The Disaster Artist

[MoonDust]

Thought this was pretty decent, my girlfriend who hasn't seen The Room, absolutely loved it. Wanted to go see it again! She works in stage though so I imagine she got more out of it than I did.

That's interesting. I've been saying to people it's not really worth watching if they haven't seen the Room. And some of them even said that before I did "I'd come with but I haven't seen the Room".

[Repeater]

Aye, she also said she's no interest in seeing it now, which surprised me! Thought there's a lot of it in The Disaster Artist anyway. I said she'd only be missing out on interminable sex scenes with the boney-arse man.

[MoonDust]

the boney-arse man.

I've often struggled to describe the man's weird arse.

Boney it certainly is. Cheers.

I'd say he looks muscular but not in a good way. More in the he's-just-had-his-skin-ripped-off-and-painted-his-muscles-to-look-like-skin way. Arse included.

[Repeater]

Dehydration-ripped.

[Rolf Lundgren]

It was fine in telling a simplified version of the story behind the film but having seen The Room many times and read the book, I felt it doesn't get across what is so entertaining about The Room. If people who haven't seen the original really enjoy this movie then perhaps they would disagree with me which is fair enough but from my perspective it seemed to just be a film about making a bad film when The Room is so much more than that.

I was expecting it to be a lot funnier than it was too. The book is full of hilarious detail and a lot of them are entirely missed or glossed over.  The reason why Greg's character is called Mark and Tommy living behind a black curtain in the living room are both very funny but they're barely explored in the film. The scenes that got the biggest laughs in the cinema were at the end when they showed the original and remake side-by-side and part of me thinks this film solely exists so James Franco and his mates could have a laugh recreating it.

Also Dave Franco is completely miscast. And it's no wonder Tommy Wiseau loves it because the beginning of the film shows him looking and acting like a rockstar with Greg looking up to him in awe when in real life I thought the relationship was one of curiosity from Greg's perspective. He does do a good Tommy Wiseau impression though, apparently he spent hours listening to tapes and that comes across because it is a great performance from him.

I've dicked on it quite a bit here but it's worth watching and tells an interesting story well. I can't help but get a kick out of the fact that a major film has been made about The Room and happy to see Tommy and Greg get wider acclaim. But in someone else's hands it could have been even better.

[Depressed Beyond Tables]

OH HAI DOGGIE

Greg comes across as a total moaning bitch in the book. The amount of horseshit he talks in order to make himself look like the one being taken advantage of is considerable.

It's very clear that it was a relationship of mutual convenience. Greg got a cheap place in L.A. to stay for fuck all and Tommy got a friend who would tolerate his mentalness. There are parts of the book that are downright cringe-worthy when Greg tries to paint Tommy as a proper bad bastard and a jealous one at that. I recommend the audiobook as it's way more transparent coming from Sestero's gob.

[Noodle Lizard]

Greg comes across as a total moaning bitch in the book. The amount of horseshit he talks in order to make himself look like the one being taken advantage of is considerable.

It's very clear that it was a relationship of mutual convenience. Greg got a cheap place in L.A. to stay for fuck all and Tommy got a friend who would tolerate his mentalness. There are parts of the book that are downright cringe-worthy when Greg tries to paint Tommy as a proper bad bastard and a jealous one at that. I recommend the audiobook as it's way more transparent coming from Sestero's gob.

I don't know if that's true.  Everyone involved corroborates Sestero's account of the making of The Room, and the stuff surrounding him and Tommy's off-set circumstances doesn't sound too far-fetched.  Tommy is manipulative, vindictive and kind of mean.  Those are all evident even from watching some of that BTS footage on the Blu-Ray.

As for Sestero and his reasons for taking part, you've also got to remember that at the time he had come relatively close to getting his "break" as an actor, only for it to end in disappointment.  Also I think he was living with his girlfriend by the time The Room was getting off the ground, so it wasn't just a case of him needing to live with Tommy.  Of course his relationship with Wiseau wasn't selfless, but I don't think he paints it as being that way.  I feel he probably exaggerates his reluctance to be in The Room (I haven't read the book in a while), but there's not much else to suggest it's a particularly inaccurate account.  I mean, you don't really need to hyperbolise much about the antics of a man as demonstrably bizarre as Wiseau.

[imitationleather]

£12.10 I paid for a ticket to see this tonight. I'm in That London, but still!

If this isn't at least slightly good I'm going to fuck James Franco and Seth Rogen up.

[Head Gardener]

Star Wars with Tommy Wiseau https://youtu.be/dXlao2KNYjQ

[Lost Oliver]

Saw this last night... shite.

