Half in the Bag Episode 136: The Disaster Artist

half in the bag so it's only a few weeks now to the bird day that's right Mike you know I can't wait to marry mr. blinken thanks again for the delicious cake I don't know why you keep feeding it to me well J and my home account today it's tradition for the groom to eat a whole cake every day for six months leading up to the wedding so do they still have a wedding cake on the date code no oh by then the groom would be sick of wedding cake do they replace it with something else I'm sorry what do they replace the wedding cake with something else some other tradition what are you talking about tradition oh yeah yeah yeah that thing that you're lying about right now right uh I think it's a pig's head oh that's great I love pork Oh hey what's that that was a close one a close way nothing you know it's really great that you and mr. blinken are so much in love yeah it's weird you know I have vague memories of you and me planning this wedding as a way to inherit all of mr. plinkus money after he dies but over time I have grown to love the old curmudgeon well now that it's been confirmed that you are indeed marrying mr. Plunkett for love and not money I took the liberty of drawing up a prenuptial contract for you and Harry to sign it's really just to protect you legally Wow Mike that's great you know you think of everything you're such a good friend the contract might look a little bit intimidating cuz it's so big but I urge you sit down take the time and don't read it at all just go to the last page and sign it and have Harry sign it as well you don't think I should at least skim it oh no no it's not important no you it's all very boilerplate standard prenuptial contract nothing sketchy or legal or criminal or weird or amoral or anything like that what are we talking about yes Oh have you seen the new movie the disaster artist I have well let's talk about that film instead of talking about this shady prenuptial contract I get up on stage in front of people go like if the ground is worth they laugh at me you man you're fearless I want to feel that too I don't care I'll do it the disaster artist is a movie about an eccentric weirdo outsider that writes and directs his own film which turns out to be one of the worst movies of all time you know kind of like Ed Wood just without all the heart style memorable characters charm or width that's all by damn that's cold walking winter cold Mike what did you think of the disaster artist I didn't I didn't love this movie I didn't hate it I thought it was okay I was expecting something a little more and I only really chuckled at the parts that were directly related to the room yes and that's a bit of a problem because I that's kind of most of what I laughed at - which is a laugh of recognition which is not what you want from a movie that should stand on its own outside of the room no it's attempts to stand on its own felt a ham-fisted and schmaltzy and probably unrealistic or not really what happened right well the most part not being what really happened is fine as we talked about in our ad would review true but what Ed Wood does is it transforms itself into its own thing that works as its own movie regardless of how accurate it is to what really happens or whether you know the source material or well you know anything about Ed Wood and and this movie really doesn't I was trying to watch it from the mindset of someone who maybe isn't familiar with the room or the disaster artist book which I've read the book we've seen the room many times we as a matter of fact have a commentary track for the room so it's trying to watch it from that mindset and I was thinking why is Greg doing anything he's doing to help Tommy in this movie he has absolutely no motivation he comes across like a simpleton this kind of works as like a dumb buddy comedy I guess until halfway through when Tommy turns into a rage and [ __ ] on set and it gets horribly awkward it'sit's a very uneven movie yes buddy comedy sounds about right because you're really dealing with three different things are you dealing with the room the disaster artist book and now the disaster artist movie each one it's it's only different thing and yeah unlike Ed Wood Ed Wood is a masterpiece it's flawlessly done it's perfect and every frame every shot every scene goes in the proper order and makes complete sense this jumped all over the place and it felt it gave me this like horrible feeling of anxiety the whole time and I think it was partially the camerawork and a documentary style there was that and and then it was like there was no loving joy there was you know like he's a Magu and me you're going to be filmmaker we're gonna make the Hollywood dream come true yeah and there was no like there was no like oh of that that that dream that spectacle because you have that moment in that wood when he meets worse and wells and visions are worth fighting for I spend your life making someone else's dreams and you know ed just kind of looked up to the Hollywood idea of the icons the the glitz and glamour of it all this is just felt like a dirty alley well in that Orson Welles scene I guess we're probably gonna be comparing this a lot to Ed Wood but that scene is critical story wise because that's what gives ad the motivation because he had quit his movie at that point because everybody was trying to you know