Episode 28: The Room (2003) – Sophie’s Choice 1 – and Bottom 5 Choices

The Room (2003)

The challenge of us doing “The Room” is that due to the unique ways in that it’s awful and the phenomenal success resultant from how terribly made it is, it’s almost impossible to say anything new about it. What I love about doing Filmjitsu is that we regularly tackle either forgotten movies, relatively obscure titles by big names or we reevaluate big hits that maybe audiences were too generous with praise for back when they were released. With “The Room,” we’re stuck in the feedback loop of “Oh Dear Christ, how can it even be THIS bad. How can ANYTHING be this bad.” And while that’s totally true, and it’s an acceptable read on this entertainingly garbage flick, I still want to say something new.

Ultimately, the only way to do that is to bring my personal point of view to this thing. And that would be as a filmmaker who worked with even lower-budgets than this resource-deprived movie had. I’ve made some GOD-AWFUL movies, and I’ve seen movies that are worse than “The Room” because they didn’t have what Tommy Wiseau’s movie has: pacing and memorable lines.

I used to say when I made movies that what made mine stand-out from the pack of other no-budget drek crowding the market in the early aughts was that they were paced well. Most moved at a speed that was recognizable to viewers of Hollywood movies because I emulated the cutting patterns and beats that felt like real movies. I called that “cinematic grammar” and I mention it from time to time on the show.

Wiseau’s scenes are largely terrible, but they are paced with an eye and ear toward moving the viewer from one scene to another scene in a way that FEELS like a movie should feel. Granted, what happens in each scene is a shitshow – most everything is shot in longer wide shots and there’s not a lot of cross-cutting in the dialogue. So you get a lot of two people in frame, sitting on a couch or passing a goddamn football to each other and they’re all in frame, static, like how Kevin Smith did a lot of Clerks because he couldn’t afford filmstock. But whereas Clerks had some great dialogue, The Room has… memorable lines.

Think about it. “I did not hit her it’s not true it’s bullshit I did not hit her I DID NAAAAAWT! Oh, Hai Mark.” We all know it.

How about “You’re TEARING ME APART, Lisa!” or “Anyway, how’s your sex life?” or “Leave your stupid comments in your pocket?”

They’re lines I’ve quoted pretty often in life. In fact, my first words to my oldest son, upon holding him in my arms for the first time were “Oh hai!” That may say too much about me and how I communicate through movie quotes, but that’s what I’m after here: what makes “The Room” distinctively bad, and thus, as quotable as a great movie.

Think about it, I’m as likely to say “You’re TEARING ME APART” as I am “This one goes to eleven” or “That would be a much too vulgar display of power.” That doesn’t mean I like “The Room” as much as “Spinal Tap” or “The Exorcist,” but it does mean there’s something so entertaining and weird about Wiseau and his movie that it sticks with you. And I think it’s merely that the over-dramatized wackiness of the entire damn thing is oddly addictive. I guess you could say it’s a trainwreck you cannot look away from, but it’s a 1 hour, 30 minute trainwreck that keeps delivering more and more carnage the longer you watch.

Lots of people, yourself included during our bottom five music numbers show, have said this is what you get when Aliens are told what movies are and then attempt to make one, but the analogy I like better – and which is much more timely – is that this is what happens when you feed two hundred hours of 90’s erotic-thriller scripts into a chat bot and then ask it to spit out an original film.

Characters come in and out of the story in ways that never quite add up (like Mike and Michelle randomly using Johnny’s apartment as a place to hook up) and often their relationships don’t even make any sense. Like, what the fuck is even up with Denny? He seems to be a son-like character to Johnny, but he’s 18, yet acts like an eleven year-old. At one point, he follows Johnny and Lisa upstairs as they’re about to get it on, and you’re thinking “Why the fuck did they just leave this kid downstairs and go to knock boots.” But then he heads upstairs and it’s like “Oh shit, he’s going to listen in on them.” Fuck no he isn’t! He’s going to jump into the middle of their pillow-fight foreplay and argue to stay when they politely tell him “three’s a crowd.” “Awww… I like watching you,” he says and they laugh while the viewer wonders what in the ever-loving fuck is happening here. 

Part of me wants to go back and count the fingers on the actors. Maybe The Room was created by AI in the near-future and somehow beamed back to 2003? Wiseau and the movies origins are shrouded in mystery, so I mean it’s as good an explanation as any. Because what else would explain the jogging football toss? Or the tuxedo football toss? Or the goddamn chicken clucking, which, if I’m not mistaken, Arrested Development borrowed for big laughs when no member of the Bluth clan could cluck correctly.

