Must-see Movie - Unintentional Genius

Rich had given me a list of movies he wanted to see at the Film Festival. There were only a couple I could actually go to, so I said I'd see 'The Room' with him. I knew nothing about it, other than that the short review in the guide said it was the 'Citizen Kane of bad films' which seemed a lofty compliment. And it said it was directed/written/produced/funded by (for $6million) and starred an eccentric and somewhat hideous man, Tommy Wiseau.

To be honest, I wasn't that fussed about it, but fancied a night out at a potentially weird film. Richard apologised-in-advance for it, as he suspected it might be a flop. Sam sniggered at us and said he was definitely not going to this one.

How wrong could we all be!

IT WAS AMAZING!

To tell you the truth, I have much trepidation about writing a review of it, because I know I will not do it justice. But I will attempt do share the joy that was 'The Room' by Tommy Wiseau.

1. The Theatre

There is a definite difference between a good film and a good movie-going-experience. Rich and I will often go to a very good film, which we'll admit we enjoyed on a cinematic and philosophical level, but would not recommend to many people we know. When we walked out of this film, still laughing, we were already talking about buying a copy of it and forcing our friends to watch

('Morgan would love how perfectly bad it is.... Michelle loves bad movies anyhow - so many quotes for her to learn!..... Sam will have to admit that he made a mistake!').

Back to the movie-going experience, then.

Everything seemed relatively normal until people started giving out packs of plastic spoons.

Large pockets of people burst into applause when the 'Wiseau Productions' logo came onto the screen. The guy introducing the film on the mic had warned that people in Auckland had been yelling out lines of their favourite dialogue before it happened and had some off as cocks..... The anticipation was high at this point.

Somewhere in the first ten minutes, on cue, hundreds of plastic spoons were thrown at the screen as everyone chorused 'SPOONS!'.

A spoon landed fortuitously on my lap, which I kept as a momento. Another one hit me on the side of the head, but I didn't mind. Rich figured out part-way through the film at what moments they were doing it and I've found clips of similar screenings on youtube.





2. Actors
The actors, from the very first soft-porn scene, were terrible. To be fair, in terms of plot and dialogue, they didn't have much to work with, so it was only partially their fault.

The director/actor played the lead role of 'Johnny'. He has a European accent, something akin to what Arnold Schwartenager sounded like in his earliest films. He seemed to emphasise the wrong words and had huge pauses at odd moments. And he had a fake laugh, where he tilted his head back, which he did some 300 times in the film (someone counted). Apparently most of his dialogue had to be redubbed, so he looks oddly ninja-like in that his timing is a little off.

From his very first line of dialogue I had to join in with the laughter. I'm not a laugh-out-loud at movies kinda girl, normally. But this one had me at 'hello' (or 'oh, hi!').

On top of his terrible line-delivery, he's an odd looking man. He looks like a 45 year old who's had a lot of surgery to try to look 30 and the end result is somewhat grotesque. In the sex scenes, you can see his 'muscles', which are oddly lumpy and look like cellulite has been injected into muscle-pockets around his body. As director, he is drawn to close-up shots of his own clenching buttocks during the sex scenes. He is really clenching, too. There are fist-sized dimples in his buttocks cheeks. No body doubles in this film.

It really does come across as a soft-porn made by a rich guy who wanted to do a wee project with his buddies, none of whom could act. Yet, having read reviews, this apparently was something like 12 years in the planning. And he auditioned people. He has written a play and novel of the same title. He is actually trying.....

Here is one of the best bits of acting from him in the movie:



To be continued.....

Watch out for the terrible dialogue, continuity gaffs and culdersac plot lines.

And here's a link to another review that puts it well, to all those smug people who don't want to see 'another bad movie' (it even has a rap video homage to 'The Room').