The Room, The Disaster Artist, and My Obsession With The Best Worst Movie Ever

I have an odd obsession with terrible movies. There's something about them that really captures my attention and imagination. Besides a few horror movies, movies are a pretty huge financial and time investment. So when a categorically terrible movie comes along, I always have this urge to see them so that I can answer that burning question inside my head: "Why?" Why was this movie made? What's the motivation for putting in the time and effort? Did the director really think the movie they made was good enough to show? Why did director/producer/creator make the movie?

When someone says a movie is bad, they usually mean that they thought the movie was boring, confusing, and/or just not compelling. This makes a movie forgettable and bland. It also doesn't even bring up any questions, these types of movies are just a waste of time. I'd say a perfect example would be the later Transformers movies (specifically Transformers: Age of Extinction). It's long, it's boring, and it is just torturous to go through. CGI may be the only redeeming factor for this movie. However, there are no redeeming quotes or scenes to remember and there's nothing to really read into. There's no "why?" question to answer. The motivation of the movie clear and has no underlying motivations unless my conspiracy of Hollywood brainwashing is actually true. Transformers only exists to provide action and make money.

But along comes The Room written, produced, directed, and starring the illustrious and infamous Tommy Wiseau. The movie is terrible in every conceivable way that it begs the audience to dig deeper into the movie. There are so many questions you have to ask yourself when viewing it. The movie's plot is supposedly so simple: Johnny (played by Tommy Wiseau) is a successful bank associate who enjoys his life with his "future-wife" Lisa. Little does he know, Lisa is cheating on him with Johnny's best friend, Mark. Johnny's life unravels around him and the audience gets to witness how the events unfold.  But the movie stumbles around every turn so hard that it really creates this complex meta-narrative. What's really happening behind the scenes? What has compelled Tommy Wiseau to produce and act in this movie? What social clock ticks inside Tommy's brain that churns out the scripting in this movie? The questions keep coming...Which makes The Room a terrible movie that I love watching over and over again. It's a movie I can't stop thinking about.

I first watched Tommy's Masterpiece back in 2012 despite the movie being eight years old by then. I think there was "Best of" YouTube clip about that I saw that pushed me to find the movie online and watch it. I just got off of a kick of watching Birdemic with a friend of mine and I had to see what else was out there. I have since watched The Room at least half a dozen times (I'm actually watching it on Youtube while typing this blogpost). What escalates The Room  from an enjoyably bad movie to something of mythic legend is that there is a book written about it. The Disaster Artist answers all the questions I discussed before. The whole book is an account of the supporting actor Greg Sestero, the guy who played Mark . The book is a great read (I listened to the audiobook though) and is full of all sorts of stories the making of the movie. Greg recalls how he met Tommy, what motivated both of them into making The Room, and answers most of the mind-boggling choices made in the casting, scripting, and directing during the movies filming.

And then there is the movie, The Disaster Artist, that recently came out this year (it was originally shown in film festivals a few years back). Yes, that's right. This a movie based on a book about the making of another movie. But James Franco does an amazing job imitating all the eccentric mannerisms of Tommy Wiseau. I don't know how James did it, but he not only got the unidentifiable foreign accent of Tommy down, but also Tommy's odd body language and verbal enunciation. The movie is really well done in the sense that it gives a great insight into the relationship between Tommy and Greg. It also gives the audience a great behind-the-scenes take at just how ridiculous the filming of The Room really was. But, after reading the book, the movie takes so many liberties for the sake of pacing and storytelling that sacrifices accuracy of the source material. There are so many stories and characters from the book that are left out or combined into one character. It sucks a bit because the movie actually lessens the real zaniness of what happened in real life. There is just more to Tommy and his pet project that never gets fully translated on screen that I wish had been.

And then I went off the deep end. The book and movie weren't enough. I started to dig deeper into references inside the book. Greg lines the beginning of every chapter in The Disaster Artist with quotes from two movies: Sunset Blvd and The Talented Mr. Ripley. Mr. Sestero mentions that these two movies' portrayal of their two main characters accurately parallels the relationship between himself and Tommy Wiseau. So naturally, I saw them both. And Greg was obviously correct in his comparison. The parasitic relationship between Joe Gillis and the deranged Norma Desmond in Sunset Blvd is not just symbolically accurate, it's a literal representation of their dynamics. And Tom Ripley's aloofness and desperation (that turns for the worse) to belong is just a disturbingly good analogy to the way Tommy behaves with other people.

And while The Room has garnered a huge cult following which has led to its delayed success, I never bought too much into the following. It's great that people throw spoons at the screen whenever they see the random, framed, spoon pictures in certain scenes during midnight screenings of The Room. But the traditions and rituals at these screenings isn't something I find fascinating. The beauty of The Room to me is in its uniqueness and history. It's in just how much Tommy Wiseau is a living exaggeration of a person. He's an alien with odd mannerisms, speech, and likes/dislikes. If I told you this movie cost over 5 million dollars to make, would you believe me? Tommy is walking example of "truth being stranger than fiction." The mystery of Tommy really gives the film its depth. The film may be garbage but somehow there is still stuff to talk about.

Most of all, oddly, The Room is an inspiration. Being called the "best worst" is still the best at something. And when you're the best at something, you will be talked about; maybe not immediately, but eventually. There will be internet forums on "the worst movie ever made." There will be late night talks with friends who will debate the subject. There will be that friend who will get his/her other friends to watch it. When you fail spectacularly, you can still be memorialized.