I mean, what’s weirder? AI rendering oddly misplaced eyes or overly open mouths, or a scene in which an eighteen year-old boy, after being saved from a criminal holding him at gunpoint, is asked, again and again by his crying pseudo-adopted-step-mother “What kind of drugs, Denny?” while HER OWN mother interjects with “WHERE THE HELL DID YOU MEET THAT MAN?” It’s madness. All of it is madness. But, like most AI-generated bullshit commercials and music videos you see out there, it’s deliciously off-balance and often very, very fun.

Honestly, The Room appears to be a weirdly personal story by a guy who is in love with himself, has seen a LOT of movies while growing up, and decided to tell a tale about the greatest man in the world (himiself, idealized) who has his heart broken by an evil woman and dies a martyr to the selfishness of others who were supposed to care about him. I think good ol’ Tommy had his heart squashed at least once and decided the devil-woman would pay for the hurt she caused him, but rather than shoot himself, he SHOOTS himself shooting himself… and fucking a blond lady… and jogging around San Fransisco.

Wiseau seems like a pretty sheltered guy and the earnest with which he imbues “The Room” gives power to all the wackiness of it. I know he tries to make like he’s been in on the joke the whole time, but what makes “The Room” so good is that it’s clear this was a real attempt at making an erotic drama like anything that we might have caught on Cinemax after 11pm. Either than, or it was a real attempt at making an adult “ABC Afterschool Special,” because Denny. What I do know is that when he tried to be funny, like he did in subsequent, ill-received web-series, it didn’t have the same irrational, irreverent, illogical vibe. Instead, it was just bad instead of bad and forever memorable.

The Room (2003) notes:

• Trying to discern the mood of the music. Like what kind of movie would this music match? My answer is corporate health care video.
• The first shot of him is on a San Fran trolly and the written by and produced by credits with him name appear. NOT a coincidence.
• The actress here really is giving her all. It’s such a shame.
• A kid comes over to hang out and then listens to the bootknocking that most certainly should not be happening… and then he GETS INTO BED WITH THEM
• Denny: I just like to watch you guys.
• This shit was written by AI before AI was invented.
• No better foreplay than… pillow fighting
• The gauzy shots through the bed canopy is pure 90’s Cinemax
• Nudity is largely tasteful for the girl. But got the dubbing!! Haha. There are Godzilla movies where English words match lips better!
• There’s a basic instinct upskirt moment when Wiseau gets out of bed. I don’t know what to do with this info
• Mom’s like he’s good for you, fuck your happiness. And her glowing pause of Wiseau’s character feels very personal. Like Wiseau is getting back at someone who cheated on him.
• The cheating phone call with Mark: You owe me A TALK. The actual fuck? Are these humans?
• I like he has no time to talk but then can instantly see her,
• Did Mark’s beard grow in full from the last scene to this one?
• This lady just uncorks all the feelings after the most forward and clumsy seduction I have ever seen. What a damn mess.
• Oh no. Even worse morning and sex noise dubbing. And you are my rose!
• The lack of anything even resembling human passion is astounding. I’ve seen more chemistry at a tax audit for a funeral home.
• The fucking flower scene. These are not humans.
• The insanely specific pizza order: 1/2 Canadian bacon and pineapple, 1/2 artichoke, pesto and light on the cheese. Who is what half?
• Actually I Am really busy, do you want something to drink?
• Can I kiss you?!?!? What the fuck is even Denny?
• I love how the dubbing is over-theatric, but the acting is so wooden.
• Why does she bring half full glasses to the table and then fill them up? Why is she forcing him to drink?!?
• It’s like he’s a recovering alcoholic and she’s all about running him.
• I’m tired, I’m wasted, I love you darling!
• She’s wearing his tie as a bandanna! WILD DRUNK TIMES.
• Sex scene 3 looks exactly like sex scene one.
• The Full House shot from the park in San Fran. Holy fuck!
• Nobody wants to help me. I’m dying.
• I got the tests back and I definitely have cancer!
• The typical incel storyline, eh? Woman is the reason everything is awful.
• Random realtor fucking around in Johnny’s house?! I guess? Because there’s no real explanation who these two are!
• Chocolate is a symbol of love!?
• The comedic reaction on this dudes face as the lady goes down on him.
• Mike and Michelle? “Doing homework.” What?
• Dennis or Denny? Like Denis Villeneuve?
• Johnny takes care of Denny, who is over 18 but who acts… 11
• Like how the girl explains Denny and it’s all about how supportive Johnny is, even though he’s apparently awful?
• This money collection went from zero to insane in the blink of an eye.
• Suddenly everyone is on the roof!
• Denny is buying drugs!
• STOP GANGING UP ON ME!!!
• The actress playing Lisa has absolutely no idea what she is supposed to do. Lol. Like, she is Denny’s step-mom and then her own mom is yelling at him. These are the least human relationships I have ever seen.
• So much greenscreen.
• Denny loves Lisa. Two minutes later, he loves Elizabeth and wants to marry her and have kids with her? Also, Jonny is paying tuition.
• I think these scenes are out of order. lol. The scene with Lisa and Michelle seems it should be sooner.
• Lisa is a sociopath? Is that what we’re getting here?
• And now Johnny pushes her down. “YOU’RE TEARING ME APART, LISA!”
• Mike, he has a tragedy on his hands. Why is this being caught by Lisa and her mom with the underwear’s a tragedy? I got to go see Michelle and make out with her?
• The football catching. Honestly, what the fuck planet are we on?
• Mark bumps Mike into fucking trash cans with Tommy offering help like he’s got a disease.
• Who tells her mom she had sex with another person?! And Johnny just there on the VERY obvious stairs? Nothing in this movie could possibly take place in this dimension.
• The still VERY conspicuous tape recorder by the phone that they show him install like he’s in Mission Impossible.
• The rack focus from Johnny to the psychiatrist friend, Peter. Talking about putting icing on a turd.
• One second after doorbell, is that the door?
• Peter hanging out in a suit and tie with this round rimmed glasses.
• The chicken lines. My god. Did Arrested Development get it from here?
• Psychiatrist: you guys are weird.
• The bank digression before telling the pointless story about meeting Lisa is so incredibly dumb.
• Pete leaves by waving and not saying a word. Hahahaha. I’m not even sure it was the same actor.
• Mark hitting the herb! What a rebel!
• Mark is so aggressive. Weed is not his drug.
• Let me throw my friend off this rooftop and then apologize a moment later!
• Why is Mark even concerned?!
• The tuxes. The football. The goddamn doorbell.
• MORE CHICKEN
• Every time people trip and fall the rest act like they have died.
• Hahaha. The b-roll shots and then Wiseau just strolls through one
• Normal movies: start scene late and exit early
• The Room: start with irrelevant action (like ordering coffee or a pizza) then saying one thing to allegedly move the plot forward, then have an idiotic ending farewell.
• Sex scene 4 out of nowhere!
• This is an ABC afterschool special but with sex scenes and sort of adults.
• Jogging catch. I cannot. WITH GLOVES ON.
• What percentage of this movie is grabass and catch? At least 20%?
• The party! What is this thing for? Why are they all talking about it?
• And now who is knocking as no one ever knocks. Oh. Michelle! And she’s like hahahaha cheaters!
• Lisa’s mom is manipulative? Collette seems nice and she’s overcoming breast cancer! Lisa seems a lot worse than you can imagine.
• A pillow fight/brook duel? Is that foreplay?
• Ahhhh. Johnny’s birthday.
• Collette is showing very little concern for anything but money. Maybe that’s what Michelle meant? “All men are assholes. Marriage has nothing to do with love.”
• This scene would have made sense before the Michelle scene.
• Johnny walking. Is that his job? No wonder he did not get the promotion. He doesn’t seem to know how to.
• So much exterior b-roll.
• Mike and Michelle cake eating. The. Fuck?
• Go outside everyone! So we can fuuuuuuuck.
• Random party guest catches them and suddenly he’s a character?!? Who is this fucking guy? Where’s Peter?
• He reveals they are expecting like he announced a job change.
• Who the Hell is this other couple?
• The rhubarb in this is ludicrous. The weird murmuring conversations that happen between people are next level odd.
• So, they nearly fight. Then Johnny asks Lisa to go with him. She does. Cut to exterior. Come back to party and Lisa and Mark are slow dancing.
• What?
• Johnny catches her. And then a fresh fight!
• Don’t touch me moethur fuuhcker.
• CHICKEN AGAIN!
• I don’t think I should be alone with him.
• I know, Sweetheart. I’m gonna go now.
• In a few minutes, Bitch!
• Why is he mad at the mom?! Poor Collette.
• Mark! Why don’t you ditch this creep? I don’t like him anymore.
• Johnny’s recording! REMEMBER THE TAPE RECORDER?!
• SEVEN YEARS!
• I love that we don’t hear “you’re the sparkle of my life” when Lisa calls Mark, but we get to hear it when Jonny plays back the recording. Haha.
• Everybody betray me. I don’t have a friend in the world.
• Get out. Get out. Get out of my life!
• Seven years of history together and we only see the last week or so in flashbacks.
• The laziest room trashing this side of a Motley Crue union tour.
• Haha. He fucks her dress!!!! Jesus; I blocked that out.
• Wake up, Johnny come on!!! Meanwhile, back of his head is blown off.
• Mark kissing the forehead. Wut.
• I lost him but I still have you, right?  NOO! Ha.
• Tramp! You’re the cause of all this.
• Denny is the real love story of this movie! A man and his 18 year-old, childlike dependent.
• Is Lisa feeling guilty now?
• The crying dub is as bad as the sex dubbing.

