Tommy Wiseau must be a hoax

[Noodle Lizard]

Thread resurrection.

I've only just discovered that I've been in the same film class as the assistant director of 'The Room' for the past seven months!  Having been mildly obsessed with the film ever since I saw it three or four years ago, this is really amazing good luck for me.  He says he's going to let me have a look at some of the rushes he still has.  Apparently it was a completely sincere attempt, although some of the crew and actors were aware of how bad it was (though they never anticipated quite how famously bad it would be).

[Hank Venture]

I've changed my outlook on this monstrosity. I no longer believe it to be a hoax per se, but the money laundering thing makes sense. Falling ass backwards into six million dollars (!) is just too convenient, and the way the money was spent is absolutely ludicrous. There's no other reason to use green screen outside.

[Hank Venture]

Thread resurrection.

I've only just discovered that I've been in the same film class as the assistant director of 'The Room' for the past seven months!  Having been mildly obsessed with the film ever since I saw it three or four years ago, this is really amazing good luck for me.  He says he's going to let me have a look at some of the rushes he still has.  Apparently it was a completely sincere attempt, although some of the crew and actors were aware of how bad it was (though they never anticipated quite how famously bad it would be).

Please ask him about the financing.

[Famous Mortimer]

I remember the only place that originally released it on DVD was Australia, so getting hold of it was a bit of a pain back in the day.

It's magnificent, and (I think) entirely from the heart.

[Theremin]

I'm going to a friend's[nb]Yes, I have a friend.[/nb] birthday screening of The Room next friday, full of people who've never seen it before.

So excite.

[Noodle Lizard]

I'll be going to a midnight screening at the end of the month which will be introduced by Tommy himself (along with Greg Sistero, producer and "Mark").  Can't wait.

[Noodle Lizard]

There's no other reason to use green screen outside.

Oh hi, Hank.  If you're referring to the roof scenes, apparently they were shot in a car park with a green screen.  Yeah, still makes no sense - is it that hard to find a genuine rooftop to shoot on?  The only reason I can think of is that most of the film (including the roof scenes) was shot in Los Angeles although it was set in San Francisco.  Still seems like an awful lot of bother.

[Johnny Townmouse]

Film productions often rewrite scripts in order to set scenes on the top of buildings, such is the ease by which they are accessed, and the convenience they allow for filmmakers. Clerks and La Haine are just two examples.

[radarange]

You experienced it only after it had become a "dark comedy" instead of an "absurdist disaster," but Greg Sestero was there from the beginning of the cult film sensation The Room. Sestero has written a book about his experiences with Tommy Wiseau and the cult that popped up around the movie called The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, The Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made. It doesn't come out until October (can you wait that long?), but we've got an exclusive look at the cover right now. Gaze at it longingly as you wait for the stories it will one day reveal.

[Rolf Lundgren]

I went to one of the London showings of The Room a few months ago when Tommy and Greg were there. Met them too and they were both nice enough guys, Tommy was a bit odd of course but in a good way and was actually really friendly which I wasn't expecting. The whole time though Greg came across as completely embarrassed about the whole thing, especially during the onstage Q&A. To my mind that's fair enough as the screening was full of people there to laugh at the film and I'd probably get tired of people taking the piss all the time too but I'm surprised he still does appearances and has now written a book. 

I'm guessing he knows he can make money from it and gets free trips to various places but I think it bugs him that this is what he'll be remembered for.

[RickyGerbail]

probably

[checkoutgirl]

so getting hold of it was a bit of a pain back in the day.

Back in what day ? The thing was released in 2003, how the fuck can that be "back in the day" ?

[NoSleep]

2003 is back in the day enough for my old G4 Powerbook, which, back in the day, was flying about the internet (unlike in 2013).

[Famous Mortimer]

Back in what day ? The thing was released in 2003, how the fuck can that be "back in the day" ?

I apologise unreservedly that my use of a silly phrase to mean "several years ago" caused you such anguish.

[checkoutgirl]

I apologise unreservedly that my use of a silly phrase to mean "several years ago" caused you such anguish.

I think it's just that I absolutely hate the term "back in the day" and I was taking it out on you by being snarky. I'm not apologising but I accept your gracious apology. It was sincere and good.

[Noodle Lizard]

I think it's just that I absolutely hate the term "back in the day" and I was taking it out on you by being snarky. I'm not apologising but I accept your gracious apology. It was sincere and good.

Keep your STUPID COMMENTS in your pocket.

