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March 28, 2024, 09:36:16 AM

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"Cu*t Phenomenon": so bad it's good it's bad it's good et fucking cetera.

Started by Mark Steels Stockbroker, February 10, 2013, 09:02:46 PM

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SteveDave

I bought The Room on DVD on Friday from the Prince Charles Cinema (during the daytime) & got a signed copy! From the funny faced man & I think Mark. It must be worth a fortune right?

I've not watched it yet.

vrailaine

When I was in DC there was a cinema screening the Room with either live commentary from Wiseau or a Q&A. I never saw it and figured seeing it in that setting would be much more likely to be horrendous than good.

The plan is to watch it some time with people who respect my taste, but don't know what it is.

Pepotamo1985

I've had this discussion on CaB before, but anyway...

Maybe it's because I'd long been an 'ironic' fan of 'so bad it's rib cracking' cinema by the time I saw it, maybe it was because of the cult hype, but I just don't find The Room that hilarious.

There's lots of mindbendingly bizarre and astonishingly bad little bits ("hi doggie!", "you arrrr terren mee apart Lisaaaaaaarrr", "what a story Mark!", the football game in the alley, the introduction of quickly forgotten subplots, the entire drug dealer episode) that raise hearty belly laughs even now, but overall it just makes me yawn. And believe me, I wanted to love/hate this film.

zomgmouse

I haven't gotten around to seeing it yet, even though there's a cinema here that shows it every two weeks, but surely it can't be worse than Glen or Glenda? or Bride of the Monster? I think partly the cultish group hype (i.e. 80% of the cinema being filled by people who have seen it ten times) would distract my potential appreciation, even though that's apparently how you're meant to see it.

Famous Mortimer

I booked a ticket to go to the live Q&A / showing of The Room that was at the weekend, but then realised as the day drew nearer that I couldn't be bothered. But I absolutely adore the film, though, even if it's not quite as bonkers as "After Last Season".

zomgmouse, Ed Wood has had a rough time of it down the decades. If you look at stuff like "Birdemic", where the lead actor appears unable to walk like a human being on camera, and compare it to even the worst Wood film, there's no competition. "Plan 9 From Outer Space" is stupid and cheap, but most of the people in it could act and a plot you could sort of follow.

Pepotamo1985

What's really weird is that I know I had my joust over The Room with you, Famous Mortimer. And I posted feeling a bit nostalgic about you. Welcome back!

Mark Steels Stockbroker

I don't find Plan 9 From Outer Space significantly worse than a bunch of other 50s SF. It just has that "Worst Ever" tag attached to it for so long that no one seems to question it too much.

The final Hartnell DW story The Tenth Planet isn't much better, it even has typos in the credits, so you'd better hope they never find the missing footage and put out a complete release of it.

Rolf Lundgren

I bloody love The Room. The article at the top is a very wanky 'let's look at in this way' essay when really the film doesn't need much if any analysis at all. It's just a poorly made film that misses again and again but because the production values are actually alright (compared to other bad films rather than Hollywood blockbusters) then it's very watchable. I find it very entertaining and very funny but understand why somebody wouldn't and why some people would have no patience for it.

A truly bad film for me is something that I watch once, never remember again and don't enjoy watching at the time. At least The Room makes a lasting impression and Tommy Wiseau has managed to eke a living out of it.

Mark Steels Stockbroker

I've seen a clips compilation. It's like a Naked Gun -style spoof film, in which the visual/verbal punchlines have all been excised, so you just have lots of scenes of overplayed Hollywood acting which look like they are about to do a big funny, but never do.

I suppose that must be what watching Epic Movie or Meet The Spartans must be like.

Rolf Lundgren

Quote from: Mark Steels Stockbroker on February 12, 2013, 09:04:17 PM
I've seen a clips compilation. It's like a Naked Gun -style spoof film, in which the visual/verbal punchlines have all been excised, so you just have lots of scenes of overplayed Hollywood acting which look like they are about to do a big funny, but never do.

I suppose that must be what watching Epic Movie or Meet The Spartans must be like.

It's worth watching the whole film because a lot of the clips of The Room work better in context. People always focus on those highlights and seldom mention that for the middle 45 minutes of the film absolutely nothing happens. It's just the same scenes over and over again which do nothing to move the plot forward. Which depending on your disposition you might find funny like I do.

zomgmouse

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on February 12, 2013, 06:26:27 PM
zomgmouse, Ed Wood has had a rough time of it down the decades. If you look at stuff like "Birdemic", where the lead actor appears unable to walk like a human being on camera, and compare it to even the worst Wood film, there's no competition. "Plan 9 From Outer Space" is stupid and cheap, but most of the people in it could act and a plot you could sort of follow.
Fair enough. I remember watching one MST3K episode (the only one I've seen, shamefully) that featured the improbably-titled Attack of the The Eye Creatures, and that was indeed reaching levels of incompetence that were so bad I couldn't even laugh at them.

