How to See The Room Before Yous Run into The Disaster Artist

Tommy Wiseau in The Room. Photo: Chloe Productions/TPW Films

Do y'all need to run into The Room before you see The Disaster Artist? The Vulture consensus seems to be no, the movie stands perfectly fine on its own. Merely should you lot decide yous demand to watch Tommy Wiseau'southward opus before checking out the story of its creation, yous may find yourself with a very 2017 trouble: The Room isn't streaming anywhere. Not Netflix, non Amazon, not Hulu, not HBO, and certainly not FilmStruck. Y'all can't rent it on Amazon — though you tin can buy the DVD there, if yous don't mind waiting for it to come up in the mail — or on iTunes. Unless you cull to resort to less-savory ways of obtaining the film (and y'all wouldn't practice that to poor Tommy Wiseau, would you?), you've got no choice but to leave your house in order to experience the wonder and horror that is The Room.

However, I've got ii pieces of good news for y'all. The beginning is that seeing The Room in a theater total of crazy people is really the all-time possible way to see The Room. (James Franco'south first time was at a Vancouver screening. As he told me, "By the fourth dimension that screening was over, you could swim in the piles of plastic spoons at the front of the theater.") The second bit of good news is that The Room is going to have a one-night-only wide release on Jan 10, screening in 600 theaters across the state. (You tin detect tickets here.) For context, that'southward slightly more than theaters than Wonder Cycle played last weekend, which means that, for just one day, Tommy Wiseau volition be every bit important a filmmaker as Woody Allen.

If you accept plans on the tenth, I've got good news for you: The Room has screened more or less continuously since its release in 2003, and even more showings have popped up because of The Disaster Artist, generally at Landmark and Alamo Drafthouse theaters. In New York, it's playing at late-night showings at the Landmark Sunshine for the next few Fridays and Saturdays. In Los Angeles, the Landmark Regent near UCLA is doing the same matter.

Simply if you lot're going to see The Room, I strongly advise going to one of the screenings where Wiseau himself will be in attendance. It's the closest experience you'll e'er have to going to a Trump rally, merely hither, the fame-hungry center-anile human being whose cult of personality you've chosen to join is relatively harmless. Wiseau has been to a few screenings this winter, and he's set to visit New York'due south Landmark Sunshine the weekend of January 12.

The moving picture'due south official website has what'southward ostensibly a complete guide to Room screenings around the globe. Even so, the site is a 2000s-era cosmos that's about as disruptive as the film itself. Here's our all-time endeavor to summarize the picture's screening schedule in a more legible style.

Atlanta: The Plaza Theater starting November 30.

Dallas: Inwood Theater on December 29 and 30.

Detroit: Main Art Theater on January 5 and vi.

Minneapolis: Uptown Theater on December 29.

Philadelphia: Ritz at the Bourse on January 12.

Phoenix: Filmbar on Dec 29.

San Diego: Ken Movie theater, the first Saturday of each month.

San Francisco: The Clay Theater on January 12 and xiii.

Washington, D.C.: Due east Street Cinema, the second Friday and Saturday of every calendar month.

This mail has been updated to include the wide release of The Room on January 10.

How to See The Room Before You Watch The Disaster Artist