I am officially obsessed by The Room.
This is the best worst movie I've seen in a long long time. I didn't think it could live up to the hype, but man oh man did it ever deliver.
First good sign: It's a Wiseau Films production. It's written by Tommy Wiseau. It's produced by Tommy Wiseau. It's directed by Tommy Wiseau. It stars Tommy Wiseau. Go Team Wiseau!
The movie is supposed to be a comedy. At least, that's how it is described in the Netflix summary:
Uninhibited by cinematic convention, this quirky cult favorite about lust and duplicity delivers nonstop laughs from beginning to end as the film's central character Johnny (writer-director Tommy Wiseau) discovers that his foxy fiancée, Lisa (Juliette Danielle), is bedding his best friend. Adding to the hilarity are Greg Sestero, who plays the backstabbing buddy Mark, and Carolyn Minnott as Lisa's materialistic mom.
Here's the first line of the IMBD summary:
A black comedy about love, passion, betrayal and lies.
However, this is clear revisionist history. This film was clearly meant as a serious drama, but it's really a bizarre ego trip that is an amazing piece of unintentional comedy.
No one in this film can act. The movie is about a love triangle, but all sorts of random shit keeps happening that has nothing to do with the plot. Here's just a few things I really enjoyed:
Denny, a random kid who acts like he's 14 but is supposedly in college, shows up from time to time for no good reason. At one point he's meeting with a drug dealer who pulls a gun on him because he owes money, and Johnny and Mark "save him". And...that's it.
Johnny's future mother-in-law also randomly shows up occasionally, mostly to give her daughter terrible advice like "you should marry Johnny even though you hate him, because he's rich." At one point she randomly says, "I have breast cancer," and never brings it up again. Ohhhkayyy...
At Johnny's birthday party, he suddenly announces that Lisa is pregnant. This is the first we've heard of it too. Lisa has this exchange with Steven, a guy who apparently is a friend but just shows up out of nowhere during the party:
Steven: When is the baby due?
Lisa: There is no baby.
Steven: What? What are you talking about?
Lisa: I told him that to make it interesting.
There's a scene where the four guys are apparently trying out the tuxedos for the upcoming wedding. Except the scene takes place in Johnny's house, and then they decide to go outside in their tuxedos and throw around a football. This comes to a quick end when one of the guys (a psychologist who only shows up halfway through the movie with no introduction) trips over his own feet and falls down. They pick him up, move off camera....and SCENE!
By the way, you've never seen a movie with so much throwing of a football in your life. And most of it is between guys standing about two feet apart.
Here's a few more great lines (leaving out the iconic "Lisa you're tearing me apart!"):
Mark: You don't understand anything, man. Leave your *stupid* comments in your pocket!
Mark: As far as I'm concerned, you can drop off the Earth. That's a promise.
Johnny: I kill you, you bastard!
Mark: You couldn't kill me if you tried.
Johnny: You betrayed me... you that good... you, you're just a chicken, chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp, cheep, cheep.
Claudette: Men are assholes. Men and women use and abuse each other all the time, there's nothing wrong with it. Marriage has nothing to do with love.
Lisa: Do you want me to order a pizza?
Johnny: Whatever, I don't care.
Lisa: I already ordered a pizza.
Johnny: You think about everything, ha ha ha.
Lisa: You can come out now, Johnny. She's gone.
Johnny: In a few minutes, bitch.
Lisa: Who are you calling a bitch?
Johnny: You and your stupid mother.
Johnny: Hi, doggy!
Johnny: Thank you honey, this is a beautiful party! You invited all my friends. Good thinking!
Steven: I feel like I'm sitting on an atomic bomb waiting for it to go off.
Michelle: ...Me too.
And I almost forgot...every time someone walks into a room (which happens at least once if not more in every scene), Johnny says "oh hai, ______" (fill in blank with character name). The Oh Hai Johnny Drinking Game would be a blast.
For example:
Johnny: I did not hit her, it's not true! It's bullshit! I did not hit her! I did *not*. Oh hi, Mark.
If you haven't seen this movie, I insist you go do so now! It changed my life and it will change yours too. And if you have seen it, but didn't watch the interview with Tommy Wiseau on the DVD, you must re-rent the DVD. I can't possibly do it justice, but here's the wiki description:
The DVD features an interview with Wiseau, who is asked questions by an off-screen Greg Sestero. Wiseau sits directly in front of a fireplace, with a mantel cluttered by a candelabra, a football, a basketball, red roses, and a clock radio;[19] next to him sits a large framed theatrical poster for the film. His dialogue throughout the interview, like in the film, is heavily dubbed.
What had me in tears was the part where the sound quality obviously changes as the audio switches from live to dubbed and then back to live. The interviewer (Mark from the movie) asks him why the movie is called "The Room" and Wiseau replies the room is "a special place, a private place, a place where you can be safe. And it's not 'a' room but it's 'the' room!"
Thanks for clearing that up.
If I haven't convinced you yet, here's a pretty good summary of the film:
http://www.ifc.com/news/2009/03/a-primer-on-the-room.php
Lastly, my favorite quote from a Rifftrax interview with one of the cast members:
A story which Greg wasn’t there for, but which remained legendary on the set throughout the shoot, occurred on the first day. Wiseau had a reputation for being “Sweaty and Smelly” on the set, and the cast watched in horror as he jumped on the actress who plays “Lisa” when they started filming their “love scene.” Lisa, who had pretty much “just gotten off the bus from Texas.” Oh, and she was 18. I believe our wincing was audible over the phone.
And...SCENE!
