Speaker by Various Artists

I was sitting in my seat at the Paramount's main cinema. By my side I had a toy football, a pair of men's boxer shorts and 100 disposable plastic spoons. It was a Saturday night. I was ready to watch cult film The Room.

The Room is a 2003 production by auteur Tommy Wiseau. This mysterious fellow with a non-specific European accent, wrote, directed, produced and stars in the film, a tale of tainted love.

It's also a really bad film. A gloriously bad film, and with a massive cult following.

Audiences don't just sit and watch and laugh at the film's awfulness. They interact, Rocky Horror-style, throwing things at the screen and yelling out snappy comebacks to the bad dialogue.

Despite being seven years old, The Room has been enjoying its first cinema screenings in New Zealand as part of the Incredibly Strange programme in the New Zealand International Film Festival.

We follow the story of Johnny (played by Wiseau), his fiancee Lisa who's cheating on him with his best friend Mark. And there's Denny, the curious manchild neighbour, who is sort of Johnny and Lisa's foster child, only he's an adult and he likes to watch them pashing. There's also Lisa's man-hating, bitch-face mum Claudette; other couple Mike and Michelle who like to use Johnny and Lisa's couch to play sex games involving chocolate; and a selection of random characters who show up, fall over, then are never heard from again.

Actually, that description doesn't make it sound too bad. But it's the execution of the film that makes it come alive with the magic of awfulness. It’s said that no one ever deliberately makes a bad film, and indeed it’s the seriousness of The Room’s production mixed with accidental incompetency that give it its unique spirit.

For example, early on Claudette tells Lisa, "I got the results of the test back - I definitely have breast cancer." In a normal film, one would expect further mention of the cancer; perhaps a polite query as to how the chemo is going. In The Room, the cancer is never mentioned again.

In another infamous scene, devilwoman Lisa tries to tempt Johnny off the wagon by luring him with a drink. She brings out two tumblers half-filled with Scotch, and diabolically tops them up with vodka. This does the trick - "It tastes good," Johnny remarks as he sculls his Skotchka.

And, of course, the spoons. Johnny and Lisa's apartment is decorated with framed photos of spoons. Why spoons? No one knows. But the frequent shots of the spoon art have led to one of the most fun moments of audience participation. Whenever a spoon photo is shown, audience members hurl handfuls of plastic picnic spoons. Moore Wilson in Wellington sells 100 packs for $2.10, so by the end of the evening, the front of the Paramount was covered with cutlery.

But for a film that's never previously been released in New Zealand, how is it that New Zealand audiences know exactly what to do in the screening?

We can put this down to the power of the interwebs. As well as the film being a cult hit at midnight cinema screenings, it also has a huge online following. YouTube is full of choice clips from the films, footage of audience screenings, and fans re-enacting their favourite scenes from the film. There are webpages with list of things to do at the screenings, and the DVD can be purchased online.

But it's not all rote responses. During a fight between Johnny and Lisa, one Auckland audience member spontaneously yelled out "Cook your own damn eggs, Jake Heke!" Chur!

It's nice to be part of an audience where you're not obliged to politely applaud, where you can yell and throw things (two of my favourite pastimes). It's a powerful experience when the audience can transform a lame melodrama into a hilarious comedy.

The Room is currently making its way around the country as part of the Film Festival, and it’s rumoured to be making a return with some midnight screenings later in the year, so audiences can again unite, throw spoons and yell Johnny's signature line, "You're tearing me apart, Lisa!"

Robyn Gallagher blogs beautifully at robyngallagher.com

The faces of the defeated are infinitely more interesting than the faces of the victorious. I’ve thought that for a long time and this morning’s defeat of Holland by the patient Spaniards was no different. You could see it on Robben’s face when his second half shot was saved by the toes of Spanish keeper Casillas and you could see it on the faces of the Dutch defenders during that briefest of moments between realising that they’d all missed Ramos at the far post and him heading over the bar.

And it was thanks to the superb high-definition coverage of the World Cup that we got to see that emotional drama played out so clearly. In the past we might have had to wait for the 35mm movie film (narrated by Sean Connery) to see that much detail. HD is now a must for any sports fan and has made this the most enjoyable World Cup for me since 1986. That, and my recent transition to freelancing which has allowed me to watch more games than I managed in the last three World Cups put together, along with this Public Address gig which gave me a great excuse to do exactly that.

What else have we learnt during the last month? That pundits pontificating about the death of football in Europe and the forthcoming domination of Latin America should probably wait until the end of the tournament before voicing their conclusions. That a great team full of great players (Spain, for example) would beat an average team full of great players (Argentina, for the sake of argument), who will also have their arses handed to them by a great team full of average-to-above-average players (Germany, who are yet to reach their best).

