Big Shark

This got dumped in The Room thread but here's the trailer for Tommy Wiseau's foray into the shark movie genre with Big Shark.

2019 Crime Challenge Progress Thread



Welcome to the 2019 Crime Challenge.

Any movie or TV show involving crime applies to this challenge. You don't have to stick with stuff specifically labeled as crime, but crime should be part of the plot. For example, certain superhero or slasher movies/shows. Documentaries are allowed.

You get one point per minute watched.

This challenge starts when February starts and ends when February ends.

Make your spot here. List your points at the bottom or top.

For recs and whatnot, here's this year's Discussion Thread https://trashepics.com/post/8/54/. Also, here's last year's Progress Thread https://trashepics.com/post/8/38/ and a great post featuring crime show recs by @foz https://trashepics.com/post/101/11/.

Disasterpiece: The History of The Room



I'm a Horror guy. So, most of the releases that I notice are naturally of the Horror genre. That goes for the good and the bad. There's of course plenty bad everywhere you look, especially these days. But is it just me or is the whole "so bad, it's good" thing, mostly a Horror thing? It seems to be, although, several exceptions do come to mind. One of which, I recently watched for the first time. I know I've been recommended The Room several times over the years, but didn't know enough about it to realize exactly what I was missing. But now, I know. And don't I feel like quite the fool for depriving myself of the splendor that is The Room for so long. So, today, we're going to discuss said splendor in full detail.

So, what is The Room? I mean, what genre is it? Drama, maybe? Homage to early 90's Skinemax? Possibly. It seems as though the director was just trying to make a movie which served as a love letter to himself, and proof to the world that he's nice, and a cool guy. At least that's what I got from it all. Tommy Wiseau is his name, and whatever it is that he was going for, has turned out to be one of the biggest services anyone has ever done for bad movie lover community.

Tommy Wiseau not only directed this, but wrote, produced, financed, and starred in it, as well. Without that last one, The Room would be nothing. Tommy plays Johnny, a San Francisco banker who has it all. Hot fiancee, good friends, a European accent, a positive attitude, and some weird kid who hangs around, giving off rapey vibes and making things awkward. Johnny wants this kid, Denny, to be his son, and even pays his rent so they can be near each other. I'm pretty sure Denny wants to rape Johnny's girlfriend. The awkwardness is never really acknowledged, but as sane, rational people, we the audience, could cut it with a knife. Johnny and Lisa try to get it on, but Denny wants to play with them. Johnny, who is a super nice guy, politely directs the little weirdo out of his room, as he lets out an uncomfortable laugh.

We soon learn that Lisa is a fickle little bitch, and it's revealed that she's pretty much bored with nice guy, Johnny, who seems to remain clueless, regardless of how she treats him. After Lisa's mother pressures her to stick it out for security reasons, she goes around telling people that Johnny hit her. Johnny doesn't believe it, and confirms this with a little rant on the roof, ending with a denial more resembling a yawn, followed by an epic throwing of a bottle of water, all gracefully leading to a friendly greeting to best friend, Mark. "Oh, hi, Mark!" Mark's been getting it on with Lisa. Lisa has decided she wants it all. All the security Johnny can provide, as well as the dick of her choosing. All without the guilt. Supressing the guilt only makes her come off more cunty. Johnny, however, happens to be the world's most understanding boyfriend, and proves so by showing Lisa unconditional love while she continues to "tear him apart".

And then, there's this one scene that should have had some sort of impact on the story, but didn't. Instead, it just appears out of nowhere, creates a shitstorm, and simply vanishes. Never to be mentioned again. In this scene, creepy little Denny, who is revealed to be an 18 year old, gets into it with a drug dealer on the roof. The same roof Johnny threw the water bottle on. Angry drug dealer threatens to kill Denny if he doesn't cough up the cash he owes. Denny's been dabbling in a drug that is never revealed, but before Denny gets it, he's saved by Johnny and Mark, who take the bad guy to jail, leaving Johnny to get grilled by Lisa and Lisa's mom, who are both hysterical over Denny's alleged drug use. This makes Denny also hysterical. Johnny comes back and makes it all ok.

Almost every scene after this which features Denny, he has a football with him, and pleads with anyone present to play catch with him. Denny almost seems like he's playing a different character, now. However, we're reminded of his creepiness while he throws around the pigskin with Johnny. Well, that and how awkward and confusing the script can be. Denny confesses that he wants to kiss Lisa and tell her he loves her. Johnny gives some sappy speech about how the world would be a better place if more people loved each other, solving absolutely nothing. Although Denny seems to feel better about things, which is all that matters, I guess.

As Mark and Lisa continue to betray Johnny, the guilt gets to them more and more, turning Mark into an abusive pothead. As Mark confides in Johnny about the "manipulative bitch" that's been messing with his head, Johnny starts to put 2 and 2 together, and ends up recording an incriminating conversation, which never seems to serve much of a purpose. Lisa and Mark could have easily gone on doing what they were doing behind Johnny's back, and it wouldn't have been the end of the world, but they decided to be dicks about it, seemingly as a way to deal with the guilt of betraying this swell guy. As a birthday party is thrown for Johnny, things get heated after Lisa and Mark randomly decide they're tired of of sneaking around. As we witness one confusing series of arguments and makeups, things take a surprisingly dark turn. And if this were any other movie, then, maybe it wouldn't have turned out quite so funny. But hey. This is The Room!

