Oh hi video games
September 8, 2010 8:40 PM Subscribe
The Room: The Game.
This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- Brandon Blatcher
Thanks, XQUZYPHYR. How's your sex life? Gotta go. Ok BYE.
posted by vincele at 8:50 PM on September 8, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by vincele at 8:50 PM on September 8, 2010 [1 favorite]
I ran out of e-patience - does it ever go beyond the conversation in front of the bank?
posted by ORthey at 8:51 PM on September 8, 2010
posted by ORthey at 8:51 PM on September 8, 2010
I was really hoping for heinous, overly long, interactive sex scene.
But this is so so so full of win otherwise.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 8:51 PM on September 8, 2010 [1 favorite]
But this is so so so full of win otherwise.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 8:51 PM on September 8, 2010 [1 favorite]
does it ever go beyond the conversation in front of the bank?
It covers the entire movie.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 8:52 PM on September 8, 2010
It covers the entire movie.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 8:52 PM on September 8, 2010
Got stuck at the thug fight. Apparently I can't throw bottles or footballs right. And taunting and glamor doesn't work. And I can't run, can I? They didn't run in the movie, right?!
posted by R343L at 9:00 PM on September 8, 2010
posted by R343L at 9:00 PM on September 8, 2010
If anyone can get me an MP3 of the haunting Theme From The Room, I will love them forever.
Also, I found all the spoons.
posted by cerulgalactus at 9:05 PM on September 8, 2010
Also, I found all the spoons.
posted by cerulgalactus at 9:05 PM on September 8, 2010
I thought it was referring to the Hubert Selby, Jr. novel.
That would have been a design challenge.
posted by Joe Beese at 9:07 PM on September 8, 2010 [1 favorite]
That would have been a design challenge.
posted by Joe Beese at 9:07 PM on September 8, 2010 [1 favorite]
Lol. There's a sandwich making minigame. I'm not sure what the purpose of making a sandwich is, but apparently it involves ingredients that you store in the cupboard under the sink?
posted by juv3nal at 9:09 PM on September 8, 2010
posted by juv3nal at 9:09 PM on September 8, 2010
I like the way Johnny's ass pulsates at the end of his shower.
posted by fryman at 9:16 PM on September 8, 2010
posted by fryman at 9:16 PM on September 8, 2010
I'm not sure what the purpose of making a sandwich is
To fully appreciate this, you have to have seen the movie. Nothing whatsoever in it makes sense at all. It is the Citizen Kane of bad movies.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 9:24 PM on September 8, 2010
To fully appreciate this, you have to have seen the movie. Nothing whatsoever in it makes sense at all. It is the Citizen Kane of bad movies.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 9:24 PM on September 8, 2010
I wanted to go see this when it was showing at the art house joint not far off, but I am probably not welcome there anymore. Either it's buying the DVD or signing up for NetFlix. If I buy the DVD, I could only do so with the intent of Pulling a Facade (wherein a friend and I talk about how great the movie is, but most people don't understand it, only to make our other friends think that they just don't "get" the film, a practice named after Facade ... with Eric Roberts).
Has word gotten out yet about how terrible this move is? If I am going to subject myself to the hell of watching it, I need to figure out who can be burned.
posted by adipocere at 9:31 PM on September 8, 2010
Has word gotten out yet about how terrible this move is? If I am going to subject myself to the hell of watching it, I need to figure out who can be burned.
posted by adipocere at 9:31 PM on September 8, 2010
adipocere: "wherein a friend and I talk about how great the movie is, but most people don't understand it, only to make our other friends think that they just don't "get" the film"
There is literally no way anyone would believe you honestly thought this movie is great.
posted by fryman at 9:45 PM on September 8, 2010 [1 favorite]
There is literally no way anyone would believe you honestly thought this movie is great.
posted by fryman at 9:45 PM on September 8, 2010 [1 favorite]
Reading this thread without checking the link is just amazing.
posted by turgid dahlia at 9:50 PM on September 8, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by turgid dahlia at 9:50 PM on September 8, 2010 [1 favorite]
Yay! A friend just sent me this link two days ago and I almost made this post myself. I finished the game yesterday. (Didn't find all the spoons, though.)
