When I wrote a feature last year about the so-bad-it’s-awesome movie The Room I assumed that the film’s cult popularity with both the public and stars like Paul Rudd and Kristen Bell had reached a peak. Au contraire! The film usually screens once a month in Los Angeles to a crowd of around 250 people. But, at midnight last Friday, The Room hit New York and was shown in no less than three auditoria at the Village East Cinema. In all, a whopping 420 fans turned up to shout abuse at this demented love triangle tale and throw around plastic spoons. With the line snaking around the block George Gross of Saturation Films—who are distributing the film in NY— told me, “We sold out weeks in advance. After we announced the second screen it sold out in two hours. We had marketing plans, we had all these posters—but the whole thing sold out so quickly we didn’t need them.”
On hand to introduce the film was star-writer-director Tommy Wiseau. The Room auteur admitted that he hadn’t liked some of the things yours truly had written in my piece—no surprise given that I described him as “the Orson Welles of crap”—but was a good enough sport to give me a t-shirt anyway (yes, there are now Room t-shirts). Wiseau himself was introduced by Role Models director David Wain who declared The Room to be “one of the greatest films of all-time.”
So, Popwatchers, take a look at the trailer below and see if you agree with Wain’s assessment. Did any New York-based readers attend the event? Alternatively, would you like it to be screened in your town?
More on The Room:
The Crazy Cult of ‘The Room’
‘The Room’: Worst movie ever? Don’t tell that to its suddenly in-demand star?
Dude I think this looks hilarious. Especially that one scene that was shown on Tim and Eric. I need to see this!
is that chris “piz” lowell in the front row?
Saw it in Atlanta last week….seriously, if you’re a film buff it is a MUST SEE!!
Hilarious ! It’s a must see movie !
I saw the recent episode of Tim & Eric that featured the Room, and I’m obsessed. I have to see it.
I was there for this screening and the thing that struck me the most was that the audience (chiefly comprised of a homogeneous group of NYU film geeks and Brooklyn hipsters)was clearly more excited to see Tommy Wiseau than David Wain — though perhaps this was because this was well worn territory for Wain; his Wet Hot American Summer had a couple midnight screenings of its own at this same theater a few years back. I was in attendance for one of those as well, and without question The Room’s audience was more excited and giddy than the audience that came to see Wet Hot. What is it about Tommy Wiseau that drives people (myself included) crazy?
Clearly it’s his hair that drives everyone wild. And his “nice pecks.”
Saturation is pretty cool. they made some good promos for the room: http://www.saturationfilms.com/projects
Yo. I was there last week. It was awesome. They said thy’re gonna have another one in April, anyone know the date yet?
What? You didn’t get tickets to the last screening?!
“The Room”
April 24, 2009
Village East Cinema
Midnight
http://www.tinyurl.com/theroomnewyork
He is seriously the WORST ACTOR EVER!! Wow. This is crap at atmospheric levels of crapdom. Acting skills were apparently not a requisite for this movie. Nor writing skills. The laughs are plentiful, however. Just not for the right reasons. What amazes me is that anyone associated with this thought it had any kind of real potential. Did I mention his horrifying acting? My dead plant has more charisma and talent. Enjoy.