Plan 9 Cinema: “The Room”



In the world of truly terrible movies, there tend to be two specimens. There are the movies that are just laughably bad and gloriously strange, and there are the ones that have their laughably awful moments, but mostly just make you feel kind of gross, like you’ve been watching something you shouldn’t have. So far, we’ve looked at two movies, “Hercules in New York” and “Buckaroo Banzai” that fall into the laughably bad/laughably bizarre category. They’re harmless fun, earnest examples of good intentions that just didn’t pan out. I was expecting “The Room,” Tommy Wiseau’s infamous 2003 turd, to be something similar. I was wrong. It is very clearly the second type of movie.

Perhaps my negative reaction resulted from watching the movie alone instead of with a group of friends (the Rifftrax clips I’ve seen on YouTube suggest that this might have been the case, since they’re hilarious). Perhaps I just wasn’t in the mood to watch junky cinema. Most likely it was the numerous sex scenes and images of a butt-naked Wiseau now forever seared onto my memory (there are some things you just can’t un-see) that made me want that 93 minutes of my life back. Whatever the reason, “The Room” made me feel icky. Having now seen the movie after months and months of hearing all kinds of hype about its cult status, it seems to me that the interest people have in “The Room” isn’t due to the movie itself so much as it is the artistic vision (and performance) of its director, writer and star, Wiseau.

Wiseau plays Johnny, a good guy with a good job, a loving fiancée, Lisa, and a group of devoted friends. But all is not as it seems. While Johnny is completely devoted to his wife-to-be, Lisa’s decided she doesn’t love Johnny, and takes up with his best friend, Mark (we know they’re best friends because it’s stated outright about 60 times during the course of the movie). Johnny discovers their affair, Johnny gets mad, Johnny lashes out. That’s about it. It’s a master class in bad filmmaking, because there’s not a single thing about it that’s right. Wiseau’s script seems cobbled together from stuff he’s heard on movies and after-school specials about drugs and drinking. There is not a speck of subtlety. Wiseau is apparently of the mind that you should tell instead of show since every action is stated right before it’s done.

The acting, as you’d expect, is awful, as exemplified by the infamous line delivered by Lisa’s mother in this clip:

But none of these awful actors can hold a candle to Wiseau’s performance in terms of flat-out weirdness. His accent, for one thing, is impossible to place, but seems to be some amalgam of Eastern European dialects. It’s as thick as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s in “Hercules in New York” with none of the appeal. His stilted English combined with the stilted dialogue makes him seem like he’s got some kind of mental disability (which, given the quality of this movie, he may actually have). It’s impossible to take him seriously, and his delivery makes up most of what’s unintentionally funny about “The Room.”

The best weird bit, however, is Wiseau’s obsession with football and “man talk.” I read an article in the Atlantic once that gave a few examples from the Room showing how Wiseau must view American life. In this America, guys hang around and have completely random conversations while tossing the pigskin around. They tease each other, mainly by referring to each other as “chicken” like this:

There’s no actual playing of real football involved, just throwing and catching. Apparently one can’t have a manly conversation with other men without it.

In watching “The Room,” it seems Wiseau just made a movie that’s crafted from what he thinks a movie is. Men shooting the bull and tossing a ball is just one aspect of that. A movie also, apparently, includes sex. A lot of sex. To be exact, a lot of explicit sex scored to really cheesy R&B with amazingly cliché lyrics that I really hope were created specifically for this movie. It was in these scenes that “The Room” left a bad taste in my mouth. It was funny to watch Wiseau stumble his way through a conversation, or for Lisa’s mom to casually mention that she “definitely (has) breast cancer.” Even the first disgusting sex scene between Johnny and Lisa I could kind of stand, simply because of how over-the-top it was. But when it was every other scene, with practically every scene in between as a predictable setup (the kind usually associated with pornography), I just didn’t feel right. It wasn’t enjoyable, it was downright wrong.

Yet it’s hard to criticize Wiseau for this, because by all accounts, he thought he was making a serious movie. These sex scenes, as gross as they may be, were most likely included because he thought they were edgy. That’s what makes them “funny” (in concept, at least). In any case, it still doesn’t make them any easier to watch.