After being haunted by the ads with Tommy's loony face I finally saw "The Room" and wrote a review. (Years ago.) Seeing the movie in a crowded theater of "fans" was one of the most hilarious nights of my life. I highly recommend watching it.
posted by Kloryne at 9:58 PM on September 8, 2010
After being haunted by the ads with Tommy's loony face I finally saw "The Room" and wrote a review. (Years ago.) Seeing the movie in a crowded theater of "fans" was one of the most hilarious nights of my life. I highly recommend watching it.
posted by Kloryne at 9:58 PM on September 8, 2010
i mentioned this movie in a film class, actually (this is probably blasphemy to most) but comparing talking about John Casavetes "Faces" in a film class now was equivalent to talking about "The Room" twenty years from now. Someone took major offense to it, stating that some prof from our school worked on it.
posted by djduckie at 9:59 PM on September 8, 2010
posted by djduckie at 9:59 PM on September 8, 2010
To defeat the thug Mark R., you have to taunt or glamour first, which distracts him, then throw the football or bottle.
I have never seen this movie and I bailed out after taking Mark to the cops.
posted by Danila at 10:14 PM on September 8, 2010
I have never seen this movie and I bailed out after taking Mark to the cops.
posted by Danila at 10:14 PM on September 8, 2010
The Room is not a bad drama. Rather, it is an accurate simulation of how good I am at football.
posted by Uppity Pigeon #2 at 10:14 PM on September 8, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by Uppity Pigeon #2 at 10:14 PM on September 8, 2010 [1 favorite]
I don't get it. If "The Room" is really so bad, then why have so many of you seen it?
posted by archagon at 3:16 AM on September 9, 2010
posted by archagon at 3:16 AM on September 9, 2010
I don't get it. If "The Room" is really so bad, then why have so many of you seen it?
posted by archagon at 3:16 AM on September 9 [+] [!]
Have you never watched bad films with your friends while getting drunk? Have you never seen MST3K?
posted by cerulgalactus at 3:44 AM on September 9, 2010
posted by archagon at 3:16 AM on September 9 [+] [!]
Have you never watched bad films with your friends while getting drunk? Have you never seen MST3K?
posted by cerulgalactus at 3:44 AM on September 9, 2010
I don't get it. If "The Room" is really so bad, then why have so many of you seen it?
It's beyond bad. It's bad in ways that you couldn't imagine a film could be bad.
Also, we have no lives.
posted by Kinbote at 4:08 AM on September 9, 2010 [3 favorites]
It's beyond bad. It's bad in ways that you couldn't imagine a film could be bad.
Also, we have no lives.
posted by Kinbote at 4:08 AM on September 9, 2010 [3 favorites]
I don't get it. If "The Room" is really so bad, then why have so many of you seen it?
Put it this way - The Room is by far the worst film I have ever seen in a cinema. That screening was also by far the most fun I have ever had in a cinema. Sitting amid a hail of plastic spoons while people repeatedly yell advice to the characters on screen, roar "DENNY!" whenever that character appears on screen, and scream with (not entirely inauthentic) anguish during the interminable sex scenes is both surreal and wonderful.
Haven't played the game yet (I'm still at work, and I really don't want to try to explain it to my boss), but I have high hopes for it.
posted by ZsigE at 4:54 AM on September 9, 2010 [1 favorite]
Put it this way - The Room is by far the worst film I have ever seen in a cinema. That screening was also by far the most fun I have ever had in a cinema. Sitting amid a hail of plastic spoons while people repeatedly yell advice to the characters on screen, roar "DENNY!" whenever that character appears on screen, and scream with (not entirely inauthentic) anguish during the interminable sex scenes is both surreal and wonderful.