Bottom Five Choices

My approach with this one was to focus on non-diegetic choices – so choices that are not in the world of the film, but instead were choices made that ruined movies for me. It could be casting, the choice of director, or maybe even the project itself, but with most of the entries on my list, there are central decisions made which provided me with either a distracting or bad movie-going experience. Except for one, and that’s my number five, which I feel we HAD to include in our lists because HOLY SHIT.

Avatar (2009)

Matt Damon opting out of playing Jake Sully

James Cameron

This is the stuff of Hollywood legend at this point, but it’s hard to do a list of bottom-five choices and not include Matt Damon turning down the role of Jake Sully in Avatar despite a payday that would have given him 10% of the back end profit, which ended up  being worth $250 million after the movie became the top-grossing film of all time. Madness. Damon is asked about the decision in interviews and appears accepting of his status now as bearer of one of the worst decisions of all time, maintaining that while he might be an idiot, it truly was due to a scheduling conflict with one of the Jason Bourne movies he was working on. Knowing Cameron, though, I think he would have waited until Damon was free, so at the end of the day, I think one rests on Damon. Would it have mattered to the movie overall? I think it might be more memorable, possibly. Avatar and it’s sequel, 2022’s “The Way of Water,” are weirdly entertaining, exciting films, that pass through viewers the way a dinner at Taco Bell might: so much fun at first but gone before you know it. I think part of it might be the blandness of Sam Worthington. But taht’s conjecture, and unlike the rest of my list, it’s not a certifiable fact that the decision made “hurt” the movie. This one just hurt Matt Damon’s bank account.

Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

The decision to cast Aldern Ehrenreich

Ron Howard

Choosing Alden Ehrenreich to play young Han Solo was a mistake. The whole damn point of this movie was to build upon the iconic character Harrison Ford created, and it was imperative to get the right actor to fill Ford’s shoes. Perhaps it was the chaotic behind-the-scenes drama of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller being fired by Kathleen Kennedy and the acclaimed comedy writing-directing team behind The Lego Movie and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse being replaced by dependable veteran Ron Howard, but whoever it was that went with Ehrenreich deep-sixed an otherwise well-cast, exciting and fun flick. For me, the only right choice was Baby Driver’s Ansel Elgort, who reportedly was on the list of finalists for the film and was allegedly relieved he lost out on the role because he feared he’d had to lose his DJ name, a mash up of his own name with Han Solo: Ansolo. Yes, he was apparently scared he would lose the name he DJs under if he got the role as one of the most-famous rogues in all of cinema history. I shake my head endlessly. If you’ve seen “Baby Driver,” you’ve seen why Ansel Elgort should have been in Solo alongside Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, Thandiew (Tandeeway) Newton and the amazing Donald Glover who played a young Lando Calrissian with all the brash, confident charm that Billy Dee Williams originally brought to the role, something that Ehrenreich just didn’t manage as the title character. Han deserved better, and better was Ansel Elgort, regardless of a bad audition tape. All this said, it appears the guy was nearly cancelled right around the release of Speilberg’s “West Side Story” remake in 2021 due to allegations of sexual impropriety some years earlier, so perhaps a run of films featuring young Han Solo were never in the cards.

The Next Best Thing (2000)

Madonna’s decision to play sort-of British

John Schlesinger – his final feature film!!! Marathon Man, Midnight Cowboy,

This is a kind of a two-for: one for the star and one for the director. The star, of course, is Madonna. And in this movie her awful accent  all but ruins what might have otherwise been a fun flick. I’m not sure what happened to her in the early aught’s, maybe it was her new relationship with British director Guy Ritchie or the fact that her co-star and the director of this film were British, but Madge didn’t know how to sound like a normal person anymore. And in a film with a character who makes a series of awful, selfish decision, giving her an on-again, off-again aristocratic English accent made her even more unlikeable. Despite this, The Next Best Thing is a curio from Madonna’s screen career that has plenty of good moments.  That said, I might be the only fan of this movie – it was nominated for six Razzies in 2000 and Madonna was the one winner for worst actress. Interestingly, Screen Rant in 2020 named it as among her best performances but even as an uber fan, I’d never go there. In 2017, RupertEverett did an interview where he blamed the film for the nosedive his career took, saying it had the same effect on Madonna’s acting career – she would act as a lead in only one more film, in 2002’s Swept Away directed by then-husband Guy Ritchie. Everett explained that it was the different rhythms of British and American humor that led to the film crashing and burning – well, that and veteran director John Schlesinger (then in his mid-seventies) nodding off between takes. Schlesinger suffered a stroke on New Years Day 2001, not long after the release of “The Next Best Thing” so perhaps the producers should have gone with a younger talent at the helm – one who might have reminded Madonna she’s not British!

