the movie is Denny, an orphaned kid who lives God knows where but who pops in all. the. time. and who we're told thinks of Johnny as a father figure, though, given the fact that the first scene with Denny finds him wanting to watch Johnny and Lisa have sex, he might have wanted to shop around a bit more. Denny is always carrying either a basketball or a football and acts like he's twelve despite the fact that the actor playing him is about twenty-five. Once in a while, some combination of guys will actually play ball with him, which involves standing about three feet from each other and gently tossing the ball around like it's an explosive device. After some ball tossing on the roof of Johnny's apartment building, and then some more ball tossing in a cramped alley, I started to wonder whether or not San Francisco had any parks these guys could go to, and then later in the film when they actually go to a park, I wondered why they didn't go to one sooner.
My favorite character is Lisa's mom, who walks into every situation and expresses disbelief that she's surrounded by dipsh*ts, a sentiment I shared. Nothing phases this woman, not breast cancer, not drug dealers, not random people using her daughter's apartment for a booty call. Whatever's going on, she's just so over it.
And another supporting character is Johnny's psychologist friend, who looks like the bald Nazi from "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and lurks in the background, lit by the camera man like a serial killer.
Every scene in "The Room" feels like the intro to porn sex, no matter what combination of people are present. There are actually a couple of soft core scenes, both featuring Johnny and Lisa, though it actually only counts as one scene since the second one uses the EXACT SAME FOOTAGE as the first. Needless to say, they're not very erotic unless you find weirdly veiny men of an indeterminate age erotic, or are turned on by the sight of rose petals mashed into a woman's back like giant ticks.
I don't know why "The Room" is called "The Room." There is a room in the movie, in which almost all of the action that doesn't occur on the roof takes place. The set decorator clearly thought that Johnny and Lisa are the kind of people who decorate their apartment with giant candles and bowls of fruit, which comes in handy when Denny needs to eat an apple as a way of managing the sexual frustration that occurs when Johnny and Lisa aren't up for a menage a trois.
Maybe he should have played some football in the alley instead. Hah- hah! Hah-hah!
Grade: F (for not having even a minimum understanding of the art of narrative filmmaking)
Grade: A+ (for entertainment value)
Called the worst movie ever made by many, what I think people mean is that "The Room" is one of the most entertaining bad movies ever made. It's certainly not the worst; just try watching a movie like, say, "ThanksKilling" for an example of a movie so bad that it's unwatchable. No, "The Room" belongs to the same category as something like "Battlefield Earth," films so earnestly made yet so poorly executed that they become more entertaining than they would have been had the filmmakers been able to make a legitimately good movie.
One can't really provide a description of "The Room" that will come anywhere close to approximating the experience of watching it. Tommy Wiseau, the film's legendary and strange creator, plays Johnny, who's been dating Lisa for something like six or seven years and who he refers to throughout the entire movie as "my future wife." The problem is that Lisa hates Tommy and doesn't want to marry him, despite bonking him repeatedly. It never seems to occur to Lisa that she could just tell Johnny she doesn't love him anymore, so she instead complains to everyone who will listen to her how bored she is by him and even makes up stories about him getting drunk and beating her. No one seems especially bothered by this prospect, perhaps because Lisa is such an unpleasant person that we don't understand why Johnny wants her in the first place. O.k. maybe it's not so far fetched, since Johnny isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, and his prospects for female companionship that he doesn't have to pay for are probably limited. He clearly is drawn to Lisa's formidable intelligence, because he thinks her suggestion that they invite a bunch of friends to a birthday party she plans to throw for him (despite hating him) is "a great idea," which I guess is if the alternative idea is to invite a bunch of random strangers. And Johnny isn't alone; at said birthday party, she suggest that they should all eat some cake, and the party goers act like that's an idea no one's ever had at a birthday party before.
Complicating matters is Johnny's best friend Mark, who gives a brilliant discourse on gender politics in which he categorizes all women as stupid or evil. Given the women in this movie, he may be on to something. Lisa has the hots for Mark, and they pick the least comfortable spot in the apartment (the bend of a spiral staircase) on which to consummate their passion (though I'm not sure if anything was actually consummated since Mark appears to be humping Lisa's knees). Mark seems like a bit of dim bulb himself, since every time thereafter that Lisa initiates sex his first question is "What are you doing?"
The most mysterious character in the movie is Denny, an orphaned kid who lives God knows where but who pops in all. the. time. and who we're told thinks of Johnny as a father figure, though, given the fact that the first scene with Denny finds him wanting to watch Johnny and Lisa have sex, he might have wanted to shop around a bit more. Denny is always carrying either a basketball or a football and acts like he's twelve despite the fact that the actor playing him is about twenty-five. Once in a while, some combination of guys will actually play ball with him, which involves standing about three feet from each other and gently tossing the ball around like it's an explosive device. After some ball tossing on the roof of Johnny's apartment building, and then some more ball tossing in a cramped alley, I started to wonder whether or not San Francisco had any parks these guys could go to, and then later in the film when they actually go to a park, I wondered why they didn't go to one sooner.
My favorite character is Lisa's mom, who walks into every situation and expresses disbelief that she's surrounded by dipsh*ts, a sentiment I shared. Nothing phases this woman, not breast cancer, not drug dealers, not random people using her daughter's apartment for a booty call. Whatever's going on, she's just so over it.
And another supporting character is Johnny's psychologist friend, who looks like the bald Nazi from "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and lurks in the background, lit by the camera man like a serial killer.
Every scene in "The Room" feels like the intro to porn sex, no matter what combination of people are present. There are actually a couple of soft core scenes, both featuring Johnny and Lisa, though it actually only counts as one scene since the second one uses the EXACT SAME FOOTAGE as the first. Needless to say, they're not very erotic unless you find weirdly veiny men of an indeterminate age erotic, or are turned on by the sight of rose petals mashed into a woman's back like giant ticks.
I don't know why "The Room" is called "The Room." There is a room in the movie, in which almost all of the action that doesn't occur on the roof takes place. The set decorator clearly thought that Johnny and Lisa are the kind of people who decorate their apartment with giant candles and bowls of fruit, which comes in handy when Denny needs to eat an apple as a way of managing the sexual frustration that occurs when Johnny and Lisa aren't up for a menage a trois.
Maybe he should have played some football in the alley instead. Hah- hah! Hah-hah!
Grade: F (for not having even a minimum understanding of the art of narrative filmmaking)
Grade: A+ (for entertainment value)