Haven't played the game yet (I'm still at work, and I really don't want to try to explain it to my boss), but I have high hopes for it.
posted by ZsigE at 4:54 AM on September 9, 2010 [1 favorite]
I think I've seen The Room more than I've seen any other film in the last five years, excepting possibly Hot Fuzz. It's a vortex of bad. A maelstrom. Literally every scene adds something horrendously awful to the mix. That's its real beauty, I think. Its pacing is incredible. Unlike other legendarily bad movies, there's never a part where it drags and becomes simply mediocre. You are always glued to the screen, reveling in its horrific genius.
There's the famous flower shop scene, where eleven or twelve horrible things go wrong in the course of a mere eighteen seconds. The shopkeeper can't recognize Johnny simply because he's wearing sunglasses, even though he's a bulk of a man with famous hair and a famous accent. He pays her money before she finishes telling him how much he owes. He says "Hi doggy" to the dog that's inexplicably sitting next to her. Her goodbye phrase is "You're my favorite customer."
Then there's Denny. Oh, Denny Denny Dennyboy. He's a strange manchild who doesn't walk so much as leap through the door to Johnny's apartment. He's in love with Johnny's girlfriend Lisa, tries to get in bed with her as she's playfully pillowfighting, tells Johnny how much he imagines kissing her on the lips. He's either twelve or twenty. There's no real explanation for his existence. He simply... exists. He also buys drugs from a man named Chris-R. Not Chris. Chris-R. As in, "Oh hi Chris-R."
Lisa's mother has a one-off line about breast cancer. As in, she mentions having it in one scene, in one line, and then it is never brought up again.
Then there's my favorite, the revolving door of "Johnny's Friend." See, in the first third of the movie Johnny has a friend named Mike. Mike makes the stupidest faces you'll ever see, and says lines like "I'm going to go see my girlfriend to make out with her" without somehow losing it. But then there's a football accident in an alleyway, and Mike disappears from the film. He is replaced with Peter the Psychologist, who keeps looking directly at the camera when he speaks. But Peter too has a football accident in the same alleyway, so that in the climax of the film Johnny's new friend is this nameless man who is so much the worst actor I've ever seen that he makes lines like "I agree with that" blisteringly funny. And he's not just given mediocre lines. He has the true climactic line of the film: "I feel like I'm sitting on an atomic bomb, waiting for it to go off!"
Things like this last vignette explain (in my opinion) the real allure of The Room. It's that lurking in this film are a lot of seeming narratives that border on the surreal. Why keep replacing Johnny's friends? Probably the actors quit, but then why do they always have a scene featuring tripping while playing football in an alleyway? There's something compelling to how it seems to follow its own twisted logic. Why are all the paintings in Johnny's apartment of spoons? Why in one scene is Lisa's neck slowly bulging out and pulsating? What was Tommy Wiseau's reasoning behind these things? After all, The Room is an auteur film, written, produced, directed by, and starring the same man. This is his vision fully realized.
It fascinates me. It really does. When I've met people who haven't seen The Room, I show it to them. And I've heard back from every group of friends I've shown this film to that they went on to show it to as many people as they know also. It blows away Plan 9 and Manos. It's truly a seminal moment in awful films.
----
Ahem. This game. That's right. It's really good. Play past the opening conversation. It's worth it just to see how Tom Fulp depicts Denny's place in the apartment complex. And the fight with Chris-R with the opening battle cue lifted directly from the later Pokemon games is hilarious. I love that the game follows Johnny, so that we only ever see what he sees. I haven't finished it, but I can't wait to see how twisted Lisa's betrayal seems when we don't see her schizophrenic personality swings like we do in the film.
posted by Rory Marinich at 5:51 AM on September 9, 2010 [15 favorites]
There's the famous flower shop scene, where eleven or twelve horrible things go wrong in the course of a mere eighteen seconds. The shopkeeper can't recognize Johnny simply because he's wearing sunglasses, even though he's a bulk of a man with famous hair and a famous accent. He pays her money before she finishes telling him how much he owes. He says "Hi doggy" to the dog that's inexplicably sitting next to her. Her goodbye phrase is "You're my favorite customer."
