Roomies

Now I've mentioned The Room before.

I won't go into it in great detail again, as you can find the full dissection here. However, after watching it a second time on Sunday whilst slightly hungover (it loses nothing on second viewing), it was pointed out to me by a friend what's wrong with it. Apart from the fact that Tommy Wiseau padded out 60 minutes of film with 30 minutes of establishing shots, the whole film is like it's been created by someone who has never watched a film before. Sure, he's away of the abstract concept of what a movie should be, he just has no practical knowledge.

It's still awesome though. If you don't like it, then as far as I'm concerned, you can drop off the Earth. That's a promise.

Travolta Fail

So after years and years of hearing it was the worst film ever, I finally saw "Battlefield Earth".


I'm not even going to joke about it too much, as it just made me feel dirty. My friend assures me the book is better, but I'll be damned if I'm going to read it now. 


As bad films go, it's nowhere near as brilliant as "The Room". Frankly, I was bored.


Although perhaps the reason the aliens aren't intimidating is because they're supposed to be giants but just end up looking like really tall drag-queens. Not that drag queens can't be intimidating, but John Travolta as a drag queen can't be intimidating.


Just saying.

Drive Irritated

After the astounding awfulness of “The Room”, there was still a Shite Movie Saturday to be had, so we began working our way through the cavalcade of crap cinema that we’d accumulated in preparation of the big day.

Kicking things of was “Bitch Slap”, a lesbian heist movie that was to “Bound” what “2 Fast 2 Furious” was to “Crash”. With far too much budget than it deserved, it was effectively various interconnected scenes of three women in increasingly skimpy outfits…not that 75% of the audience minded (sorry Jane). In it’s defence it did have one of the best girl versus girl fights I’ve seen in a really long time (perhaps even since “Kill Bill”), and it had cameos by all of the main characters from Hercules and Xena, which reminded me just how bad some of the shows I used to watch when I was 14 actually were (can’t believe I used to fancy Gabrielle). But ultimately “Bitch Slap” had a curvy red head in it, so it wasn’t too hard a sell for me.

After that, we moved on to the B-Movietastic “Piranha”, which I had no problem sitting down to watch if only because it had Kelly Brook in it…who has pride of place on my top five, laminated list. Plus it had cameos from Richard Dreyfus and Christopher Lloyd, which in itself made it worth a viewing. It was what it was, but I think the fact that it reminded me of an Eighties’ creature-feature led me to enjoy it more than most. Plus, I have a smug self-satisfaction whenever I know that the framing of a particular shot within the conventions of a genre means that someone is about to come to a bloody “surprise” end. Overall, thoroughly predictable but still quite enjoyable.

Finally as the coup-de-grace we had “Drive Angry”, the Nic Cage vehicle (ithankyou) that I’d wanted to sit down and watch for months. To say it was over-the-top would be an understatement, but I loved every ridiculous minute of it. William Fitchner is great as the creepy accountant, who works as black comic relief, and Amber Heard manages to be a tough leading lady without being annoying or cliché. All that and it had a great soundtrack of old school rock. All-in-all it was everything a tongue-in-cheek action movie should be.

God I love bad movies.

The Citizen Kane of bad movies

After several months of cajoling from friends, I finally sat down to watch "The Room" at the weekend.

Now I love a bad movie more than most, almost as much as a good one. Watching a bad movie with friends is a much more social activity than watching something that you're actually interested in. When you care about what you're watching you don't want people interrupting you or asking you questions or making jokes. When you're watching a bad movie, that's all part of the experience. That's why my DVD collection features a smattering of Godfrey Ho, washed down with a big dollop of Mark Dacascos.

Knowing my fondness for watching absolute crap with my friends, a colleague at work had recommended that I bring "The Room" to the proverbial table for our next Shite Movie Saturday. After it was described to me as the "Citizen Kane" of bad movies, the bar was already set pretty high.

And "The Room" did not disappoint.

A wonderful hybrid of horrible acting, bad dubbing, unnecessary sex scenes, ridiculous writing and hideous direction, this film failed on all levels. And I loved it for it.

Even greater was the startling amount of needless plot points that were raised once and then never revisited:

- What happened with Lisa's uncle trying to take the Mum's house?

- What happened with Denny's drug addiction?

- Does Chris R (somewhat of a pointless last initial there) still want Denny dead?

- What was happening with the Mum's breast cancer?

- Who's the dude that only shows up in the last ten minutes yet seems to be everyone's best friend?
- Why are they playing football in tuxes?
- Why did Wiseau give himself two production credits?

The dialogue was laughable, and yet instantly quotable - "Oh hai Mark" will surely be my new stock greeting. "As far as I'm concerned, you can just drop off the face of the earth. And that's a promise" was my personal favourite. I'm sure the more a rewatch this misjudged masterpiece, the more lines I'll add to my repertoire.

All in all, I can't recommend the film that Tommy Wiseau wrote, produced, executive produced (I wasn't kidding), directed and starred in enough. By the end, I genuinely couldn't tell if he was pulling my leg, or if he just has more money than sense.

Either way, it's one to watch with a big group of friends and an even bigger stash of alcohol.

Just make sure you don't end up in a hospital on Guerrero Street. That'll make sense later.