And then there’s the disaster of England, who turned out to be neither a great team or a bunch of great players - or even particularly nice people.

I liked Richard Williams’ assessment in The Guardian last week:

As we saw in this year’s European Cup, and are now seeing in the World Cup, football is going through a phase in which the science of coaching has the upper hand over the technical skill of individual players. That emphasis gives an advantage to the rich European clubs, and by extension to their national teams, who benefit most immediately from the rising levels of tactical sophistication.

Both this year's finalists have found ways, albeit rather different ones, of integrating talented individuals into carefully planned formations and patterns of play. Although Dunga and Diego Maradona may not agree, teaching your players where to go and what to do when the opponent has the ball is not necessarily the enemy of entertainment.

It may not have been true this morning (if it was your first ever game of football, it might well turn out to be your last), but Williams is right to emphasise the importance of defence in a World Cup challenge. After all, when you gather the best players in the world a few of them are going to be at the back of the field mopping up and some of the most arresting play was the result of great defenders reading the game superbly and timing tackles exquisitely. Players like Mertesacker and Lahm, John Mensah (or am I thinking of Jonathan Mensah?), Mexico’s Salcido and Marquez, Van Bronckhorst, Chile’s Caceres, Uruguay’s Caceres (and Fucile) and, of course, the rocks of the Spanish defence: Puyol, Pique, Capdevila and Ramos. But then I’m a former right back so I love to see defenders doing their jobs well.

Which leads me to New Zealand and the best example of a well-drilled, superbly led, defence in the tournament. I’ve never been a big fan of Ryan Nelsen, as he’s been playing in a pretty ugly Blackburn outfit for his day job, but he led and organised the All Whites superbly, in a three-maybe-five at the back formation that would have been unfamiliar to most of the players at the start of the campaign. ESPN just named him in their XI of the tournament alongside Puyol.

And what of Ricki Herbert, only undefeated coach of the tournament? There’ll be a press conference this afternoon at which (the runes suggest) Herbert will announce his continued presence at the helm of both the Phoenix and the All Whites. I can’t tell you how important it is that he sticks around for a few years.

I liken his situation to that of Peter Jackson after Brain Dead. He could have gone to Hollywood to make a packet of money but stayed to build an industry. We don’t have the coaching depth in this country to be able to repeat (or build on) the ‘Nix achievements of last season without Herbert, and fickle fans will soon desert a failing club side. As former Australian coach Frank Farina said in this weekend’s papers, “... at the moment there's only certain death in terms of progression or moving forward.” At least I think I understood what he meant.

Right now, I can’t wait for the Premiership season to start. I love clean slates and West Ham have one right now. The Phoenix have a game against star-studded Boca Juniors from Argentina the weekend after next and the serious season kicks off against Gold Coast (now minus Smeltz) in exactly a month. Bring it on, please.

At the first football World Cup Final I ever saw, it snowed, a highly improbable event in Buenos Aires, even in the winter month of June. But this snow wasn’t snow, it was ‘snow’, made by people, for people and delivered as part of a frenzied release in support of their national team, playing in only their 2nd World Cup final and their first at home. That team was Argentina, their opponents were also playing in their second World Cup Final, that team was the Netherlands.

I’d never seen anything like it, as a 13 year old in a small town at the top of the South Island, a metropolis compared to the tiny village I’d lived in on the southern west coast until recently, the ticker-tape laden Estadio Monumental stadium in Buenos Aires seemed impossibly far away and completely exotic. I’d watched the Lions rugby tour of New Zealand the previous year and a couple of FA Cup finals but this was my first introduction to the World Cup.

I vaguely remember disquiet about Argentina hosting the tournament. Little did I know... The country was a basket case, ruled by a military Junta under General Videla (yes, he of the "Dónde están? [Where are they?]" mothers, and the answer, "They are neither alive nor dead. They are disappeared."), the chairman of the World Cup Organising Committee, General Omar Actis had been assassinated after the coup in 1976 and world opinion almost led to the tournament being called off. While this never happened, the tournament was shorn of several stars, most notably Johan Cruyff, who refused to attend, retiring after the Dutch qualification rounds.

See, this is one of the things I love about the World Cup, it is inextricably linked to culture, history and politics. The old cliché is that sport and politics should not mix, the truth is that they should always mix, and they always do mix. If it weren’t for the political, social and cultural backdrop to any sporting engagement, why else would we watch it?

As for the football, I don’t remember much about the build up games except that everyone expected Argentina to win. The Dutch had been the best team in the world for about 5-6 years but without their star player, Cruyff, there were question marks over whether they could prevail. Argentina despite the favourites tag, had struggled in the group stages and then had to go down to the wire against Brazil, with many calling foul on their unlikely 6-0 win over Peru to put them through to the final on goal difference. There was an inference that the dictatorship was using the national team to bolster their own popularity with Argentineans and the world, even to the point of bribery and match fixing.

