I WILL NO LONGER be passionate about The Room

I think I'm going to start doing some of my posts in series, this is the second entry in the I WILL NO LONGER series where I give up stuff in order to make my life more livable.

I WILL NO LONGER be bitter about the movie project

These probably won't be funny. Sorry in advance

"Have you heard of this terrible movie called The Room"

- Me, every conversation for the past year and a half.

The Room is a movie made almost entirely by one man who does not understand how a movie is made. The failures are on every level starting with premise (his, based on a play/novel or something), script (his), setting (a hastily put together apartment stage), direction (his direction, using two very different types of cameras with little consistency of focus, white balance or even resolution), and of course acting (with him as the lead and a bunch of the most random people ducking for cover throughout the movie).

The guy is Tommy Wiseau and the movie is The Room. I am not here to talk about the movie, I am here to talk about my love for the movie and how I finally learning to let it go.

THE ROOM TRAILER

Multiply that trailer out by about 50 times with 3 and a half softcore scenes and you have The Room. But again, we are not here to talk about The Room, we are here to talk about my love of The Room.

I heard about The Room from an entertainment weekly article and used a file sharing website to obtain a copy of it for myself. I played some random iPhone game during the first screening, and with no other plans for the rest of the evening I played it again as soon as it was done. It was terrible, from top to bottom. And as an amateur video person (oh you'll be seeing some stuff in the future) I can appreciate terrible. In fact I believe in a couple years that the population as a whole will acknowledge the fact that crap is the new awesome. The Room was a special kind of terrible, not just in quantity but in caliber. It is almost hypnotic in its awfulness.

So I watched it probably 5 times on my own, then I roped my friend Eric into it. Despite being very resistant to it at first he eventually watched it and felt like we could contribute something to cult of The Room.

The Room 2: Even Roomier

That. Just. Happened. I'm sorry if you hit the play button, but believe me that it hurt me more than it hurt you. Most of the lines were ripped from the movie, because while I'm not a writer, english is my first language so I couldn't replicate Tommy's style without copying him verbatim. This required a lot of viewings, most of them alone in my mother's basement, which even Tommy Wiseau would say is the worst way to watch The Room. Oh and I just found out the video got mentioned poorly in a Times UK article:

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article6905117.ece

So from then on every person I would tell about The Room I could also give proof of my love of The Room by telling them about my homemade sequel. Eric and I planned a sequel to Bloodsport but we couldn't find the love and I couldn't get Jean Claude's abs if my life depended on it.

Tommy Wiseau singing his version of "A Whole New World"

This valentines day I took a spur of depression trip to Chicago to see "The Room" with introduction and follow up Q&A with Tommy Wiseau. It was nuts. Sadly I had been up since 5AM that day so I didn't stay after to shake his hand and tell him he's my favorite customer. I ended up falling asleep in a gas station somewhere in Indiana on the way back. Briefly that night/morning I thought I was going to be raped, but no matter how hard I blew my whistle no one came.

Enlisting some friends and enemies, I've driven over 1320 miles in various subsequent trips to see The Room in the same grody theater. Here is a pic from the latest trip:

The Dark Side of The Room

Despite the awfulness of The Room and the insanity of its front man Tommy Wiseau, every viewing or discussion I have about movie leaves me with an increasingly hollow feeling. Where excitement used to be now there is exasperation, and I think its mainly due to my tank being empty in regards to the movie. I've said everything I need or can say on the subject. When Sleepy Cricket butchers a Room quote in my general direction I now just roll my eyes instead of trying to salvage the scene that he is trying to recreate.

When he got me riled up to film another sequel/prequel to the movie (and grow out the beard again) I did so with my usual (slightly obsessed) determination but without the passion. Days later when Sleepy Cricket dropped the idea I was actually happy, unlike my feelings about his other aborted video project he's wrapped me into.

