“You must become zee spidair. You must become a scary, leggy atrocity.”
— Academy Award-winning actress Mira Sorvino, playing a French, paraplegic ballet teacher in “The Trouble With Cali.”
Clutching a Nerf football and a fistful of plastic spoons, Diana Polinsky howled as numbskulled characters mumbled nonsensical dialogue. Christina Polinsky and others shouted “Focus!” when the picture went fuzzy. Groans, gasps and guffaws drowned out the sound in the mostly full theater.
It was soon raining spoons.
The audience was hostage to one of the worst movies ever made, and loving every misbegotten minute.
“It’s so exciting. This is the first time we’ve seen it in a theater,” Diana Polinsky said of “The Room” at a Wednesday night screening at Regal Dickson City Stadium 14 & IMAX.
Diana, 28, and Christina, 25, sisters from Moscow, had seen the viral cult hit on DVD several times. Nothing compares to the big-screen experience.
“The audience interaction is great,” Christina said. “It’s a shared experience. I would definitely do this again.”
Big fans of bad films, the Polinskys have never seen “The Trouble With Cali,” the unreleased disasterpiece produced in part with $500,000 in Lackawanna County taxpayer money.
Celebrated stage and screen actor Paul Sorvino directed “Cali,” written by Amanda Sorvino and starring her dad and sister Mira. Brother Michael also appears in a role that makes no sense and is never explained.
“Cali” was never commercially released, which is why it escaped widespread scrutiny as one of the worst films ever made.
Unknown novice Tommy Wiseau spent $6 million of his own money to produce “The Room.” Released to scathing reviews in 2003, it has mushroomed into the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” of the 21st century. Like that cult classic, audiences at “Room” screenings react to spoken and visual cues throughout the movie.
Example: All framed art in “The Room” inexplicably features spoons. When one appears on screen, you yell, “Spoons!” and toss them at the screen.
Stupid? Maybe. Fun? Absolutely.
“The Room” is so godawful, it inspired “The Disaster Artist,” an Oscar-contending dramatization about its rise from preposterous vanity project to international money-making machine. “The Disaster Artist” grossed $24 million at the box office in its first week in theaters. Director/actor James Franco won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Tommy Wiseau.
“The Room” was screened Wednesday in 600 theaters nationwide, including Regal in Dickson City and Cinemark 20 in Moosic. Interest was so strong, Cinemark added a second screen.
Tamara Dunn, assistant city editor at the Hazleton Standard-Speaker — a Times-Shamrock newspaper — and a seasoned film critic, loves bad movies and had a great time at the Cinemark screening of “The Room.”
“It really is true that life imitates art,” she said. “No one sets out to make a bad film, but the more notorious a bad film becomes, the more people like me want to see it.”
Tamara — who hasn’t seen “Cali” — also pointed out that it took about a decade for “Rocky Horror” to become a money-maker. The film — released in 1975 — has sold about $113 million in tickets, almost entirely after its initial run.
Ray Nutt, CEO of Colorado-based Fathom Events, which saw profit in presenting “The Room” nationwide, said his company recognized strong public demand and reacted accordingly,
“Advance sales have been very strong,” Nutt said. He estimated 20,000 tickets — at $12.50 apiece — had been sold as of Tuesday.
While “The Room” packs theaters, “The Trouble with Cali” is available exclusively on DVD at the Albright Memorial Library in Scranton. Local demand has been undemanding.
Just 22 people turned out for a screening at the library in 2016. About 700 showed up for the local premiere of “The Trouble With Cali” at the Scranton Cultural Center on July 9, 2015. The second night drew 250, the third and final night, 197.
County officials cite these anemic numbers as empirical evidence that “Cali” is best chalked up as a regrettable loss authored by a past administration. Why spoon spilt milk into a broken bowl?
Because “The Trouble With Cali” is fantastically bad in all the best ways. “The Room” was made by a Hollywood nobody who is now an international superstar. “Cali” was made by the wiseguy who played Paulie Cicero in “Goodfellas.”
No one expected Tommy Wiseau to make a film anyone would pay to see. Paul Sorvino promised a 20 percent return on the county’s investment — more if “Cali” did as well as he imagined.
So far, the county’s investment in “Cali” has produced nothing but hard feelings. We once spoke civilly, but Sorvino would sooner set me on fire than trade words with this ink-stained wretch. Paulie has called me names I can’t share in a family newspaper, but has never wavered on his purple professions of love for “the good people of Scranton.”
If Sorvino would set aside his epic ego, his preposterous vanity project could be parlayed into an international money-making machine that benefits the good people of Scranton and their neighbors across Lackawanna County.
“The Room” became a surprise phenomenon largely because of its nonsensical dialogue. Nothing in “The Room” rivals these gems from “The Trouble With Cali”:
■ “ You are like a mad cow in a monkey field.”
■ “I’m in a dark, begrimed place away from all light and sound ... a quotidian hell.”
■ “I had a little friend who grew up in an orphanage, and all he ever got was yesterday’s cake.”
I recited these lines to the Polinsky sisters and both said they would happily line up to see “Cali.” It was easy to imagine them tossing plastic forks and rubber spiders at the screen, paying to embrace our “scary, leggy atrocity” and telling their friends how much fun they had.
CHRIS KELLY, The Times-Tribune columnist, invites anyone with ideas about how to market and capitalize on “Cali” to reach out now. Contact the writer: kellysworld@timesshamrock.com. Read his award-winning blog at timestribuneblogs.com/kelly.