For someone who loves bad movies, “The Room” is supposed to be tops. It’s the movie people love to hate to love, right up there with “Troll 2” (which I am legitimately fond of). But for me, it really didn’t live up to the hype. I was hoping for the Type 1 epically bad movie. What I got was type 2. And it tore me apart, Lisa. It really, really did.

The Non-Fiction Section: “What Would Jesus Buy?”

It’s December 22. With three days until Christmas, now’s the time that you either sit back and enjoy the knowledge that you’ve taken care of everyone on your gift list, or sit up with the sudden realization that you’ve forgotten someone (or something). The season is a time of whirlwind consumption, when we’re so driven by a need to give big and give expensively that we often forget that the holiday is, in fact, religiously-based, and not necessarily about giving gifts at all.

The documentary “What Would Jesus Buy” is an attempt to get people to re-think their approach to gift giving, or at the very least think before they buy. It tells the story of “Reverend Billy” (real name Bill Talen) and his Stop Shopping Gospel Choir as they embark on a national tour during the holidays, bringing their message of responsible consumerism to the masses. It’s a noble crusade, led by interesting characters, all dressed up in the trappings of old-time evangelical worship. The fact that the “gospel” Talen and co. preach isn’t shown to be terribly religious at all is a little troubling. The film becomes less about the holiday itself, or a set of religious convictions, and more about why we should avoid consuming. It’s an important message, to be sure, but one that’s hardly unique.

Director Rob VanAlkemade uses the story of Reverend Billy and his choir to speak to a larger message of the evils of consumerism and big corporations, ala “The Corporation” and “Super Size Me,” whose director, Morgan Spurlock, produced “What Would Jesus Buy.” VanAlkemade switches between scenes from Reverend Billy’s Shopocolypse Tour and scenes of American families buying Christmas presents and talking about their debt, as well as talking heads, including activists and one or two prominent religious leaders. The catalyst for Christmas, as much as it is for Reverend Billy’s tour, is that the holiday season is the time of year when Americans spend most, the time when the message of spending less and giving more is needed most urgently.

But where VanAlkemade misses (and misses by a mile, in my opinion), is making his documentary issues-focused instead of character-focused. Bill Talen, his wife Savitri and his choir are all really interesting people, and I wanted to know what led them to create and take part in the crusade. Savitri, in particular, seems so much more grounded than the charismatic Talen that I wanted to know more about how she felt about her husband’s work, or if the touring and demonstrating was ever a strain on their relationship. We get a few moments of insight into Talen’s home life, but not enough to really explain the man or his beliefs. He seems so curious, and his cause is so easy to get behind that it feels like surely by getting to know him and the members of the Stop Shopping Choir audiences could easily connect to the message VanAlkemade was trying to send.

The belief thing is another sticking point. As far as I can tell, Talen isn’t an ordained pastor. He refers to God as the “Fabulous Unknown.” He mentions Jesus as being the reason for Christmas only once, and even then doesn’t mention him by name. He never speaks about his actual religious beliefs, or if his work has any basis in those beliefs. His dramatic credit card “exorcisms” and blessings, therefore, would seem to be an act, done in the service of spreading his message. While I’m all for getting people’s attention, it bothered me to see things that I consider to be important to the life of the Church treated so lightly, mostly done for the amusement of the audience. That sense of direct correlation between the observance of Christmas as a religious holiday and the celebration of Christmas in its secular sense doesn’t really come up much in the non-Reverend Billy scenes, either. There is one quote, from an unseen, unnamed talking head that makes a really good point about Jesus confronting the moneychangers in the temple, but it’s fleeting. There are some interviews with a few pastors, but none of them speak much about the religious implications, either.