Then there's Denny. Oh, Denny Denny Dennyboy. He's a strange manchild who doesn't walk so much as leap through the door to Johnny's apartment. He's in love with Johnny's girlfriend Lisa, tries to get in bed with her as she's playfully pillowfighting, tells Johnny how much he imagines kissing her on the lips. He's either twelve or twenty. There's no real explanation for his existence. He simply... exists. He also buys drugs from a man named Chris-R. Not Chris. Chris-R. As in, "Oh hi Chris-R."
Lisa's mother has a one-off line about breast cancer. As in, she mentions having it in one scene, in one line, and then it is never brought up again.
Then there's my favorite, the revolving door of "Johnny's Friend." See, in the first third of the movie Johnny has a friend named Mike. Mike makes the stupidest faces you'll ever see, and says lines like "I'm going to go see my girlfriend to make out with her" without somehow losing it. But then there's a football accident in an alleyway, and Mike disappears from the film. He is replaced with Peter the Psychologist, who keeps looking directly at the camera when he speaks. But Peter too has a football accident in the same alleyway, so that in the climax of the film Johnny's new friend is this nameless man who is so much the worst actor I've ever seen that he makes lines like "I agree with that" blisteringly funny. And he's not just given mediocre lines. He has the true climactic line of the film: "I feel like I'm sitting on an atomic bomb, waiting for it to go off!"
Things like this last vignette explain (in my opinion) the real allure of The Room. It's that lurking in this film are a lot of seeming narratives that border on the surreal. Why keep replacing Johnny's friends? Probably the actors quit, but then why do they always have a scene featuring tripping while playing football in an alleyway? There's something compelling to how it seems to follow its own twisted logic. Why are all the paintings in Johnny's apartment of spoons? Why in one scene is Lisa's neck slowly bulging out and pulsating? What was Tommy Wiseau's reasoning behind these things? After all, The Room is an auteur film, written, produced, directed by, and starring the same man. This is his vision fully realized.
It fascinates me. It really does. When I've met people who haven't seen The Room, I show it to them. And I've heard back from every group of friends I've shown this film to that they went on to show it to as many people as they know also. It blows away Plan 9 and Manos. It's truly a seminal moment in awful films.
----
Ahem. This game. That's right. It's really good. Play past the opening conversation. It's worth it just to see how Tom Fulp depicts Denny's place in the apartment complex. And the fight with Chris-R with the opening battle cue lifted directly from the later Pokemon games is hilarious. I love that the game follows Johnny, so that we only ever see what he sees. I haven't finished it, but I can't wait to see how twisted Lisa's betrayal seems when we don't see her schizophrenic personality swings like we do in the film.
posted by Rory Marinich at 5:51 AM on September 9, 2010 [15 favorites]
I don't get it. If "The Room" is really so bad, then why have so many of you seen it?
I have seen it only once, and nearly walked out, but then it began to reel me back in. It has been with me for many months since then. It exists in a weird space where good and bad don't really apply. Consider this in light of mefi-favourite franchise, Alien and its sequels.
There are good movies (Alien and Aliens, to name two). There are bad movies (the theatrical release of Alien^3 and Alien: Resurrection). There are movies so bad they sort of come full circle back to enjoyable (Alien vs. Predator). There are are movies that are so bad they pass beyond that and should be consigned to the flames of woe (Alien vs. Predator: Requiem). You marvel that the filmmakers had so little grasp of the material or skill at engaging and audience.
The Room in is in this weird fifth category: movies that are so bad that they are appalling, but they exert a sort of horrified fascination. Whether it is the regular display of Wiseau's pantyhose-stuffed-with-walnuts physique, or the flower-shop scene played out like they are all double-parked and the traffic cop has just turned the corner, or the weirdly shimmering fever-dream view from the building rooftop, or the love scenes that are all exactly the length of a pop song and cannot decide between roses-and-candlelight-through-gauze and Wiseau's muscled ass pumping up and down... well, my god, there is just nothing else like it.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:21 AM on September 9, 2010
I have seen it only once, and nearly walked out, but then it began to reel me back in. It has been with me for many months since then. It exists in a weird space where good and bad don't really apply. Consider this in light of mefi-favourite franchise, Alien and its sequels.
