The Room!!

Last Friday night I had the privilege of attending a midnight screening of The Room at the Coolidge Corner theater in Brookline. The film's enigmatic director/writer/producer/executive-producer/star Tommy Wiseau was in attendance for a Q&A session pre-screening and an autograph signing after the film. The big surprise of the night was that Tommy brought co-star Greg Sestero along with him.

For those of you unfamiliar with the cult-phenomenon that is The Room I suggest you check out the wikipedia entry on it, HERE.

The gist of it is this: made in 2003, The Room, a melodrama about a doomed love triangle, is considered the "Citizen Kane of bad movies." Everything about this film, from the atrociously inept acting and dialogue, the strangely un-erotic and gratuitous sex scenes, the bizarre use of green screen, the characters and sub-plots that are randomly introduced and then dropped, will leave you scratching your head, wondering how it all came together in the first place. After an initial theatrical run in L.A where it grossed a total of $2,000 and had audience members literally rolling in the aisles laughing at how terrible it is, Tommy decided to re-market the film as a "black comedy." Eventually the film began to find an audience at midnight screenings around the world and is now well on it's way to becoming this generations Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Here's a scene from the movie:


This movie is terrible beyond compare, but I defy you to look away from it. It's like a train-wreck, or a Michael Bay film. You don't want to watch, but you can't help yourself, you have to keep watching in order to see exactly how horribly it will turn out. Watching this film is a truly bizarre experience, while watching it you feel like you're looking at something that can't possibly exist, something that must be a huge joke, but it's not. I don't know how else to explain it, other than to say that watching this film with a passionate crowd of die-hard fanatics is truly a singular experience.

So, read that Wikipedia article that I linked to above, go to youtube and watch the film's trailer, and as many scenes as you can find. When you're done with that, if you're still intrigued, go HERE to read one of the best interviews ever conducted with Tommy Wiseau, who looks like a cross between Sylvester Stallone and The Scarecrow and has an accent that's completely unidentifiable. His origin is a complete enigma. Whenever questioned about his Nation of origin he simply says that he is an American and refuses to discuss the topic with any candor. AMAZING.

This is truly one of the more bizarre and intriguing cultural phenomenons in recent memory. If you have the opportunity to check out a midnight showing, especially one where Tommy will be in attendance, do it. I know I plan on going again the next time Coolidge Corner has a screening. Hopefully I'll see you there.

The Movie: 0 / 5 on the Awesome Meter

The Experience: 11 / 5 on the Awesome Meter

Exactly how did Tommy Wiseau come up with the six million dollars used to fund The Room?