How Was Your Weekend? - Drew Barrymore, Justin Long, Bad Flirt And Tommy Wiseau

On Thursday I broached the subject of inviting the band Bad Flirt over to the house for kind of a going away dinner for the group on Saturday night. They had spent a week in Los Angeles and mom loves them and so I thought for sure she would want to have a little party. Ummm. Wrong. Not that she doesn't love them, but it was her turn to host her monthly Bunco game. As soon as she said the word Bunco, I knew it was a no go. The woman keeps three dice in her pocket at all times just in case she runs into anyone who wants to play at some given moment in time.

Forced out of the house, I was looking for things to do, when America Young suggested The Room. Apparently I was not the all knowing sophisticate I thought I was because I thought it was some new club. Nope. Turns out it is the worst movie ever made, and a must see if you live in Los Angeles. On the last Saturday of every month there is a screening of the movie and the director shows up and takes a bow and fields questions from the audience before the 100 minute masterpiece is shown.

At that point, I was like what the hell, and decided to ask the band if they would be interested in going. Well, it turns out that what I don't know, is something that four French Canadians know all about. One of them even started shaking like a 10 year olds going to a Jonas Brothers concert at the thought of actually getting to meet the director of the movie, Tommy Wiseau.

I envisioned one theatre half filled with mostly drunk patrons like myself. What it turned out to be was three screens jammed full with another 500 or so people left to wait until next month after they couldn't get tickets.

America had told me that Judd Apatow or one of his bunch was usually in attendance every month and Kristen Bell has apparently been 20 times, but I still had no clue. Well, Drew Barrymore and Justin Long had a clue, because right in the middle of the line, waiting patiently just like "everyday people" were the couple. For the record though they didn't really act like a couple. They acted like two friends in a group of three or four other friends. No hand holding or kissing or anything remotely romantic. They spent the entire time in line repeating their favorite parts of the movie. I guess this was not their first time either.

Promptly at midnight, the director came in and answered questions amidst the applause and squeals of the audience. Tommy may have spent $6M on a movie that looks like it cost 40 dollars, but you would never have known it by the way people treated him at the screening.

For those of you who have not seen the movie, it really is awful. I think the plot is man has girlfriend who cheats a lot. That is pretty much it. It is supposed to be a drama, but you just can't stop laughing. The audience treats the movie as one big Mystery Science 3000 kind of situation. For a first timer, you really have no choice but to just listen as the audience yells at the screen, notes flaws in the script, and on occasion run en masse to the front of the theatre to participate in a scene.

The whole thing is overwhelming when you have not seen the movie before. I think you really need to go several times before you get the true feel of what everyone in the audience is saying and why. You can't rent the movie, but it is for sale on Amazon. Someone told me over the weekend that tomorrow night it will be premiered on Adult Swim which will probably spawn screenings of it all over the place. I know there are some in many cities, but showing it nationally will probably make it much more likely that you too can see Tommy Wiseau in all of his acting, writing and directing glory.

The first clip below is from a screening a few years ago, and the quality is terrible, but will give you an idea of how the audience participates. The second clip is one of my favorite scenes and gives you an idea of how disjointed this whole movie is.