Imagine, please, the following scenario – tomorrow, a Hollywood executive comes knocking on my door and says “Hey, we’ve read your site, it’s pretty great, and now we want you to write and direct your own kung-fu movie, which I’ll produce. What do you have to pitch me?” I know, I know, it’s pretty hard to believe, but bear with me here for the sake of argument, okay? I’d need to come up with a movie that’s thrilling, exciting, fresh and new while also paying homage to both classic kung-fu tropes and modern staples of cinema. What kind of movie would I come up with?

I believe that the story should star someone who actually doesn’t know kung-fu at the beginning of the movie. Some of the best kung-fu movies star protagonists who go on to learn it later, so I’m thinking that the protagonist should start off being completely ordinary, but learn how to fight later, like in “The Matrix”. That protagonist isn’t entirely ordinary, though. Let’s make them female, a young woman in her early 20s. She suffers from autism, which leaves her being very socially inept, but also allows her brain to process information related to her niche a lot better, and that niche is patterns. She’s excellent at figuring out patterns, and has actually made a bit of a career for herself by managing to find exploits in online casinos. Her days are always the same – she visits sites listing the best UK online slots (since she’s British – British accents are cool), discovers some new online slot with a huge jackpot and then exploits its patterns in order to win it.

Well, all goes well for a while, until one day she receives a phone call. Being rather socially awkward, the woman decides not to pick up, and instead lets it go to voicemail. The message left is simple – “Get out of there NOW, people are coming to kidnap you”. Scared and confused, the woman tries to call the police, but before she can do anything men dressed in black SWAT uniforms step in and attempt to take her. Luckily, a man in casual clothes bursts through the door and manages to fight off the kidnappers using both kung-fu moves and the various items in the room. As it turns out, the people who have employed the SWAT team have discovered an ancient computer-like device with an unbreakable code. Their plan is to kidnap the woman and use her pattern recognition abilities to attempt to crack it open (as traditional hacking wouldn’t work at all), but if that happens they’ll gain control of whatever information there is inside.

Once rescued, the woman is told by the man that she has a choice – she can either let him kill her so that the men in black can’t get her, or she can come with him, learn how to defend herself and ensure that she’d never be taken. And thus starts their adventure – while being hunted, the two of them must ensure that the woman is properly trained (with the help of an old Asian sensei, of course) and, if possible, they must also steal the computer and attempt to open it themselves. Now, keep in mind that in most kung-fu movies the person with the better technique and better reflexes would win every time, but not here! Due to the woman’s ability to perceive patterns a lot better than others, she’d be able to use that to turn the tide in her favor… as long as she survives for long enough to even see a pattern, of course. While in online slots she can take all the time in the world, here she has to think on her feet, and considering her mental condition she wouldn’t always be able to do that. Overall, I think the result would be pretty interesting – I, for one, would love to see a movie like this! And you?

For the last 13 years, every year without fail, in numerous cities across the world, a movie is screened in theaters both professional and crafted by fans with a projector and a sheet of white cloth. Hundreds of thousands of people across the world gather and experience this absolute work of cinematic art, chanting the dialogue, cheering when characters and plot points are introduced and having the time of their life. So, what movie could have inspired a culture with such a following? It’s certainly not any of the classics, and not even “Star Wars” and “Lord of the Rings” fans are that rabid! No, the movie that everyone’s clamoring for is a little indie masterpiece known as “The Room”, often called by many “the worst movie ever made”.

Just so you know, I wholeheartedly disagree with that title – I can think of at least half a dozen movies which are way worse, such as “Birdemic”, “Manos: The Hands of Fate” or (brrr…) “The Hottie and the Nottie”. But “The Room” is definitely the best in the “so bad it’s good” genre, and I’ll tell you all about it. The story revolves around a man named Tommy Wiseau, who, despite being in college, definitely looks like he’s in his late 40s or early 50s. He has a completely indiscernible accent (is it French? Macedonian? Russian? Alien?) and has little to no understanding about how human interactions actually work. What he does have, though, is a bank account literally described as a “bottomless pit” and the dream to create the best movie ever made. He recruits his best friend, Greg Sestero, to be his line producer – even though Sestero has little idea about what a line producer is supposed to do – and together the two of them embark on a quest to realize Tommy’s vision exactly as he wants it to!

Oh, no, that’s not what the movie’s about. It’s the real story of how it was created. I’m not even kidding.

The plot of the movie revolves around a wealthy, good-hearted banker named Johnny (played by Wiseau) who has been engaged to his fiancée Lisa for over five years/seven years/whatever number the actor remembers at that particular moment. One day, out of nowhere, Lisa decides that she no longer loves Johnny and cheats on him with his best friend Mark (played, you guessed it, by Sestero). When he’s first invited in, Mark is so clueless about what’s going on that he asks Lisa about what she’s trying to achieve with the candles, the music and her sexy dress despite the fact that none of those are present in the scene. Of course, that doesn’t deter Lisa, who proceeds to sleep with Mark. Everything and anything that happens between that scene and the finale of the movie is entirely inconsequential to the plot, but it includes, in no particular order, a drug dealer threatening a kid and repeatedly asking for his money despite being assured that it’ll be there in a few minutes, Johnny buying flowers for Lisa in a scene so fast-paced that it’d make Kingsman’s church scene say “Slow down, dude”, Lisa’s mother announcing that she has breast cancer only to be completely dismissed, and a completely unknown couple breaking into Johnny’s apartment in order to have sex. It is insane, in the best possible way.

But not only does the script and dialogue make literally no sense, but the acting is absolutely dreadful. None of the actors hired for the movie make any sort of effort… Well, except for Tommy, of course, but effort doesn’t always translate into quality. You might have seen the infamous “You’re Tearing Me Apart, Lisa” scene already, considering its memetic status – that’s pretty much the level of acting in this movie. And it is amazing! Lots of movies have bad acting. The aforementioned “Birdemic” has some really, really, really bad actors, to the point where a kindergarten nativity scene has better acting than this. “The Happening” has normally great actors, such as Mark Wahlberg, reduced to blubbering idiots who can’t even say two words convincingly. But no acting is so hilariously over the top as that of “The Room”. It’s truly a sight to behold! Even if you know literally nothing about the equally crazy story of how this movie was made, just watching it is an experience in and of itself! So, without spoiling any more, all I can say is go ahead, gather a few friends, grab some beers and give the most enjoyably bad movie of all time a watch!