There are good movies (Alien and Aliens, to name two). There are bad movies (the theatrical release of Alien^3 and Alien: Resurrection). There are movies so bad they sort of come full circle back to enjoyable (Alien vs. Predator). There are are movies that are so bad they pass beyond that and should be consigned to the flames of woe (Alien vs. Predator: Requiem). You marvel that the filmmakers had so little grasp of the material or skill at engaging and audience.
The Room in is in this weird fifth category: movies that are so bad that they are appalling, but they exert a sort of horrified fascination. Whether it is the regular display of Wiseau's pantyhose-stuffed-with-walnuts physique, or the flower-shop scene played out like they are all double-parked and the traffic cop has just turned the corner, or the weirdly shimmering fever-dream view from the building rooftop, or the love scenes that are all exactly the length of a pop song and cannot decide between roses-and-candlelight-through-gauze and Wiseau's muscled ass pumping up and down... well, my god, there is just nothing else like it.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:21 AM on September 9, 2010
I played through once...and now I'm looking for spoons. This makes sense, if you've played the game.
posted by taumeson at 6:41 AM on September 9, 2010
posted by taumeson at 6:41 AM on September 9, 2010
Wow. The ending was... considerably more violent than I recall.
Hint for people annoyed (as I was) by the dialogue: Press "s" to skip past it. And don't rush to the end.
Found the spoons, now I'm looking for tape recordings and Denny's diaries. Wow. WAY too much effort was put into this game.
posted by Rory Marinich at 7:19 AM on September 9, 2010
Hint for people annoyed (as I was) by the dialogue: Press "s" to skip past it. And don't rush to the end.
Found the spoons, now I'm looking for tape recordings and Denny's diaries. Wow. WAY too much effort was put into this game.
posted by Rory Marinich at 7:19 AM on September 9, 2010
Also: If you move early enough in the game, there's apparently a list of Things You Wish You Could Unsee. Go to Mark's apartment first chance and you see him in the hot tub with Claudette. Now I need to find the other things, dammit.
posted by Rory Marinich at 7:21 AM on September 9, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by Rory Marinich at 7:21 AM on September 9, 2010 [1 favorite]
Now, I must see this 'film.' As a collector of horrific cinema it must be mine. I will then compare it to 'Curse of the Cat People,' and make people watch it, all unknowing. Delicious pre-revenge will be mine- for there will be reprisals.
posted by LD Feral at 7:36 AM on September 9, 2010
posted by LD Feral at 7:36 AM on September 9, 2010
You can buy a copy of the DVD direct from the director for $9.75. And he'll autograph it.
http://www.theroommovie.com/buydirect.html
I suggest you do so.
The Room cannot be explained. It can only be experienced. With friends. Or even strangers. Invite that cool seeming guy or gal from 4B. Watching it alone would be a terribly miserable experience and a wasted opportunity.
posted by discountfortunecookie at 7:59 AM on September 9, 2010 [1 favorite]
http://www.theroommovie.com/buydirect.html
I suggest you do so.
The Room cannot be explained. It can only be experienced. With friends. Or even strangers. Invite that cool seeming guy or gal from 4B. Watching it alone would be a terribly miserable experience and a wasted opportunity.
posted by discountfortunecookie at 7:59 AM on September 9, 2010 [1 favorite]
Everyone in this thread should buy the Rifftrax of this film; it's the guys from MST3K (Mike not Joel) doing what they do best. Download an MP3, sync it up and it's amazing.
http://www.rifftrax.com/rifftrax/room
posted by JeremiahBritt at 8:21 AM on September 9, 2010 [1 favorite]
http://www.rifftrax.com/rifftrax/room
posted by JeremiahBritt at 8:21 AM on September 9, 2010 [1 favorite]
I found the RiffTrax to take away from the movie greatly.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 8:27 AM on September 9, 2010
posted by Threeway Handshake at 8:27 AM on September 9, 2010
Also: If you move early enough in the game, there's apparently a list of Things You Wish You Could Unsee.
