TODAY’S FILM

The Room, dir. Tommy Wiseau (2003)

I don’t know what I can say about The Room that hasn’t been said already, but I still think that seeing it is an experience people shouldn’t miss, so I’ll recommend it today. It has a cult following now, which kind of became its own thing. Director Tommy Wiseau tours this film around in independent cinemas across the world where hyper-engaged audiences throw plastic spoons at the screen and recite lines in true midnight movie fashion. Why do people care so much? Because it’s goddamn awful. Wiseau stars a good-for-nothing banker who’s caught up in a love triangle when his fiancée starts sleeping with his best friend. His script is preposterous – and so is his acting – to the point that you won’t be able to look away. There’s a reason this film gets called the Citizen Kane of bad films, but I’ll argue saying that worse than a film that sucks is a film that leaves no impression at all and you can’t say the latter about The Room. Check it out on YouTube.

TODAY’S RECORD

Overpowered by Róisín Murphy (2007)

Now that she’s revelling in a full indie renaissance that is arguably the most prolific stretch of her long career, it might be baffling to think how criminally underrated Róisín Murphy was at the end of the 2000s. Otherwise Overpowered, probably one of the most inventive pop records in recent memory, would have had the commercial success it deserved. The marriage of killer synthetic beats, deft songwriting and impeccable style seemed poised for the charts, but this is far from your cookie-cutter Top 40 fare: in 50 minutes, Murphy muses about biological components of attraction (the opening title track), sings an ode to casual sex (“Let Me Know”), compares love to voyeurism (“Movie Star”), warns about global warming (“Dear Miami”), shows no sympathy for a druggie lover (“Cry Baby”) and, in my favourite song of hers, suggests to a friend that they become lovers (“You Know Me Better”). The breath of these stories is striking and she made it so that you feel like dancing to almost all of them. Experience it on YouTube.