Not that I realised this back then or had given any thought to it at all. If memory serves me right I’d just recently bought my first ever grown up album (David Bowie’s Heroes) and anything to do with ‘away’ that invoked excitement was fine by me. The games were shown live at breakfast time before school, just the way a World Cup should be. We all sat in the lounge and watched our one year old colour TV, the Dutch team’s orange jerseys freaked the set out causing a pixel blur as they ran across the screen. Apparently a young guy called Diego Maradona was available but not included for La Albiceleste (White and Sky Blues), his predecessors at this tournament were Mario Kempes, Luque, Ardiles and Passarella. Kempes, known as El Matador (imagine!) was a 24 year old striker, surprisingly the only player in the squad to play overseas (Valencia) he had the hopes of the country on his shoulders but hadn’t scored at all in the group stages. He’d put this right in the knockout round though and was in good form.

The Final could politely be described as ‘fractious’, the Dutch side must have wondered what they’d walked into and the game was held up while the Argentineans complained about a plaster cast on one of the Dutch players arms. The Dutch, in turn seriously considered refusing to play considering the environment hostile and relaying to officials their fears of getting out of the stadium alive if they were to defeat their hosts. Once started though it was end to end stuff, none of this highly sophisticated defensive play that we see nowadays, they really attacked each other, how could it be otherwise in that environment.

Kempes scored and the Dutch pulled it back and then in injury time my first taste of the sheer misery and unfairness that combines to make football such a great game. The Dutch winger Robbie Rensenbrink rounded the keeper and put an unmissable shot towards goal and.... it smacked off the post in what must have been a devastating moment for the Oranje, probably confirming their status as the almost team of major tournaments. In extra time the Argentineans took control with Kempes scoring one goal and setting up another to win 3-1.

From my memories, it was a classic case of a team being swept home by their supporters. The noise, the flares, the confetti, a total edge of anarchy that just didn’t stop for the whole 90 minutes making it all but impossible for the unfortunate Dutch side to come back again.
The cameras didn’t shut off at the final whistle of course, so we got to see the whole outpouring of joy and emotion as well as no little relief from the home side. Cesar Luis Menotti, the chain smoking, big collared style merchant and leftist, apparently refused to let government officials in to see the players at half time. The government may have used the tournament as propaganda for themselves but there’s no denying that the players won it on their own merits and it gave the country a real fillip in some pretty awful times.

2010 is my latest World Cup Final and the Netherlands are finally back. I’ve watched so much football in the intervening 32 years that I can appreciate the likes of Sneijder, Robben and van Persie but the mystique and much of the wonder is gone in a more professional and sanitised game. There’s no doubt though, whether they win or lose I’m sure there’ll be some memories for me, back to 1978 and my first tournament, the most punk rock of World Cups and the one that started a love affair that’s never gone away.

We all know the "Curse of Nike". It spread like wildfire across the sports section of internet last week and even made it to the last-item-of-the-news-that's-a-little-bit-quirky last night on TV3. Of course it's a joke and one that Nike set themselves up for by showing predictions of the future. But there's a couple of things that bugged me about it last night, and seeing as how it's a while before the next game I thought I'd write them down.

The article last night on TV3 was the usual generic review of Nike's Write the Future ad. They pointed to the early exits of Frank Ribery, Didier Drogba and Fabio Cannavaro; and the later exits of Wayne Rooney and Christiano Ronaldo. They point to Ronaldhino not even making the Cup at all (though didn't mention the new Robinho clip). They neglected to mention the US team (seen in the Rooney "caravan future"), but did mention the three Spaniards who feature (in the Rooney "knighted future"). And this where they went a bit far.

The article pointed out that Spain are dressed by adidas (their dark-blue strip is fantastic by the way), but neglected to mention that so are France. Or that Italy's uniforms are made by Puma, so are Côte d'Ivoire. Oddly though they claimed the curse extended further when Brazil, who featured heavily in the Nike "Airport" ad two World Cups ago lost to the adidas wearing French. Yet only four years ago the adidas wearing French lost to the Italians... I don't know what that means either.

But the most annoying thing about the puff-piece (and yes, I'm dissecting a stupid piece about a non-existent curse, but it's uniforms ... ... and that's my turf) was they didn't mention the one Nike team that is still in the competition and is in the ad: The Netherlands! They're the team that fouls Ronaldo, allowing him to line up the possibly historic free kick.