[SteveDave]

I turned it off after about 30 minutes. James Franco as Tony Baron as Tommy Wiseau "Lisa! Why you have fox on head? I am aghast!"

[popcorn]

Yeah, it's mediocre at best. It takes an interesting story and tells it using the most conventional means possible. The story beats, fucking hell, it's basically a romcom.

[thraxx]

Just saw this.  The Room is what it is, terrible and funny of course, and The Disaster Artist is a brilliant book.  However the film captures none of the weirdness, the tension, heaviness or ugliness that the book shows.  In the book the relationship between Sestero and Wiseau is queasy and it's never sure who is taking advantage of who.  The film elects to make the whole thing out to be a bumbling light hearted jaunt with Franco obscenely venerating Wiseau as a sort of Jim Morrison figure. The casting of Dave Franco as Sestero is a terrible piece of casting, not least because the real Sestero is by any account a fucking handsome bloke and he is a gurning gargoyle but also on account of the brainless happy go lucky portrayal.  The final scene where the film is instantly transformed into a comedy classic was pathetic.  No doubt they would say this is all in keeping with the enigmatic and confounding reputation of the original film.

If you are interested in The Room then read the book and avoid this chiseling bubble gum pap.   

Glad that Nathan Fielder is in it though.

[Noodle Lizard]

Yeah, pretty much exactly what I expected.  Not a good thing, but at least it wasn't somehow further disappointing than that.  I'm kind of surprised that they really didn't bother going into Tommy's history or motivations in any real detail at all, he really was kind of reduced to a stock "weirdo" character for the most part, and somehow they saw it fit to completely exclude some of the most interesting parts about the production itself.  But there you go.  It's a James Franco movie.  If it convinces just a few people to either read the book or watch The Room and really get into it, that's about enough justification for it.

Obviously Greg and probably Tommy are happy with the money/attention this has brought them, but part of me wonders if they can possibly be happy with the portrayal (Tommy seems fairly immune, granted, but Greg's portrayal was so at odds with what he wrote that it has to be at least somewhat grating).  Likewise, the idea of the real hapless actors of The Room (whose careers didn't really progress as a result) being portrayed and glossed over by successful actors feels a bit icky to me.  The whole thing does, really, but whatcha gonna do.

[newbridge]

Yeah, pretty much exactly what I expected.  Not a good thing, but at least it wasn't somehow further disappointing than that.  I'm kind of surprised that they really didn't bother going into Tommy's history or motivations in any real detail at all, he really was kind of reduced to a stock "weirdo" character for the most part, and somehow they saw it fit to completely exclude some of the most interesting parts about the production itself.  But there you go.  It's a James Franco movie.  If it convinces just a few people to either read the book or watch The Room and really get into it, that's about enough justification for it.

Obviously Greg and probably Tommy are happy with the money/attention this has brought them, but part of me wonders if they can possibly be happy with the portrayal (Tommy seems fairly immune, granted, but Greg's portrayal was so at odds with what he wrote that it has to be at least somewhat grating).  Likewise, the idea of the real hapless actors of The Room (whose careers didn't really progress as a result) being portrayed and glossed over by successful actors feels a bit icky to me.  The whole thing does, really, but whatcha gonna do.

Culminating in Franco blocking Tommy from the mic at the Golden Globes, I get the distinct vibe from this whole thing (I haven't seen the movie) that they are largely just making fun of Tommy, which is too bad. One of the reasons the book is surprisingly compelling is that, even though it revels in Tommy's gross incompetence and humorous anachronisms, it treats him more as inscrutable than pathetic.

I'd love to make a The Disaster Artist II about the making of and aftermath of The Disaster Artist, where Greg/Tommy experience the upper echelons of Hollywood and realize that they really are a box of self-serving cunts.

[Noodle Lizard]

Culminating in Franco blocking Tommy from the mic at the Golden Globes, I get the distinct vibe from this whole thing (I haven't seen the movie) that they are largely just making fun of Tommy, which is too bad. One of the reasons the book is surprisingly compelling is that, even though it revels in Tommy's gross incompetence and humorous anachronisms, it treats him more as inscrutable than pathetic.

While I'm sure the Golden Globes block was more or less good-natured (and they didn't have to bring him, I guess), I've been kind of surprised to see Franco barely even pretending he sees Tommy as anything other than a bizarre pet he gets to show off on his press tour.  Fair enough, Wiseau is totally fucking bizarre, but I'd have hoped Franco would treat the source of his potentially Oscar-winning role with a little more dignity.  I think that says a lot about his outlook when making the movie, and explains a lot about the resulting product's failures to do the man/the story justice.