take over his vision and so he's like that said he storms out and and norson Welles gives him the motivation to come back and finish the movie and that's what leads into a wonderful conclusion this movie it just kind of fizzles out they just sort of stop shooting him and Greg get into an argument I'm like the last day of shooting and it doesn't feel like that movie is building up towards anything that was a real real clear end of second act moment sure get in a fight for no real reason yeah and then Greg he just comes back and says Greg come to the premiere and then they go to the premiere and in the movie kind of ends Greg Sestero motivates Tommy he helps Tommy to build him up and then Tommy helps build him up but then then they have in the awkward sexual sexuality component to which further complicates things so it makes the movie kind of I don't want say a mess totally a mess focus no I don't know like a lot of it feels I mean it definitely feels like James Franco wanted to make this movie because he wanted to play Tommy was so sure and he's a wonderful Tommy was so I think he's actually really good in this but you need that director with a vision and he directed this movie James Franco who is directed 27 other movies that nobody's ever heard of [Music] you could tell they just wanted to make a movie about what happened behind the scenes of making the room because they wanted to recreate the room because at the end after the movies movie proper is over they have side-by-side comparisons of the room and the disaster artist it's like okay this is fun but I I cut a pointless yeah I could not give a [ __ ] how accurately and specifically you recreated the scenes from the room know that like that doesn't there's no heart to that yeah good job I guess but the problem is though is is that they tried to make the heart Tommy Wiseau and they played around with that idea that is he the villain or is he the hero yeah because he himself was wondering that he's like I am not revealing there's a part in that you know about voting Cory says he'd played Frankenstein presence you are a perfect villain I could see you as Dracula Frankenstein no Frankenstein I'm hero obviously if you have the rights to this book Tommy signed off for that and if you want to make a movie Tommy's got to sign off for that too so you're not like we're going to portray you as a [ __ ] monster that everybody hates okay maybe one scene I go a little crazy and I fight with crew but in other scenes I would be happy I'd be like James Dean you know and it's like in the book in Greg Sestero accounts of what happened tommy was so not just during the making of the movie but even leading up to it he's manipulative he's an [ __ ] and the reason greg agrees to do the movie is completely for money purposes you know he's a struggling actor he has no money and tommy wiseau is going to give him a pretty hefty salary to do this movie buts his entire motivation for doing the movie in in the movie version of the disaster artists he just doesn't cuz they're friends I guess Tommy's his best friend cuz tell me this is best friend yeah it's as shallow as the room Greg and Tommy he's my best friend ironically enough that's true yeah the only ball how this drink yeah I guess we do I will be famous Oh Charlotte here we go there is the weird homoerotic kind of relationship between Tommy and did Greg ever live with Tommy yeah I would say the homoerotic aspect of it is amped up in this movie which is really crazy since they're brothers but by eliminating so much surrounding that it is very much that like there's no motivation for these two to be friends and I mean it seemed Tommy's motivation is clearer it's almost like a sycophant friendship where Tommy Tommy is like strangely either in love with Greg or or in love with the idea of wanting to be Greg he wants to be the all-american handsome male actor but he's you know an ugly man and he was weird and that's something he wants to be he may not necessarily be like sexually attracted to him but he wants to be him and Greg wants to be an actor and Tommy provides the means of possibly doing that so there aren't really friends there you know two parasites that have attached themselves to each other and that does not play out in the movie it comes out you know they we follow our dreams yeah it's very simplistic you needed Todd Salons two directors David Fincher or like date when David Fincher made this the social network I mean that was all psychological oh you know what I mean well there's two ways you could go about it that's the problem this movies are right in the middle just one Oh sweetie awkward yeah I want you can make it real broad goofy comedy or even like an Ed Wood kind of you know romanticized comedy I didn't realize heightened realism or you make weird psychological I just I get a Boogie Nights during the scenes when Tommy's flipping out on the set of this movie oh sure mine's me the the porno scenes from Boogie Nights so you could do that version there was a blend of all those different things that you just mentioned yeah it kind of had a heightened reality a little bit to the like a certain degree because I was really expecting like more of the behind the scenes the making of stuff and just more of like the technical details that went on behind the scenes they touched in a little bit here and there like we they didn't he didn't give