Dir. James Franco (2017)
Rated R The Disaster Artist is a movie about filmmaker Tommy Wiseau (James Franco) and the making of his film The Room. Tommy is an aspiring actor who has a lot of passion for movies and a ton of money to make them, but it is clear that he has no real skill and doesn't really know what he is doing. With his friend who wants to be an actor as well, Greg (Dave Franco), they move to LA to try to get in the acting business. Months go by with no luck, and one day Greg jokingly says that the two should just make their own movie. Tommy doesn't let this go, and soon he has spent a fortune on film equipment and hires an entire crew to make a film that he has written, The Room. When watching, it is pretty obvious that the script is terrible and that the movie will be pretty bad. The actors and crew on set soon realize this, too. Tommy is relentless, however, and impossible to work with. He can't see the lack of development in the script or the over all soap opera-ness to it, and thinks that it's going to make millions. Tommy is an enigma: no one knows where he is from or how old he is or who he really is at all. That remains the same throughout the whole movie, too. When The Room finally has its premiere, Greg has stopped talking to Tommy entirely because of Tommy being a horrible director and a tyrant. There is a huge turnout, but when the movie plays, everyone but Tommy can see how embarrassing it is for the actors and how horrible of a movie it is overall. It's supposed to be a drama, but the entire audience is laughing hysterically at every scene. Tommy is devastated that everyone is making fun of his movie, and Greg rushes to comfort him despite them being estranged now. He realizes that people still love his movie, but not in the way he expected. It's now a comedy instead of a drama. The movie ends with Tommy and Greg being friends again, having made a movie together with questionable reviews. This movie was endearing and hilarious but awkward and pretentious at the same time. I liked certain parts a lot and thought they were hilarious. As I was watching it, I remembered watching a clip of it in film class (Tommy doing multiple takes for the "I did not hit her" scene). That was one of the funniest parts, and there were a bunch more. I felt that a lot of the comedy was based around Tommy himself and his accent. Still not sure what that accent is, but I guess that is part of why Wiseau is so mysterious. I think it's important to insert here that before watching The Disaster Artist, I had never heard of Tommy Wiseau or the The Room. I had no idea that it was a Hollywood cult favorite or that it was known and loved for how bad it was. The ending credits were very helpful for me to read. That being said, the movie works for people who have and haven't heard of it, which is great. Greg and Tommy's relationship was full of development and was fun to watch but also frustrating because of Tommy's character. Still, by the end it had a 'feel good' effect on me. For the parts I didn't like as much, there were sooo many awkward parts in this movie. Awkward as in during some of the dialogue I was tensed up thinking, oh, man, is this really happening? I wish I weren't watching this right now. (I'm not even talking about the part where Franco is practically naked on screen. The bulk of the award-ness just happens in the dialogue.) Perhaps it was second hand embarrassment/awkwardness. It was great to watch James and Dave Franco act together in a movie, because I love both of the actors and had never seen the brothers together before. Their acting was amazing, and I have reason to believe that if James Franco didn't make this movie or if the two brothers did not appear in it, it wouldn't have done nearly as well. I just don't imagine this story line being a successful one if it had not been made as well as it did. It seemed a little like the Franco's were just showing off, because a lot of people will go see any movie if they're involved with it. (that's what I mean by the pretentious bit.) So overall, I didn't love this movie, but I didn't hate it either. The trailer made it look hilarious all the way through, but as I said, there is a lot of awkward-ness that weighs it down. The funny bits were great. With all of this being said, I'm not really sure why this movie did as well as it did. I don't get why it's nominated for Oscars. I just feel like out of all the other movies that I saw that are nominated as well, this one was by far not as good. That's just my opinion, though. I'm not saying it's bad and a lot of people LOVED it, so it must have done something right.
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AuthorCasey Land Archives
January 2018
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