A Review of "The Room" (2/3)

It's time to dig into The Room! This is going to be a lengthy review because I'm about to tear into this turd and rip it to pieces... much like everyone who's ever watched over the past sixteen years has done. If you want to read up on my introduction to the review as well as some background information on the turmoil-ridden production of the film, you can read part one here. If you've already read Part One because you're a diligent follower of mine, then let's get started! Saddle up, this is going to take some time.

After our opening logo that looks like something you'd rig up in two minutes on Windows Movie Maker and a mid-90s Flash Animation Engine, we cut to actually quite promising piano music complete with shots of San Francisco. A lot of shots of San Francisco. If anything, it starts to feel less like a movie and more like one of those videos you get in the mail telling you to move to San Francisco. Well, during all these shots and this peaceful music, we see a man who looks like Fabio if somebody just let the air out of him board a cable car and ride down the street. Along the way, credits reveal the cast and crew, and one name you'll see time and time again is "Tommy Wiseau", a man of relatively unknown Mideastern origins who you come to realize has a lot to do with this movie. He's the top-billed actor, an executive producer, a producer, the writer and the director. The amount of involvement really sets the tone for one of two possible outcomes: either this movie is going to be a touching personal story that will tug at your heart strings or it's going to be something else entirely. Well, don't worry... it's something else entirely, and something else even more entirely. As the opening credits end, we see our main character Johnny enter his house and right as he starts talking, the movie crashes. Hard. Right into a brick fucking wall. That slurred "HI BAYBE" sets the tone for the rest of the hilarity that's about to ensue. QUICK. TO PLOTLINE #1.

Everywhere you look, everywhere you go
There's a heart, a hand to hold onto!

PLOTLINE #1: Johnny (Tommy Wiseau) is a successful banker who lives in a San Francisco townhouse with his fiancée Lisa (Juliette Danielle), who has become dissatisfied with their relationship. She seduces his best friend, Mark (Greg Sestero), and the two begin a secret affair. Meanwhile, Johnny, having overheard Lisa confess her infidelity to her mother, Claudette (Carolyn Minnott), attaches a tape recorder to their phone in an attempt to identify her lover.

So Denny (Philip Haldiman) decides to visit Johnny and Lisa while they're flirting with each other. Johnny just bought Lisa a new red dress out of the blue and she tries it on. So a kid barges in to see them and then Johnny's just all like "Nice to see you, Denny" and then turns to Lisa and is all like "I'm going to take a nap". I'm not kidding. Denny just shows up and Johnny's like 'hi whatever, fuck you, I'm going to bed'. Lisa is just like "Denny I'm going to join him" and then the two walk upstairs to bump uglies while Denny just indiscriminately starts eating an apple. This wouldn't be so weird until Denny just decides to pop in during their foreplay and join in on the pillow fighting. What in the fuck is happening? Then Denny says "I just like to watch you guys", sending unending tidal waves of uncomfortable right into the room. To talk him out of a potentially weird situation, Johnny says "Denny two's great, but three's a crowd" and Denny agrees to leave. Thank Goodness, too. Who wouldn't want to watch three fucking bizarre characters we've known for five minutes partake in a three-way. It's definitely a blessing, because what we get in return is awkward slow-motion sex between Johnny and Lisa that's fucking awful. It takes them forever to even undress. Lisa puts her hair down, only to put it up again. Then Johnny starts grinding on her belly button, because I guess that's how Johnny had sex in whatever-European-country he came from.

Greg Sestero no doubt scolding Tommy Wiseau for
not cutting his scenes like he promised.

So ten minutes in. We've had bad accents, dry acting, clunky dialogue and an awkward sex scene. God bless this movie. Johnny then wakes up from his alarm (set mysteriously at "6:28 AM" for whatever reason) and then shows us his ass as he walks away. This movie just keeps getting weirder and weirder. Oh, but if you think that's funny, this is even better. TO PLOTLINE #2!

PLOTLINE #2: Claudette, Lisa's mother, visits Lisa very often in the film, discusses useless shit, including the fact she has breast cancer, that Lisa doesn't love Johnny anymore and that "it's not right Lisa". She also is revolutionary in the practice of 'micro visits', quick, successive visits and many at that.

