Neo apparently can’t piece it together either, and we came up with this deleted scene of their extended conversation:

See what I mean?  By the way, Tor’s on the left. Tor’s a bit easier to understand than Vin, even with the former’s thick Scandinavian accent.  Whereas Tor’s blunt tenor dialogue delivery puts me in mind of a slab of aluminum pig, the deep mumbly register of Vin’s voice has been known to set off car alarms.  As for raw acting ability, it’s a toss-up for me.  But there’s enough of Tor in Vin to get your cinematic taste buds primed for August 20th.

In the meantime, here’s a  quick and easy summer recipe inspired by the plot of Fast and Furious.

FAST AND FURIOUS POTATO SALAD
Serves 8-10 as a side dish

6 lbs. large russet potatoes, skin on
1- Mossberg 590 Mariner 8+1 12 gauge shotgun
6 – shells 00 buckshot
1 – 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS LS6 454 (preferably red)
Salt and pepper to taste

- BEAT potatoes one by one with your bare fists until soft.
-FIRE one round of buckshot into each shell, distributing shot evenly as possible
-PULVERIZE potatoes by driving over them with Chevelle until well mixed
-Season with salt and pepper.

Someone who was there

Fortunately, actor Greg Ellery, who played “Steven” in The Room, was happy to talk to Mike and me and answer some of our questions. When he kicked off the conversation with a riff on his iconic The Room quote “I feel like I’m sitting on an atomic bomb waiting for it to go off!”, (currently #28 on the AFI’s Top 100 Movie Quotes list, just ahead of “You can’t handle the truth!”) we were relieved that he shared our sense of humor about the project. But how could you not?

“There was nothing at all normal about it’s development”, he said. Evidently, director Wiseau showed up on the Birns and Sawyer lot, found out they had a studio available and bought the complete Beginning Director package.  That included the purchase, not rental, of a brand new film camera, as well as a new $30,000 digital camera to shoot the “making of.” Skeptical of course, Birns and Sawyer looked at Wiseau’s bank account, saw an appropriate amount of numbers in front of the decimal point and figured, What the hell?

Most of the shooting took place in an on-site studio, and when the action needed to move to the apartment roof, a green screen was set up in the parking lot. Ellery was on the set for three or four weeks. What was Tommy Wiseau like? “I tried to avoid him.” What was his directing style? “He didn’t really have any roundabout directors tricks, where he’d try to bring a performance out of an actor.  He just said, do this this way.”  Does Greg have any idea about Wiseasu’s notoriously vague past?  His favorite theory is that he earned his fortune as a Bosnian Guerilla, but his guess is as good as yours.

A story which Greg wasn’t there for, but which remained legendary on the set throughout the shoot, occurred on the first day. Wiseau had a reputation for being “Sweaty and Smelly” on the set, and the cast watched in horror as he jumped on the actress who plays “Lisa” when they started filming their “love scene.” Lisa, who had pretty much “just gotten off the bus from Texas.”  Oh, and she was 18. I believe our wincing was audible over the phone.

“Steven” at the party with the beautiful “Lisa”

The major question we had for Greg was related to his character, “Steven”.   Namely, “What the hell was the story with your character, Steven?”  Steven first appears at Johnny’s Birthday party, which occurs 76 minutes into the 97 minute movie.  He is never addressed by name, yet when he appears onscreen and starts interacting with the characters, it’s treated as if the audience is supposed to recognize him as if he’s been there all along.

Greg was able to shed some light on the issue.  It turns out that Steven was a “bastardization of the character of Peter”, who has a somewhat more prominent role in the second act of the movie (he is a psychologist, gets dangled over the roof by Mark and plays football in a tuxedo.)

Oh, did that not occur to you, that Peter and Steven might actually be the same character?  Maybe it was because this is Peter:

“Peter”, who is the same, but different, as “Steven”

And there was no attempt made to to have the characters look alike, dress alike or even both wear glasses.  Yes, in the kind of thing that previously could only happen in an Ed Wood movie, the actor who played Peter got fed up and quit the movie halfway through, and Wiseau decided to recast the part. After Ellery got the role, (following a normal casting call), Wiseau told him “Peter left.  Now you are like Peter, but you are Steven.”

Welcome aboard Greg!