I understand that perhaps VanAlkemade isn’t a churchgoing man, and his aim was simply to make a documentary on ugly consumerism in America, a message for which Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir are a compelling catalyst. But there are plenty of movies out there telling people why they should be conscientious shoppers. We have “The Corporation” and the movies of Michael Moore to tell us those things, and for the most part, they preach to the choir (pun intended), folks like Talen and his fellow activists. The message that everyone (including practicing Christians) loses the meaning of Christmas amid all the shopping, and that a commitment to support local economies and fair labor is as much a part of Christianity as it is part of being a citizen of the world could have made “What Would Jesus Buy” accessible to a whole new audience, one that would likely have taken that message to heart. As it is, it’s just another cheeky, clever political documentary that means well, but ultimately doesn’t reach very far.

That Guy File #3: Stephen Tobolowsky

Where you’ve seen him: Pretty much everything, including: Groundhog Day, Spaceballs, Glee, Deadwood, Single White Female, Basic Instinct, Bird on a Wire, Thelma and Louise, Memento, That 70s Show, Freaky Friday, The West Wing, CSI: Miami, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Failure to Launch, Desperate Housewives, Entourage, Heroes, the Time Traveler’s Wife, Wild Hogs, Mississippi Burning, Buried (yes, you read that right)

There are two types of “That Guys” in this world. There are the ones who give memorable performances in smaller roles (your Clancy Browns or Keith Davids, for example). Then there are the ones who tend, with a few exceptions, to blend into the background, but are always, always there. This is the category Stephen Tobolowsky belongs to. He’s been around for a while, and has been in just about every movie and TV show you can name. He even managed to find his way into “Buried,” a movie whose only visible stars are Ryan Reynolds and a cell phone. But he’s not usually memorable. He tends to blend into the background playing characters like bumbling principals or whiny neighbors. But once you’ve seen him, you notice when he pops up in other places. His recurring role as disgraced former music teacher Sandy Ryerson on “Glee” has probably given him the most exposure of late, but his real standout performance is as Ned Ryerson, Bill Murray’s obnoxious former classmate in “Groundhog Day.” You know the one:

But, in a vein similar to fellow “That Guy” James Urbaniak, Tobolowsky has an off-screen presence that’s just as interesting (if not more interesting) than his career as an on-screen “Where’s Waldo?” Here it is: the man is a spectacular storyteller. The 2005 film “Stephen Tobolowsky’s Birthday Party” features anecdotes from his many years of experience as an actor, as does “The Tobolowsky Files,” a podcast he’s hosted on SlashFilm since 2009.  Tobolowsky has collected so many interesting experiences in his life both on and off movie sets, and worked with so many directors (Ridley Scott, Christopher Nolan and Paul Verhoeven, to name a few) that he’s got a tale for just about every occasion, and reveals such a diverse array of interests and deep thoughtfulness that he can make any story connect to a theme. The podcast’s latest episode, “The Moment Before Zero” is a fabulous example, winding together the Big Bang, the Book of Genesis and fundamental lessons in acting together to tell what’s ultimately a story about filming a fight scene with Mel Gibson on the set of “Bird on a Wire.” Have a listen. It’s amazing.

Guys like Brown and Urbaniak might be the reason we love “That Guy” actors, but guys like Stephen Tobolowsky are the reason we have them. He may not be the one who steals the scene, but he’s the understated glue that holds it together. One or two-line roles in a movie like “Freaky Friday” may not be the most glamorous gig in town, but they’re totally necessary. It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it, and the man you want for that job is Stephen Tobolowsky.

Christmas Extra: A very special Christmas episode of “The Tobolowsky Files.”

Shot-for-Shot: Miracle on 34th Street

It’s December, which means that anyone with even an ounce of holiday spirit is talking about Christmas. Therefore, it’s only appropriate that I observe the holiday, too. This week is a “Shot-for-Shot” week, and I’ll be paying homage to a frequently-remade holiday classic, “Miracle on 34th Street,” and its highest profile (but still oft-overlooked) 1994 reincarnation, written and produced by the late, great John Hughes.