Claudette, Lisa's mother keeps coming over. She comes over again and again throughout this movie and they talk about the same thing. The first meeting has Lisa telling Claudette that "she doesn't love Johnny anymore" "because he's so boring". Please, a man who makes love to women's navels couldn't be boring in the least bit. Claudette keeps saying "He bought you all these things and you want to dump him" and Lisa's just like "You're right about that". So... I guess that's the end of that. Also, she humorously tells Lisa she has to go two minutes after she got there. So then Lisa just calls Mark, Johnny's best friend, and demands she listen to her whining. So they make a plan and Mark comes over and Lisa ends up seducing him for... more slow-motion awkward sex. On a stairwell, of all places. "The candles, the music, the sexy dress", when literally none of the three are present in the scene. My GOD this movie is balls. Awful, awful stuff, man. Can't say it isn't enjoyable though. In fact, you want enjoyable? There's even a humorous exchange after this where Johnny visits a florist shop to buy roses for Lisa and has about a thirty-second conversation & transaction with the store owner. I'm not kidding, it's "hi, hello, I want roses, okay you can have them, hi doggy, bye" and then he's gone. I've never had any sale anywhere go that fast. Plus, the clerk didn't even know it was Johnny until after he got right in her face. "Oh hi, Johnny, I didn't know it was you." Like... how? You didn't recognize Johnny? He's got a pretty unique look.

Tommy Wiseau doing his best impression of a
wildebeest stubbing it's toe.

So then Johnny comes home and is pretty bummed and YET ANOTHER crazy exchange takes place. Probably number fifteen on our list by this point. Lisa asks Johnny if he gets his promotion, he says "Nah" and then she goes "You didn't get it did you?" What part of "nah" did you not understand, Lisa? Then Johnny rambles on and on about how he saves his bank money and they're using him and he's the fool. I don't know what's being accomplished in this scene or why. Lisa then pours Johnny a drink of "scotch and... vodka" and the two make love again. We've hit three sex scenes in half an hour. This movie is setting records in all the wrong places and it's only downhill from here, I assure you. The pop song in this one is even shittier than the pop song in the first one. See? Downhill. After that, Lisa's mom comes over for yet another pointless visit. She tells Lisa that she has "breast cancer", but Lisa is just complacent and immediately glances over it. I'm really glad Lisa's great at taking bad news so nicely. Then Lisa tells Claudette that "Johnny got drunk and hit me last night", to which Claudette responds with "Johnny doesn't drink", immediately glancing over the fact that Lisa just said Johnny hit her. What the fuck is happening? Seriously, am I being pranked? Because I don't do jokes that well. Before we get carried away (even though we already are), to PLOTLINE #3!

PLOTLINE #3: Random People in this movie barge in-and-out of the apartment and have sex in it for no reason, no purpose and no ultimate meaning on the end of the plot of the movie at all, period. Oh, and one man showed Claudette his "Underwears" like an awkward chode.

Tommy laughing at the 17 Oscars and 43 Golden Globes
this movie won't even come close to winning....

Just then, two nameless friends of Lisa enter their apartment when nobody is home and just decide to seduce each other by eating chocolate and having sex. Lisa and her mother then show up after they're done and wonder why everyone just barges in repeatedly without knocking, something the viewer of this anus is questioning at the same time. Who knows? Maybe the film is self-aware. Then Claudette and Lisa discuss the same shit they've been discussing since the start of the movie, only this time they discuss that Johnny wanted to adopt Denny and is paying Denny's way through college. Claudette then jumps back to "Not hurting Johnny" even though "Lisa doesn't love him anymore". Claudette then bails again in record time and leaves. I feel like I'm watching this movie's worst clips on a continuous loop.

Whew, I think that's enough for this one. Check in for Part Three where I attempt to wrap up this mess...

No, I'm Not Really Interested in The Lion King

Hello all. You're probably wondering where I've been the past couple of months. Not deceased, thank goodness. That I can assure you. Aside from the fact I've been working myself to death and coming home tired every night from a new job? Well, actually that's about it. Don't worry, The Room reviews are still on the way. Part two is being edited and Part three has been started, but not finished. However, tonight (or today, by the time you're reading this) I just wanted to react to something that flew across social media this morning.

As you're probably already aware, the latest (and greatest) trailer for 2019's cinematic déjà vu The Lion King was released this morning. It showcases that same uncomfortably lifelike CGI from 2016's own déjà vu The Jungle Book wrapped around the motifs and iconic imagery from that one Disney VHS tape that everybody and their cousin has seen a billion times over; The Lion King, a movie so ingrained in our psyche that UK Region 2 Blu-ray imports are hard to come by. The trailer even included original score from Hans Zimmer to tickle your nostalgia with a feather and bring your shattered adult soul back to the years when you were a kid and raping your parents' VCR with that legendary VHS tape of the '94 version over and over again. So... why am I not really interested in it? Well, to be perfectly honest, there is no reason for this movie to exist.