To the productions credit, Greg says “For an independent film, the checks were good and the checks were weekly.” We asked him if any footage he shot got left on the cutting room floor, thinking this might explain things such as the Breast Cancer diagnosis that is never mentioned again, or Denny’s run-in with a violent drug dealer that is never mentioned again.  But not according to Greg. In his words, the loose ends were there just because “The scenes were not connected and had nothing to do with each other.” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

Ellery attended the first ever screening of the movie, a grand event at a Laemmle Theatre for which Wiseau rented limos and rolled out the red carpet.  “From the very beginning,” he says, “it was apparent that it was a comedy.”  People were already laughing during the first ten minutes and by the end they were “Rolling around and peeing in their pants.” He first learned that the movie had gained a cult following not too long ago, when a friend alerted him that the movie he had worked on, “You know, the one you described as the worst movie ever?” had evidently amassed a bigger audience than he had ever imagined.

Unfortunately, should The Room 2 ever see the light of day, the part of Steven/Peter will probably have to be reassigned yet again.  Ellery has moved into directing, and is currently working on a feature on the East coast.

Pressed for any specific theories on the meaning of the film, or any of Wiseau’s specific choices (e.g., the “don’t worry about it” meme) Greg is at a loss. Though he did speculate that the film as a whole was autobiographical, that Wiseau was hurt by a woman once and the film was his response. “I think it was just one big ego trip.”

The last detail he shared with us was one that truly must sum up the experience of what it would have been like to work on The Room.  On his first day on the set, Ellery approached Greg Sestero, who played Mark, assuming that he was the director.  Noting the wild looking dude (Wiseau) standing nearby, he remarked “Real funny, you brought a crackhead in to mess with the actors.”

Personally, we would have just stuck with, “Oh hi, Mark”

The Room has consumed our lives here at RiffTrax since we discovered it two and a half months ago.  We’ve rewatched the movie, poured over the discs bonus features, started talking like Johnny around the office and even spoken on the phone with two people involved in the movie.  But we acknowledge that it’s probably still a big question mark for most people out there.  Since we’ve uncovered so much great The Room-related content, we thought we’d share.  Hopefully this will whet your appetite if you haven’t seen the movie, or will supplement your curiosity once you’ve seen it a first, second or third time.

Let’s start at the start:

• This Onion AV Club article is the first thing we read about The Room
• It references this comprehensive Entertainment Weekly article, which goes more in depth
• This IFC article delves more thoroughly into the “plot”. Contains spoilers, but is very spot on and funny.

Sold yet?  Go buy The Room at amazon, (we’re not sure where else you can get it.)  It’s less than ten bucks. And you’ll need it when our RiffTrax comes out on Thursday!

Now for some videos.  As fun as these are, I strongly recommend you watch the movie once without having seen anything. It will be a much more fun experience.  Check back here in an hour and a half.  Go on, watch it already!

Let’s start with the iconic scenes:

You are tearing me apart Lisa!

Oh hi Mark!

The Flower Shop (aka Hi Doggy!)

Montages!

Tommy laughing

Oh hi, (insert name here)

 Fan tributes!

The Room Rap Song by The Brooklyn Doctors

The Room Mash-up Tribute

Tommy Wiseau and David After Dentist

xtranorml!

Tearing me apart!

Flower shop

Interviews!

Veronica Belmont interviews Tommy Wiseau

Cookin’ Good – Tea With Tommy Wiseau – Part 1

Tommy Wiseau guest directs on Tim & Eric

But there’s got to be other things out there that would warrant that kind of a response from him.  We’ve uploaded the raw footage from the scene to sendspace.  Download it here. The challenge is to replace the old movie that Vincent is watching with anything you like.  Upload the video to youtube as a response to ours when you’re done and put the link in the comments.  We’ll pick a winner when the weekend is over.  Until then, we will be busy laughing uproariously, before gradually shifting into sobs.

Twilight Sucks Forum user “estora” unfortunately has a different viewpoint: “I love Meat Loaf — it’s disgraceful to have his name associated with the failfest that is *&%$ing Twilight. It’s about true love, not true lust. I hate Twilight. It sours everything it touches.”

estora would hopefully be more enthusiastic about our Twilight RiffTrax coming out on Tuesday.

Note: I like the band a lot, the new record is great, I’m going to go see them next week, one of my fondest memories of 2008 revolved around “For Reverend Green”, etc. Please don’t invoke Godwin’s law on me.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

Answer Key:  All even numbers were at the listening party, all odds were from Trainspotting.  Number 12 was an unfortunate case of what can happen to you if you stare at the MPP cover art for too long.

