cult film

Journalist Tom Bissell wasn’t exaggerating in his recent piece for Harper’s Magazine when he called the 2003 movie THE ROOM, “the movie that an alien who has never seen a movie might make after having had movies thoroughly explained to him.” This and other comments (“THE ROOM is as bereft of familiar taxonomy as a bat from Mars”) might sound harsh until you actually see the thing, which enjoys monthly midnight screenings at Village East Cinema in NY. Unlike other movies that fall into the ‘it’s so bad it’s good’ category, THE ROOM is an earnest attempt at high drama, and as such the consistent stream of laughter it elicits from audiences can seem, well, kinda harsh.