I get the feeling that whole thing was based on real life drama Wiseau went through, at some point. For some reason, I can see him being some possessive weirdo who sees himself more similar to the character in this movie. The funniest thing about The Room is that Nice, cool guy, Johnny, manages to come off ten times creepier than the rapey football kid with the mystery drug problem. And going by how Wiseau wrote the character, I'm guessing he's not aware of this.

From what I've heard, Tommy Wiseau is also unaware that The Room is in fact a bad film, and is infuriated that it's gained the reputation as one of the all-time great bad films. This alleged European really stumbled upon something great with this epic failure of a Romantic Drama, which sort of serves as a Softcore porno. I mean, three sex scenes in the first half hour, right? I'm pretty sure this counts as one of those. More like one of those filmed in the same bizarro world as Troll 2. And like Troll 2, there are many memorable headscratcher quotes, and moments that simply makes no sense. why does Tommy Wiseau think chickens go "Cheep"? Why did nobody wise him up before shooting? And what is with the CGI city? The weirdness is one thing, but my God, that acting and delivery is what makes The Room so... Roomy? One dimensional characters played by actors who just aren't very good at acting like they know each other. Wiseau especially comes off like an alien whose attemtping to blend in with Humans. Perhaps this guy is as delusional and full of himself as I've heard, but Tommy Wiseau had a vision of what he wanted his masterpiece to be, and he's not going to let reality get in the way of how he views the finished product. So, think what you want, and laugh all you want. Just leave your stupid comments in your pocket! 7/10



#Review

Val Kilmer's Elbow Looks Like George Lucas' Neck

Discuss

Yor: The Hunter From The Future

Watched this again last night.

A bit tedious but there's enough camp to make some bits enjoyable when they come around. Killer theme song as well.

What are your thoughts on this fantasy sci-fi with Reb Brown?

Weird Science TV Series

It used to be one of my favorite shows. Watching the intro now it almost gets me all weepy-eyed. There were a lot of episodes that were horror-ish too, such as - the one where they go inside a Friday the 13th type slasher flick to face off against a maniac called "Mittface" (that's catcher's mitt), or another where they're trapped in a funhouse with a killer clown, or the one with some sort of demon and even recently-deceased Dick Miller guest stars.

It was such a wacky show and tons of fun. This is probably the number one show from my childhood I miss the most. Anyone else used to watch it? I remember it came on the USA Network on Saturday nights followed by Duckman.

Basket Case inspired by Haunt of Fear?

I recently downloaded all of the Tales from the Crypt comics, as well as its sister comics, The Vault of Horror and The Haunt of Fear.

The fourth issue of The Haunt of Fear from Nov/Dec 1950 contains a story called The Hunchback. In it, a hunchback is accused of being a ghoul. By the end, we find out the real ghoul is his "hump", which is actually his deformed siamese twin. Not bad for 1950.

Halloween (2018) was lame.

Halloween (2018)

Laurie Strode confronts her long-time foe Michael Myers, the masked figure who has haunted her since she narrowly escaped his killing spree on Halloween night four decades ago. The intro scene is underwhelming, and the theme song is adapted to a less creepy version, meaning that the opening 10 minutes feel flat. Most of the protagonists are obnoxious twits, especially the two journalist dweebs who are totally unlikeable. The first 30 minutes are just dull setup. There are also too many scenes that are structured to mirror the original, which was distracting. The score is neutered to be limp and ineffective, which means that John Carpenter should just retire at this point. It fails to take its time to capture the Halloween holiday atmosphere, and it also fails to set up the characters or the scares properly, which means that it feels rushed even when nothing interesting is happening.

This movie just goes thru the motions and does nothing to distinguish itself or be memorable in any way. The long finale is surprisingly tedious. The comic relief is atrocious. There's a plot twist near the end that is incomprehensibly stupid. On a positive note, a few of the death scenes are pretty good, but I will happily re-watch the much-maligned "Halloween 6" over this one, any day of the week.

The Keep (1983)

Directed by Michael Mann, starring Scott Glenn... this sounds incredibly cool. Check this out, some people are trying to make a documentary about the film that Michael Mann tried to make, but was prevented from making by various circumstances. This documentary sounds a lot like Jodorowsky's Dune (2013). You can read more about the actual movie that was released in 1983 on Wikipedia, IMDB, etc.

December movie challenge - RESULTS

So here are the results of the subtitled/foreign movie challenge and what do you know, the person who proclaims they don't like watching subtitled movies takes the first crown. Congratulations to Tromafreak, because you also watched the most amount of movies, at one per day on average. Hopefully if you take anything from this victory, it's that you won't feel so reluctant to check out a non-dubbed foreign movie in future 😉. Well done!

Also bravo to anyone else who hit around the 2,000+ minutes mark. December can be a busy month for most people and I ended up watching one too many movies with the kids over Christmas so my own performance was pretty poor.. and considering Johan got almost twice as many points at me but at least I wasn't last.. Nicko had a good excuse for getting 0 but Box?! Not one movie, come on, try harder next time! 😉.

**1. Tromafreak - 2,713
2. Gymnopedie - 2,490
3. Foz - 2,106
4. Bloodwank - 2,036
5. OnyxHades - 1,905
6. JohanWOW - 1,411
7. Triggerhappy - 1,088
8. Ballz - 1,085
9. markus-san - 747
10. ZombieCPA - 423**

Box & Nicko - 0