Congratulations and thank you to all who sent in their Amounts of Something in response to the title of the new Bond Film.  Your responses gave me a demijohn of elation.

For me, the one that put it over the top was Barleycorn of Tedium.  Says it all.  And I learned that Barleycorn was at one time not only a grain of the mentioned grain, but also a unit of measure.  What’s more,  it sounds so English, don’ it, and it has two “O’s” which was not required but graphically fortuitous.   So congratulations to Bob, well done! Now you’re your own uncle.

However there were so many damn good entries, I have to also give props to my other favorites, in no particular order:

• A Monad of Weltschmerz
• A Pouch Full of Penis Envy
• A Schtickel of Schadenfruede
• A Nanoacre of Kleptomania
• A Tall Coffee of Regret
• A Bushel of Sepulchritude
• And a close runner up, An Orthodoron of Triskaidekaphobia.  WILDbore, Had you said “A Baker’s Dozen…”, you’d have killed.

And Bob, please claim the free Rifftax of your choice by emailing our friend Erik, the Happy Warrior of Great Online Service. email address is ERIK AT RIFFTRAX DOT COM.  Tell him “Kevin says I won a Rifftrax.”

BEVERLY HILLS CHIHUAHUA:  No Paws (out of four)

Okay, let’s get this straight:  Chihuahuas are not dogs.  They’re long-legged mutant rats developed by Nazi scientists in the 1930s and smuggled into Mexico with the hopes of spreading Bubonic Plague across the North American continent.  This opinion has been widely held by most breeds and cross-breeds of dogs for decades.  So for us to tart up these plague-ridden voles in diamond collars and set them dancing is like having a chorus line of Khmer Rouge perform selections from “Gypsy” on rice paddies.

Just watch these little bastards as the movie unfolds.  They love being treated like royalty.  They make jokes about humping, scratching and excretion as if those were bad things.  And as if that’s not sinister enough, they amass in ordered groups to perform lock-step close-order drills that pass as “dance numbers.”  I felt my flesh crawl.

Oh and by the way, Chihuahuas don’t sound anything like Paul Rodriguez, Cheech Marin or any of the other fine Latino actors and comics who were duped into participating in this sham.  Chihuahuas sound like Hitler.  Every last one of them.  If I could work an MP3 player I’d show you.  Slow down their shrill incessant yips and you’ll hear the frothing demands for a new order.  But no, go on, keep spending your hard-earned money,  laughing at the little parade of rodent stormtroopers, spreading their message of hate and world dominance.  Don’t listen to me; what do I know? I’m just a friggin’ dog.

Hold your tacos indeed!

(The apparent anomaly occurring around Walk Hard is commonly explained by the Meadows Effect hypothesis, which argues that any movie featuring Tim Meadows will see a significant across-the-board downturn in quality and performance.)

However, recent developments in Rogenomic theory are predicting a gradual realignment and possible convergence of LRI’s which will have a powerful impact on the future of filmed entertainment. Take a look at this corollary to the Hornet Theorem:

Not to suggest that Seth Rogen will reverse in age or height; keep in mind that this progression moves in both directions. This is accepted to indicate that if conditions persist, one of several outcomes are possible: Seth Rogen will become Jonah Hill; Jonah Hill will become Seth Rogen; or the two will merge in a sort of Superseth Convergence, the outcome of which is wildly unstable and possibly dangerous. However, the supposition that existing conditions will persist is called into question by the following probability:

This of course follows the Sizemorean Curve and applies the Nolte Rule, both of which create unknowns in typical outcomes and increase the standard deviation.  Yet in fact, real-world proof, both of progression and probability, has been observed in the field:

This trend, while neither inevitable nor irreversable, tends to support the general principle that schlubs will always move toward a state of inertia. Next time we will discuss the declining influence of Sandlerian Rogenomics and the surprising accuracy of the Rule of Sequels.

The movie that New York magazine just dubbed “The Stoner Movie of the Year”* is exactly one month away!  Quit your jobs and get in line now people!  If you thought The Dark Knight In Imax was a hard ticket to get, you haven’t seen anything yet!

*Seriously

Mr. Goldman needs a primer in Rogenomics.

