Week 34: The Room

Dear Avid Reader,

If you are going to a The Room screening, call me. I want to go.
Seriously.

I'm freaking serious.

You Are Tearing Me Apart, Lisa!

How important is it to understand what an artist intended when looking at a work of art? Would the level of enjoyment that an individual receives from Guernica by Picasso diminish if it was discovered that it is meant to be a love letter to a woman? What if it is supposed to be about Picasso's father and not about Nazi attacks? Is it any less beautiful? Any less compelling?

That's a lot of questions.

My response to these questions is "no". The artist's intended story has little to do with how I view a work. The artist needs a viewer in order to complete my idea of what art truly is. I see it as something is created and the audience interprets. What happens in my brain is what is most important, not necessarily what happened in the studio.

Now that I have explained art in simple terms, it will be easy to understand why I believe The Room is a great piece of art.

I'm Tired, I'm Wasted, I Love You Darling.
Alright. Roll those eyes back. End the guffaws. This is truth that I'm laying down.

See, it doesn't matter if Tommy Wiseau intended to make a serious movie about betrayal. The end result is a magnificent and hilarious cartwheel through wonderment. Actually, that last sentence should be the tagline on every poster of The Room.

Anyway, How Is Your Sex Life?

No mere "bad movie" could illicit the reactions that The Room does. People watch it over and over. They invented a culture around it. It has inspired other works of art like video games and fan fiction. We are dealing with a transformative tour du force.

Here's what I'm trying to say: we are living in a new world. There are now only two kinds of people, those who have seen The Room, and those that haven't seen it yet. And the final chapter will be a world where everyone has seen it. I am merely a harbinger of things to come. This is through-the-looking-glass stuff folks. So shall it be written, so shall it be done.

The only thing left to do is get your plastic spoons ready and get your tuxes on.

Until Next I Blog,

James

P.S. Did I just compare Guernica to The Room?

Click for my "The Room: Audience Participation Guide"

Week 33: Birdemic: Shock and Terror

Dear Avid Reader,

Birdemic kicks off a series on movies that are bad, but somehow are good. Only two movies are so bad they're GREAT: Troll 2 and The Room. I hope you have the oppurtunity to watch them.


I Hear A Mountain Lion

A room, in a public place. A bench. Two men.

Petronius: Hear's what I'm saying. I'm saying that you can't possibly understand the entire issue.

Cosmas: I've done my research. Iget it.

P: No you haven't. Why would you lie?

C: I'm not lying. I know each side of the issue.

P: So you are an expert on 1?

C: I'd say so.

P: But you're not hearing me.

C: I think I am. It's just wrong.

Oh, Lovers On The Moon

 P: Look, you feel 1, but what about 45?

C: Never. Totally beyond the pale.

P: But 45. 17. 479.

C: 1.

P: 42, 43, 44, 45. 45, 75, 45.

C: 1. 1, 1 1, 1. Until I'm dead.

P: You can't seriously disregard 88. 723, 67.

C: No no no no no no no. 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1.

P: 45. 88, 94. But what about 17.

C: 1 1 1 1 1.

P: 16. 8. 5.

C: 1.

We Must Act More Like Astronauts, Spacemen Taking Care Of Spaceship Earth

P: *sigh* You probably even can't agree 3. Or 1.25.

C: 1.25? Yes. 1.25. I see that.

P: 1.25? We agree 1.25. Awesome. 1.5. 1.75.

C: 1.25. O.K. 1.75.

P: 1.75

C: 2.

P: Let's quit while we're ahead.

Until Next I Blog,

James

Week 32: Boyz N The Hood

Dear Avid Reader,

Sometimes work sucks.

Luckily, I have sick days left.

One Out Of Every Twenty-One Black American Males Will Be Murdered In Their Lifetime

People are weird. For some reason they want certainty and they do not like subtlety. Sometimes I think that what is referred to as the "Dumbing Down of America" is merely the desire for some kind of guarantee. See it's not that the country is dumb, it's that we prefer that you spell things out.

Maybe we are just dumb too.

Most Will Die At The Hands Of Another Black Male

But this spelling out of things is why Boyz N The Hood is so bad as a movie. While there is truth to the movie, especially when it was originally released, the brow beating that viewers take during the two hours of the flick is mind numbing. Ricky's story is fully disclosed when young Doughboy asks him why he carries a football everywhere. Within the first five minutes they set the kid up with so much potential for good that they may have given him a jersey with a target on it.


The Next Day Doughboy Saw His Brother Buried

But this movie was probably conceived of as a wake up call to White/Rich America. So the makers probably felt like they needed to be a little preachy in the name of "keeping it real". But that still doesn't explain the completely ridiculous hissy fit that Tre throws after being hassled by the cops.

