For those who need a quick refresher course, 'The Room' is the biggest clusterf*ck of a feature film to make it to the big screen this decade, inexplicably fueled with millions of mysterious dollars by the movie industry's (or any industry's) most unlikely candidate, Mr. Tommy Wiseau. A 6 page spread on 'The Room' came out last month in Entertainment Weekly, and shed some light on what's grown to be a rather large cult following in LA.
Summoned by the original 'triumvirate' of the cult following--Michael, David, and Scott--I came for the second screening of this film when it 'premiered' at the Fallbrook Laemmle in the valley in June 2003, and my life has been forever changed. My experiences at the 25+ screenings I've gone to over the past 5 1/2 years are extensive and incredible...best characterized by the rituals and sayings that we have created--and have been perpuated by perfect strangers at subsequent screenings--as well as the novel things that fans continue to bring to the theater to make every screening new and enjoyable. One way of looking at 'The Room' experience is as if everyone in the audience is a comic, and the beats in between spoken lines are a test bed for their sarcastic fodder.
It's been screening on the last Saturday of every month since that opening weekend in June 2003, and every time I went, I was sure it was the last year we would ever hear of 'The Room'. And like clockwork, every screening I've gone to has new faces, gleaming on their way out of the theater, talking miles-a-minute about the very peculiar thing they just sat through.
And still, that billboard pops up on Highland Ave (and Beverly Dr before), and completely confounds any driver going north into the Cahuenga pass, expecting something conventional like a 'Paul Blart' poster.
So here's to you, Mr. Wiseau. May you continue turning the Hollywood model upside-down, may you continue making earnest (but utterly vile) independent films, and long may the plastic spoons fly at whatever screen they're playing on.
No comments:
Post a Comment