In my opinion, most Christmas movies that directly involve Santa (or some kind of supernatural holiday magic) tend to be pretty silly. But some movies pull it off better than others. Consider, if you will, the dramatic court case at the center of “Miracle on 34th Street:” Santa (played in the original by Edmund Gwenn, and in the remake by Richard Attenborough, everyone’s favorite dinosaur theme-park mogul) has come to New York, and, since no adult actually believes in him, he’s on trial for insanity. And, of course, through the unfailing belief and wide-eyed innocence of kids, he wins the case. Christmas is saved!

Now, in the original movie, there’s a kind of spectacular whimsy to this situation. The audience is all completely aware that no real court of law would see action like this, but the spirit of the thing comes through, because at no point do you feel that the filmmakers are taking this seriously. The entire film, from beginning to end, is lighthearted, uncomplicated and sweet. But Hughes’ rewritten script takes all of this in a different direction. At first, it feels like it’s an improvement—characters and relationships are more fleshed-out, less one-dimensional. There are actual villains! Religious metaphors! It’s ambitious! But then, we come to those lynchpin courtroom scenes. And that’s when everything falls apart.

The plot of the two movies is, as you might expect, exactly the same. On Thanskgiving, Santa happens upon the famed parade of a large department store (in the original, it’s the Macy’s parade, in the remake, it’s the fictional Cole’s—licensing issues, apparently). The parade’s hired Santa is a drunken fool who doesn’t even have his beard on straight. Santa outs him to the parade director, Mrs. Walker, and serves as the man’s last-minute replacement, and subsequently as the department store’s Santa, since he seems to be a hit. Turns out, this is because he actually is Santa (or says he is). The practical Mrs. Walker and her precocious, disillusioned daughter Susan aren’t having it, despite the pleas of their friendly neighbor, who’s a believer, and has kind of a thing for the single Mrs. Walker. Eventually, Santa’s sanity is called into question (on account of continuing to say he’s the big man himself, and refusing to admit otherwise). After a big, publicized court case, the judge decides that Santa is who he says he is, and lets him go, to the delight of young children and their put-upon parents the world over.

Now, as I said before, while the major plot points of the two movies mirror each other, the approach Valentine Davies and George Seaton’s 1947 screenplay takes versus Hughes’ 1994 update are rather different. While both movies prominently feature a single parent, only the Hughes film really explores the relationship between the parent (Elizabeth Perkins as Dorey Walker) and the child (Mara Wilson, surprisingly emotive as Susan). Here, we find out more about why Mrs. Walker has told Susan that Santa doesn’t exist. And the reason is this: she’s still really bitter about her failed marriage, but instead of working out her issues with a therapist, she’s decided to stop believing in anything happy, and has infected the poor kid with the same philosophy. At one point, she tells the sweet, adorably buck-toothed Susan that, “believing in myths and fantasies makes you unhappy.” Yikes! I’m pretty sure Maureen O’Hara never said anything like that to baby Natalie Wood in the 1947 version.

There’s also that religious metaphor bit. While in the original, belief in Santa simply represented a belief in the magic and joy of Christmas, Hughes expands it to represent faith as a whole. For example, at the beginning of the movie, Mrs. Walker and Susan have the neighbor, Bryan, over for Thanksgiving dinner. Bryan (a freakishly good-looking Dylan McDermott—seriously, someone please break that man’s nose) asks if they say grace. Turns out that, unlike the Walkers, Bryan’s a religious man. He’s also a believer in Santa (surprise) and thinks that Attenborough is the genuine article (double surprise).

Later on, Santa casually lets Mrs. Walker know that if she can’t accept anything that requires faith, she’s “doomed to a life ruled by doubt,” and that he’s “a symbol of the human ability to be able to suppress the selfish and hateful tendencies that rule the major part of our lives,” just in case you didn’t pick up on the religious undertones earlier. It’s actually a valiant effort on the part of Hughes to take the movie from a candy-cane colored bit of holiday fun to something of real substance.

