Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: The Disaster Artist (2017)

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Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 12-03-2017, 04:09 PM:

At the Regal Union Square Cinemas, New York City.

*****
In 1998, a San Francisco acting student named Greg Sestero met fellow student Tommy Wiseau, an enigmatic man who refused to offer any information about himself, including his age, where he was from, how he came by his outrageous accent, or how he acquired a small fortune. They became fast friends anyway and decided to move to Los Angeles together to pursue their acting dreams oblivious to the fact that neither of them had any talent. After several years of frustration, Wiseau decided to dip into his healthy bankroll to write, produce and direct his own movie, a Tennessee Williams style tragedy that he called The Room. As most of you know, the resulting picture has become a Rocky Horror level midnight classic because of its awfulness, it still plays to laughter and ridicule at least once a month in many cities with frequent attendance by Wiseau himself, who in the intervening years has taken to insisting that the picture is an intentional black comedy (it's not).

The Disaster Artist is a lightly fictionalized account of this affair based on Sestero’s memoir. It’s a very funny movie, in spots, but it is also hard to watch as well. The utter cluelessness that these two had is amazing, the film, for instance, recreates the day they showed up at Birns & Sawyer and unnecessarily blew a ton of money buying camera and grip gear even after being informed by the staff that all they had to do was rent. James Franco’s performance the role of the raving Wiseau seems dead-on, but that doesn’t make him easy to watch, and his brother Dave plays Sestero as a naif who falls under Wiseau’s spell nearly to his own ruin, which is pretty cringe-worthy too. It’s very well made, but watching the story of how an eccentric screw-up made something horrible isn’t as entertaining as you may think, and you may find yourself (as I did) sliding down in your seat.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 12-03-2017, 08:44 PM:

I haven't yet had the misfortune of witnessing The Room, but am seriously considering it as a prerequisite of watching The Disaster Artist. Some critics are saying James Franco is at his best ever in this movie.

The Screen Junkies channel on YouTube posted an Honest Trailer of The Room last Tuesday. I usually try to avoid watching one of those Honest Trailers until after I've seen the movie in question, but I cheated in this case. Usually Honest Trailers are pretty hilarious. But even the Honest Trailer of The Room is more cringe-inducing and stomach-churning than funny. Watching the actual movie of The Room seems like it would be a real 99 minute long torture endurance test. It's likely some movie fans have turned screenings of The Room into a drinking game (there's a lot of possibilities there).

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 01-12-2018, 02:53 AM:

I had a hard time watching this. Franco goes full Paul Greengrass with this one. I could at least kinda laugh at The Room even though 90% of it is hard to watch. I found Disaster Artist kind of hard to watch too. Franco gets annoying because I feel he's in a bit too much of it. Hard to avoid but his character just grates on you. Not something I'd watch twice and I don't think it's worthy of Best Picture. Has it been nominated yet? It will be because the Academy eats crap like this up. Plus the rest of the year was pretty shit so yeah this will be nominated.