"it is not necessary to have seen The Room (although i still highly recommend that you do)"

Each year, I try to see all the Oscar nominated movies in the theater, so I did see this movie without seeing "The Room" first, and I loved it anyway.

I still haven't seen "The Room" but your previous review of it makes me want to watch it lol.

The thing I love most about the movie is that it validates Woody Allen's maxim that "showing up is 80 percent of life." Simply put, no matter who you are, even if you have little to no talent at anything, there is something heroic about being a trier. If you are a trier, you can achieve so much more in life than a genius who doesn't show up to pitch.

We saw all this before in Tim Burton's brilliant "Ed Wood," a movie about a similarly useless filmmaker, who is also remembered fondly, particularly for his "Plan 9 from Outer Space," which today competes in film lore for the position of worst movie ever made with Tommy Wiseau's "The Room."

What this movie delivers, that "Ed Wood" couldn't, is a combo of mystery and comedy. Unlike Wood, Wiseau secretively veils everything about his origins, and his money, so there is a continual mystery about the guy. And since half his mystery seems hidden in his accent, Franco's half-accurate parody of it provides endless comedy, as it continually cheekily pokes at the mystery of who this guy really is.

What is really interesting about the movie is its achievement in making us feel like we know EVERYTHING about a guy who we really know so little about. And that is because Wiseau's desire to write his name on the book of human history is universal, so he has a universal essence, even though he is specifically, and comically, unknowable.

Another beautiful thing about the movie is how life itself can complete an artist's vision. Wiseau plainly wanted to explore humanity in depth, Stanislavsky style, creating a dramatic plot around his own jealousy of his best friend's other friends. Being incompetent, he created a laughable piece of crap. However, the movie about him creating that piece of crap, fulfills Wiseau's original goal, and does indeed explore Wiseau's motivations, his individual strangeness and his universal human core, so there again we have proof of that maxim of the value in showing up: how one incompetent man inspired more competent men to create something great, something funny, something deep, something universal, something that writes Wiseau into filmmaker lore forever.

Now, I just gotta make time to see Wiseau's damn movie! :)