That sums up The Room for me: a list of things I wish I could unsee.
I saw it for the first time about a month ago, after well over a year of eager anticipation. Bad movies are something of a hobby chez nous. We delight in them, and we've built a large collection of Bad Movies On DVD, for our viewing pleasure.
But The Room is... different.
I saw it not on DVD in the solitude of my home, but during a screening at a local bar. That was good: companionship is good during a disaster.
And at first I laughed and chattered and hurled quips at the screen --- especially during the painful, lingering love scenes, those scenes that unintentionally revealed so much about Wiseau's interior fantasy life (and dearth of imagination in the sack). And during the florist scene. And the football, oh the football!
It's almost impossible to describe how odd this film is. It's not just hopelessly inept (though it is certainly that), but uncanny, as if a group of non-Earthlings decided to make a Lifetime channel movie (but inexplicably decided to make it from the male point of view), and used signifiers that they thought actual humans would recognize: red roses and pillowfights are romantic; saying hi to doggies and supporting young persons of indeterminate age means you're a Good Person; pictures and portraits of spoons depict domestic comfort (?).
But after a while, my laughter wore off and a deep despair took hold. I still have not entirely shaken it.
Listen, I LOVE bad movies. But The Room is a different creature than, say, Road House or even Bloodrayne [self-links]. I can understand how and why those films got made, and how and why Boxing Helena got made, and how and why most of the very worst movies get made.
But I don't understand how and especially why someone spent giant sacks of money to make The Room, and seeing it made me wonder why anyone tries to do anything. Seeing the film plunged me into a pit of existential angst from which I have not fully emerged.
The Room is the abyss, and I have looked into it.
posted by Elsa at 8:59 AM on September 9, 2010 [2 favorites]
That sums up The Room for me: a list of things I wish I could unsee.
I saw it for the first time about a month ago, after well over a year of eager anticipation. Bad movies are something of a hobby chez nous. We delight in them, and we've built a large collection of Bad Movies On DVD, for our viewing pleasure.
But The Room is... different.
I saw it not on DVD in the solitude of my home, but during a screening at a local bar. That was good: companionship is good during a disaster.
And at first I laughed and chattered and hurled quips at the screen --- especially during the painful, lingering love scenes, those scenes that unintentionally revealed so much about Wiseau's interior fantasy life (and dearth of imagination in the sack). And during the florist scene. And the football, oh the football!
It's almost impossible to describe how odd this film is. It's not just hopelessly inept (though it is certainly that), but uncanny, as if a group of non-Earthlings decided to make a Lifetime channel movie (but inexplicably decided to make it from the male point of view), and used signifiers that they thought actual humans would recognize: red roses and pillowfights are romantic; saying hi to doggies and supporting young persons of indeterminate age means you're a Good Person; pictures and portraits of spoons depict domestic comfort (?).
But after a while, my laughter wore off and a deep despair took hold. I still have not entirely shaken it.
Listen, I LOVE bad movies. But The Room is a different creature than, say, Road House or even Bloodrayne [self-links]. I can understand how and why those films got made, and how and why Boxing Helena got made, and how and why most of the very worst movies get made.
But I don't understand how and especially why someone spent giant sacks of money to make The Room, and seeing it made me wonder why anyone tries to do anything. Seeing the film plunged me into a pit of existential angst from which I have not fully emerged.
The Room is the abyss, and I have looked into it.
posted by Elsa at 8:59 AM on September 9, 2010 [2 favorites]
It's almost impossible to describe how odd this film is.
