The 4,000th Film: The Room

Ever since I can remember, I have been earnestly obsessed with movies. It started when I was very young when my mother first sat me down to watch Singin' in the Rain (1952). From that point forward I was instantly hooked on the evocative musicals of the past. My education into Hollywood's gilded age was supplemented by my parents coming home nearly every night with a treat from the local video shop. As I got older every time I went to the theater with my parents, a few friends or on a date it was considered an exceptional day by yours truly. We used to move around a lot thus seeing familiar characters on the big screen was one of the few constants that made me feel like I had a home during those formative years. There were days I would go to the cinemas alone after school, ignoring my homework to watch the newest Lord of the Rings (2001-2003). Every theater usher and video vendor within a 10 mile range of my house knew me and would often pay no mind as I smuggled out rated-R gems like Color of Night (1994) or Tomcats (2001).

Hey, I never said I had good taste back then

It wasn't until my junior year of high school that I decided to actually keep track of my movie watching. Within a span of a few months I recounted as many movies as I could and put them on a list for easy reference. Websites like imdb.com and flixster.com helped me fill in many holes in my memory and by the time I was a freshman in college I concluded I have seen over a 1,000 movies. I felt weirdly accomplished and started envisioning myself as an authority on film despite never seeing Citizen Kane (1941) or more than a handful of foreign language movies.

Though I can claim to have seen Secretary (2002) in theaters

This was approximately 10 years ago. That infinitesimal number has since swelled dramatically. I have expanded my breadth of knowledge to include the best of Hitchcock, Godard, Ozu, Altman, Truffaut, Bunuel and Kurosawa just to name a few. So many films have given me so many fond memories made all the more immediate and satisfying by the people I have shared these movies with. Three years ago I said I would watch a combined total of 4,000 films. I am glad to say that as of yesterday, I have reached that goal. To celebrate this momentous accomplishment, I delved into the batty, grotesque and wildly inept world of Tommy Wiseau for the first time. That's right, the movie I watched to celebrate my conversion from film fanatic to pretentious killjoy, was 2003's The Room.

Year: 2003
Genre: Romantic Drama
Directed: Tommy Wiseau
Stars: Tommy Wiseau, Juliette Danielle, Greg Sestero, Philip Haldiman, Carolyn Minnott, Robyn Paris, Scott Holmes, Dan Janjigian, Kyle Vogt, Greg Ellery
Production: Wiseau Films

The Room is a film directed, written, produced, starring and likely catered by fame-seeker and wannabe cultural icon Tommy Wiseau. Johnny (Wiseau) our Dramamine swilling protagonist is a seemingly perfect human being who lives in San Francisco with his fiancee Lisa (Danielle). He exercises regularly running and playing catch with neighborhood urchin Denny (Haldiman). He also goes to his job to do business stuff. One day, Lisa wakes up realizing she no longer loves Johnny and seduces his best friend Mark (Sestero). All of the couple's mutual friends think Lisa's actions are despicable while Lisa's mother (Minnott) believes Johnny is the key to Lisa's financial security and she shouldn't call off the wedding. That is about as much plot as you can gleam out of this impossibly contrived film which aims for the melodrama of Dallas (1978-1991) but ends up feeling like a two act play written by second graders.

The Room is considered one of the worst movies ever made which, after a very brief first life in theaters, has become a midnight screening staple and so-bad-it's-good classic to eye-rolling hipsters and giddy schlock fans. Boasting inept direction, screenwriting, cinematography, lighting, acting, special-effects, editing, et al., The Room is essentially a master course of what NOT to do when it comes to film-making. Yet despite the film's almost willful ignorance to straightforward storytelling, the film has an appeal that defies logic. Like watching the hypnotic gaze of an esurient asp, The Room puts you in a trance and forces you to sit through the entire f***ing thing; from it's softcore porn bedroom scenes to it's woman hating living room scenes.

I had the pleasure of sitting through this movie among the right crowd and found myself laughing often and hard. The film's artless bubbling; every moment of amateurishness was done in just about the worst way possible allowing the audience to become flabbergasted by it all. Wiseau has said that his biggest influences for  The Room were films like Rebel Without a Cause (1955), and the collective works of Elizabeth Taylor, Tennessee Williams and Alfred Hitchcock. In reality the film is more an ugly-looking amalgam of everything an Eastern European immigrant would assume appeals to an American audience including extended moments of alley way football.

One would need to watch this affront to celluloid countless times before they can truly discover how a movie like this could be so popular among certain crowds. Perhaps one place to start looking would be Wiseau's absolutely appalling performance as Johnny. Unlike the other "actors" that flood the screen, Wiseau doesn't just approach the script with amateurish drudgery. His idiosyncratic delivery, clumsy blocking and confusing chatter reaches new heights in gleeful, over-the-top nuttiness. It feels as if Wiseau was sent from another planet to make a movie as a test to see if they can assimilate. If in the years to come it's discovered there's been a They Live (1988) meets The X-Files (1993-present) season 9 type conspiracy, one would only need to see The Room to discover where it all started.

The Room stands outside of time and space and certainly outside of the history of cinema. It's a movie that defies logic; a movie that proves quite entertaining if given the right circumstances but if slightly less overwrought would have been completely forgotten. Wiseau has appeared at many viewings of the film and bolsters his inflated ego as a purposeful disaster artist who revels in sardonic satire. I personally don't believe him for a minute. The frantic, neurotic emotional core of The Room is arguably the only thing about the film that felt genuine. That and two characters' uncomfortable obsession with chocolate. Seriously guys, get a room.

Final Grade: N/A