Quote from: Mark Steels Stockbroker on February 12, 2013, 08:16:04 PM
I don't find Plan 9 From Outer Space significantly worse than a bunch of other 50s SF. It just has that "Worst Ever" tag attached to it for so long that no one seems to question it too much.
I'd agree there. It's just got this magnetic "bad film" quality about it, but it's not even the worst film Wood himself made.

Just as an aside, Jail Bait is the only film of his I've seen that is actually verging on not being bad. Courtesy of the fact that it's a noir and noirs are traditionally crude and offbeat, it actually starts to fit quite well at certain moments. It's got a half-decent plot and some shots are actually quite good, but the dialogue and acting are most of everything else is a shitpile. But there you go.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: zomgmouse on February 11, 2013, 11:17:25 PM
I haven't gotten around to seeing it yet, even though there's a cinema here that shows it every two weeks, but surely it can't be worse than Glen or Glenda?

I really like Glen or Glenda. I mean it's obviously not a great piece of film making but there seems to be genuine heart and warmth behind it all. The Room however is just bizarre in that it's such an incredibly misjudged effort, with the dialogue in nearly every scene being ridiculously laughable, and of course Wiseau in the lead role making it utterly unique. I love it, and it's probably would make my top 20 favourite films list if such a thing were to exist.[nb]It does, but films keep on swapping places all the time.[/nb]

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

Quote from: Rolf Lundgren on February 12, 2013, 09:19:46 PM
It's worth watching the whole film because a lot of the clips of The Room work better in context. People always focus on those highlights and seldom mention that for the middle 45 minutes of the film absolutely nothing happens. It's just the same scenes over and over again which do nothing to move the plot forward. Which depending on your disposition you might find funny like I do.

Yeah, that. There's also the fact that the same sex scene is used twice (due to the fact that the massively young actress refused to do a second sex scene with yer man Tommy, having filmed the first [and only] one more or less after arriving the first day on set, and not really enjoying the experience); and one of the many scenes in which the guys throw a football to each other, and are clad in tuxedoes for no reason immediately apparent.

I really don't admire Tommy Wiseau's cowardly move of trying to re-brand it as a black comedy, though. No, Tommy, it's just a laughably crap film. You didn't get the promotion, did you ?

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: zomgmouse on February 12, 2013, 11:02:00 PM
I remember watching one MST3K episode (the only one I've seen, shamefully)
You've got some good times ahead of you, because they're fantastic and a bunch of them are available on Youtube. I just watched "Boggy Creek 2: ....And The Legend Continues" the other day, and it was brilliant.

Glebe

I'd hold up The Swarm and Pieces as examples of films which are genuinely so bad they're fucking hilarious.

zomgmouse

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on February 13, 2013, 01:37:13 AM
Quote from: zomgmouse on February 11, 2013, 11:17:25 PM
I haven't gotten around to seeing it yet, even though there's a cinema here that shows it every two weeks, but surely it can't be worse than Glen or Glenda?
I really like Glen or Glenda. I mean it's obviously not a great piece of film making but there seems to be genuine heart and warmth behind it all. The Room however is just bizarre in that it's such an incredibly misjudged effort, with the dialogue in nearly every scene being ridiculously laughable, and of course Wiseau in the lead role making it utterly unique. I love it, and it's probably would make my top 20 favourite films list if such a thing were to exist.[nb]It does, but films keep on swapping places all the time.[/nb]
Well of course his films were made with genuine heart and warmth that's hard to miss, but it's a bit like a kid trying really really hard at playing the violin and you can tell they're trying and that they love it but they can't produce anything more than cats disemboweling possums.

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: zomgmouse on February 18, 2013, 03:47:53 AM
Well of course his films were made with genuine heart and warmth that's hard to miss, but it's a bit like a kid trying really really hard at playing the violin and you can tell they're trying and that they love it but they can't produce anything more than cats disemboweling possums.
I think the difference between Ed Wood and, say, Coleman Francis or Ha Warren, is that Wood's violin makes awful sounds, but they don't seem to understand what a violin is, or what to do with it. This may be stretching the analogy too far.

