I’m pleased to say that my chapter on teaching Tommy Wisseau’s The Room, ‘I Just Like to Watch You Guys: How screenings of The Room give people permission to perform’ has just been included in a new book You Are Tearing Me Apart, Lisa!: The Year’s Work on The Room, the Worst Movie Ever Made published by University of Indiana Press, edited by Adam M. Rosen
“When released in 2003, The Room, an obscure, self-financed relationship drama by an eccentric self-taught filmmaker named Tommy Wiseau, should have been completely forgotten. Yet nearly two decades later, “the worst movie ever made”—as many a critic would have it—has become the most popular cult film since The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
“In You Are Tearing Me Apart, Lisa!, contributors explore this priceless cultural artifact, offering fans and film buffs critical insight into the movie’s various meanings, historical context, and place in the cult canon. Even if by complete accident, The Room touches on many issues of modern concern, including sincerity, authenticity, badness, artistic value, gender relations, Americanness, Hollywood conventions, masculinity, and even the meaning of life.
“Revealing the timeless, infamous power of Wiseau’s The Room, You Are Tearing Me Apart, Lisa! is a deeply entertaining deconstruction of an original work of all-American failure.”
Here's looking at you. 