“No. No. It’s not luck, Greg. Greg, you have to be the best. You have to be the best you can be. And never give up.”
Release Date: December 8th, 2017
Genre: Biography, Comedy, Drama
MPAA: 14A
I missed The Disaster Artist when it was in theatres. It wasn’t playing at my preferred theatre, and if I wanted to go see it, it only played late at night, so I just decided to wait for the blu-ray release. Its also another A24 release, and if you have been following my last couple of reviews lately, I have been all about the A24 releases lately. I’m super glad that I own this movie on blu-ray, I really enjoyed it, I was also left sort of inspired by it, and thats why I’m coming to you on this monday with another Inspirational Movie Monday review.
The Disaster Artist is a biography, comedy and drama film about Greg Sestero, an aspiring film actor, meets the weird and mysterious Tommy Wiseau in an acting class, they form a unique friendship and travel to Hollywood to make their dreams come true. Their dreams are to become actors, Tommy decides that he’s going to make his own movie, The Room. Which has now garnered cult status as “The best worst movie of all time.”
The Disaster Artist is directed by James Franco. I am much more familiar with James Franco’s acting side of his career, but he did direct one episode of the TV Mini Series 11.22.63 (2016) based on the Steven King book of the same name. I think James Franco is extremely talented, I was very intrigued to see his directing style when I learned that he was directing this movie, and I thought he was excellent. I don’t think any other director/actor could’ve pulled this off with as much passion and detail as James Franco did. He did Tommy’s weird and bizarre story justice.
The Disaster Artist is written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber and is based off the book The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, The Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell. Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber have co-wrote many movies together including (500) Days Of Summer (2009), Paper Towns (2015). I thought this movie was really well written, It was funny, it was dramatic, I thought the writers knew exactly what they needed to do to portray this story. I was really impressed with the script, I had a smile on my face for the 2 hour duration, and I thought the jokes were really funny. They were able to adapt a film that has awful dialogue, so awful that you can’t help but quote it with your friends, and add their own flair to it.
The Disaster Artist stars James Franco as Tommy Wiseau, Dave Franco as Greg Sestero, Seth Rogan as Sandy.
James Franco’s filmography consists of Never Been Kissed (1999), Freaks and Geeks {TV Series} (1999-2000), Spider-Man (2002), Spider-Man 2 (2004), Knocked Up (2007), Spider-Man 3 (2007), Milk (2008), Pineapple Express (2008), Date Night (2010), 127 Hours (2010), This Is The End (2013), The Night Before (2015), True Story (2015), 11.22.63 {TV Mini-Series} (2016), and Sausage Party (2016). I actually quite enjoy James Franco’s acting. I feel like he can do anything he really wants. He can be down right hilarious, but can also be taken seriously as a drama actor. I feel like he was perfect for the role of Tommy Wiseau, he was able to fully get into the mind of Tommy, so much so that I thought I was watching the real Tommy in another movie. It almost felt like a really well produced documentary of behind the scenes of The Room.
Dave Franco’s filmography consists of Superbad (2007), Milk (2008), Charlie St. Cloud (2010), Fright Night (2011), 21 Jump Street (2012), Warm Bodies (2013), Now You See Me (2013), The Lego Movie (2014), Neighbors (2014), 22 Jump Street (2014), Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising (2016), and Nerve (2016). Dave Franco is a bit more hit and miss for me, I don’t think he’s perfect, but I really enjoyed him in this role. I think he fit really really well, and it was really cool to see the Franco brothers collaborate on such a high level. Of course they had good chemistry, and they bickered in some scenes like brothers do. I thought he did a great job in this movie.
Seth Rogan’s filmography consists of Freaks and Geeks {TV Series} (1999-2000), Donnie Darko (2001), The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005), Knocked Up (2007), Superbad (2007), Horton Hears A Who! (2008), Step Brothers (2008), Pineapple Express (2008), Zack and Miri Make A Porno (2008), Fanboys (2009), Paul (2011), 50/50 (2011), This Is The End (2013), Neighbors (2014), Steve Jobs (2015), The Night Before (2015), Sausage Party (2016), and Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising (2016). Seth Rogan is always someone to watch, he is excellent at what he does. I thought he was quite funny and really dry in this movie, which I thought added a lot to the movie and the character he played. Anytime you see Seth Rogan and James Franco together in a movie, you’re pretty much guaranteed to laugh.
I thought all the acting in The Disaster Artist was well done, I thought everyone played their character really well. I was very surprised to be honest about how good the acting was, because the movie it was based on had TERRIBLE acting, but thats what made it so good and so funny. They were committed to the lines in The Room, and The Disaster Artist’s cast were committed to doing that hilarious train wreck of a movie justice.
This movie I felt was easy to be inspired by, which is super weird to say. But its an underdog story, Tommy wasn’t taken seriously as an actor, so he decided that he would make his own movie, where he would direct and star in it, so that he would be able to follow his dream. He didn’t take no for an answer, he didn’t get discouraged when things didn’t go right, he just worked as hard as he could and he ended up making this movie. Mind you The Room is literally what they say, “The Citizen Kane of Bad Movies” but he did it, despite every obstacle that was stacked against him, he succeeded. This inspired me as I’ve had a couple people in my life over the years that didn’t really support me, that didn’t think I would account to anything, that kept stacking obstacles against me. Sure, I got discouraged from time to time, and I was sad, but I eventually was able to use that feeling to my advantage and I was able to exceed peoples expectations of me, and even exceed my own expectations. They always say that we are our own harshest critic, which I believe is 100% true. But there is no better feeling in life when we defy our own expectations of ourselves, and exceed expectations of us that were set by others. The Disaster Artist also showed me, that a strong friendship is like family, sure you may fight and bicker. But the strength of a strong friendship will be able to be stretched and moulded, there may sometimes even be cracks in the foundation, sometimes even break apart, but a strong friendship is something special that needs to be held onto.
When I first watched The Disaster Artist, I didn’t think I would get a great review out of it, I didn’t know what to expect. But to get an Inspirational Movie Monday review out of it, is definitely defy expectations.
The Disaster Artist gets a 4.5/5 from me. It was funny, and heartfelt. Also as you can see, I got some inspiration out of it.
If you’ve seen The Room, definitely do yourself a favour and watch this movie. Even if you haven’t seen The Room, this movie is definitely worth checking out. Who knows, you may want to watch “The Citizen Kane of Bad Movies” after watching it.
Until Next Time…Defy Expectations.
-Andrew