[St_Eddie]

The more I read about the movie adaptation of Greg Sestero's book, the less I want to see it.  Everything which I'm hearing, is just rubbing me up the wrong way and annoying me.  I reckon that I'll stick with my audiobook copy of The Disaster Artist and just be happy with that (I'm certainly enjoying it so far).

[fit bird]

I agree. I thought the film seemed cruel and the chat show appearances crueler.
Ever since reading that book I've felt very sorry for Wiseau, I seem to remember it suggesting the reason he was a bit weird was because of a couple of quite serious car accidents.
Is this big star handsome James Franco and his Hollywood friends spending millions of dollars to make fun of a guy with brain damage?  Maybe I'm just a wet blanket.

Those chat show appearances are like going back to the playground, there's always one guy who convinces himself he's they're laughing with him not at him... I really hope Wiseau is happy with it all, it's been a while since I read the book so my memory is probably white washing him a bit but as far as I can remember the worst thing he did was shout at a woman for having a spotty back, does he really deserve all this?

I'm going to wince at how soppy and lame this post is in the morning I expect, oh well.

[St_Eddie]

I'm going to wince at how soppy and lame this post is in the morning I expect, oh well.

No need to wince.  I thought that you raised some very salient thoughts, personally.  Having empathy and sympathy for others isn't something to shy away from.  Perhaps if Franco had embodied those traits, then he may have made a film more in the vain of Tim Burton's Ed Wood; a semi-biographical film, with a great deal of affection and heart towards its subject matter.  Instead, Franco made a chuckle fest for him and his Hollywood friends to poke fun at the weird guy.

[Large Noise]

Agree with a lot of what's been said here. No matter how this is dressed up, it does whiff of making fun of a disabled guy. I also thought Franco blocking him when he tried to grab the mic at the GG's was a bit off. If this guy's so fucking fascinating Franco, maybe let him say a few words too, even if it eats into your time for thanking a bunch of Hollywood suits and saying that your brother's your best friend.

I hadn't seen The Room (though I was aware of it) or read the book beforehand, which perhaps helped my viewing experience in the sense that it worked for me purely on a "what a mad story, I wonder what's going to happen" level. But it does leave a bit of a sour taste.

Also, I didn't buy Greg's lack of cynicism. His motives are presented as relatively pure; Tommy's his friend who just so happens to be wealthy. As opposed to Tommy being someone he tolerates purely for financial reasons. There's no way that Greg and Tommy's friendship was anything like as genuine as it's presented.

[Shaky]

Franco's reaction to Wiseau at the Globes shows him up as the prick many suspect him of being. Just in case the sleazy shit wasn't evidence enough. Hopefully in a few years time someone will make a film about his film and do the same to him on stage.

I'm quite pleased to say I've had the chance to yell, "Wanker!" at Franco and make him turn round.

[Stoneage Dinosaurs]

If anyone's on the fence and needs more reasons not to see this, Franco is officially a confirmed cunto
https://pitchfork.com/news/more-women-accuse-james-franco-of-sexual-misconduct/?mbid=social_facebook

[Shit Good Nose]

What's the forum's opinion on brother Dave Franco?

Note - I only know him as James Franco's brother, and from a few films.  Don't know owt else about him.

[up_the_hampipe]

What's the forum's opinion on brother Dave Franco?

Note - I only know him as James Franco's brother, and from a few films.  Don't know owt else about him.

He's married to Alison Brie, so fuck that guy.

[Mini]

I agree with all the above. Not letting Tommy talk at the Golden Globes was indicative of the whole project - a wasted opportunity, in which Franco pushes away the outsider to make it all about him and the Hollywood fraternity.

[Mobius]

Tommy is their Karl Pilkington

[St_Eddie]

If anyone's on the fence and needs more reasons not to see this, Franco is officially a confirmed cunto
https://pitchfork.com/news/more-women-accuse-james-franco-of-sexual-misconduct/?mbid=social_facebook

I think that's sealed it, in terms of me not watching the movie.

"The things that I heard that went on Twitter are not accurate, but I completely support people coming out and being able to have a voice because they didn't have a voice for so long. I don't want to shut them down in any way. I think it's a good thing and I support it."

Spoken like a truly innocent man.  I'm being sarcastic, by the way.  What a cunt.

[jedy]

lately i been a bit obsessed with this movie and tommy wiseau.

imo is  a very good movie, best i seen in a few months

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

The real cunt of the family was their granddad, General Franco.

[Depressed Beyond Tables]

Saw this a few weeks ago and I was ready to be disappointed but it's actually very enjoyable. It's a slow starter, much like the film, but gets going nicely.

This is very good indeed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttKn1eGKTew