“I got the results of the test back – I definitely have breast cancer!”
Forget the Eclipse! The wait is almost over. The St. Louis movie event of the summer is this weekend! THE ROOM screens Midnights This Weekend (August 25th and 26th) at the Tivoli – with Tommy Wiseau in Person (!!!) as part of the Reel Late at the Tivoli Midnight Series. All seats $15.00, no passes.
There will be thousands of plastic spoons flying through the air in the Tivoli’s main screen this weekend. Grown men in tuxedoes will be throwing footballs three feet away from each other in the Tivoli’s lobby. What’s going on and who will that strange man with the sunglasses, odd accent and black stringy hair be that everyone will be crowded around?
Our city is bracing itself for the arrival of the one and only Tommy Wiseau! St. Louis-area fans of THE ROOM will have the opportunity to meet the film’s talented, handsome, and charismatic star, writer and director when he comes to Landmark’s Tivoli Theater here (6350 Delmar in The Loop) for midnight shows of his film this weekend (August 25th and 26th). His big box of THE ROOM T-Shirts, DVD’s, posters, ‘Johnny’ bobbleheads will be sitting at the Tiv, ready to sign for his legion of adoring fans. THE DISASTER ARTIST, a movie about the making of THE ROOM and starring James Franco as Tommy, opens in December.
Tommy will set up in the Tivoli’s lobby around 10pm for the autograph session. This will be followed by a Q&A, an audience interactive game, and a midnight showing of THE ROOM. It’s the cultural event of the St. Louis summer!
Tommy’s new short film THE NEIGHBORS will show before the feature.THE NEIGHBORS is a pilot for a sitcom written, produced, directed by, and starring Tommy Wiseau in his first such creative excursion since his 2003 cult classic THE ROOM. It is set in an apartment building and revolves around the lives of the various tenants and their interactions with the “manager”, Charlie, played by Wiseau.
Tickets can be purchased in advance, or just show up. The Tiv seats 420 souls and is located at 6350 Delmar in The Loop.
http://www.landmarktheatres.com/market/st.louis/tivolitheatre.htm
There are different types of “Bad Movies”. It’s become sport to poke fun at bloated star vehicles such as ISHTAR, GLITTER, or GIGLI but those films are usually miserable experiences to actually sit through. There are films that are intentionally bad such as those from Troma studios (TOXIC AVENGER, POULTRYGEIST) but Troma knows its audience and anyone seeing a Troma film knows what they are getting into. Writer/director Tommy Wiseau’s THE ROOM belongs with the group of movies that are so bad that they can transform their own awfulness into a “comedy of errors”. Unlike more mundane bad films, these films develop an ardent following of fans who love them because of their poor quality, because normally, the errors (technical or artistic) or wildly contrived plots are unlikely to be seen elsewhere and they become great entertainment in spite of themselves. PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE is the most famous film in this category but its director, Ed Wood, made his films while cloaked in an alcoholic haze (and bra) while convinced he was making great art. I’m not sure what Tommy Wiseau’s excuse is but St. Louis-area fans of THE ROOM will have the opportunity to ask him this weekend when he comes to Landmark’s Tivoli Theater here (6350 Delmar in The Loop) for midnight shows of his film the weekend of July 31st- August 1st.
THE ROOM is an independently-made, self-distributed movie Wiseau wrote, directed, and starred in back in 2003 that would have been quickly forgotten if it hadn’t found new life after being discovered by some courageous Los Angeles movie fans.It began playing midnights all across the country, complete with prop-throwing, dialog-heckling, and the audience acting out scenes and dialog like “Lisa, you’re tearing me apart!(think ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW without the bustiers). There’s no real way of adequately describing the film’s amusements in standard critique but I will say that it really does live up (or in this case down) to its reputation. A most uncomplicated love story, THE ROOM stars Wiseau as Johnny, a long-haired banker whose trampy girlfriend Lisa (Juliette Danielle) is having an affair with his best friend Mark (Greg Sestero). Johnny gets upset. The End. To be sure, THE ROOM is a craptacular train wreck that will have you rolling on the floor with laughter because of its stupidity, but it is so transcendent in its dreadfulness that it actually becomes a thing of beauty. All of THE ROOMS’s cult achievement rests squarely on the awkward shoulders of Tommy Wiseau, the unlikeliest leading man ever to grace the big screen. Wiseau looks like Gene Simmons’ squat, constipated brother and has an incredibly uncomfortable screen presence. Speaking in a vague Eastern European accent (he claims he’s originally from France. He also claims to study psychology ‘as a hobby’), his every line is mumbled in the same phonetic, euro-sleaze inflection and concluded with a forced, strangled giggle. Wiseu directs himself in three long soft-core sex scenes, each one accompanied by an excruciating song and while Wiseu could have hired as his leading lady an unattractive actress who could act or a beauty who couldn’t, Juliette Danielle is both homely and untalented. I hate to be cruel but with her bad teeth, folds of fat that pop out of her lingerie, and nervous tick neck-twitch, she actually outdoes Wiseu in the lack-of-charisma department (at I first suspected she must be Wiseau’s girlfriend until I read an interview where he claims to have discovered her the day before shooting began when he spotted her stepping off a bus!).
It’s hard to explain the appeal of THE ROOM to someone who hasn’t seen it. I could describe the craziness that abounds such as the scene when the guys go outside and toss a football around from about three feet apart while reciting wretched dialog, or mention that a main character announces she has cancer halfway through, a development never again revisited, but there’s no way my descriptions can do THE ROOM’s unintentional delights justice. After all the anti-acclaim the film has received, Wiseau has backpedaled and now claims he was making a spoof. Was he? Ask him this summer when he appears at the Tivoli to sign his book on THE ROOM, sign autographs, and answer questions. Tickets are $15 each. Look for more coverage of this major upcoming cultural event here at We Are Movie Geeks.com, It doesn’t get worse than THE ROOM, and that’s a good thing.
Don’t miss THE ROOM and your chance to meet Tommy Wiseau this weekend!
Here’s the Reel Late at the Tivoli Midnight schedule for the next couple of months:
Aug. 25-26 THE ROOM with Tommy Wiseau in person! –
Preceded by a trailer for Tommy’s upcoming film BEST F(R)IENDS
All tickets $15; no passes
Sept. 1-2 TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME
Sept. 8-9 PRINCESS MONONOKE
Friday & Saturday midnight Subtitled
Saturday 11:30am matinee in English
Sept. 15-16 THE MATRIX
Sept. 22-23 GOODFELLAS
Sept. 29-30 SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD
Oct. 6-7 POLTERGEIST (1980)
Oct. 13-14 RE-ANIMATOR
Oct. 20-21 and Oct. 27-28 ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW with live shadow cast, Samurai Electricians!
All tickets $10
The Tivoli’s located at 6350 Delmar Blvd., University City, MO.
The Facebook invite for this weekend can be found HERE
https://www.facebook.com/events/1503152759723895
The Midnight at the Tivoli Fans Facebook page can be found HERE
https://www.facebook.com/groups/255754067866051/