Mark Steels Stockbroker

Thinking back to when Clive James was showing clips of Glen Or Glenda and laughing at them, I'm not sure if we were meant to be laughing at the very idea of trans-sexualism. In a post-Burchill age it all seems a bit different, and we need to re-evaluate whether Ed Wood deserves the scorn heaped on him.

zomgmouse

Considering Ed Wood himself was a transvestite, I doubt it.
"PULL DA STRING!" and other such moments are more what's being laughed at.

On a sidenote, it's amazing that despite being a film about transvestism and transsexuality, it still manages to be homophobic and lean on traditional gender roles. Congratulations, 1950s.

Pedro_Bear



The enjoyment doesn't come from sneering at bad films, it comes from admitting we like them. With very few, highly notable exceptions (Castle of Fu Manchu sticks out like a sore thumb) MST3K first and foremost liked the films they were riffing.

"Your Bad Film Night In" is yet another shrill stab at selling a safely packaged slice of doing nothing under the label of kitsch culture. As such it doesn't work because kitsch culture is spontaneous and runs the risk of genuine ridicule, if not outright invites it.

The Room is little short of a 12 year old's temper tantrum fantasy: Tommy is the nice guy who everyone loves and who is suddenly, inexplicably laid low by everyone around him, he kills himself to spite them, and they feel sorry. It's a film about adolescence extended into adulthood, and as such is horribly, horrifically honest, albeit accidentally so. It deserves the status of a cult film, but tries to shortcut the difficult, arcane process of actually biting as one.

Pretty Smart, The Gate, Wasteland Warriors, McBain, Blood Waters Of Doctor Z, Green Porno none of these films could be remade shot-for-shot, their imperfections and lunacy are of the moment in front of the camera. John Waters discovering that he could make films with his friends the equal of his cinematic heroes. Going to the cinema at midnight to see this stuff. This is not passive consumerism that can be packaged and labelled for mass consumption, even though it might first appear to be that way. Just look at El Topo transposed to regular cinema timeslots: everything that made the film tick along drained from the screen. 1080px torrents do not match up with clamshell vhs boxes. There is way more to a cult film than just throwing spoons at it on cue.

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: Pedro_Bear on February 21, 2013, 06:28:39 AM
With very few, highly notable exceptions (Castle of Fu Manchu sticks out like a sore thumb) MST3K first and foremost liked the films they were riffing.
I've seen every episode and read all the books written by the cast members, and I just don't see that at all. They may have found things to entertain themselves with about those films, but that's a long way from liking them.

But I might not be able to see the wood for the trees, I suppose.

Pedro_Bear

It doesn't come across on-screen that way at all. Sure, they like certain ones more than others, and get bored with the lack of action on occasion and kick off, but it doesn't come from a centre of derision. We're not being invited to laugh at a bad film, it's more that we're being invited to laugh at watching one. Who watches this stuff? Oh, we do.



Take the gargantuan effort of having to Rifftrax every second of the entire of the Twilight series. That means they watched those films, all the way through, at least twice, if not longer to work up a routine. Even given it's their unofficial job to do so, and their fanbase guarantees the living earned by tgwtg crew pales by comparison, there's no way they could make it through if they were just sneering. There's no way we could make it through as their audience. There's not enough ironic detachment in the world to endure the three films in the middle unless we actually wanted to watch them. "Line?... ... Line? ... ... ... Line... ... ... Line??? ... ..."

Rolf Lundgren

Quote from: Pedro_Bear on February 21, 2013, 07:00:25 PM
Take the gargantuan effort of having to Rifftrax every second of the entire of the Twilight series. That means they watched those films, all the way through, at least twice, if not longer to work up a routine. Even given it's their unofficial job to do so, and their fanbase guarantees the living earned by tgwtg crew pales by comparison, there's no way they could make it through if they were just sneering.

In the MST3K days they probably had a fondness for quite a few of the films they did but the Rifftrax stuff is pretty much all just popular material that they know will sell. I don't think it's that difficult to watch a film you don't like and come up with funny stuff to say about it with your mates.

Pedro_Bear



I disagree.[nb]Rifftrax are tied up by availability of dvd/bluray releases; we can't level the criticism of pandering to popularism when they are first out of the gate with a riff on McBain before anyone noticed it had been re-released. Yeah, they set themseleves little joke challenges like "do all the Harry Potter films" or "do all the Twlilight films" but for every contemporary title there's a re-released Fankenstein's Island or the completely mind-melting Santa And The Ice Cream Bunny. I think it's unfair to criticise them for applying their jokes to box sets that people are going to already own. Yes, I'd like them to do Yor Hunter From The Future, but it's so difficult to get hold of as legitimate copy in the first place it'd be pointless from a business point of view, and open up legal action if they just went ahead and applied it to a pirate copy.