Elsa, I had the exact same experience. Half-way through watching The Room I started to feel really anxious. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but The Room had this claustrophobic quality of a feverish dream. I think a large part of it has to do with the sheer incompetence of the movie. Most bad movies, while bad, are still fairly competent on a technical level. Scene transitions are effective. Dialogue progresses in a linear fashion, etc. But The Room is so ineptly made, it broke all of the standard conventions of filmic language that I had subconsciously learned.
But one thing in particular stood out. In nearly every scene, you always see each character enter and exit the scene. They're always coming in and going out. Opening doors, closing doors.
And one night it hit me. The only other thing I've seen to unsettle me in such a similar way was the last episode of Twin Peaks, when Cooper enters the Black Lodge. The way Cooper just keeps entering and exiting these rooms where there's no escape. The repetition. The way things are just wrong, just off in some in way. And then there's the redness of the rooms. The redness of the room in The Room echoes the redness of the curtains in the Black Lodge.
And so, for however hilariously bad The Room, and it is, there's also this perverse brilliance about it. Through misplaced passion and sheer incompetence Tommy Wiseau has created, at least for me, the film experience equivalent to entering Lynch's Black Lodge. And it's a beautiful, horrible, horrible thing.
posted by fryman at 9:19 AM on September 9, 2010 [3 favorites]
Elsa, I had the exact same experience. Half-way through watching The Room I started to feel really anxious. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but The Room had this claustrophobic quality of a feverish dream. I think a large part of it has to do with the sheer incompetence of the movie. Most bad movies, while bad, are still fairly competent on a technical level. Scene transitions are effective. Dialogue progresses in a linear fashion, etc. But The Room is so ineptly made, it broke all of the standard conventions of filmic language that I had subconsciously learned.
But one thing in particular stood out. In nearly every scene, you always see each character enter and exit the scene. They're always coming in and going out. Opening doors, closing doors.
And one night it hit me. The only other thing I've seen to unsettle me in such a similar way was the last episode of Twin Peaks, when Cooper enters the Black Lodge. The way Cooper just keeps entering and exiting these rooms where there's no escape. The repetition. The way things are just wrong, just off in some in way. And then there's the redness of the rooms. The redness of the room in The Room echoes the redness of the curtains in the Black Lodge.
And so, for however hilariously bad The Room, and it is, there's also this perverse brilliance about it. Through misplaced passion and sheer incompetence Tommy Wiseau has created, at least for me, the film experience equivalent to entering Lynch's Black Lodge. And it's a beautiful, horrible, horrible thing.
posted by fryman at 9:19 AM on September 9, 2010 [3 favorites]
And one night it hit me. The only other thing I've seen to unsettle me in such a similar way was the last episode of Twin Peaks, when Cooper enters the Black Lodge. The way Cooper just keeps entering and exiting these rooms where there's no escape.
... I have goosebumps.
The Fella gave me "Twin Peaks" on DVD for my birthday just a couple of weeks before we saw The Room; I assumed that my brain's cross-indexing of the two was a function of the timing and random brain-crazy, but you're dead right: there's a real similarity there.
posted by Elsa at 9:26 AM on September 9, 2010
... I have goosebumps.
The Fella gave me "Twin Peaks" on DVD for my birthday just a couple of weeks before we saw The Room; I assumed that my brain's cross-indexing of the two was a function of the timing and random brain-crazy, but you're dead right: there's a real similarity there.
posted by Elsa at 9:26 AM on September 9, 2010
Ok I need to buy this movie and obviously watch it. Horribly bad movies are a hobby of mine. Someone is getting 10 bucks from paypal! As for the game... I've played it and it sounds like a lot of detail went into making it. Maybe more than the movie itself.
posted by Mastercheddaar at 9:43 AM on September 9, 2010
posted by Mastercheddaar at 9:43 AM on September 9, 2010
Patton Oswalt - The Room parody
posted by thescientificmethhead at 10:02 AM on September 9, 2010 [2 favorites]
posted by thescientificmethhead at 10:02 AM on September 9, 2010 [2 favorites]
The Room is, what, five or so years old now? About due for a remake with Schwarzenegger, Affleck, and Cloris Leachman.
posted by maus at 10:36 AM on September 9, 2010
posted by maus at 10:36 AM on September 9, 2010
Mastercheddaar: You can't paypal, you have to actually write the dude a check and mail it.