[Noodle Lizard]

I went to a screening last night with Tommy (aka Johnny), Greg (aka Mark) and a surprise appearance by Carolyn Minnott (aka Claudette) (aka Lisa's Mom) (aka Cancer Mother).  Fucking amazing.  Tommy's definitely in on the joke, but it's clear that he's genuinely strange.  He did a Q&A before the screening which made absolutely no sense.

We met them before the screening - talked about our mutual contact (the second AD, who is now in my film class), love and played a bit of football with Tommy (personal highlight).

He was wearing three belts.

[SteveDave]

Did he say "Oh hai Noodle Lizard"?

[Noodle Lizard]

Did he say "Oh hai Noodle Lizard"?

To be honest, it's all a bit of a blur, but I did hear him say "Oh hai" a fair few times.  And "Don't worry about it".

[Santa's Boyfriend]

So...  has The Room actually made its money back?

[Noodle Lizard]

So...  has The Room actually made its money back?

I don't know about $6 million, but it must generate just as much as most other films.  It's one of the only films I can think of that still gets shown in cinemas frequently - for instance, there are two places here which screen it once a month.  The Prince Charles in London does so frequently too, and apparently a place in Glasgow is in on the action.  Presumably a good portion of the ticket sales for those go to Tommy, or at least he gets paid a fair bit to let them screen it.

Then there's merch (toy doggies, Johnny bobble-heads, footballs, T-shirts - all Wiseau-branded), DVDs, the recent Blu-Ray, frequent showings on AdultSwim.  And he's probably still selling his jackets in Korea or whatever implausible shit it was that earned him the $6 million in the first place. 

He was wearing three belts, he's doing okay.

[Thomas]

Tommy's definitely in on the joke, but it's clear that he's genuinely strange.

Do you think it's been a joke for him all along, or has he just embraced the status?

[Noodle Lizard]

Do you think it's been a joke for him all along, or has he just embraced the status?

No, I'm almost 100% certain that the movie was made with the utmost sincerity now.  When I first saw it, I did wonder because it was just so catastrophic that I couldn't imagine it going through so many different crew members and coming out like that without some degree of planning, but now that I've spoken to crew members (one of the ADs and "Assistants to Tommy Wiseau" is in my film class) and met Tommy and Greg in person, there's really nothing to suggest that it was a joke all along.  I'm still trying to get that AD to show me some of the rough footage he claims to have on a hard drive somewhere.

Tommy still doesn't quite seem to grasp that people think it's a bad movie - obviously he acknowledges them shouting lines, buying toy "Dogeees", and he signed my football with "Love is blind!", but he appears to see this more as admiration rather than derision (admittedly, it has sort of become the former now).  I do think he believes he made a good film.  Also, let's be honest, there's no way he would have made any money off it if it had just been "okay", so he's actually considerably lucky.  I don't think he's wise (heh) enough to have calculated all of this from the start.

'Birdemic', on the other hand, I'm a bit suspicious of.  That one seems like a bunch of people who saw 'The Room' and realised they could potentially make more money from doing something deliberately awful than from a sincere attempt.  That's why it's nowhere near as funny, though, even though it's worse from a technical standpoint.  'The Room' is truly unique, and incomparable to any of the other famous "so bad it's good" films - incomparable to any film at all, really.

[Famous Mortimer]

'Birdemic', on the other hand, I'm a bit suspicious of.  That one seems like a bunch of people who saw 'The Room' and realised they could potentially make more money from doing something deliberately awful than from a sincere attempt.  That's why it's nowhere near as funny, though, even though it's worse from a technical standpoint.  'The Room' is truly unique, and incomparable to any of the other famous "so bad it's good" films - incomparable to any film at all, really.

From the stuff I've read and heard about it, someone told James Nguyen (director of Birdemic) just after filming had finished that they really needed to market it as a comedy, as it was so bad. He went along with it, reluctantly, but I think the first one was made honestly. The second one, on the other hand, manages to be even worse than the first one, because it's played for laughs.

The more I read and think about "After Last Season", the more I'm convinced it's some anti-film experiment done by the director on both the cast and crew of his film and the viewing public (such as it was), so "The Room" really does stand alone, in films made in the 21st century at least.

[lazarou]

The second one, on the other hand, manages to be even worse than the first one, because it's played for laughs.

I think this is the key giveaway when filmmakers aren't as in on the joke as they'd like to retrospectively claim. Artefacts like the follow-ups to the Room, Birdemic and Hobgoblins  give a pretty clear indication that the creators are as tone-deaf to intentional comedy as the other kind. Tommy Wiseau "doing comedy" in his sitcom pilot just can't recapture a stylistic oddness he wasn't even aware he was going for.

