Music

AUX Box Office: Four Rooms

by Allan Tong

Watch Four Rooms on the AUX Box Office tonight at 9pm ET.

Today, Four Rooms stands as a showcase of American indie cinema in the 90s.  That means this comedy was directed by Quentin Tarantino, Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell and Robert Rodriguez, four talents hitting their stride in the Pulp Fiction era.  The film is divided into four segments, in this case four films about four rooms in a hotel, all joined by Tim Roth playing Ted the Bellhop on New Year’s Eve.  Inevitably, viewers will prefer some segments over the others.  Here’s what to expect:

Madonna in an overlooked performance in Anders’ “The Missing Ingredient”  paired with a sarcastic Alicia Witt.  Imagine a coven of bare-breasted witches trying to procure a man’s semen against his will.

Rodriguez directing Antonio Banderas (Desperado) playing a no-nonsense dad who orders Bellhop Ted to babysit his two mischievous two kids.

Alexandre Rockwell’s “The Wrong Man” where Ted is stuck with two crazy fetishists David Proval and a pre-L-Word Jennifer Beals who prattles on about Ted’s privates.

Predictably, Tarantino steals the show by adapting Roald Dahl’s short story, “The Man from the South”, by matching Ted with obnoxious Hollywood director Chester Rush played by a self-deprecating Tarantino.

Four Rooms was dismissed by critics when it was released in 1995, but a devote cult has kept the film alive.  It’s aged for the better and holds an abundance of treats.