them water yeah it's personal bathroom just it would've been nice to know what's going on in the minds of all the other actors in the movie that true I mean you have Juliette Daniel who plays Lisa in the room I mean she's such a huge part of the room and she's barely in this there's one scene their sex scene lead up to their sex scene and she's just like it's okay I'm fine what it's time he was freaking out and set and walking around naked it's like what is she thinking during the scene but they just completely gloss over that just trying to be professional yeah but they had that I like that little moment when the claudette is saying why she loves acting and then they're all kind of sitting around like we all kind of bond and laugh at this is this what is going on in this movie it makes no sense and right and so more moments like that would have been better unless a Tommy and Greg but I know they're the leads and so it becomes kind of like a focus issue curiously enough the movie opens I should say oddly enough the movie opens with a bunch of current Hollywood actors all saying why they love the room people like um I'm Scots they have Scot Kevin Smith Kristen Bell yeah bunch of yeah you're just like okay which again I was trying to think of like someone seen this that isn't familiar the room or the disaster artist book because they're not saying the movie is so bad it's hilarious they're saying like it's this eccentric guy and he had a vision and it's like if you're watching this even like what like he know he made one of the worst movies of all one of the funniest bad movies of all time you have to establish that up front for people that aren't familiar yeah if that's the way you're gonna open your movie with these talking heads but it feels more like oh here's James Franco's friends it's that culture level it's it's James Franco obviously loves the room in the way that you and I love the room right it's freaking hilarious it's it's incompetent it's amazingly bad but then there's there's the darker psychological weird level that that which you get out of the book which you get from the book where where it gets really into detail about all these little things Tommy does and what is wrong with his persona yeah that's a whole nother movie and so I think it's a filmmaker problem where James Franco might not have been the best choice to direct I think it was just the style it's just very surface level of surface level version of this story surface level with the the beats and plot points of a Hollywood buddy comedy we're going where you and I have a dream we make movie look at what we've done we failed but really in the end we won there's a very truncated version of the the 10 year history of the room in one screening the premiere screening of the room which that scene and this is it brought out something from the recesses of my brain that I didn't even know was still in there because they go to the premiere of the room which starts out very funny because it's so awkward where the movies playing and it's terrible it's like the cast and crew and you know whoever else shows up to this premiere and the movies terrible so people start like snickering or trying not to laugh and that was like the best thing in the movie is is the the awkwardness and then once they start laughing more more overtly Tommy starts to get upset and everybody's laughing hysterically and he storms out of the theater and he's in the lobby and then Greg Sestero comes out to comfort him like oh they're laughing but that means they're enjoying the movie there is a scene exactly like that in an episode of Doogie Howser MD because Doogie Howser's best friend wants to make movies do you members Nathan II Vinnie who that actor was in that would oddly enough so there's an episode where Vinnie makes a movie it's like a horror movie I think I remember and they have a screening of it in someone's house and everybody starts laughing hysterically and Vinnie runs out of the room and he's horribly upset because everybody's laughing at his movie and doogie howser comes out to comfort him we should make I mean and laughing at me and tells him it's okay they're all enjoying the movie and then they go back in and everything's fine so this movie the disaster artist has the emotional depth of an episode of Doogie Howser MD from 30 years ago why give them job I give them salary understand five million dollar on this movie great are you kidding me a five million dollar and they are not grateful nobody was back my vision are like Seth Rogen he's fine everybody's fine i i i did not like dave franco no one he I mean not that he has to but he doesn't look or feel anything like Greg Sestero right personality-wise but also like if you've seen the teaser trailer which is the I did not hit her I did not scene where he can't get the lines right and Dave Frank goes off to the side and he has this sort of like like perplexed but like concerned look on his face that's him through the entire movie there's there's no range to him really at all I'm trying to think of how you would portray mark the only real hiccup is how you portray mark is also how you portray Tommy because then this Dave Franco's very like he's very apologetic he's very like nurturing like oh I just give Tommy a chance he'll be all right come on yeah like which is awkward in real life Greg Sestero is probably like well he's