And riffing is extremely difficult to get right. There are plenty of funny, talented web performers who have dipped their riff toes and then run a mile to back this up. It's not as easy as it appears, even if we're naturally funny and used to performing light observational comedy centred around films.[/nb]

The point that's relevant to The Room is this: if we were not the sort of person who would have encountered The Room as a matter of course, it is not the film for us. No amount of marketing or ironic blogging is going to change that.

Perhaps more interestingly... arguably, the term cult film has no discrete meaning in 2013 anyway.

The two biggest blockbuster franchises of the past decade were Twilight and Harry Potter. Neither series have wide appeal: one is a narcisistic fantasy about self-justifying polyamoury, the other shit for kids. Both are often poorly-acted despite the presence of talented casts, with special effects awful to behold. Both have a legitimate cult following with fans pinning their fandom on their foreheads and ignoring the jeers of detractors. Both are completely impenetrable to people who have not read the associated novels, Harry Potter being the absolute worst offender of the two. Ditto the fandom to anyone not involved. Both screwed over the fanbase to their faces to milk more money, just like every niche vendor at every convention, ever.

So... what does cult film mean when the mainstream is now churning out highly lucrative cult hits as a matter of course? When "Your Bad Film Night In" pretty much applies to any contemporary released dvd we care to play?


Famous Mortimer

Quote from: Pedro_Bear on February 22, 2013, 09:59:44 AM
The two biggest blockbuster franchises of the past decade were Twilight and Harry Potter. Neither series have wide appeal:
If they don't have wide appeal, then the words have no meaning. Box office, licenced merchandise, pop culture spoofs - their appeal is as wide as it's possible for films to get. Your point maybe seems to be that because of their niche subject matter, they shouldn't have wide appeal, but reality shows that to not be the case.

Also, re: Rifftrax - their original business model was to riff on popular films, because they were relying on DVDs that were widely owned or widely available. This has changed in the last few years, because they discovered they could make more money by doing a full VOD release of crappy old films "in the public domain" - Plan 9, Manos: The Hands Of Fate, etc. Live shows, completely non-existent in their first few years of existence, are now more and more a part of what they do.

As far as whether the MST guys "liked" the films they did, we could always just ask them. Trace Beaulieu and Frank Conniff are both pretty active on Twitter, and our own Skip Bittman has worked with Trace recently on a film.

Pedro_Bear



Mainstream mega-franchises are cult films in 2013, in everything but the label.

Take Avatar and Prometheus trying to sell scifi to a non-scifi audience, and succeeding on paper sales while failing on anything approaching satisfying scifi. Or any of the cartoon superhero films. Gone are the days when films like Darkman or arguably even Blade are labelled nerdcore. Michael Bay's Transformers, how much more niche and nerdy can we get than that? Lord of the Rings.

What makes The Room and stuff like Birdemic interesting is that they remain outside of this appropriation, and not necessarily just because of their production values. They present uncynical, grassroots cinema as much as they represent insane vanity projects.

Retinend

Quote from: Mark Steels Stockbroker on February 10, 2013, 09:02:46 PM
Please react to this article about The Room.

Is your point that it's so terrible that it's hard to know where to start? I've been typing things and deleting them for 20 minutes now. That "Intention and Value" section for a start is boiling my blood. But it hasn't just got a bad branch, it's rotten to the roots. Just terrible, empty writing.

Retinend

Quote from: Pedro_Bear on February 22, 2013, 12:57:14 PM
Mainstream mega-franchises are cult films in 2013, in everything but the label.
It seems to be that all you're saying is that tastes are more geeky nowadays. You have in your mind the megafans of Twilight and Potter who write fanfiction and draw fanart, but lots of people are fans of these films - they're massively lucrative franchises who draw in "the masses." Lots of people are drawn in who don't even own a book of the franchises.

True, Lord of the Rings is somehow cool now (well, a decade ago) when it wasn't cool in the 70s and 80s, but what's all this got to do with The Room again?[/td][/tr][/table]

Mark Steels Stockbroker

Quote from: Retinend on February 22, 2013, 06:34:59 PM
Is your point that it's so terrible that it's hard to know where to start?

Dude, it's like there are a million sides to a circle. Pick the point you want to start from.

I just saw the article and thought the CaB crew might like it or dislike it.