"The Citizen Kane of Bad Movies"

On at least two occasions now, Entertainment Weekly has published articles about a movie called The Room. An independently financed movie made last decade, they have dubbed it "the Citizen Kane of bad movies." Midnight screenings have apparently cropped up in parts of the country, where people get together to marvel and mock. Celebrities have spoken out in "support" of the film, including Paul Rudd, Alec Baldwin, Kristen Bell, and Patton Oswalt.

I had to know. You know?

It's rare that a movie lives up to its reputation, but I swear to you, this one does. It is all that's promised and more. (Less?) If you set out to make a bad movie deliberately, you'd be hard-pressed to do worse (better?) than this.

The acting is atrocious, none worse than star Tommy Wiseau. He has a canned laugh that will drive you right to the edge of insanity, and a speaking voice that IFC.com described as "Borat trying to do an impression of Christopher Walken playing a mental patient." He is also credited as writer and director, and both producer and executive producer.

Half the dialogue is clearly overdubbed after the fact -- replacing even worse dialogue? Would that even be possible? Everyone who curses in the film manages to make it sound like they're saying the words for the first time, or as though their own mother were there on the set watching them.

Seperate sequences are often divided with strange shots of San Francisco scenery. And when the "action" is on screen, the camera work is awful, with characters often framed awkwardly and even sometimes cropped off-screen entirely. When they are visible, their costumes often seem a size or two too large for them.

The film is repetitious on every level. Lines of dialogue are repeated. Different scenes exist only to reiterate the same information delivered in earlier scenes. (Mark and Johnny are best friends; Lisa doesn't love Johnny anymore. If you pop out to the bathroom for a while, don't worry -- we'll make sure you understand this.) Characters fight in one scene, make up at the end of the scene, and then fight again immediately in the next scene.

There are no less than four creepily awkward, uncomfortably long sex scenes that seem to serve only as venues for playing four terrible R&B slow jams -- in their entirety -- that were probably written by a friend looking to score a record contract.

Subplots come abruptly and are just as quickly abandoned. (For example, Lisa's mom is diagnosed with breast cancer early on, a fact never to be mentioned again. Denny has a drug problem and is in debt to a dealer -- who is never seen again after the scene in which he's introduced.) Weird ideas are interjected for no discernable reason. (Hey! Let's play football in tuxedos!) At least one character disappears halfway through the movie. (Actually, I've read this is because the "actor" actually left at that point in the filming; a new character -- not named on camera, from what I can tell -- shows up to take over his lines in the second half.)

And perhaps most confounding of all: why the hell is it called The Room? I can't fathom what that title has to do with anything.

If I were rating this film on its own merits, it couldn't possibly get anything other than an F. I have never seen worse. But the thing is, this movie redefines the scale for "so bad, it's good." I didn't need a crowded theater or a room full of clever friends to be laughing my ass off the entire time. I actually want to watch this movie again, this time with the Rifftrax commentary. I'd probably be willing to watch it again with any of my friends who wanted to watch it with me, because I would truly love seeing the look on their faces as they saw it for the first time.

In other words, as an experience, it might be hard to rate this film as anything other than an A. It's un-be-liev-a-ble. I've seen it, and I still don't believe it.