About 10 years ago, I was in high-school and a friend was beating me over the head for about a week, telling me to watch this internet video about some guy complaining and making fun of a really bad movie. That guy was The Nostalgia Critic (Praise be onto him), and the really (REALLY) bad movie was of course, Tommy Wiseau's...umm..."cinematic masterpiece", The Room (#Godhavemercy).
Back then, I was nowhere near as knowledgeable or aware as I am now about the subtleties of film crafting. (I used to think White Chicks was actually a good comedy...). Even so, The Room was so aggregiously awful, incompetent, and downright stupid, in every possible aspect, that I was genuinely dumbfounded that something SO BAD could exist and be put to film.
(To be fair, 1:18 is actually my favorite scene in all of Cinema)
And yet...I loved it.
There's a good reason for why The Room is considered the greatest worst movie of all time; the gold standard for the"So bad, it's good" genre. It genuinely succeeds in pushing your brain to the utmost limits of what its willing to accept as "logic", "reason" or "Why God did you let this happen? Isn't this just too cruel?", and then the movie takes it past that and you end up following it in insanity. And insanity can be fun, right?
YEAH! PSYCHO BROS!
Now the biggest twist in all of this is what we got today: The Disaster Artist, a movie born out of our collective twisted appreciation for something which by all rights should have never been popular, and yet somehow it did and we are disturbingly happy about it.
As a movie, I would say that The Disaster Artist is REALLY GOOD, with moments of next-level brilliance sprinkled all throughout its runtime. Even if you have no prior knowledge of the source material, The Disaster Artist does an amazing job at delivering a compelling, even heartfelt story, about two friends who just want to follow their passion for acting, with all the highs and lows that you would expect on such a journey, and it's a solid movie in that context.
But then you add James Franco as Tommy Wiseau...
This was hands down one of the best performances I've seen this year, for two reasons.
1)James Franco really disappeared in this role. You watch his performance throughout the entire movie and he just feels like a living, breathing person whose life is being filmed without him knowing. That is true immersion in a character.
Dave Franco does a good Job as Mark for example, Tommy's best friend, but whenever he's on screen you can still see the actor Dave Franco playing a role. But James Franco really took it to the next level with portraying Tommy Wiseau, which in and of itself is not an easy task beacuse...
2)TOMMY WISEAU IS ONE WEIRD@$$ MOTHERF****R. Everything from his looks, his facial expressions, his mannerisms, his laugh, his complete disconnect from ordinary social norms and constructs, it's all just...weird. People for fun have done Tommy Wiseau impersonations over the years, but no one, except Tommy himself, comes close to what Franco pulled off in this movie.
There is a scene in The Disaster Artist (NO SPOILERS) in which Tommy is bad mouthing someone and he starts repeating what they said, but in a funny yet dismissive voice (basically, how an overgrown kid would react), and I swear to God, that delivery is just perfect.
That may not sound like much, but think about it this way: James Franco was portraying a character which was portraying another character, but you always felt like the second portrayal was coming out of the first portrayal, not from the actor. And remember: THAT FIRST PORTRAYAL IS ONE WEIRD@$$ MOTHERF****R
The great performances,mixed with the stellar writing and surreal nature of everything that was happening on screen (especially when James Franco was there) make The Disaster Artist an amazing experience to watch and go through. And it only gets sweeter and more personal the more you know about The Room, about Tommy Wiseau (the man, the myth, the legend) and about the culture that was built around it.
The Disaster Artist celebrates everything that made The Room stand out in peoples' minds and laughs, while also not being afraid or ashamed to present the...not so cheerful, silly moments that happened in real life, but they do it tastefully, with care and respect for everyone involved.
Let me just put it this way: The Disaster Artist got me to empathize and genuinely feel sorry for Tommy Wiseau and the life that he had to lead as a man that functions by nobody's logic but his own twisted version of it, all the while wanting to be loved and respected as a friend, a hero, despite him looking like creepy vampire dude.
Oh Tommy, I wish I was....
So there you go: The Disaster Artist is the Good (GO SEE IT), its' source material, The Room is the Bad (like REALLY bad, but like...still go see it), and the Ugly is just…Tommy Wiseau I guess. (I don't actually think that, but I needed a punchline for The Good, The Bad, The Ugly...y'know how it is)
But you know what's the Beautiful in all of this? The fact that all 3 of them have made us smile and laugh in different ways, all of which we'll never forget :).
What do you think? Is The Disaster Artist as good as I've said or am I just fooling myself? I might have watched The Room clips one too many times and now my brain wiring is all messed up :)).
Art is made to shared and discussed, so let me know what you thought and I hope to catch a talk with you in the comments below :).