In The Room

So I heard about this thing called The Room. At first, I paid it no mind. I mean, Netflix is always recommending random nonsense to me and this looked completely random and like utter nonsense. Then I heard a few things about it on some podcasts that I like. Again, I gave it no heed as I don't always immediately follow podcast recommendations. Next, I saw that it was the midnight movie at The Uptown and that got me wondering, so I finally added it to the bottom of my Netflix queue (#150). Then Fozziebare shows up on Night of the Living Podcast talking about it and I decided this needed to be seen so it advanced up my queue behind Season 5 of Supernatural which wasn't out for another week, and my queue is chockful of stuff I really wanted to see 2 months ago when I first put them in there, but now I'm just meh.

Anyhow, so I got the DVD on September 2, just in time for a long weekend. Because Dateline was a repeat that Friday evening, I decided to pop it in the old player. I'm a major cynic of late (aka bitter, old lady) so I wasn't expecting much. Netflix's description of the flick as a black comedy did not warm my cockles as I tend to despise black comedies. Imagine my surprise when I kinda fell in love with this movie within the first 10 minutes. I was laughing my ass off the whole time. This movie IS a comedy, but I don't think anyone on the set knew that at the time.

The basic premise is this guy is engaged to this girl who actually totally hates him and is cheating on him with his best friend and telling everyone about but him that she hates him and is banging his best friend. I mean, she even tells her MOM she's cheating on the guy. That is an oversimplification of the plot of this movie, but that really is the gist of it. There are other extremely random bits and pieces and I do mean EXTREMELY RANDOM (drug dealers and breast cancer is all I'll say), but they mostly have nothing to do with the plot which is all about showing how awesome this guy is and how evil this girl is.

I read a review somewhere that analyzed this film as a sort of payback from the writer/producer/director/star to someone who had broken his heart. After watching it about 5 times in a weekend (I shit you not, I only returned it BECAUSE Supernatural Season 5 came out on DVD and I needed to some Winchester action), I tend to agree. There are only 3 women in the film (as main characters) and two of them are evil, but kinda blandly evil. (Please note that everyone is bland in this movie which is part of what makes it awesome. The film quality is bland, the clothes are bland, the music is bland...unless you were really into off-shoots of shitty R&B one-hit wonders. But it is all so awesome, it's almost indescribable.) Meanwhile, we are constantly shown our lead being the most awesome boyfriend ever (this is in his mind, not necessarily in real life). EVERYONE thinks he is the most sweet, sensitive soul and that Girlfriend is just terrible for cheating on him. Even the best friend whom she's cheating with constantly talks about how great the main dude is (and the best friend is barely held responsible for his actions with Girlfriend). I wasn't sure I would like this. I was afraid all the hype would destroy it (perhaps that was the problem with Troll 2?), but it really does live up to its awful movie hype.