Tag Archives: Aliens in America

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At The Theater #30: Easy A

What’s the only thing better than a free movie? A free movie that you already wanted to see. I’ve lucked out on quality free movies this year, now batting three for three with Easy A. I probably would have seen Hot Tub Time Machine if it wasn’t free. I definitely would have seen Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World if it wasn’t free. And I was planning on seeing Easy A once it came out, but luckily Bryan, Julie and I were given the opportunity to collectively save about $36 AND see Easy A before its release date.

They’re all wondering where her Zombieland shotgun is hiding.

Easy A is very funny. The plot is basically Can’t Buy Me Love, but from the girl’s point of view. While Emma Stone is great as Olive, the main character of Easy A, the real stand outs are some of the grown-ups. Stanley Tucci is awesome as Olive’s dad. I’ve gone on and on in the past about how fantastic I think The Tooch is, but seriously, I think he’s the only one who could have played the role of Olive’s dad. He fills Olive’s dad with subtext. Without the subtext, the characters lines would come across as arrogant or cocky. But coming from Stanley Tucci, they’re a self-effacing arrogance, which turns out to be very funny and charming.

The Tooch lays down some fatherly wisdom.
…And kinda looks like he’s checking out his daughter’s chest. Not cool, Tooch, not cool.

Thomas Haden Church is the other adult who really brings his A game to his role in Easy A. He plays the teacher that every teacher watching this movie wants to be (I’m pretty sure I saw Bryan jotting down notes). Church’s Mr. Griffith is smart, can joke with his students without seeming like a joke himself and even pulls off cliches well. If I was still in high school, I’d want as my teacher Easy A’s Mr. Griffith over Glee’s Mr. Schuster any day of the week.

I was very happy to see Dan Byrd in this movie. As soon as he came onscreen, I blurted out “Justin!” It doesn’t matter how famous Dan Byrd gets in his career; I will always refer to him by his character’s name on Aliens in America (just as Thomas Haden Church will always be Lowell no matter how long Wings has been off the air).

Despite what this photo might have you believe, Easy A is more Can’t Buy Me Love 2 than Grease 3.

In a year full of plenty of stinkers, Easy A is definitely worth seeing, even if you have to pay to see it.

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On The Couch #19: The Room

My girlfriend thinks that fantasy baseball is a waste of time. I’m starting to agree with her, because if it wasn’t for fantasy baseball, I may have never watched or even heard of The Room.

Earlier this year, I joined a fantasy baseball league through my friend Carl and was told that everyone’s team names were references to The Room. Since I never saw The Room, or even heard of it before this, I named my team Never Saw The Room. Naming your team Never Saw The Room in a league of devotees to The Room leads to people telling you that you have to see the movie.

It turns out I really didn’t.

The Room is hailed as one of those it’s-so-bad-it’s-good movies and has developed a cult following similar to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. People go to midnight screenings dressed as the characters, and Adult Swim ran it once as an April Fool’s joke. Unlike Rocky Horror, there are no catchy songs and the acting is much, much worse.

It’s on par production quality-wise with your average Skinimax movie. There’s the cheesy synthesized music, the slow-cam sex scene (behind a gauze curtain no less!), and very crappy acting matched with very crappy dialogue.

The director, writer and star of The Room, Tommy Wiseau, scares me on many levels. He’s a mess of White Snake era hair atop a roided up Long Island guido. But he can’t be from Long Island with that accent that stems from the “Ridiculous” region of Europe. He has the freakiest laugh in existence. It’s creepier and more off-putting than The Joker’s and he throws it into every line he can for his character Johnny. I imagine each of Johnny’s lines in the script looks like:

JOHNNY

                            Oh, hi Denny.
                                   (creepy laugh)        

The scariest thing of all is that in Tommy Wiseau’s mind, The Room isn’t only a good movie, it’s a great movie. No, I take that back, his laugh is definitely the scariest thing. It hooks its way into your brain and could slowly drive you mad.

This way lies madness!!!!

Tommy Wiseau also thought that viewers would want to see his lumpy, shaved body in multiple sex scenes. If you watch this movie, you will probably have the same thoughts I did during each sex scene, “Why are these guys all fighting over this chubby girl in the mom jeans?” and “Why is this roided up guy with the funny accent and red rose fetish so lumpy?” and “Why am I still watching this?”

Johnny lives down the street from Full House’s Tanners. Pray for Michelle.

The Room is definitely the worst movie I’ve seen this year. In fact it might be the worst movie I’ve ever seen. I’m amazed that people want to watch this more than once. It’s like sadomasochism for cinephiles. It’s cinemasochism.

WARNING: If you watch the interview with Tommy Wiseau about the movie that’s on the DVD, your brain cells might decide “Fuck it” and commit mass suicide.

No one told me that Justin from Aliens in America and Jacob from Twilight were in this!

The one good thing about watching The Room was catching the references of team names in my fantasy baseball league, like Denny, Scotchka and Favorite Customer. A couple had to be explained to me after the fact, namely Wizzo (soundalike for Wiseau) and Sestosterone (nickname for Greg Sestero, who plays Johnny’s back-stabbing pal).

But even here The Room disappoints. Half the league doesn’t have The Room specific names. Rookies, El Sid and Bone In have nothing to do with The Room at all. This whole time I assumed that Griffey’s Aces was the only non-The Room name. Hey, I get it, the guy is obsessed with Ken Griffey Jr. and doesn’t want to tow the line, that’s fine. I’ve been wondering for weeks what the hell a Bone In was and got no answer from The Room. It turns out it just refers to the nickname of the guy who created the team.

“You are tearing me apart, Bone In!”

I think my friend Carl put it best when he described The Room: “Rarely has one put so much effort into making something great and misfired so spectacularly in every single way possible.”

Moral of the story: Stay away from fantasy baseball, kids. It’s a stepping stone to much darker things.