December 23. Day 357. Christmas lights

Tonitgh, Drama Teen and I saw The Room a movie believed by many to be the worst film ever made. It cost $6 million to make and returned $1800 at the box office when released in 2003. But, and its a big but, it has now gone on to earn cult status because of its sheer dreadfulness and screenings are now not unlike a Rocky Horror Picture Show cinema at midnight - there is a lot of audience interaction. First up there are the spoons. The townhouse in which most of the action is set has a prominent framed photo of a spoon on the table, pretty much where a family photo would normally sit. Like many aspects of the film, this is never explained. Every time it comes into shot patrons hurl plastic spoons, dozens of them. The cinema is a shower of spoons. Also, the audience counts every time there is a scene where characters toss footballs between them (which happens a lot) and scream "Where are we?" each and every time we see a location shot of San Fransisco. The editors clearly did not want us to forget where we were. And then there's the Golden Gate Bridge. The camera pans from one end to the other for no particular reason many, many times. The patrons chant go, go, go as the pan progresses. Let's be honest, it is an attractive bridge, an iconic bridge but it plays no part in the action of the film despite its  frequent appearance. After the film, we stopped off at Brisbane's most iconic bridge. In keeping with the season the Story Bridge is wearing her very best Christmas lights at the moment. Although the bridge was red and green pretty much all night at one brief point, the lights changed to blue. The colour change started at one end of the bridge and moved in a wave to the other in pretty much the exact way the bridge panning shot had happened in The Room. A couple standing a little way from me in the park took up the chant "go, go, go". I looked at them. They looked at me. We laughed. Clearly they had been in the same screening at New Farm Cinemas. It was perfect because like most of the movie it was random. That and the very pretty lights ensured I went home with a big smile on my face.