When faced with the question, there can be many interpretations. A religious person would say that the point is to serve a higher power. Perhaps Richard Dawkins would say that there is no point of existence expect to exist. An anti-realist would say that nothing exists outside the mind at all. The late great Bill Hicks might say "There is no such thing as death, life is just an illusion, and we're the imagination of ourselves."
I have had my world, and the very Universe torn open in front of my eyes in what addicts call a "moment of clarity," making me question if my very being is merely an illusion. Perhaps I only exist as long as I continue to believe I exist. Perhaps our Universe is merely a speck on a dust mote floating in the living room of a whole other unfathomably large world. Perhaps I am merely dreamt up by the maddest of unspeakable Eldrich demons in swirling cosmic voids.
All I know is that I can't be sure of anything about the nature of my existence anymore. And I owe this shaking of my perception of reality to one man: Tommy Wiseau.
Ohai.
You see, Tommy Wiseau was a guy who wrote a play. Then he tried to make it into a book. Nobody would publish it. So he said "Hey, I should just make a movie." So he did. Like any innovative, driven individual, he went out and made it happen. He wrote, produced, directed and starred in a little movie called "The Room." It played for 2 weeks in a grand total of 2 theaters, making less than $2,000. And so one would think that's where the story ends.
But oh no. It doesn't end there, my friends.
There is more, because in making "The Room," Tommy Wiseau had created...some thing. Something so mindbendingly bad that it defies explaination. The Lovecraftian horrors that had been seared into the film stock with unholy fire and had then been arranged in the blasphemous sequence which gave us "The Room" were enough to bring even the staunchest of strong willed individuals to their knees as the film ripped out their minds and feasted upon the still steaming viscera, driving them mad even as it engorged itself upon their souls.
It's kind of like that.
And it is quite possibly the most entertaining thing I've ever seen in my life. "The Room" is a goddamn masterpiece.
It's such a weird film to even talk about, because it's not really a "movie" in the way most people would think of one. No, "The Room" is an experience. I think even if you went into this thinking that you were going to simply see a bad movie and laugh at it, that still wouldn't prepare you. In fact, I'm not sure if anything could prepare you for "The Room." You really just have to brace yourself and dive in, hoping your brain will still be intact by the end.
Ok, ok, so what is "The Room" anyways? Well, it's about a guy named Johnny. He's a great person. We know this because everyone constantly reminds us. He's engaged to Lisa. She doesn't love Johnny anymore. We know this because she constantly reminds us. Mark is Johnny's best friend. We know this because everyone constantly reminds us. Lisa is secretly in love with Mark. We know this because she constantly reminds us. And as Johnny famously informs us, Lisa's actions are tearing him apart.
With ACTING!!!!
You may think I'm oversimplifying here, but seriously, that's all that's going on in "The Room." That's it. It's a standard love-triangle plot ripped straight from a soap opera. Somehow, that is stretched into 99 minutes. The main reason for this is because "The Room" contains some of the most circular, go-nowhere, repetitive dialogue you've ever heard. Nearly every conversation between the main characters can be summed up like this:
"I love Lisa so much."
"I AM EVIL!!!"
"You should marry Johnny."
"Johnny's my best friend! I can't bang Lisa!" ::bangs Lisa::
"It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again."
Just loop this dialogue and play it for an hour and a half. There's your content.
There are also several plot threads that come out of absolutely nowhere and are dropped nearly instantly, the most famous of these are the absolutely hysterical "breast cancer scene," which is more like the "breast cancer line," and the riveting Denny/Chris-R drug scandal. Characters show up at the end of the film whom we've never seen before, talking like they've been there the entire time. Pregnancy is lied about because "it's interesting." Tuxedos are worn for no apparent reason. Footballs are thrown at random. And then footballs are thrown while the guys wear tuxedos. Because that's what guys do.
It's all thoroughly confusing,
Still a better love story than "Twilight," though...
But that's not what makes "The Room" as notorious as it is. What makes "The Room" decimate your mind is the acting. Oh god. The acting in this movie is gloriously atrocious. Now, before I go any further let me make one thing clear, because you may have heard some things that are not true. Let me enlighten you.
Tommy Wiseau has gone on record saying that "The Room" was always meant to be a dark comedy. Don't you believe it. That is impossible. The reason it is impossible is because I don't believe that a human being has it in them to be that bad at acting on purpose. And by extension, I don't believe a human being could be that funny while knowing what they were doing. That kind of terrible can only come from pure incompetence.
Unless this is all some kind of elaborate ruse by Wiseau that's been going on for the past 10 years, which would make it the most amazing bit of character acting ever recorded in history. Remember when Joaquin Phoenix did "I'm Still Here" and basically tanked his career in real life, and made a jackass out of himself on Letterman, just to make a movie nobody wound up seeing...better I suppose? Anyway, that would have to be the level of commitment we're talking about here, only on a far grander scale. I mean, if Wiseau drops the act a few years from now and says we've all been duped, I'll be first in line to congratulate him.
But somehow I doubt that's what's going on...
The acting in "The Room" is, to put it simply, among the worst you'll ever see. And that's across the board. These people are all terrible. But it's the unfathomably bizarre dialogue that Wiseau has them saying that turns what would normally be painful into something that's quite frankly shockingly entertaining. And when paired together with Wiseau's impossible to pin down accent, there are scenes that are enough to have you laughing close to tears.
"I deed nawt hit hurr, iz nawt true! Iz bullsheet! I did nawt hit hurr! I DID NAWT."
So how could this mess, this absolute train wreck turn out to be a fantastic time? Easy. Get your friends, especially if they've seen it before. Get some booze. Schedule a party around it. Press play. It will be some of the most fun you'll ever have watching a movie with a group of people. Look up drinking games online to play while you're watching it. There's also "audience participation" scripts I've seen that are a lot of fun, too. Yell back at the movie. It's best to think of this as an event rather than a "movie night."
As far as the rest goes, there's not much more I can say that would do it justice. You really just have to experience "The Room" for yourself because it is just incredible. It may be notorious as one of the worst films ever made, and Tommy Wiseau has been rightly compared to Ed Wood, but I've sat through some truly abominable films and none, I repeat, NONE of them has come anywhere close to being as flat out entertaining, or transporting me to another plane of existence like "The Room" has. This movie has a certain power, for good or for evil, I cannot say. But to deny is to be a fool.
So yeah. "The Room" is probably my favorite bad movie. It's the perfect storm of crap. It's so ungodly bad that it loops itself to become one of the most entertaining things I've ever seen. That being said, do NOT watch it alone. It would be your ruin. "The Room" is too powerful for one person to tackle by themselves. But together, you and your friends will have a riot.
So anyway, how's your sex life?
THE BOTTOM LINE - I love "The Room." If you can get some willing individuals and a lot of booze together, there are few movies as fun as Tommy Wiseau's magnum opus. Highly Recommended.
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