wow.

my friends have been trying to get me to go see the room for almost a year.

and i know ben wrote about it way back in july, and normally i wouldn’t write about something again, but the room, well the room, just needs to be written about.

ben mentioned how awful it is. and it really is. everything, the script which makes no sense and is really just a string of one non sequitur after another thrown together, the production, the cinematography, the art direction, it’s all just atrociously awful. many times if you would have looked at me during the showing, you would have seen me with my hands on my cheeks, mouth open, stunned.

they kept telling me, “turn your brain off.” but i couldn’t. i just sat there stunned at how horrendous this movie is. i was also told that was normal. that a return visit allows you to just revel in it without trying to think about it.

it’s also like rocky horror, in that audience participation from throwing spoons to yelling at the screen is encouraged and part of the experience. many an amateur comedian practiced their material yelling at the actors on the screen.

so yes, score one more for the plaza theater (also your atlanta home for the aforementioned rocky horror, which i have never gone and seen in this city), which is showing the room every month on the last tuesday. the room is the sort of thing that keeps the plaza in business and makes it a success even in the face of overwhelming odds. we’ve written about the plaza many times and we’re huge fans.

the room is just one more reason.

photo courtesy of dbking

there is a great article in access atlanta today about the couple that bought and saved the plaza theater:

“It hit us: It’d be cool to try to keep that place open,” Jonathan said. “So we called and said, ‘How much you want for that place?’ I don’t know why. We just did it.”

They met with a broker, looked at the books, stopped by a bank.

Jonathan: “Finally we said, ‘Wow. I guess we can actually do this.'”

The joking stopped. Asking price for eveything but the leased building: $100,000

“I totally remember sitting at the dining room table going, ‘You want to do it? Are you sure we can do this? Maybe we shouldn’t do this,’ ” Gayle recalled.

Jonathan’s tie breaker: “It came down to, ‘I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. Let’s just do it.'”

So like a hipster remake of an old MGM musical, the Rejs did it. Almost two years later, they remain unlikely saviors of Atlanta’s oldest continuously operating movie house. For how much longer remains an open question.

the article goes on to discuss how the bread and butter of the plaza hasn’t been indie films like the owners thought, but rather special events like slasher flicks, grease sing-alongs and art shows in combination with films.

a quick check of the plaza’s web site shows some pretty neat stuff coming up including sideshow art combined with the movie killer klowns from outer space. who could beat that?

h/t to the atlmalcontent who says in his post, “the least cinephiles can do is help them break even by supporting the Plaza, real grass compared to the AstroTurf sameness of the multiplex.”

indeed.