Does that really need to be said though? I feel like everyone has entered kind of a cinematic haze where every time a remake comes out, they just dump the old one and forget about it, bury it in the past. Now, don't get me wrong. Remakes aren't necessarily a bad sign... such as the Al Pacino Scarface, which just wiped the original 30s version from existence, pretty much. Nobody I've met in my life refers to the 30s version when they say Scarface, it's always the Pacino version. The Fast and the Furious? I'll bet you didn't know the Vin Diesel, Paul Walker 2001 street-racing flick just borrowed it's title completely from 1955's The Fast and the Furious. Granted the '55 Fast has nothing to do with 2001's Fast and vice versa, but both films do center around street racing. James Cameron's True Lies? Yep. Not even kidding, and it's original version wasn't even America... or even that old. 1991's French film La Totale! was the focal point and story focus for 1994's action flick True Lies, basically the same movie, thus arguing that True Lies... as classic as it is... is a remake.

But then there are remakes that have literally no purpose for existing. Remakes where you wonder what the point even was or why money was even spent on it. 1951's The Day the Earth Stood Still is a timeless science-fiction classic. Granted its special effects are pretty cheap by today's standards, but it stands tall as a centerpiece of sci-fi history. Keanu Reeves' 2009 remake? A complete sociopolitical farce with no ending and just a couple of "really cool scenes" used to sell a movie. 2011's Total Recall? There was no point in remaking Schwarzenegger's Total Recall. Absolutely none. Vince Vaughn's version of Psycho? A MOVIE THAT IS LITERALLY NOTHING MORE THAN A SHOT-FOR-SHOT, SIDE-BY-SIDE EXACT REMAKE OF ALFRED HITCHCOCK's MASTERPIECE? DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED. Seriously, it's well documented by film buffs everywhere that if you just put Hitchcock's Psycho and the 90s Psycho side-by-side and watch them... they're literally the same movie, shot-for-shot... just with different actors and the 90s version's in color. Fucking deplorable.

The Lion King, while not in the same vain as Psycho, is shaping up to be just another useless remake. Yet people are losing their minds over it like the first one doesn't even exist anymore. It's like this is the first time people are even discovering this movie, and what a coincidence too because the focal points behind what made the original so memorable are all back again. James Earl Jones, who voiced Mufasa in the 1994 Lion King is voicing Mufasa again in the 2019 Lion King. Hans Zimmer? With one of the only masterful scores he ever did being 1994's The Lion King? He's scoring 2019's The Lion King. You'd think being the musical composer of the 21st Century, Hans would trip us up with some new material. Nope... just revised and more elaborate takes on the original material. Even Sir Elton John , the music-making badass himself, the man behind all the classic songs from the original 1994 version? He's back supervising the songs for the 2019 remake. Well if they're going to go all the way, let's not stop there! I'm just glad they secured the master of sinister evil-doing, Jeremy Irons, to return as Scar--... wait, they didn't? Motherfu--. It's like... why? Why only get some of the people who made the '94 version so memorable? Oh, because you didn't want it to just seem like you were making the same movie over again? Well, welcome to the rodeo, Calamity Jane! Zazu's not Rowan Atkinson (dammit), Rafiki isn't Robert Guillaume (probably because he's dead), Timon isn't even Nathan Lane (shit), and Pumbaa is everybody's favorite Pineapple Express jackass Seth Rogen (fuck). If they have Pumbaa make an off-handed, under-the-table marijuana joke I'm going to slit my wrists. However, while they are pissing on the supporting cast by casting a bunch of nobodies (minus Rogen, of course), they have ramped up their main characters. Donald Glover is Simba in 2019, and Beyoncé is Nala. So... at least that's something. Boy, she's come a long way from being Steve Martin's uncomfortably young and ill-fitted love interest in The Pink Panther... also another useless remake, as a matter of fact, but that's not the point here. 

It just proves that you can't remake something with such a name and fan base. It's like trying to remake Back to the Future or Raiders of the Lost Ark. You won't come within a thousand light years of topping the original material. The iconic nature of each scene and each character are just too well-ingrained in pop culture. Yet, all these Disney quasi-live-action/photo-realistic CGI remakes are just the beginning, too. Soon every Disney movie you ever watched as a kid will soon get a Jon Favreau $300 million makeover. A remake of Tarzan with Jason Momoa will come out and gross like $800 million worldwide off of nostalgia (and inflation) alone and Disney will just keep cranking these things out. Chris Hemsworth's Hercules will soon be announced, the remake of Mulan is already on the way (that one's not a joke), Aladdin is due out this May. I just... have no desire in seeing something I've seen already. A thousand times. Just because it looks prettier. Yes, I have no doubt it'll be a good movie, and yes it'll be awe-inspiring in its presentation, but you don't need to see it to already know that. However, I can't stop you from seeing it. It is going to be a cultural event whether I like it or not, so go see it and enjoy it and be happy. Just remember; the only reason it'll be a good movie is that it's just remaking a good movie.