The Best Worst Movie of the '00s: The Room (2003)
This is the only title on this list that's not a sci-fi or horror movie. Dubbed "The New Rocky Horror Picture Show" by Entertainment Weekly, this movie is one of the few worth the hype. Euro-trash Tommy Wiseau wrote, directed, starred, produced, and executive produced (for some reason, he gave himself two producing credits, a first in the industry) this overwrought soap opera. The basic premise: Lisa, the girlfriend of Johnny (played by Wiseau), cheats on him with his best friend Mark, and Tommy becomes distraught. That's it. And in case we couldn't follow the overly simplified story, the main elements of the plot are repeated over and over again in almost every scene. I lost count of how many times Lisa emphatically states to other characters: "I don't love Johnny anymore! I'm in love with Mark! Mark is Johnny's best friend!" Then later, in other scenes, different characters tell each other the same thing: "Lisa, you can't cheat on Johnny! Johnny is your boyfriend! Mark is Johnny's best friend!" Then Mark says in another scene: "Lisa, I can't have sex with you! You're Johnny's girl! I'm Johnny's best friend!" And Tommy tells Mark: "Mark, you're my best friend! Lisa is my girl!" And again. And again. Once you see Wiseau enter the first scene, with his long, greasy hair out of an '80s heavy metal band and gigantic, triangular shoulders and beefy physique stuffed into an odd-fitting suit with a skinny tie, you'll instantly fall in love with him. It's almost impossible to describe the logicor lack thereofof certain scenes, but I'll try: In one such scene, Tommy and his friends decide to toss a football. In an alley. Three feet away from each other. And they're all wearing tuxedos. The explanation? There isn't any. Just like there isn't any explanation when Lisa's mother casually announces she has breast cancer, Lisa coldly dismisses her, and then the mother's condition is never brought up again, despite the fact the character has several more scenes in the movie. Or the scene when a drug dealer threatens a young character for money at gunpoint, which has nothing to do with anything in the movie. Tommy and his friends rescue the kid and take the drug dealer away, and then this subplot is immediately dropped from the movie and never heard from again, even when the kid shows up later in the movie. My favourite is when Mark tries to throw someone off the roof of a building, and then literally seconds later, they make up and are friends again. "No hard feelings, eh? Sorry for trying to kill you...20 seconds ago." Did I mention that, similar to the leads in Werewolf, it's near impossible to understand Tommy's/Johnny's thick accent, as well as pinpoint its origin ("Everyone betray me!") or that there are not one but four extremely long and torturous sex scenes, two of which are near duplicates but placed at different points in the movie? Every major scene begins with characters entering a room and saying "hello" to each other, and each scene ends with them leaving the room and saying "goodbye." Then it fades to black, there's another establishing shot of San Francisco, where the movie takes place (they establish the
hell out of the Golden Gate Bridge), and it's repeated again: a scene begins, characters enter a room and greet each other, they talk awhile, and then they say "goodbye" and leave the room. Fade to black. Repeat. Wiseau didn't realise there's a reason why movies aren't structured this way. It's okay to begin a scene in the middle of someone's conversation! The movie's "emotional" climax, a surprise party for Johnny, has Johnny saying "hello" to every single guest before the scene is allowed to continue. The movie literally stops dead and takes a minute for Johnny to greet every person before the real dialogue begins. You'll want to greet these dubious disasterpieces during a bad movie marathon. Fire up your DVD/Blu-ray player, nuke some popcorn, and get ready to (unintentionally) laugh yourself silly.