The Room is his now. Literally The Room is his, I gave him my copy of the DVD and I don't plan on seeing it again. I believe SLEEPY CRICKET and the other 30 people I've infected with The Room will be good stewards of the film. They will spread the movie's legacy like a tapeworm spreads its tapeworm babies. Or are they clones? I don't know how tapeworms work and my Internet is being awful so I'll leave it to you to look up.

Finally I think I'm done with The Room, not just to me being over it and SLEEPY CRICKET taking the reigns, but because the bros are starting to catch on to it. I have always been a trend setter, not that people look up to me because people are naturally disposed to hating me (it's a family thing). But me and my fellow "trend setter/people haters" have brought The Room into their lives, fallen in love, learned and fallen out of love with it. Its time for it to be passed on to the bros. They will run it into the ground and I will be able to move on. Maybe this time I won't move on to some fringe movie, maybe I'll move onto something real. Like a skill or talent. Maybe I'll move on to the "Piano for Dummies" computer software I bought last month. Or maybe I'll move on to a similar waste of time such as this blog.

Alright I'm done. Done with this post. Done with The Room.

Take it SLEEPY CRICKET, it's all yours.

I WILL NO LONGER be bitter about this: Untitled Movie Project

This was supposed to be funny and just turned out angry, I'm going to post it anyway. Sleepy cricket you know I love you so don't feels bad.

I consider myself a pretty creative person who has yet to find his creative outlet. Until I am struck by some type of talent or skill I will record things on my camera and put the on the Internet. In late 2009 I was sent this facebook invite by a "camp friend."

Recently I had lost a lot of my collaborators to old age (they got successful or douchey) so I was very intrigued by the offer. So I participated and slowly transitioned from "camp friend" to someone where if a mutual acquaintance were to see me they would be like "hey where's the other ones?"

But back to the movie, they had an idea (lesbians and a slob) and 1.5 pages of script (something about a girl flushing the toilet while the other girl was taking a shower) and were in know hurry to make any more progress on the script before enlisting every person they knew to help with production. I really didn't want to manage this thing but I laid down a firm "hold your horses" and together we camp up with a very rough but readable treatment.

Before I go on I should say what I mean by "together," it means me having to act like an a-hole to keep the other one away from World of Warcraft long enough for him to tell me at least the broadest idea of what he had in mind for structure. I would then write as he raided with his guild or something. A couple days later I had a rough draft put together, and despite the premise which I hated and the lack of input I was kind of proud of. It wasn't "good" but it was shootable and it played to the strengths of those involved.

"The script is not in the right format," is the answer I was given whenever I would ask when we would start shooting or doing anything productive towards actually making something. So 2009 turned into 2010 and in early January we actually shot for a day. It was halfhearted and no one was really in charge but it was a start and I felt good that we were actually getting something on tape.

After the first day of shooting everyone acting in the movie got haircuts and other bodily changes. With the smallest speed bump in the road our crew had lost interest and without the connections to the rest of the talent I was unable to pick up the scraps and get it done.

If the other half were even half as committed as I was to his idea then this would have been completed and embedded below for viewing. But he wasn't so here is a copy of the script:

Full Untitled Movie Script on GoodDocs

If I were to say one positive thing about myself it would be that I am a worker. I get it done, no matter how sloppy no matter how long it takes. And if I get other people involved I will walk to the ends of the earth for them. I was so excited about this silly little movie because for once I thought I could just work, I wouldn't have to rally the troops, I would have to sell the project to others, I wouldn't have deal with drama. I would just show up and do everything in my power to turn this no budget video project into something that we could all look back and cringe about. This experience was in the end a good one because it got me a new set of amazing friends but it drove me nuts at the time because this project leader has tremendous assets thrown at him such as the aforementioned amazing people and he pretty much just wasted their time on this.

I should not be angry about this. It's recreational time and its not like I would have been doing anything important if I wasn't involved with this. But I have wasted years of my life trying to make something happen either with my video projects, personal life, or career-wise and for the most part opportunities have alluded me... and forget it it just sucks to see someone with everyone having his/our back and not delivering... or even attempting to deliver. Am I jealous? Yes. Will I be bitter about it after I hit "publish now" on this post? NOPE.