The Neighbors

The show seems like it has a lot of improvisation from all parties involved - and it was ingenious for TW to allow that to happen. His uncorrupted artistic vision, if his interviews are anything to go by, would leave us with such such a bizarre and incoherent universe that it would just end up alienating the audience in all its absurdity. Neighbors isn't alienating. It isn't even this so-bad-is- good thing that is funny in being an earnest attempt that ends up in failure. It's actually charming in the way that an "odd neighbors" sitcom is supposed to be - as an invitation to embrace the other in its radical alterity. Yet the method by which it achieves its charm is completely groundbreaking.

We never take the characters seriously, in fact, we can't take the characters seriously. They are nonsensical caricatures conceived by a mind that is half Kafka, half Z-grade friends. Suspension of disbelief is impossible. Instead, one is constantly aware that everyone is acting. The series finds its charm in the fact that the characters come across as real people, people playing around with their nonsensical roles, experimenting with what they are given, interacting with and giving depth and order to TW's weirdness - in a sincere, positive, light hearted and friendly way.

To exemplify this, let's compare the dynamic between The Room's actors and TW. After the release of The Room, many of the actors came out attempting to clear their name from having participated in such a film. They even attempted to fund a mockumentary where the director, herself an actress in The Room, confesses her shame, distances herself from the film, and admits, in a willy nilly way, that someone else convinced her to finally embrace the fact that, god forbid, she was part of an awful film. This contempt, resentment, and attempt to create distance between the "crazy" director and the "normal" actor is distasteful because while TW inspires sympathy, most agree that polished, spoiled L.A. youth doesn't. Unlike the manufactured, bland perfection of every aspiring actor, TW's weirdness is overflowing with a depth of subjectivity that makes us feel empathy. Foreign, old, attempting and failing at being understood by a culture he idolizes. He possesses a naive, child-like and earnest idealism about America and its iconography of the kind that is only available to people that have endured much harsher realities. To be mean to TW is cruel and inhumane.

We find the opposite of this "I'm not with the weird guy" dynamic in Neighbors. One finds that the actors are actually attempting, through their own performances, to enrich and create value in TW's universe. As an example, Roenfeldt injects condescension and sarcasm into her good wife role, adding a layer of depth to her character and her dynamic with TW. Everyone in the show appears to be experimenting, bringing something in and collaborating, having fun, and not taking themselves seriously. It is this aura of a playful environment, where actors are free to create and improvise, but rarely appear to do so in a mean spirited way, that gives this show its distinctive charm. It feels like a dialogue where folks we can relate to attempt to create a meaningful and engaging piece of art with someone that, to a lot of people, is completely enigmatic, nonsensical, and not even worthy of serious engagement. The cast constantly attempts to create meaning and familiarity in this absurd universe, with this radical otherness that is TW - it comes across as an act of empathy and solidarity. Not through characters, but through the actual people playing them that we, the audience, are irremediably conscious of. Neighbors is, no doubt, one of the most formally and morally interesting shows I've seen in years.

The long promised (threatened?) television sitcom "The Neighbors" from Tommy Wiseau, the man behind "The Room" has finally arrived on Hulu Plus.

There are simply no words in the English -- or any other --language to describe this series. Alternately hilarious and bizarre, I guarantee you will sit in front of the television set slack-jawed as this one of a kind show unfolds before you. Filled with weird characters (crazy lady who lives with a chicken, women who always wears a bikini, Tommy Wiseau himself playing two characters each with a more ridiculous wig), inane running jokes and outrageous dialog, this is everything you could have hoped for from the mastermind of "The Room" and even more.

The sitcom follows a large group of people who live in an apartment complex. The main character is the building's manager Charlie (played by Wiseau), and each episode something new happens that the cast reacts to. After every scene, there is a stock shot of the apartment building with odd techno music that might have subliminal messages in it because I defy you to not be humming it after the fourth or fifth time it shows up in the half-hour. And keep a lookout for the official "Tommy Wiseau Underwear" that several cast members wear and show off!!

If you enjoyed "The Room" -- or even if you didn't -- then do not hesitate one second to watch this series.

