I'm in The Room with Tommy Wiseau or I'm in the Wise-zone!

I know what you are thinking... "Where is there a life-sized wax sculpture of Tommy Wiseau that I can have my photo taken with?" Well, I'm sorry to tell you that no such statue exists (unless you are willing to settle for a Bobble head). No, that is, in fact, the REAL Tommy Wiseau, who made an appearance at a screening of his infamous cult atrocity The Room last night at Portland, Oregon's Cinema 21 theater. Brent and I, along with many friends, got to meet the man himself, who was much shorter & waxier in person than he appears in the film.


The night began with a Q&A from Tommy Wiseau. He answered questions ranging from "What inspired you to write The Room?" to "How many belts are you wearing right now?" (the answer was 5. He said he is the new fashion). He refused to answer the question "Where are you from?", but did verify that he funded The Room partially by selling Korean Leather jackets. Here are some short clips of his Q&A...

A woman in a shiny spoon costume distributed plastic spoons and fake roses to everyone in the audience. In the film, there is a framed photograph of a spoon in Johnny & Lisa's house, and whenever it appears on screen, the audience yells out "SPOON!" and throws the utensils wildly at the screen. Each time I threw my spoon at the screen, I would also be pelted with spoons from the people in rows behind me, so there was no shortage of spoons to throw (even though the spoon appears at least 20x throughout the film).

Other highlights included:

•the chant of "Go! Go! Go! Go!" as the viewer is subjected to 1.5 minute long pans of the Golden Gate bridge.

•a laser pointer circling the crazy thing that Lisa's neck does when she is talking to Michelle on the couch.

•Audience members throwing the football around with Tommy himself!

•Audience members singing along with all of the slow jams during the sex scenes.

•an audience member running up to the screen and waving his arms wildly while yelling "Johnny! Hey! Hey! Look over here! Hey Johnny!" Then Johnny's eyes on screen drifted {inexplicably} down to the exact spot where the audience member was standing. This was amazing!

I will say that Tommy was very nice, and seemed to be a part of the fun (rather than the butt of a joke). He posed for pictures, signed autographs, and chit chatted with anyone who wanted to meet him. He also answered all of the questions during Q&A. Overall, I'm still in shock over the whole experience. I'm not sure if I will ever top this particular viewing of The Room. Look for it on Blu Ray this winter!