But, unfortunately, “Miracle on 34th Street” just isn’t a movie built to carry a message that heavy. We come now to the dramatic centerpiece of both movies: the courtroom scene. In the original movie, this scene was, dare I say it, cute. It was kind of a cherry on a peppermint sundae of a movie. But in the remake, it’s something more in tune with the message and dramatic heft we’ve come to expect from Hughes’ treatment. But while the touch of pathos was bearable, even thoughtful in the rest of the movie, here it’s asking too much of the audience to take it seriously. Santa sits in his room in Bellevue hospital, looking forlornly out the window. The trial is on every single TV channel, and the front page of every newspaper (even though it only takes two days). Whole throngs of people gather in the streets to hear the judgment. There are montages of people throwing public support behind Santa, from city workers to diner owners. Dylan McDermott, representing Santa, puts on a courtroom performance worthy of Atticus Finch.

Suddenly, we’ve morphed from family Christmas movie to 90s courtroom drama, and these characters don’t quite work in their new setting. Hughes changes the case’s closing argument from the original, another aspect of this part of the movie that doesn’t really work. In the original court scene, the defense convinced the judge by getting thousands of letters to Santa delivered to the court from the Dead Letter Office, therefore proving that Kris Kringle, the defendant, was officially recognized as Santa by the government. It’s a fun scene, and presents a decent (if slightly flimsy) case. Hughes’ convincing argument ignores the post office, and brings the U.S. treasury into the mix. Apparently, because we have “In God We Trust” stamped on our money, we as a people collectively put our faith in an unseen entity. Therefore, we believe in Santa, because apparently he operates under the same principles. It fits in with Hughes’ prevailing religious metaphor, but it doesn’t hold up to much scrutiny, and really lays the message on thick, even though you’d need to have slept through the whole movie to miss the point if you hadn’t gotten it by now.

Both versions of “Miracle on 34th Street” are relatively harmless pieces of Christmas fluff. But, if given the choice, I’d much rather watch the original over Hughes’ remake. The 1994 version has one up on the 1947 release in the relationship and heartstring-tugging departments, but being able to watch a movie in which Santa walks among us (incidentally, neither movie explains why he’s there) requires a certain amount of suspension of disbelief. In that vein, George Seaton’s original is the clear champion.

Additional Observations:

-There’s another notable change in one of my favorite scenes from the original that involves Santa and a little girl. In the original, Gwenn speaks Dutch with a little orphan girl. In the 1994 remake, Attenborough uses sign language to communicate with a deaf girl. The original scene made me smile. The 1994 one almost made me cry. Well played, John Hughes.

-In watching the scene where Santa babysits Susan in the remake, I couldn’t help but wonder, given what I saw of Richard Attenborough’s cinematic childcare abilities last week in “Jurassic Park,” would I really want him looking after my child? I have my doubts.

Nostalgiaville: Jurassic Park

In 1993, I was five years old. At that age, most kids are only interested in two things: princesses and dinosaurs. So it makes sense that while I remember very little about that year, I do remember “Jurassic Park.” Everyone and their mother (including my mother) wanted to see this movie. It was groundbreaking. It was exciting. It was a Steven Spielberg movie. It was everything a blockbuster should be. I think the appeal for me was more along the lines of getting to watch dinosaurs, and a trailer that included Samuel L. Jackson saying the word “butt,” which, at the time, I thought was risqué. Ah, youth.

Anyway, “Jurassic Park” was a movie that took popular culture by storm upon its release, and continued doing so for years afterward. It’s a movie that left a Tyrannosaur-sized footprint on my childhood. Even so, I haven’t seen the movie in its entirety since I was 11 years old, so I thought it was high time to revisit it.

As you can probably guess, a second viewing of “Jurassic Park” didn’t really change my overall love for the movie. However, it was deepened. Part of this was out of a sense of nostalgia, but there were also some parts of the film I hadn’t caught as a kid. That being said, there were a few things this time that stuck in my craw, so let’s just get those out of the way, beginning with how poorly planned that damn park is.

