The Disaster Artist: Review by @Kush_Hayes
Controversial statement: I’ve never seen The Room.
I know one April Fools Day, Adult Swim decided to run a marathon of The Room. I watched maybe 10 minutes of this, maybe not even understanding this was an actual movie, but one of Adult Swims new experimental live action 11 min shows.
Having said that, I found The Disaster Artist fantastic and I think I’ll see it at least one more time on Moviepass. The Disaster Artist is based on the Greg Sestero book of the same name. While the end result is the making of The Room, this is a story about following a dream. It’s about not accepting rejection and pushing forward. It’s about taking a chance. Normally a theme following the preceding statement is “Risking everything for that dream” But in this case having what seems to be an unlimited amount of resources helps a lot. I want to say that this is also about friendship, and those themes are there, but ultimately it’s a snapshot of what happened in Greg Sesteros life in this time period. Sesteros character is pitted in scenarios where everyone including his own mother doesn’t believe in him but it’s because of Wiseau he keeps pushing forward and didn’t give up.
The film moves quickly and you’re happy to be along for the ride. The mystery of ‘who Tommy Wiseau is’ only makes the character more fascinating. James Francos impression of Wiseau is great and you have to wonder if he somehow has a better understanding of the subject than anyone. You like Dave Franco as Greg Sestero and you only wonder why he puts up with half of Tommys antics.
This was definitely a labor of love for the Franco Brothers and it’s evidenced in a side-by-side comparison of scenes from The Room and scenes they filmed in the Disaster Artist imitating those original scenes, at worst only half a beat off of the cadence.
My biggest gripe with this movie is where they chose to do the “shaky cam” gimmick. I’ve never been a fan of it but I understand when and why it’s being used in your various action movies today. In The Disaster Artist there’s a very obtuse use of shaky cam when introducing Wiseau and then again when the Franco Brothers are merely talking about “how cool James Dean was”. It seems unnecessary to me, but I’m sure they knew why they did it.
My next gripe is outside of the movie, our society will be burdened with bad imitation after bad imitation of James Francos-Tommy Wiseau “Ojai Mark”.
The Disaster Artist debuted on Dec 1st, but goes nationwide December 8th.
5 out of 6 blueberries.
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