[Freya-dæg] The Room: "Leave your stupid comments in your pocket!"

{The Room‘s movie poster, found on Wikipedia.}

Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

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Plot Summary

Everything in the life of Johnny (Tommy Wiseau) seems to be going well: he’s lined up for a promotion at work, he’s about to marry his girlfriend of seven years (Lisa, played by Juliette Danielle), and he’s surrounded by friends. However, little does Johnny know that his world of easygoing trust is about to collide head on with the truth of a betrayal of all he holds dear.

Although he lives there, Johnny risks it all when he enters The Room!

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The Good

The first 30 minutes of The Room are a bizarre quasi-softcore porn hurdle (sex scenes make up 1/3 of it at least) that needs to be leaped in order to arrive at the movie’s middle. And what a middle. Although it should really take a viewer out of the movie, this movie’s middle is like a sweet cream filling while the first and last 30-35 minutes are like a low-grade chocolate shell. What matters, though, is that this set up works.

As the movie’s events heat up and become more dramatic Wiseau’s curious delivery makes all of his intense lines unintentionally hilarious. This is, after all, the home of the internet-famous

{“You’re tearing me apart, Lisa!”}

Speaking of Lisa, it’s refreshing to see an average, real woman featured in the female lead role of a movie such as this.

{But, as Lisa’s mother Claudette (Carolyn Minnott) says, she “can’t support herself.”}

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The Bad

Although Wiseau’s acting often has a tinge of the (unintentionally) comedic, the movie as a whole doesn’t share in the same off-yet-endearing quality.

For starters, several side characters are introduced and then forgotten like so many Scooby-Doo villains, and quite unnecessarily. For example, we’re introduced to Mike (Mike Holmes) and Michelle (Robyn Paris) fairly early in the movie, but they don’t survive into the third act, as Mike is nowhere to be seen at Johnny’s party.

What’s more, Mike and Michelle, as a fellow couple, could easily have been the source of advice for Johnny and Lisa. Instead, for the space of a couple of scenes we get Peter (Kyle Vogt), the psychologist friend. Even stranger is the third act introduction of a mysterious man in a white button up shirt at Johnny’s party who is the one who finds out about Lisa’s and Mark’s betrayal.

Much more importantly for a movie called The Room, the setting is really unclear. We’re definitely watching a story in San Francisco, and that takes part in an apartment building of some sort for the most part. But what kind of apartment is difficult to nail down. Some establishing shots suggests a modest apartment building:

Others suggest a townhouse:

Perhaps the movie’s uncertain setting is simply meant to make the titular room more expansive than one four-walled enclosure, but this lack of clarity is distracting.

Along with the uncertain setting and character introductions, a couple of side plots are mentioned but then just forgotten.

Denny’s run-in with drugs and owing drug money? Apparently solved after Johnny and Mark attack the drug dealer.

Claudette’s troubles with her brother and a house she’s looking to sell? Just noted, and never returned to.

Both of these sideplots feed into the movie’s drama, but developing and integrating either or both would have given it a much more consistent feel.

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Judgment

Decidedly a weird one to watch, The Room has its merits (it inspired its own indie flash game after all).

Wiseau’s strange, quasi-high/drunk, almost entirely eye-contact-less acting style makes all of his dramatic scenes utterly laughable. But as a result the movie’s drama is almost always turned on its head and rendered ineffective. Coupled with an awkward handling of what can only be assumed to be an attempt to make Johnny’s apartment a main character, too much of the movie’s acting and writing undermine the possibility of it all being taken seriously.

The Room is good for a laugh, but its uneven characters, settings, and side stories hamstring its ability to be anything more.

So, Freya, let this one be. It lay already in a prominent place, splayed across a crumbling battlement – there shall all who desire to shall see it, but it simply is not the sort to be raised up.

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Closing

Leave your thoughts on this internet cult classic in the comments, and watch for tomorrow’s Annotated Links – especially if you’re drawn to weird science!

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[Moon-dæg] The Box and the Monk

Context
The Monk and the Box
Closing

{A mysterious box, and a bit of foreshadowing. Image found on the blog Siblingshot.}

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Context

Tonight’s story is a bit of a long one, and, as was the case two weeks ago, it is an early version of a short story related to the larger world that I’m building for my novel series. It’s something that could maybe be a prologue or first chapter to a novel in the future, but more than likely it will be the first part of a short story told in three parts.

Check it out, and let me know what you think in the comments.

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The Monk and the Box

“Come on, Let’s go.”

The light outside stung his eyes. He still remembered his writing desk – filled with notes that he had been copying and illuminating. But that was before the burning, the beating, and the bag.

He had no idea where he was now. only that the sun beat down so heavily as to make his formerly cool robes feel like a bear pelt.

“Hey! No lagging.” The speaker’s foot found his thigh without problem. After all, there was enough of it to strike, but he was glad of the boot’s missing his backside. Spending so much of his life sitting seemed to have tenderized more than harden it.

At the least, he reflected, it was good to be able to stretch out once more. Hunching over the illumination desk for all of those winters had never crumpled his back and he continued to enjoy a height that intimidated most other men. Let alone women.

Though that had never been much of an issue. He remembered what his mother had said of him the night before she sent him to the monastery as the men in hauberks and greaves shouted at him and each other.

“All that fine skin. But no grace. And all that great height and no strength. You’re a misshaped one Hugh, but you’re my misshaped one. Maybe that mind a’ yours is at least put right.” He remembered her gnarled cane raising to tap his forehead, “Least it never seems to have pointed you wrong. And it gave you the sponsorship of that roving Friar.