Simply stated, Rogenomics serves to express the apparent vicissitudes of Hollywood as a function of the interaction of certain foundational elements including and in relation to, but not limited to, Seth Rogen. These elements, interacting with – and sometimes against – each other, are subtle yet universal forces, which taken as a whole embody a system for explaining succinctly why a film as seemingly worthless as, say, Superbad is actually the monolithic model of the future. Let’s explain it in simple Rogenomic terms. First principles:

Essentially, that Seth Rogen is Money; as a medium of exchange and a storehouse of value, the two are interchangeable. This is the most fundamental statement of pure Rogenomics. But before we scrap the Federal Reserve and convert to a Rogen Standard, you should know that many consider Pure Rogenomics to be dangerously oversimplified; to that end I’m a student of the Aptovian School, based on this constant:

In which x equals anything Judd Apatow touches, not limited to the inclusion of, nor diminished by the absence of, Seth Rogen. Perhaps it’s an oversimplification, but the Apatovian School (and its Sandlerian and Ferrellian counterparts) would dispute the truth of “Rogen equals Money,” without Apatow, especially over time, expressed thusly:

Within the Aptovian Rogenomic discipline, then, we can confidently use these elements to predict the future. Take for example the upcoming movie The Green Hornet, in which Seth Rogen is playing the shadowy limo-riding superhero. For this role, Rogen has slimmed down, muscled up and attempted to shed his elemental schlubness – patently self-contradictory, and about as likely as water shedding its “hydrogen-ness.” Here’s what happens when we formulate these components as a statement of Rogenomics:

Absent schlubness and Apatovity, Seth will always become Robert Wuhl; therefore the movie is doomed to failure. However, put Seth back on the lard-and-donut diet, and hire on Judd Apatow, and it projects like this:

Perhaps the Green Hornet is a belching, hapless cowardly pervert, without a single virtue, yet who is allowed to French-kiss the likes of Jessica Alba. Perhaps he’s a late-stage wino who staggers around town in his underpants. He could be a skin-popping mass murderer who dresses in Nazi drag and sings Charles Manson’s folk songs – the point is that it doesn’t matter. This solution will produce consistently positive results every time; the rest is just window dressing.

Next time we’ll discuss the exciting new developments in Rogenomics, particularly the introduction of Jonah Hill as a null integer, a Rogenomic cypher if you will, able to occupy a place in any equation without affecting the outcome. In the meantime, a quick look at the simple non-Apatovian exception that earned Rogenomics the attention of the Nobel Committee:

I’ve gone ahead and purchased stinkythehutt.com.  Sorry for not consulting with everyone ahead of time, but I felt it was necessary to take quick action.  Any ideas about how to best put it to use would be appreciated.

From Harry Knowles Aint it Cool review:

Then they introduced Baby Jabba aka Rotta the Huttlet aka Stinky. At the point of this character’s introduction – it officially became, the worst character in the history of STAR WARS. If you hate George Lucas cutsiepoo bulls*** – oooooooh boy. You’re gonna have a field day of venting and hatred directed at this unbelievably f****ng awful little s***. It farts, makes pukey faces and is just unbearably bad.

Watch out for (recycled images of) Jabba the Hutt!

From Stinky’s (aka Rotta the Huttlet) wookiepedia page:

Rotta was born in 32 BBY. Unlike most Huttlets, Rotta did not spend the first fifty years of his life inside his parent’s brood pouch, as Jabba wanted him to directly experience the galaxy.

I like the casual way they mention the “brood pouch”, as if we are supposed to say, Hm, it is abnormal that he wouldn’t spend fifty years in this part of Jabba’s anatomy that I knew existed.

By 4 ABY, Rotta was likely either dead, presumed dead, or disowned by his father. In his last will, Jabba claimed not to have any children to run his criminal empire after his death.

“Jabba The Hutt’s Last Will & Testament” is a band or album name waiting to happen.

Coincidence??? 

Deviantart user NinjaKiller posts this pic of Stinky.

Get in the game, Google!

Trading cards of Stinky on his Rascal scooter, available on ebay!

The Lego figure that’s sure to become a new go-to forum avatar!

Jabba and Stinky in happier times, before Stinky was written out of his will.

Action shot!

Actual footage!

Please submit any and all Stinky The Hutt related links!  If there’s any footage of him from the movie, let us have it!

LENINGRAD COWBOYS: Gimme All Your Lovin’ (With the Red Army Chorus)

Something this sublime needs no comment. I first encountered the Cowboys in Finland, where they’re nothing short of national heroes. Find the Leningrad Cowboys online, hunt down the Aki Kaurismaki film Leningrad Cowboys Go America, or rent the concert video from your favorite online video rental outlet.

And yes, that is a whistling solo at about two minutes in.