A fever dream inside the mind of an emotionally unstable rodeo clown addicted to huffing gas, this show has it all. Chickens, princesses, bikinis, basketballs, fantasies about neighbors, inappropriately holding shotguns, and high strung stoner, this show will not disappoint. The only show to make Friends look believable.

Ugly, monstrous, revolting, racist, execrable, incomprehensible, inept, incompetent, incomprehensible, incoherent, unwatchable. This show looks like '80s video porn without the sex. The audio sounds like nails on a blackboard. The actors apparently had to go slumming after California's condom law was passed. No one in this show goes unscathed. I never saw "The Room", but I knew going in "The Neighbors" was going to be bad. It is beyond bad. It is an abomination. It is a thing that should not be. This is NOT one of those inept things that is entertaining in spite of itself. It is the most unpleasant thing you will ever see. This cannot be overstated. Do not watch.

Let's start off frank and honest, because I don't want my excellent score of 10 out of 10 to be misleading for the casual IMDb reader. This is most certainly not a perfect 10 when it comes to quality. In fact, quite the opposite. This is an incompetent, inept, amateurish mess, boasting a completely lack of focus and talent in front of and behind the camera. A cheap, no-budget train-wreck of proportions best described as epic in scope, dragged down virtually every minute but a laundry-list of faults, including...

-Story lines that are nonsensical and lack any form or structure. A- plots often go without proper establishment and are hastily brought up and sort-of "resolved" during the final moments of an episode. Sub- plots are casually introduced without any set-up and then hastily dropped without resolution.

-Characters are paper-thin clichéd archetypes we've seen before. Characters personify negative racial or gender stereotypes that are meant to be "idenfiable", but come off as mean-spirited parodies of themselves.

-Production values are on the same level as a first-year film student's, with cheap image quality and jarring camera-work, combined with terrible audio-mixing and boring stock-music that is replayed over and over again.

-The so-called acting is laughable and atrocious. Performers akin to cardboard cut-outs who punctuate their dialog with seemingly random emphasis and screaming for their big "dramatic lines."

-Abysmal editing with no regard for flow or continuity, leading to blatant errors including characters and objects frequently disappearing or moving large distances between shots, or angle-changes so drastic they give the viewing a sense of stylistic whiplash.

-And it's impossible to tell if the show is honestly "that bad" on its own, or merely absurd self-parody that attempts to come off as "that bad." It's just so terrible, you can't help but think they're trying purpose to be terrible... yet you have the lingering feeling that this might be an honest effort that is simply crumbling apart due to a lack of thought and reason behind-the-scenes.

So why am I giving it a perfect 10?

Entertainment value, entertainment value, entertainment value!

You see, this series is the newest work from the almost mythological figure in film known as Tommy Wiseau- a strange being who clearly loves life, loves cinema and loves entertainment, yet can't wrap his mind around how to create quality work himself.

He is of course best known for his cinematic blunder/achievement "The Room"- an independent drama film that became notorious for it's nonsensical script, bizarre sense of direction and so-bad-it's-good style. And it has gone on to become a celebrated cult phenomenon- a sort-of modern-day "Rocky Horror Picture Show" with fans around the world who gather for screenings and eat up every scene in all its furiously confusing glory.

And this very much does feel like a "Tommy Wiseau Production" worthy of the same cult-status as that glorious film. "The Neighbors" is essentially on the same sort-of storytelling plane as "The Room", merely lacking the surprisingly high production-value and experience crew of that film, instead being traded in for a shoestring budget. Which frankly, makes it all the more entertaining.

This is one of those "perfect storms" of awfulness. In its handful of episodes, it provides enough comedic fodder and hilarious (and unintentional) laughs to be an ideal viewing choices for groups of friends who want to sit back and behold a spectacle of badness.

It has become our new go-to for movie-nights, and we have already watched the series (thus far) several times, each time enjoying it more and more.

For "so bad, it's good" entertainment value, this easily earns a perfect 10, and is well-worth checking out for fans of such films and series. Particularly those already familiar with Wiseu's "The Room."