And let's not forget that Nike has made some of the nicest uniforms of the whole tournament: New Zealand's. White with simple black lettering and numbers (and without the awful font that adidas like so much), it was truly iconic. The US uniforms were similarly simple. The diagonal stripe a throwback to the "miracle on grass" that the Americans were so keen to remember this year. While the English (technically in Umbro, which is a Nike brand) had actual, honest-to-goodness collars!

Though Nike could've done with having a few more colourways for its boots, I'm getting sick of all the orange.

But adidas aren't leaving without a fight (the F50 adizero for example). There will be at least one adidas team in the final and both of them (Spain and Germany) have awesome uniforms. The Germans didn't just look cohesive and brilliant in beating Argentina, they looked goooood. Those black strips are my picks of the tournament, because while simplicity is great, going for something more complicated and pulling it off is even better.

Runners up for best uniform go to Solvenia for their "Charlie Browns". Worst uniform goes to the Australians (home and away)... nothing new there.

I think I’ve worked out what the narrative for this World Cup is going to be and it involves the most charismatic individual in football history - Diego Armando Maradona.

Think about it for a minute. This is a guy who played a part in World Cups in 1978 (bear with me), 1982, 1986, 1990 and 1994. In fact, his World Cup exploits easily eclipse his less than stellar club career and his triumphs and travails since then have been the stuff of any Latin American telenovela. Frankly, the rules of great drama dictate that Maradona must still be on the stage during the final act, hence Argentina must beat Germany tomorrow morning.

I first saw Maradona in 1978 when he was among the talented Argentinian schoolboys trotted out as half time entertainment during their successful campaign as host and eventual winner. Displaying mesmerising tricks, flicks and these kids showed us how the game was supposed to be played, while tired and conservative old England didn’t even qualify. Maradona had already made his first full international appearance (at the age of 16) but wasn’t required for the 78 World Cup. A year later he announced himself as the star player of the World Youth Cup which Argentina won decisively.

Since Pelé retired to play Major League Soccer in the States, playground debate had raged about who was the best player in the world. Many said it was Dutchman Johann Cruyff but we didn’t see enough of him on English tv but there were certainly no English contenders.

Then along came the nuggety little Maradona. By the time he arrived at the 82 World Cup in Spain, his reputation as the greatest player in the world preceded him. Unfortunately (as we would come to expect) it was drama that followed him.

He spent a great deal of the tournament being kicked around and in Argentina’s final game against Brazil (which eliminated them), Maradona’s lack of discipline saw him sent off for a frustrated attempt at retaliation. His temper got the better of him, not for the last time.

86 was the World Cup that featured the “Hand of God” (offside as well as handball) and the “Greatest World Cup Goal in History”. What makes Maradona’s second against England (as well as a remarkably similar goal against Belgium in the next round) so exquisite is his change of pace. Maradona didn’t need raw speed (although he had it in those days) or sharp changes of direction. Maradona could bamboozle defenders by subtly slowing down and then taking off again - very hard to do with the ball at your feet. In 1986 Maradona really was the greatest player in the world and he raised the trophy as Argentina’s captain.

Weakened by injury (and who knows what else), Maradona had a poor 1990 tournament. Argentina were still finalists although beaten by West Germany in a drab game. In USA 1994 Maradona turned up looking heavy, scored a cracker of a goal in the early rounds against Greece, and was then sent home in disgrace after testing positive for a banned stimulant. Another World Cup - another drama.

He retired as a player in 1997 and managed not to go quietly. His substance abuse and weight problems saw him disappear to Cuba and Colombia for various miracle cures. Heart attacks, gastric bypass surgery, cocaine and alcohol abuse - Maradona saw it all. In 2007 it was even reported that he had died.

So, it was a bit of a surprise when a desperate Argentinian Football Association in 2008 appointed him as Head Coach of the national team, despite no appreciable qualifications or experience. A 6-1 defeat to Bolivia made the team a world laughing stock and for a while it looked like they might not even qualify for this World Cup.

But qualify they did, and they’ve looked the business all the way through. Maradona has been a talisman on the sidelines, his passion and joy evident every second of every game. Despite a two month ban from FIFA earlier this year for abusing the media at press conference (“Suck it and keep on sucking it”) he has continued to goad the media, the officials and the “greatest player the world has ever seen” and is easily the most entertaining figure at the tournament - more so than any of the players we’ve seen at any rate.

Maradona simply must be there at the end of this World Cup. This is a guy who has interviewed Fidel Castro on his own tv chat show, for pete’s sake. He’s donated an autographed shirt to Ahmedinajad to support the people of Iran. He owes 37 million euros to the Italian government in back taxes and has given them a pair of earrings to cover it. He has his own church and comic book.

In my lifetime, the World Cup story is the Maradona story and I can’t wait to see the next chapter tonight.

Dan