Planet of the Apes (2001)

That the movie was even made despite all signs it should not be

Tim Burton

There cannot be too many movies in Hollywood with as rich and chaotic a backstory as that of the 2001 reboot of “Planet of the Apes.” Ultimately starring Mark Wahlberg and directed by Tim Burton, the film would prove a moderate success against a $100 million budget, earning $362 million worldwide.  But when asked if he would return to the franchise for a sequel, Burton was quoted as saying “I’d rather jump out the window. I swear to God!” And if you’ve seen the movie, you got to wonder if it was behind-the-scenes tensions that led to the film feeling like the least-Burton-esque of the director’s career as it had already gone through no less than 11 possible directors, some of whom were the biggest names in Hollywood including Oliver Stone, Sam Raimi, Peter Jackson, Chris Columbus, Roland Emmerich, Michael Bay and James fucking Cameron! The idea to reboot the franchise began in 1989, and yet Burton didn’t sign on to direct until 2000. At that point, all of the big-name talent attached to various iterations of the film, which included Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tom Cruise and Charlie Sheen, had abandoned ship and we were left with… Mark Wahlberg. The results were disappointing for many critics and viewers, with an ending that still confuses audiences as much as it pisses them off. You’d think that over an 11-year production history, the producers and Burton himself would know to leave well-enough alone and choose not to carry-on with the reboot, but nope… we got this abomination which I consider, among the many, many reboots, remakes and reheats out there, the worst of the bunch (beating out, only by a little, that awful remake of “The Day the Earth Stood Still” with Keanu Reeves.) Hell, when asked in 2011 if he’d seen the newest addition to the franchise, “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” Marky Mark answered “I haven’t seen it yet, but I heard it was pretty damn good. Well, ours wasn’t. It is what it is. Ours wasn’t.”

Hook (1991)

So many bad decisions, all in one movie, by arguably the greatest filmmaker of all time

Steven Spielberg

Apparently Hook was originally conceived by Spielberg during his early 80’s heyday as a sequel to both the 1924 silent-film version of Peter Pan and the Walt Disney animated 1953 film, but the project was abandoned for a while and it fell into the hands of writer Jim V. Hart and writer/director Nick Castle. Yeah, THAT Nick Castle, the guy who played Michael Myers in the original Halloween. Anyhow, Spielberg returned to the project in 1989, and while there’s a generation of millennials who see it in a favorable light, they were likely too young to understand what a dunder-headed misfire this thing is tonally and story-wise. Sure, Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman were fine choices as Peter Pan and Captain Hook, respectively, and I tip my hat to Bob Hoskins for his pro work as Smee. But oh my are they all overacting in crazy, next-level ways. But beating them all out was Julia Roberts as Tinker Bell. Her turn as the fairy helper is wall-crawling cringe. Legend has it that Roberts and Spielberg didn’t get along on the film, and Roberts claimed “…it was the first time that I felt I had a turncoat in my midst.” As you’re watching the movie, you can feel it all fall apart once you get to Neverland, which seems particularly staged and wooden, as if the scenes were shot on a too-small soundstage. Spielberg himself explained he wasn’t proud of those sequences because “I’m uncomfortable with that highly stylized world that today, of course, I would probably have done with live-action character work inside a completely digital set. But we didn’t have the technology to do it then, and my imagination only went as far as building physical sets and trying to paint trees blue and red.” Spielberg got his chance to work digitally in the kids’ fantasy genre with 2016’s “The BFG” based on the Roald Dahl novel. I’d argue it’s a much better film overall, although it’s really damn weird and was a box-office bomb compared to Hook. For me, I think this genre – childlike fantasy that’s unmoored from reality – is a tough place for Spielberg to work. His film “Always” which directly preceded “Hook” was similarly awkward in tone, with fantastical elements that didn’t balance well with the tender romance he was trying to sell. Even his “Amazing Stories” episode with Kevin Costner called “The Mission” showed his tentative grasp on fantasy. So helming a sequel to Peter Pan with all sorts of pomp, big acting,