Movies That Settle: The Disaster Artist

With A Little Bit of The Room Sprinkled In

Lately, I’ve been returning to my youth for a lot of these posts, and recounting my days as a theater-worker or video store jockey. This time, I’m going to tackle something a little different, and hopefully will not mention any of the lousy jobs I had as a teenager.

Most people are aware of the cult-bad movie The Room, made by Tommy Wiseau and his “friend,” Greg Sestero, two young upstarts who came to Hollywood with dreams of making movies and making it big. They kind of made it big, although probably not in the way they hoped. Their little movie is still shown frequently in small movie houses across the country, and Greg wrote a book about the making of it, which caught the attention of James Franco and his buddies (who were already fans of The Room), and thus, we have this movie, The Disaster Artist.

The book The Disaster Artist is not only a behind-the-scenes recount of the making of one of the worst movies of all time, but it is also a deep dive into the psyche of one of the weirdest people of all time in Tommy Wiseau. I’m not even sure where to begin on how strange this dude is or even attempt to diagnose the various mental illnesses he may have. There are several chapters comparing Tommy and Greg to the characters in The Talented Mr. Ripley, which I have never seen so I don’t know how accurate that is, but it is otherwise an amazing book detailing the dangers of hitching your wagon to a crazy star, who happens to have some money and the ability to get people to do things for him. When you really want to make it in Hollywood, and you’re on that lower tier, you will pretty much do anything. And this girl is proof of that statement.

This is where I feel the movie The Disaster Artist misses the mark (Or I missed it, because this movie seems to be pretty popular among audiences and critics.) When I read the book, I interpreted it as a Hollywood cautionary tale about the things people will do to get their big break, and a lunatic who is paying them to do it. Tommy is not only crazy, but he also may have been involved in some criminal activities in order to fund this crappy movie, and his jealousy may have derailed Greg’s actual Hollywood career. That’s just speculation on my part. It’s entirely possible Greg wouldn't have done anything else with his life, since he really didn’t have much going on before he met Tommy. His IMDB lists several “uncredited” roles in movies, including Patch Adams and Gattaca, which leads me to wonder if he was an extra. And he and Tommy have made a couple movies together since The Room, and their recent behavior seems to indicate that they are actually best friends. So, Greg either softened his stance over the last twenty years, or it was all a ruse to sell more books. Or he realized he had literally nothing else going on and figured this was his only ticket to marginal fame.

The Disaster Artist movie handled the Tommy/Greg relationship as just that; a relationship between two dudes who were just trying to gut it out and make it in this crazy business. It does still portray Tommy as a weirdo, but it is a little nicer to him than the book. Maybe James Franco and his cronies thought that the cynical approach wouldn’t have any appeal. I mean, how do you get to a happy ending when you’re telling a story about the worst movie ever made? I can’t say for sure, but Ed Wood seemed to do a pretty good job of it. Sure, they took some creative license, and conveniently left out that Ed died as a drunk who has resorted to making soft-core porn, but the final scene shows Ed asking his girl to marry him and the two of them running off to Vegas to tie the knot. In the story they were telling, that is the perfect ending. Ed Wood, the misunderstood, cross-dressing director who just wanted to tell stories, found a girl who actually understood. Plus, Ed Wood is a damn funny movie. And to anyone who doesn’t think so…

I’d be happy to debate anyone making the same argument for The Disaster Artist; that these two dudes succeeded in the same way Ed and Kathy did, and whether the movie they made was any good is secondary. And again, anyone adapting a true story is allowed a little creative license for dramatic purposes. But when I read the book, I never got the impression that Greg and Tommy were two bosom buddies trying to take on the world and finally succeeding. The impression I got was that Greg rightfully thought Tommy was a right kook, and he really just went along with him because he was making a movie, and this was his shot. IN the end, it seemed like he just felt that this story needed to be told, and he probably needed some cash. Maybe Franco and Co thought that particular story wouldn't win an Oscar, so they needed to dramatize it a little, but I think when you’re making a movie with all of your buddies about one of the worst movies ever made, maybe your goal shouldn’t be to win an Oscar. 