embarrassed by him a lot this movie would have been fascinating if Tommy Wiseau was portrayed probably closer to what he really was and that I think it was the like the handicap of it this alleyway looks exactly like the real alleyway out there that's right we just shooting the real alleyway because I would have liked to have seen a version of this story told where it doesn't there no concern for the real Tommy was so or a version of this movie that's just like really funny and clever right because it can you can soften him I mean we talked about Ed Wood obviously if they ignore the fact that he was an alcoholic and he died penniless and you know I'm sure he was a bit more of an [ __ ] at times on set than they portray him in that sure sure so you could do this kind of soft bestfriend version of this movie but this doesn't really work as that either because he do have those awkward moments where he he is an [ __ ] on set he's never an [ __ ] or like manipulative outside of that the way he is in the reality of the book so it's a sort of like celebrate the room don't just go watch the room then just go ash the room I think the problem is just that as its own thing it's not that good of a movie yes clunky as its own thing you don't really want to root for Tommy or you don't really want to root for Greg they're both sort of unlikable and Tommy was Franco as Tommy it was it was okay for me it wasn't great I liked it because that was when I heard they were making this movie I was like just cast Tommy was so is himself like cuz I don't want to see somebody doing an imitation of taught me was so you can't do that and so he doesn't seem to be doing a direct it seems like he's just trying to capture the essence of him without doing it directs complete imitation which is the way to do it sure um so I I did like him a lot in the part and I don't really like James Franco in most things but I would love to see his performance of Tommy was so in a completely different version of this movie action I did not hear I did not oh hi mark what doesn't work if you're looking at the camera it's a shame though cuz ironically we saw this at the world famous oriental theater in Milwaukee I I've seen the room like I don't know four or five six seven eight times all at the Oriental the oriental theater and that's famously when we went and met Tommy Wiseau we show a little video about it he groped me we tried to get Tommy to say you're tearing me apart George Lucas he said he knew the guys I know the guy and we compromised on you tearing me apart George Jerry v-bar George and then that same theater is where we saw the disaster all these years later it's full circle it's come full circle seeing the disaster artist scene the room of seventeen times I met Tommy Wiseau and as I say on her commentary close the book I was gonna say zip it up close the book closing the chapter yes the last chapter so Mike would you recommend the room or the disaster artists whatever we saw I don't know I'm torn between saying if you've never seen the room you might enjoy this because I can't tell I don't have that perspective and I never will but as a person who's seen the room and read most of the disaster artist I found the movie a little frustrating because I wanted it to be more like the book and it made me want to go watch the room again and so really like I kind of wanted it to be over a lot of the time so I think that might be at like a no recommendation from me if you if you've if you're a fan of the room and you're a fan of the book I don't know it's hard because I laugh at the parts when you know they recreate the scenes and like the the jokes about the the denny character like how it was like it's like how old is my character you're a little boy how he keeps calling him little boy how old you are now he's like well I'm 26 what are you 15 they saw Tommy has no idea like I laugh at parts like that but those are the parts that are in the movie that are real yeah so the the movie itself brought nothing new or interesting or funny to the table yeah the only thing that was funny or interesting or worthwhile from the disaster artists were the elements from the room yes so just go watch the room I think I would give it a mild recommendation if you're a big fan of the room because there are some amusing moments that show the making of the room but if you don't give a [ __ ] about the room or if you don't like the room then no there's like nothing to gain from watching this I did like James Franco a lot more than I was expecting so I'll give him some props but that's about it so you're going to give him a water bottle oh I get it [Music] hi doggie you know what Jay I think I'm really looking forward to retirement retirement that seems pretty far off I mean it's not like we have a steady flow of VCR repair work coming in well I meant after the wedding after the wedding what does our wedding have to do with your retirement well I mean you know you and mr. plinkus are starting a new life together you guys are probably gonna move away or something then and I'll just go off by myself probably find a nice beach somewhere relax have some cocktails and you know just collect those checks that are gonna be coming in for me oh [ __ ] well it's getting late I gotta get going the liquor stores gonna be closing soon and I got to stock up on beer for tonight what's tonight Monday you [Music]

