Let's assume that you've seen The Room. Imagine that Lisa's eyebrows matched her hair. Imagine that Johnny was about twenty years younger and a person that you actually wanted to see naked, with a decent haircut. Imagine that the movie's budget allowed for more than three or four sets. Imagine that characters didn't keep repeating the same meaningless lines over and over again--"Johnny is a good man." "Johnny is my best friend." "I don't want to talk about it." "Well I have to go now." Imagine that instead of being a simple Jekyll/Hyde caricature, Lisa was actually a complicated and real-seeming person, torn between security/domesticity and freedom/passion. Suppose that the revelation that her mother is dying of breast cancer actually contributed to her inner conflict. Imagine that the minor characters were adequately introduced and actually came across as real people with their own problems/motivations instead of simply allowing the filmmaker to kill some time while he waits to advance his plot. What would we have then? A simple morality tale (actions have consequences!) that no one would ever want to buy on DVD. Instead, we have The Room.
I first heard about The Room in the December 19, 2008 edition of Entertainment Weekly. I immediately tried to put it in my Netflix queue, but it was unavailable, so I came here, to Amazon, and was delighted to find that I could own this intriguing piece of cinema for only 8.49, so I bought it. I have watched it twice and have been trying to figure out what makes this movie so awful and yet so oddly entertaining ever since. Now I must admit I am a huge fan of bad movies--I can debate which is worse, Plan 9 from Outer Space or Manos: The Hands of Fate with the best of 'em. I have a tradition of watching Showgirls with the excellent commentary from David Schmader every Fourth of July, because it's so much better than fireworks, and you don't get caught in a traffic jam. I think it is hard to pin down all the disparate elements that make The Room sublime. Still, I agree with the EW article--it is the Citizen Kane of bad movies.
For those of you who haven't seen The Room, the plot goes something like this: Johnny is a guy who loves his live-in girlfriend, Lisa. He brings her presents. They have sex to horrible R&B-lite tunes. Their creepy teenage neighbor, Denny, tries to watch them having sex, but luckily they kick him out before things get too hot and heavy. Lisa seems to enjoy the sex, but it turns out Lisa is a big faker. Lisa doesn't love Johnny, but she thinks his best friend Mark is pretty hot, and apparently, no one can resist Lisa. To paraphrase what David Schmader said about Nomi in Showgirls, Lisa immediately pulls people into her orbit and makes them fall in love with her, because...well, we don't know why. Lisa and Mark have sex. Lisa and Johnny have sex again, just to make sure Lisa's duplicity is obvious enough. Lisa's mom is dying of breast cancer. Denny pisses off a drug dealer. Lisa encourages Johnny to drink too much and then makes up a story about him getting drunk and hitting her. A psychologist advises Johnny. Lisa and Johnny make out on the sofa in their house, except now they are played by two entirely different actors. Oh no, wait, these are different, unknown characters making out on their sofa. There is a mildly amusing incident with Lisa's mother and the unknown young man on the sofa and his underwear. We see the incident, and then it is repeated verbatim for us in the next scene. Johnny, Mark, and Denny play football while wearing tuxedos--ha ha! Lisa hosts a birthday party for Johnny and announces that she is pregnant, and then confesses to a friend that she's really not. Lisa then hits on Mark during the party, even though they had agreed to end their affair. Johnny finds out his beloved girlfriend is not really a human being, but is instead an evil robot. Disaster ensues. Actions have consequences!
I find that the movie makes more sense to me if I imagine that the character of Johnny is actually mentally challenged, but everyone is too polite to say this explicitly. (Once you hear Tommy Wisseau's odd accent and the strange cadence and emphases to his speech and his dorky laughs, not to mention what he's actually saying, it's actually not much of a stretch at all!) Johnny maybe has a rich, powerful uncle somewhere who has gotten him a handsomely-paid job fetching coffee at a bank. He's mentally challenged enough that he doesn't realize he's going to be the coffee boy forever, and he thinks his money-saving ideas for the bank are going to get him promoted ("Hey, if we stop giving away free toasters with new checking accounts, we could save money!" "That's a great idea, Johnny. Now go get me some more coffee. And a bagel. Cinnamon. Light on the cream cheese. That's a good man! We should think about promoting you to bank president, eh, Johnny? Heh heh!") Lisa is getting tired of having a mentally challenged boyfriend. Even though he is good to her, he has started to disgust her. And it's kind of understandable, really. It also explains Johnny's melodramatic reactions to everything.
Anyway, that's the backstory I have invented for The Room, but you could easily invent your own, and that's the great thing about this movie. The gaping holes in character and plot really encourage the viewer to use her own creativity. Whether you're throwing plastic spoons at the screen or trying to make up plausible reasons for the nutty behavior, it's a lot of fun, so buy this movie right now!!
seriously watch the film! I am still trying to persuade my friends to watch it, but they only think it's a "movie so bad it's good again" flick, but it's far beyond that.
this i s a masterpiece
EDIT
sry the most genius person is the one who did this trailer
Dynamithix
01-15-2012 02:22 PM
what is this, i don't even
what
I couldn't watch it. So strange and creepy. Supposedly it was a love confession to someone and he put it on Youtube. Whatever, it's fucking creepy.
JennyGenesis
01-15-2012 02:50 PM
That video reminds me of Chris Chan or CWC.
But The Room is sadly a movie that is hard to come by in the UK. So I bought a copy off amazon.com and will need to wait about 28 days for it to arrive, but I'm sure the wait is worth it :D
It's strange, it's a bad movie, but, I'm sure at the same time it is an excellent movie from what I've seen, I just love how these days Tommy Wiseau tries to make out that he intended the movie to be the way it is...
Wings of Fire
01-15-2012 03:11 PM
It's unwatchable trash with a few funny lines and you're all counter culture influenced hipsters.
Crashpunk
01-16-2012 12:08 AM
I have a obsession with Arnie.
Mac Sirloin
01-16-2012 05:44 AM
:
()
It's unwatchable trash with a few funny lines and you're all counter culture influenced hipsters.
Do you remember thinking 'This won't last long' when you first heard about people acting like The Room is so bad it's good or whatever too?
Lessons from the master:
And of course.
Compared to the first few episodes, Beavis and Butthead has come a long way.
I wish I could work out what his intentions are. I had assumed that he started using Twitter in order to seem more like a common-man and improve his PR image after the hacking scandals. And then he does this.
DarkHoodness
01-17-2012 02:25 AM
And I thought I was good at digging myself holes to fall down. Wow.
Dynamithix
01-17-2012 05:21 AM
These people are the most pathetic scum that live on this planet. This made me physically ill.
I've seen that video posted on a couple of websites, but I can't bring myself to watch it.
scrabface
01-17-2012 11:33 AM
I need some help here.
I am going to visit denmark for one night and my plane's gonna land at 8am in the morning
now I need to be at Viborg latest at 3pm.
as far as I can see, the blank fields indicate that there won't stop a bus. so the first bus that stops in Viborg will be at 14.35, but it only goes from Copenhagen (valby station) where it leaves at 10am, not from the airport, where I'll arrive at 8am.
does anyone of you know if it's possible to get from the airport to the city's station at time? also, did I miss something?
If I had a dollar for every pixel in that picture, They only person richer than me would be Chuck Norris.
DarkHoodness
01-17-2012 05:17 PM
@WoF: WarioWare reminds me of Bishi-Bashi special - It's a shame that's not a real game mod. +rep for showing it.
@Mr. Bungle - You do know these forums have HTML code enabled for a reason, right? Use the img tag with width="800" or something. (Although that was kinda funny)