Review of The Disaster Artist (2017) by Mrmoviebuff — 30 Dec 2017

My new favorite movie of 2017, 'The Disaster Artist' is a movie about friendship, and ambition, the ambition of a passionate actor/filmmaker failing miserably... but also succeeding in the long run. We see a young Greg Sestero (Dave Franco) struggling in acting class back in 1998, he gets nervous to recite his lines in front of large groups of people, and feels as if this may not be the right path for him.

It is there that he meets a strange, long-haired, weird accent, and odd fashion sense of a man named Tommy Wiseau (James Franco), who doesn't mind over-acting and trying to give his best in front of these people.

Greg is fascinated by Tommy's confidence and ambition, so he wants to hang out with him, and maybe get some advice. Tommy agrees, and they both form an unstoppable friendship together, always watching James Dean, and making the abrupt decision to travel to Los Angeles to fully realize their acting dreams.

Tommy and Greg try everything they can to audition for roles, but the casting agents don't see any potential in any of their charisma, or lack there-of. Greg ends up meeting a girl at a club named Amber (Alison Brie), and Tommy sees that this will cause a bit of friction in their friendship, as he needs Greg to focus 100% on their dreams.

After nothing but rejections from all over, Tommy is feeling emotionally drenched about it, and is ready to give up. However, Greg comes up with the idea that they should just make their own movie to show up everyone.

That is where 'The Room' (2003) was made. The movie, directed by James Franco, and based off Greg Sestero's book "The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room", does a great job at making Tommy Wiseau seem sympathetic, since there have been many parodies of portraying Wiseau and making him seem like an idiot, this is not a satirical take on the character.

The comedy is very minimal, and the drama is genuine. 'The Room' (2003) is one of the worst movies ever made, and I rated it 0/10, but as a comedy, it is a 10. To discover the amount of crazy ambition and stress that went into making that movie is fascinating.

'The Disaster Artist' is my favorite movie of 2017 about the making of one of the worst films ever, it's well acted, well told, and very interesting. If you've seen 'The Room' (2003), you have to see this.