Monday, June 22, 2009

Oh Hi My Readers

The Room



(This review is for Film For The Soul's "Counting Down The '00's".)

This movie was made and kinda released in 2003. It didn't get a huge opening and writer, director, producer, exectuive producer (I guess he don't know the difference either) AND star Tommy Wiseau spent the rest of his 50 dollar budget to rent a billboard for 5 years in L.A. My friend Adam was lucky enough to see this, but unfortunately it's been taken down. Damn. Anyway.

It soon enough got played at midnight shows and became a cult classic. But if you never seen this movie before, you're probably wondering "Is this movie really that bad?" Well, here goes.

In all my years writing reviews for bad movies, I've always figured you, the readers, were just taking my word how bad those movies are, maybe not even believing it could be THAT bad. Hell, I had people say to me that High School Musical isn't THAT bad. But here, this one time, I must ask you to trust me, believe in me, when I say:

This movie is fucking awful.

It's hard to do a proper review of this thing cause if you look at it, collectively, it's like every scene is really a short story involving the same 5 characters. Or like short versions of "90210" episodes or something. Cause things that happen in one scene is never mentioned ever again and lines of dialouge is repeated as if they were trying to market a catch phrase or something.

Basically, we focus on Johnny, played by Tommy. That sounds confusing I know, but bear with me. Johnny apparently is wealthy and is engaged to Lisa, or as he calls her "Leesah!" I forgot to mention that Tommy is from Non-America and speaks in a weird accent that reminds me of Christopher Walken making fun of someone with Down Syndrome.

Johnny brings home Lisa a silky red dress and wants her to put it on but here comes character #3, Denny. Denny is some kid Johnny sorta adopted and instead of having him live in the same apartment, put him in an apartment in the same building. Considering one of the plots in an upcoming short story, this was probably a bad idea.

Denny doesn't get the hint that Johnny and Lisa want to bone and lingers around way too long, even saying "I just like to watch you guys". Instead of ordering a restraining order, Johnny does his characteristic laugh "HA HA HA HA". Denny finally leaves, but only climbs on the window ledge to watch the following scene and beat off.

So we get sex scene number 1 and I suspect either Tommy worked for Cinemax or Cinemax produced this film at one point. You see plenty of boobs but the area Tommy is digging in is nowhere near Lisa's enterance if you get my meaning. It looks as if he's humping her pelvis, or even her belly button, which is a disturbing image. Speaking of disturbing images, we're treated to a shot of Tommy's wonderfully shaped ass.

[Image not found cause Jason was puking his guts out]

Short story #1 comes to an end and short story #2 begins with Lisa changing her mind about Johnny and wanting to leave him cause he's boring. He mentions this to her mom Claudette, who's a bitch in her own way. Claudette more or less tells Lisa that she's worthless and wouldn't be any good on her own so she needs Johnny and his money to survive. Then Claudette casually mentions she has breast cancer, which Lisa waves off.

Short story #2 ends.

We now meet Mark, a friend of Johnny's. Lisa decides to bone Mark and guilts him into it, which is easy actually. After another 20 minute sex scene where Mark was probably humping her femur (probably a sex fetish for that. Rule 34 n all), Lisa wants to leave Johnny for Mark.

Johnny meanwhile walks all over San Francisco (I been mentioning that city a lot lately, haven't I?) and wonders into a flower shop where the funniest scene happens. I'll post the clip cause even though you should seen this travasty on your own, you need to at least see this:



Lisa orders a weird pizza and gets Johnny drunk. They fuck some more.

Later, Lisa claims Johnny hit her, but "she don't know what she is talking about. I did not hit her. Oh, hi Mark."

There's a story involving Denny owing money to some drug dealer and the dealer is here to collect. But Johnny and Mark beat down the dealer. And that's the end of this story.

More humping from Lisa and Johnny and Lisa and Mark. Some near humping from two random characters that occassionally appear in the other stories. More scenes of Lisa acting cold to Johnny. Then we get this wonderful line:



Ok, no more videos from this movie.

Johnny and Mark run around the city throwing a football. Johnny, Mark, and Denny run around the roof throwing a football. Johnny, Mark, Denny, and some other guy who vanishes after this scene run around in tuxedos throwing a football. Johnny sets up a tape recorder by the phone which actually come up again. I think this is just the longest short story in the entire movie though.

Now it's Johnny's birthday and the only gift he got is the knowledge that Lisa and Mark been fucking during every other short story. Johnny is pissed, plays back a phone conversation between Lisa and Mark. Lisa leaves and Johnny trashes the room. Then Johnny puts a gun in his mouth and cause he's too beautiful to live, shoots himself.

Sorry to be spoilerific but I doubt you really care. Of course it's after this act that Lisa realizes she belongs with Johnny and hates Mark. Too bad Johnny died. I was looking forward to the sequel The Room 2: The Rug Tied It Together, Man.

There's not one redeeming featuring about this movie. It's awful, full of plot holes the size of my head, and if I ever see Tommy Wiseau's ass again I'm probably gonna kill any living thing within a 10 mile radius.



-Jason

4 comments:

Maria said...

I had hysterical blindness throughout most of this movie.

Rachel said...

I'd never heard of this movie until this past weekend, when the local independent theater here posted that they would be showing a special screening of it this weekend, admission only $5. I looked it up and was confused why they would be showing a movie that was 6 years old, but I've since found out the big joke behind it and how it's meant to be seen with a theater full of people and audience participation, like Rocky Horror.


After watching these two scenes and the trailer I saw elsewhere, I can now see why admission is so cheap.

Jason Soto said...

God, I wish a theater around here would do a special showing of it. I'd call in sick from work just to go.
-Jason

Fletch said...

I watched the Flower Shop scene at least 4 times.

"You're my favorite customer."