[PaulD]

The Room: Tommy Wiseau's masterpiece. People often refer to Plan 9 From Outer Space as "the Citizen Kane of bad movies" but this is something of a poor description since no film better highlights the peril of the director as auteur than The Room. Written, directed and starring Tommy Wiseau this insanely odd melodrama about a love triangle just beggars belief. There's little plot to speak of, characters come and go without any real relevance, whole subplots are abandoned as immediately as quickly as they are conceived ("I got the results of the test back and I definitely have cancer"), most of the dialogue is batshit silly ("You don't understand anything, man. Leave your *stupid* comments in your pocket!"/"You're right, the computer business is too competitive") and most of the scenes featuring Tommy's character are there purely to highlight just what a great guy he is (including a perplexing scene where he buys flowers from a flower store - "you're my favourite customer Johnny!") which does nothing but highlight the ego of yer main man Tommy Wiseau. This was about the fourth time I've seen it and the second on the big screen and I don't think I have ever had as much fun at a screening in my life. I was apprehensive because the Rocky Horror-style audience interaction had annoyed me the last time due to a few audience members severely lacking in a sense of humour and constantly pre-empting the films lines but this time it was genuinely fantastic. Far more immersive an experience than 3D, you've never lived until you've seen this film in a battered 35mm print (the only one that exists in the UK I believe so it constantly degrades as it goes up and down the country), with the crowd cheering and clapping along to the soft love music in the sickeningly shot love scenes, throwing plastic spoons at the screen whenever an inexplicable picture of a framed spoon in the living room was in shot or shouting "Who the **** are you!" when a new character is introduced about 50 minutes into the film as if he's been there the whole time.

Alien - the second in Saturday nights double bill at the cinema (they were showing cult classics all night at 75p a ticket but since I was at work in the morning I only stayed up until 4am and caught 2 films). It's been a few years since I'd seen this and the first time on the big screen and I had forgotten how incredible this film is. Every shot is incredible and even though I really enjoyed Prometheus and am looking forward to seeing it again, seeing Alien made me realised just how much Scott missed the mark with his quasi-prequel. You really root for every character in Alien, the set design is awe-inspiring, the model work incredible and it has a genuinely creepy atmosphere for the whole of the film. An absolute joy of a film to watch and by far my favourite of the series.