And aren't the cops the most interesting characters in the show? You got that completely disinterested white cop and the insanely aggressive black cop. I wonder what their relationship is like off camera. Is the black cop really talkative and annoying during the patrol? Is the white cop a brown-noser back at the station? Do they get along with the other cops? Are they racist as individuals or are they merely trapped in a system that forces them to act in oppressive ways?

So many questions.

Two Weeks Later He Was Murdered

But if the movie was going to try and give a truly accurate presentation of life in 90's South Central L.A., it would last years. It would be HBO's The Wire (which you should totally watch). And they weren't making a series, they were making a movie, so it needed to be pretty explicit in terms of action. They wanted to present a world and do it quickly. Pausing for artfulness would have popped the sheltered viewer out of the message.

"Why don't they just get a job," Redneck McGee would say, "I have problems but you don't see me shooting folks."

No but you also don't have a helicopter flying overhead at all hours like you live in a prison colony either. This section of the essay is called using a "straw man". I don't feel bad for doing it either.

In The Fall Tre Went To Morehouse College In Atlanta, Georgia

I don't think it's only an America phenomenon, or a white people phenomenon, wanting answers is what all the world wants. The problem is that the world is too complex to provide easy answers. Who, What, When, and Where, a cinch, it's Why that's a bugaboo. Add emotion and confusion turns into rage.

This is why shouting shows are the way most people get the news. We don't want the nuanced reality of how our collective problems start with the little compromises we make in every second of each day. Give us someone to blame.

With Brandi Across the Way At Spelman College

This post sucks. You just read a sucky post. I hope the next one is better.

Maybe I'm being too hard on myself. Maybe the quality of this post is the product of a very sophisticated society and my words are only what was fated to occur. I had no control over whether this post was good or not. It simply is.

I should have called in sick.

Until Next I Blog,

James

Week 31: Batman

Dear Avid Reader,

Bob Dylan is a really great artist.

You should totally check out his albums.

Where Does He Get Those Wonderful Toys?

Fundamentalism. Huge problem. Big problem. Why? Because there is no room for humanity in hardcore black/white philosophies that's why. Fundamentalism means that the believer is able to understand the world entirely and fully and can act on behalf of the holy (i.e. there is a right way to live and there is no other option). The faith of the fundamentalist then turns into rule following and some really terrible ideas like street-corner evangelism.

I hate rule following. Maybe I just don't think they apply to me. Yeah, that's probably it. At any rate, I believe in people enough to think they will come to the right conclusions and most of the time they do. I'm just a dreamer that way I guess.

Have You Ever Danced With The Devil In The Pale Moonlight?

But in Batman we have the idealized version of fundamentalism. Batman is a vigilante. He takes the law into his own hands. This is justified because Batman is an ethical person that doesn't make many mistakes. But because this kind of person doesn't really exist, vigilantism is illegal in the real world. But for some reason fundamentalism is totally within the law.

Am I saying fundamentalism should be illegal? What am I talking about? Follow me into the Batcave.

Never Rub Another Man's Rhubarb

No, fundamentalism shouldn't be illegal, but like vigilantism, fundamentalism is about action. No sitting on the sidelines when operating in the extremes. Something is believed so strongly, that one can't help but start doing. Unfortunately for everyone else, the underlying beliefs aren't shared by the greater society. One shouldn't rob, but is beating up alleged robbers a good strategy to deter crime? Folks should be as compassionate as the best of scripture leads us to live, but is confrontation the best way to educate people of these truths?

Hello Vinny, It's Your Uncle Bingo

I guess what I'm saying is I'm annoyed with strong-arming. Even if it's for the best of intentions. And the trouble is that these paladins of belief are so easy to fall in love with. Who wouldn't want to live in a world where the paragons of right roamed the streets and protected us? It would make for an easier world to live in.

I covered why the existence supervillians would be great in my Enter The Dragon essay. So it follows that the same would be true for superheroes. But so long as the heroes have to be picked from among us humans, it will never work. We are too flawed. We would make too many mistakes and emotions cloud judgements.

My Face On The One Dollar Bill

Fundamentalists are people, and people are fallible. People just make for crappy instruments of divine will. So one must make damn sure they are working on behalf of God, lest they start accidentally doing evil things. Like killing people. Whoops.

And these crazy people need to understand, they are really doing the easiest form of religion, not the hardest. Purity is actually easy, it's love that's hard. Strap that truth bomb to your chest.

Now, most of the peaceful nutjobs that we have in this country are not even close to being as dangerous as terrorists. Not even close. But rather than bother pedestrians downtown, why not listen to those Dylan records I mentioned. Blonde on Blonde is the best.

Until Next I Blog,

James