Seriously.
That makes it better somehow. And that gives the opportunity to enclose a letter. Which I did.
posted by discountfortunecookie at 11:12 AM on September 9, 2010
Seriously.
That makes it better somehow. And that gives the opportunity to enclose a letter. Which I did.
posted by discountfortunecookie at 11:12 AM on September 9, 2010
Tommy Wiseau is a Lynch dream come to life. Lynch is all about the characters that just alter reality without thinking about it; it's what makes him so disturbing. Like, to them all the things they do seem completely natural. It's left to the audience to be uneasy since the characters refuse to be. That's what all of The Room is in a nutshell: People behaving like their completely bizarre actions are normal.
I like to think The Room is a parallel movie to Mulholland Drive. The two are surprisingly parallel. You have the idealistic life that's overacted to a fault, the unexpected love affair between two characters who have no real motivation to love one another, the suicide. I started typing this as a joke and now I've halfway convinced myself.
posted by Rory Marinich at 11:58 AM on September 9, 2010 [3 favorites]
I like to think The Room is a parallel movie to Mulholland Drive. The two are surprisingly parallel. You have the idealistic life that's overacted to a fault, the unexpected love affair between two characters who have no real motivation to love one another, the suicide. I started typing this as a joke and now I've halfway convinced myself.
posted by Rory Marinich at 11:58 AM on September 9, 2010 [3 favorites]
It's basically a piece of outsider art, except it cost $7m to make.
posted by unSane at 12:08 PM on September 9, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by unSane at 12:08 PM on September 9, 2010 [1 favorite]
Wait, 45 comments (including this one), and Gucky hasn't commented on this? I'm surprised.
posted by stannate at 2:23 PM on September 9, 2010
posted by stannate at 2:23 PM on September 9, 2010
You can't paypal, you have to actually write the dude a check and mail it.
But that'll be an out-of-state check! How on Earth does he intend to cash that?
posted by Galaxor Nebulon at 9:03 PM on September 9, 2010
But that'll be an out-of-state check! How on Earth does he intend to cash that?
posted by Galaxor Nebulon at 9:03 PM on September 9, 2010
Half-way through watching The Room I started to feel really anxious. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but The Room had this claustrophobic quality of a feverish dream. I think a large part of it has to do with the sheer incompetence of the movie. Most bad movies, while bad, are still fairly competent on a technical level. Scene transitions are effective. Dialogue progresses in a linear fashion, etc. But The Room is so ineptly made, it broke all of the standard conventions of filmic language that I had subconsciously learned.
This is how I felt about House of 1000 Corpses. I started watching it slightly drunk and happy; I finished it deeply depressed, and had to sit on the porch for a little while. Seeing a truly incompetent film makes me feel like I'm in one of those Lovecraft stories where the guy is in a house where the geometry is just somehow subtly wrong. The Room doesn't have quite that effect on me, but I do think there's something kind of soul-wearying about its endless repetition and sheer banality -- it's less that it's not lifelike than that it's an ugly parody of life (that is, admittedly, unintentionally fucking hilarious, which is its saving grace).
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:53 AM on September 11, 2010 [1 favorite]
This is how I felt about House of 1000 Corpses. I started watching it slightly drunk and happy; I finished it deeply depressed, and had to sit on the porch for a little while. Seeing a truly incompetent film makes me feel like I'm in one of those Lovecraft stories where the guy is in a house where the geometry is just somehow subtly wrong. The Room doesn't have quite that effect on me, but I do think there's something kind of soul-wearying about its endless repetition and sheer banality -- it's less that it's not lifelike than that it's an ugly parody of life (that is, admittedly, unintentionally fucking hilarious, which is its saving grace).
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:53 AM on September 11, 2010 [1 favorite]
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posted by oddman at 8:41 PM on September 8, 2010 [1 favorite]