Least ways we can send you off to where the misshaped don’t matter long as the mind is sound. You’ll make me proud yet, you will.”
He brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes as best he could. His hands, tied together as they were, looked oddly over-large to him, as if he hadn’t seen them for days or even weeks. Of course, they were all he’d seen – he never was admitted to the Abbot’s order, though he had read and heard about the herbs they used.

“Kneel here.” The man leading Hugh pulled on the rope tied to his bound hands and he fell forward. Unable to catch himself his face broke his fall. He thought he could smell blood, but when he opened his eyes he saw that the flagstone he knelt on was only splotched with dried red patches.

All he had wanted was to be as his elder sister was. Kind and shapely, admired by all – even if, as the brother Olaf had told him in confession, that admiration was only with the eyes. “Eyes make better company than mites.” Hugh had mused to himself then, though he never uttered the words aloud. Only when he was in his cell, struggling to sleep on a bed lengthened with uneven stones. A place whence he knew himself to be entirely alone.

That was still all he wanted, admiration of any sort. But the other brothers only gave congratulations and the Abbot only a wry smile whenever he saw Hugh’s illuminations. Hugh could appreciate their thankfulness for his gifts, but still felt unfulfilled by it. He wondered if any of is work would have survived the fire. He wondered if hoping to find out would help him to do so.

“Say these words.” The rope was yanked again and a piece of parchment was thrust into Hugh’s face. Hugh reocgnized the characters but stared at the shapes before they registered.

Something cold reached under his chin. “You can read, can’t you?” The man’s dagger point pricked the excess skin about Hugh’s throat.

“A monk who can’t read? Maybe one of us might as well try to open the damned box. It’s all ended already.” The voice was new and faceless.
“Shut up, Reg. This needs to be seen with fresh eyes. The wise woman said so.”

Reg muttered something as the sound of steel sliding back into a sheath came from his direction.

“You can read, right?”

Hugh looked up into the eyes of his captor.

They were small beady things that looked like the chapel tower windows as the fire licked through the yard. They may even have belonged to the man that burst into the library chamber and threw him from his chair.

“Yes I can read. The brothers taught me.”

“Good. That saves us from cleaning our damn swords later.” The man frowned deeply. “Maybe. Read it.” He pressed the parchment closer into Hugh’s face.

The words had finally settled and they gave Hugh no challenge though he had never seen many before. The parchment was not written in the common tongue, but in the same dialect as some of the older folios and sheaves that he had worked through. Living most of his life with regular prayers in the language made reading the parchment especially easy.

As he began to intone the words, he felt the kiss of steel at his throat.

“Read it to yourself! None of us want to get caught in this, otherwise we wouldn’t need an other!” Hugh dared not look up, but a pause suggested a look passed between Reg and Grenn. When he spoke again, Reg’s voice carried with it a low grumble, “just move your lips if you have to. Read it t’your self!”

After Hugh had finished reading and looked up, Grenn looked stymied for a moment before pulling his sword from its sheath and raising it over his head.

Hugh threw his hands over his own as he saw and heard the sword swooshing down upon him. He had seen many falcons and owls strike their prey from above but never before suspected that he’d find himself in the role of the rat.

After the sword flashed in its arc one of Hugh’s thumbs throbbed, but his wrists felt freer.

“Grenn. Is that a good idea? Letting him loose like that after all his reading?”

“Relax Reg. He’s not about to go anywhere. Not just yet.” Grenn turned to Hugh. Sorry about the thumb, mate. I’m not so used to being precise with this thing.” His sword was swallowed by its sheath.

Hugh lowered his hands and said “It’s alright. What’s this about a box?” He popped his thumb into his mouth. The blood quenched a thirst he hadn’t even been aware of. The flap of his thumb was still well enough attached to keep, he felt. It’s just the end anyway. He pulled his thumb from his mouth, “what, then, about the box?” He still knelt.

“It’s right there. A thing that only the right person can open, at least so Slovan says. But you’re the closest they ever got.” Grenn threw his thumb over his shoulder. “The rest couldn’t read it. Or plain couldn’t read.”

“So what do you expect me to do?” Hugh rubbed his wrists.

“Open the box”

“Why should I do that?” Hugh tried to stand, but a hand from behind him fell onto his shoulder and pushed him back down.

“Hey now. We can end this well for everyone, if you just open the box. No need to get up so fast.”

Hugh heard steel ring against steel all around him. He noticed Grenn reading the parchment as his lips fell into a solid line.

“Now get up. But take it slow. Slow. Just to the box.”

Hugh made his way to where the box sat step by step. The place was completely walled in, yet but there was no echo. He swore he saw water dropping from the ceiling, but he never heard the sound of dripping. His steps were short and shallow, and he realized that his feet were still bound together.

He stopped at the box and looked at it. A large stone contaier of one sort or another. He reached for its edge but Grenn shouted him out of it.

“Wait. Wait. Here” He handed Hugh the parchment. “Hold it while you open it.”

Hugh searched the man but found no answer in his face. He held the paper in oe hand and dedicated the other to the box’s lid. It looked and felt as heavy as the bell rope in the chapel tower. But it moved so quickly that Hugh wondered if it was fleeing his hand rather than being pushed by it.

As the lid slid away, the box’s interior was revealed. A hollow dull space, occupied only by a bundled folio.

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Closing

That’s it for this blog until my review of The Room and Annotated Links #24 are posted on Friday and Saturday respectively, but don’t miss out my Latin and Old English translations and commentaries on Tuesday and Thursday over at Tongues in Jars.

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