For a long time, I have been a fan of cult films and movies that are considered “bad”. I am always looking for bad films that I haven’t heard of before. A few years ago while looking at the CNN website, I saw a link to an entertainment article that said “A Room with a Cult Following”. Before I clicked on the link, I assumed the article was about the film A Room with a View and I wondered why it would have a cult following. It turned out to be about a film called The Room by a first-time filmmaker called Tommy Wiseau. I found a copy of the film and decided to watch it by myself. I was sleepy the night I started watching it but didn’t want to fall asleep on it, so I stopped about halfway. The next night, I finished watching it. I had watched it in our living room and my wife was already in the bed for the night. She had not fallen asleep yet when I walked in and told her that I thought I had just watched the worst movie I had ever seen in my life. She could tell I was serious. She had watched with me many of the worst films ever made and for me to declare this one as the worst was saying something. She was sick and stayed at home from work the next day. She watched it that day and she agreed. While she was watching, she texted me a running commentary about how bad it was.
I don’t want to do a full review of the film, but you need to know a little about it to appreciate how bad it is. The film was written, directed, produced and stars Tommy Wiseau. He has a hard-to-understand European accent. He is also reluctant to tell people where he is from. He stars as Johnny, a banker that is engaged to his “future wife”, Lisa. In turn, Lisa is attracted to Johnny’s best friend, Mark. It’s a typical love triangle story but has tons of other plot lines that go nowhere and odd characters that add nothing to the story other than unintentional humor. Among the things that make this film bad are:
- A male character whose age is hard to determine named Denny. He likes to hang out at Johnny’s apartment, Johnny is paying for him to go to school and he is involved in drug deals that went bad.
- Lisa’s mother casually announces that she has breast cancer and there are no other references to it. Lisa responds, “Don’t worry about it.”
- Johnny likes to pitch a football around with his friends when they are about arm’s distance away from each other.
- More close proximity football later in an alley and all the participants are in tuxedos.
- Tommy Wiseau should never have nude scenes an any film. Unfortunately, in this one he does.
This film has developed a cult following similar to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. But even if you like that one, I recommend that most of you do NOT see The Room. Item #5 in the list above is the primary reason most of you should not see this film. Even if nudity in films doesn’t bother you, there are just some people you should not see when they are not wearing clothes.
I discovered that the easiest way to make it through this film is to watch it with commentary from the Rifftrax guys. Rifftrax is a company formed by some of the guys from Mystery Science Theater 3000. For those of you not familiar with that show, it featured a man and 3 robots watching bad movies and making fun of them. Through their Rifftrax company, they record commentaries for films that can be synced with films. My family are big fans of Mystery Science and Rifftrax. We introduced them to The Room with the Rifftrax commentary to make it easier to watch.
A couple of years ago, we discovered that the guys from Rifftrax did live events where they riff on a film in front of a live audience. These live shows are broadcast nationwide. Many of them originate from a theater in Nashville. When we found out they would be live riffing The Room in May of 2015, we knew this would be a family outing. Not only did we get to see The Room on the big screen, we would get to see the Rifftrax guys in person. While we were waiting in line, a couple of the Rifftrax guys came out and mingled with the audience. It was a perfect night and an experience we didn’t think could be topped.
But in August of that same year, we were able to go to St. Louis to a midnight showing of The Room with Tommy Wiseau there in person. He did a meet and greet before the show, signed autographs and pitched football with fans. He did a Q&A before the film. My son went to the restroom during the movie and Tommy was pitching football with fans in the lobby.
Greg Sestero is the actor that portrays Mark in The Room. He wrote a book called The Disaster Artist about his friendship with Tommy Wiseau and the making of The Room. As I write this post, they have just released a film based on this book starring James Franco. We went to see it last night. It is a good movie that accurately recreates the scenes that make The Room such a challenge to watch. While this new movie is good, I believe that most of you shouldn’t see it either. James Franco recreation of Tommy Wiseau’s nude scenes is a little too accurate. Unless you are a hardcore bad movie buff, don’t see either film. If you must know more about The Room, talk to me or email me.