I'm sure the Birdemic crew were going for a degree of hokeyness, but hokey fun is a hard thing to capture, doubly so if you're aiming straight for it. It takes a lot of work from talented people to put together something with even a ramshackle charm, especially with very little money. It's a lot easier to just come off as actively incompetent.

[Noodle Lizard]

Tommy Wiseau "doing comedy" in his sitcom pilot just can't recapture a stylistic oddness he wasn't even aware he was going for.

People keep saying that about the pilot for 'The Neighbors', despite almost no one having seen it.  Tim & Eric are the only people I know of who have seen it and they implied that it was great, but the reason they didn't go ahead with producing the project as intended was because Tommy was demanding help from professionals in order to make it a good, conventional sitcom like 'Friends' whereas they wanted him to be the only creative force and have him work in a vacuum without any professional input[nb]Here's the interview:  http://www.gq.com/entertainment/movies-and-tv/201201/tim-and-eric-billion-dollar-movie-awesome-show-great-job[/nb]. 

If anything, then, it sounds less like he was trying to do another 'The Room' knowingly, but rather
a genuine attempt at making a sitcom.  In that context, it makes this trailer a lot funnier:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGpwxHMUndk

I would say the problem lies in the actors knowing about 'The Room' and who they're working for and acting up to it a bit, but then again I think that's giving a lot of undue credit to desperate Hollywood unknowns.  I could go on - put simply, Tommy Wiseau is a very special creature.

[Famous Mortimer]

People keep saying that about the pilot for 'The Neighbors', despite almost no one having seen it. 

I presume those people who "keep saying that" are on about the trailer for it? After having seen it several times, I'd be absolutely amazed if it wasn't like lazarou stated, but I've been wrong before.

And fuck Tim and Eric. Their status as arbiters of taste in "outsider" film art just feels like the next stage of them using people like David Liebe Hart (who's clearly got some fairly bad mental health problems) as objects of mockery in their shows. Although I'm wandering off topic a bit. I'm just glad the Pythons didn't go round hosting screenings of "Manos" back when they were at their height.

[Icehaven]

I don't think it's a hoax, and I definitely don't think the actors were aware how crap it was. For the most part (Wiseau aside obviously) it reminds me of those crappy soft porn shows that used to be on Bravo, similar sets, music and acting levels.
I don't know much about film making but don't they usually shoot everything out of order, with lots of scenes that don't end up being used for various reasons, and a finished film is (to put it crudely) a combination of scenes put in the right order to create a logical narrative (if a logical narrative is what you're going for). With this is mind, the actors wouldn't have known how little sense it was going to make until they saw the finished product. They might have thought some of the scenes/dialogue were odd, but just presumed it'd all be edited together to make sense. Like the infamous tuxedo scene. A few scenes related to/explaining it were probably shot but didn't end up in the film, which is why it makes no sense, but the actors wouldn't have known it was going to turn out like that. 

[Noodle Lizard]

I don't think it's a hoax, and I definitely don't think the actors were aware how crap it was. For the most part (Wiseau aside obviously) it reminds me of those crappy soft porn shows that used to be on Bravo, similar sets, music and acting levels.
I don't know much about film making but don't they usually shoot everything out of order, with lots of scenes that don't end up being used for various reasons, and a finished film is (to put it crudely) a combination of scenes put in the right order to create a logical narrative (if a logical narrative is what you're going for). With this is mind, the actors wouldn't have known how little sense it was going to make until they saw the finished product. They might have thought some of the scenes/dialogue were odd, but just presumed it'd all be edited together to make sense. Like the infamous tuxedo scene. A few scenes related to/explaining it were probably shot but didn't end up in the film, which is why it makes no sense, but the actors wouldn't have known it was going to turn out like that.

Yeah, I think I mentioned earlier on that it can be quite hard to get an objective look at the bigger picture when you're actually in the midst of working on something.  I've definitely noticed this even on tiny, tiny student film productions (or even ones where it's just me arsing around with a camera), so it's more than plausible that the cast and crew of a comparatively big production could have the same blind spots.

That being said, they all met Tommy Wiseau, so they should have known something was up.  And the actor playing Peter left, the crew was replaced four times, and some actors did manage to convince Tommy to cut out some of the more incomprehensible parts of the script.  So who knows?

[Custard]

I love the Blu-rizzle cover



This t-shirt is a bit on the nose, mind