As a kid, I think I was just wowed by the visuals and the concept of “real live” dinosaurs onscreen, and also didn’t have the common sense modern safety concerns that adults did, so I overlooked a lot. But watching it again, it’s pretty funny to see just how easy it was to turn that park into a pit of bloody chaos. Consider: crackpot head honcho Richard Attenborough didn’t plan for tropical storms, despite the fact that his park is located in South America. He didn’t put locks on the car doors, completely ignoring that this would likely be a natural reaction for anyone who wanted to get a closer look at the creatures (and ignoring the advice of ace gamekeeper Robert Muldoon, who knows a bit about Safaris). He breeds velociraptors, a dangerous, smart and deadly creature, again despite Muldoon’s warnings. Also, if your entire defense system can be shut down by Newman from Seinfeld, perhaps it’s time to rethink your security. Just saying.

Seriously?

I also like how Attenborough’s excitement over his park makes him blind to what seem to me like pretty basic arguments against his work. At the beginning of the movie, he brings Sam Neill and Laura Dern to check out the park to get their scientific stamp of approval, but really he just wants some “yes men” to placate his slimy lawyer. He’s hoping their amazement at what they find will give him the OK he needs, no questions asked. But when the slimy lawyer also brings chaos theorist Jeff Goldblum (in full manic cool-guy mode) along for the ride, Attenborough immediately dislikes him, because he questions the magic, and makes Neill and Dern question it, too. Goldblum doesn’t think it’s the place of scientists to go back and mess with millions of years of evolution just because they can. Fair point. Of course, Goldblum’s problems with the park turn out to be exactly the problems the group encounters, proof that you just shouldn’t screw with science. Or at least just make it harder for your genetically rebred dinosaurs to kill you.

So, point one: As a child, I was pre-disposed to like Richard Attenborough’s character because the actor looked like a sweet old man, and resembled Santa Claus (who he later played in the remake of “Miracle on 34th Street”). I felt sorry for him that his park wasn’t working. I didn’t blame him. But now, with all of this evidence and poor planning in front of me, I have no sympathy. All of the problems were his own damn fault.

Second point: child actors. As a kid, I loved Joseph Mazzello and Ariana Richards as Tim and Lex, Attenborough’s plucky grandkids. They were probably my favorite characters. I think mostly I was just excited that children around my age were main characters in a movie. But perceptions change. I used to think Lex was a super-cool hacker girl. She was awesome. Not anymore. From my adult point of view, Lex is panicky, dumb and annoying, barely redeeming herself by saving everyone at the end with her tech knowledge. Tim, who’s basically adorable, and does way more than freak out every time, is a much more likeable character. He also gets some of the movie’s best one-liners.
This movie also introduces audiences to the official paleontologist uniform. Behold:

It’s some form of cotton shirt, with sleeves rolled up, and beige pants. Hat is optional. Because I wanted to be a paleontologist for about three years after seeing this movie, this was the look that dominated my wardrobe from age 6 to age 9. Thanks Steven Spielberg.

You’d think that the technology in a movie like “Jurassic Park,” considering how old it is, wouldn’t have held up over time. But it has. I’ve long been of the opinion that puppets, despite occasional jerkiness, are consistently better than CGI when it comes to creating believable creatures, and this movie is an excellent example of how effective they can be. Some of the elements in Jurassic Park, of course, are CGI, and some involve green screen work. But that T-Rex? That scene with the water glass that everyone remembers because of how threatening that dinosaur is? It’s a 20-foot animatronic puppet, and for most people, it was what made the movie. I rest my case.

Despite a few goofs here and there, “Jurassic Park” mainly made me feel a huge sense of nostalgia. I miss old-school Spielberg movies, back when he was at the height of his skill. Even his movies that didn’t succeed at the box office, like “Hook,” are still great. There’s this sense of old Hollywood magic and wonderment in these movies that you just don’t see much in his work post-“Schindler’s List” (part of this may be due to John Williams’ iconic scores). His attempts to re-capture that wide-eyed excitement and grand adventure have fallen flat, like 2001’s “A.I.” He’s directed a Tintin movie coming next year that’s got some top writers (Edgar Wright, Stephen Moffatt and Joe Cornish) on the script, so here’s hoping it’ll be a little reminder of what his movies used to be like.

Extra bit of fun: Epic “Sweded” version of “Jurassic Park”