This leads me to my second gripe about this movie: it’s James Franco playing Tommy, Dave Franco playing Greg, Seth Rogan as their cinematographer, plus, Paul Sheer, Jason Mantzoukas, June Diane Raphael, Zac Efron and a whole bunch of other people that Rogan and the Francos probably get high and watch The Room with. Hey, I get it. Making a movie is months and months of long days, so you better like the people that you’re doing it with, but it’s also work. Just because you get some clout in Hollywood doesn’t give you the right to just hang out with your buddies on someone else’s dime. I mean, Adam Sandler did it for years, but nobody ever took any of those movies seriously (because they were terrible, y’see.). I don’t know the person that Seth Rogan is playing in The Disaster Artist (The real life Sandy has been script supervisor on a lot of bad movies), but I’m pretty sure he’s basically playing Seth Rogan in this one. Even The Room hired some actual actors and didn’t just cast Tommy’s friends. Even if one of them did totally disappear halfway through the film. Also, apparently Greg was originally just supposed to be a line producer in the movie, and had no interest in acting in it. The night before they were to begin shooting, Tommy told Greg that he wanted him to play Mark and gave him a big raise and a car. Tommy didn’t have the heart to tell the original Mark that he wasn’t going to be in it, though, so he had him show up to work and act out the scenes but told the crew to not actually roll the cameras. But let’s face it, whoever that guy was probably dodged a bullet. I always felt bad for the poor girl who played Lisa who actually had to take her clothes off for this piece of shit.

I’m not completely getting down on The Disaster Artist because James Franco made it with his buddies. I know I said I wouldn’t talk about my former jobs, but I did make movies with my friends in high school, and most of them were at least as good as The Room. Of course, we had to make them with friends because we were in high school and didn’t know anybody else. And sure, if some Hollywood big shot was going to give me millions of dollars to make a movie, I’d probably call a few of my friends too, because I would have no idea what I was doing. But these are major Hollywood players, and they had the potential to make a hilarious movie about a crazy man who is notorious for making one of the biggest turds of all time, and instead they decided to tell a feel-good story about two pals making it in this topsy-turvy world. And they ended up giving undeserved credibility to Tommy Wiseau, who is a lunatic, and probably a bad person. And one who lucked into a small amount of fame for his mediocrity, and even claims now that his intention was always to make a bad movie, and that it was all a big joke. And in his addled mind, he probably even believes it. I went to see a special screening of The Room where Tommy was supposed to give a Q & A before the movie, and there were a lot more Q’s than A’s. Nearly every question asked was met with Tommy mumbling, “No comment. Next Question.” For a theater full of people who were staying up until well after midnight to watch his crummy movie, the least he could have done was make something up.      

My friends and I are definitely part of the Bad Movie Club. We loved Mystery Science Theater way back in the Joel days, when we had to get people to record it on VHS for us because it wasn’t available on our cable provider. We have hosted Bad Movie Nights for years. We even went to see Charlie Sheen’s The Arrival on opening night and applauded at the end. I am not opposed to Franco and Friends paying homage to a great bad movie. And I am not even really upset that they cast all their buddies in it. But I guess I just wish that they had told the story differently. I wish they had stayed true to the book and depicted how Greg really felt about Tommy (at least at the time), and how much of a loon Tommy really was, and even showed the levels people will stoop to just to try and make it the wacky movie biz. Maybe all that is in there and I just missed it. Maybe it doesn’t need to be spelled out quite so much. Or maybe my days of midnight showings of The Room, and movies about it, have passed me by. And maybe that is perfectly fine. Honestly, we all have enough crazy in our real lives. I don’t need to add Tommy Wiseau’s to it.

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