Movie Mondays – The Room (2003)

(This is a revised version of a Persona Paper post.)

My introductory post.  

The Room on IMDB  

It’s almost a law that if you review movies on the internet, at some point you have to talk about The Room.  So here are my quick thoughts to get it out of the way.

(Spoilers)

The premise of the story is that there’s this guy named Johnny.  His fiancée Lisa realizes she doesn’t love him any more so she starts having an affair with his best friend Mark.  When Johnny finds out, he feels betrayed by everyone and kills himself.

That’s a threadbare premise, and in the hands of skilled screenwriters, directors, and actors, it would probably be a pretty forgettable movie.  But the writing, the acting, the editing, and everything in The Room is just so bad.  For a little bigger taste than you get from the trailer, here’s the somewhat famous flower shop scene.  Now just imagine that for 90 some minutes.

There are several movie reviewers I follow and I think all of them have either reviewed The Room or discussed it while talking about other bad movies.  So I had some idea of what I was getting myself into, but I still had to pause the movie at several points to regain my strength.  I think the best way to enjoy The Room (that was weird typing those words in that order) is to suffer through it by yourself and then show it to a friend who hasn’t seen it so you can laugh while they suffer.  Really, the only reason to watch The Room – if you’re not a film student watching it to see how not to make a movie – is just to be in on the joke.

Introducing Movie Mondays

For the past couple of years, I’ve written on several paid to write sites, most of which have gone belly-up.  I’ve reviewed movies a few times on these sites.  Unfortunately, I’ve lost most of these reviews because I didn’t back them up and I had no warning when the sites closed. 

I did a couple of reviews last summer on Persona Paper, but other things came up ending my plans to do more.  But with the New Year I decided I would try to up my output.  I was doing a Wednesday Writing Prompt as well as a Friday Poll.  I wanted some other series I could do on Mondays, and I came up with Movie Mondays where I’d write up a quick review of some movie.  Given how I had time issues when I tried doing that before, I knew that instead of starting immediately, I should prewrite a few reviews to give me a buffer.  I was all set to start on February 1, but a couple of days before then Persona Paper announced that they would be closing.

So I had half-a-dozen or so movie reviews already written with a couple other movies already watched, as well as two old reviews on Persona Paper I was able to backup.  Since I’ve restarted my Wednesday Writing Prompt on my Oneoveralpha’s Writings Blog, and my Friday Polls on my one Twitter account, it seemed normal for me to start Movie Mondays here.  Starting next Monday I’m going to revise and repost the couple old reviews from Persona Paper, and then I’ll do the ones I’ve prewritten.  That should take me up to April, and we’ll just see how it goes from there.

“Relics”

“Relics” is my new Kindle ebook that’s available for $0.99.  Below is the blurb for it.

A plague that kills men has devastated the world’s population.  Only a few thousand boys and men were able to be quarantined.  But Mike Shay is the only man known to have a natural immunity to the plague.  Therefore, he is practically the only man in a world of women.  He spends his days reading, playing video games, and making the occasional sperm donation.  Then Dr. Veronica Barrett shows up, disrupting what passes for his life.  She says she’s there to investigate his “mental wellbeing,” but is there more to her visit?

Instead of the normal, adolescent, heterosexual male fantasy of being the only guy on a planet of women, “Relics” tries to give a more realistic view of Mike’s life.

Excerpt from “Relics.”

Zombie Zlayer 6 was your standard running through a zombie wasteland looking for supplies and survivors while blowing the heads off all the zombies you came across.  As he shotgunned a group of zombies, someone knocked.  Max raised his head and looked at the door, but Mike continued shooting until all the zombies were “fully” dead.  Then he paused the game and called out, “Come in.”

A woman he’d never seen before walked into the room.

For several seconds she stood in the doorway, letting him look at her.  He guessed she was about thirty.  She had fair-sized breasts, light brown hair hanging to her waist, and wore a simple green blouse with jeans. 

Part of Mike thought her beautiful, but that was quickly drowned out by the cynical part of his mind that suspected her purpose in being there.  He set his jaw and turned back to the game.

“Mister Shay-”

“We had a deal.” Mike unpaused the game and went looking for more zombies.

The woman walked into the room, stopping by Max.  She held her hand out.  “Mister Shay, my name is Doctor Veronica Barrett.”

Ignoring her hand, Mike stated, “I already have a doctor.”

Veronica smiled and let her hand drop.  “Yes, but not a psychologist.  The Council sent me because they have become worried about your mental and emotional health.”

Mike sipped his beer.  “I’m a guy.  I’ll live.”

“Mister Shay, of the 7,645 males known to have survived the plague, you are the only one with a natural immunity.  It is of vital importance we preserve your genetic legacy, and as such the Council gave in to your original demands.  But things have changed in the past three years and the Council has decided to take another look at your arrangement.”

“Well, I like the arrangement the way it is.  Go away.”

Veronica knelt down and began petting Max.  “Mister Shay, given what is reported of your lifestyle,” she paused to nod towards the almost-empty beer bottle, “many on the Council have become concerned about your wellbeing.  They sent me to study matters and to offer suggestions for any warranted improvements.”

Mike found a cache of shotgun shells and loaded up.  “I have a suggestion.  Leave me alone.”

Veronica sighed and stood.  “It wasn’t easy for me to come here, you know.  Only a handful know your true location, and they made me sign a dozen secrecy forms.  I almost wasn’t allowed to visit you when a background check revealed that a second cousin I haven’t seen in over a decade is a member of an Amazon cult.”

Mike furrowed his brow for a moment, then saw a zombie.  Once it no longer had a head, he paused the game again.  He turned to Veronica and said, “Out of over three-and-a-half billion males on the planet, only 7,644 babies and boys – and a few men – were saved by quarantining them.  Once the lunar base is built, they’ll be shipped up there to start a new branch of humanity living in space, away from the plague.  Then there’s me.  Alive and well, with no fear of the plague.  And in a few generations, most of the people on Earth will be my descendants.”

***

I will warn you that this story does contain some profanity and sexual situations, so mature audiences only.