Channel: RedLetterMedia

Views: 1,087,615

Keywords: redlettermedia, red letter media, red, letter, media, plinkett, half in the bag, mike stoklasa, jay bauman, rich evans, disaster artist, the room, tommy wiseau, james franco, dave franco, seth rogen

Id: QPn3lUhzaqM

Length: 24min 22sec (1462 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 10 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/lightreader]

I enjoyed the movie a lot more than they did, but I agree that the film really didn't elevate the source material. They touched on my biggest complaint, which is that we didn't really get that many behind-the-scenes information—at least not as much as I wanted.

They made a really interesting point that I hadn't thought of before: the real reason that Tommy is so attached to Greg is that Greg has the all-American look he wishes he had. The movie itself takes more of an angle that Tommy liked Greg around as a sidekick, getting angry when Greg had more success than him. I think both are probably true.

[u/Deako87]

Honestly, do yourself a favour and check out the audiobook of The Disaster Artist. The movie has to take rather large liberties with the book to tell a streamlined 2 hour story, but the actual story (as far as Greg tells it) is far more intriguing and bizarre. The movie paints Tommy in a far better light than the books does, that's for sure.

[u/[deleted]]

They picked up on two things I said to my friends as soon as we got out of the theatre: I don't think I would have laughed half as much if I didn't get the references to The Room, and it ended in what I thought was a very abrupt and unnatural way. I'm glad it's not just me!

[u/sudevsen]

Jay just went /#MeToo

[u/NeuHundred]

Did they actually get sent all those fake Blade videos? That request wasn't even that long ago.

[u/herpderpedian]

Oh shit, things are getting dramatic in RLM Land!

Edit: No one cares about the big wedding??

[u/Party_Monster_Blanka]

I shared similar sentiments as these guys. I told the person I was with after we left the theater that I appreciated that they didn't just shoot the book word for word.. but I also kind of wish they did because the book was so much more fascinating and interesting.

[u/SleepingPodOne]

I generally agree although I lean more favorably towards the film than they do. It's more like a solid 7/10 to me.

I saw the film twice and came to the conclusion that it was a well-written, well-acted, but poorly directed film. It in general lacked vision and I felt like it would have benefited from a more experienced or idiosyncratic director. This is just me playing fantasy hollywood executive here, but someone like PT Anderson (I was glad they brought up Boogie Nights in this review because that was on my mind a lot during the second viewing of this film) would have brought a lot more to this project. I just didn't see a powerful storytelling voice in the direction of the film. It doesn't have to be stylish for the sake of being stylish; it just needed to have more attention paid to what really made the story of The Room interesting. It felt like Franco and the writers were just focusing on a surface-level "greatest hits" version of the story, without any of the nuance. I also never got the same sense of who Tommy and Greg that I did from the book. Obviously, adaptations will never be able to get as detailed as the memoir, but it could've tried harder with its characterization.

Visually the film did nothing for me as well, and if anything, was off-putting. Handheld shooting on anamorphic can look great but it didn't fit with the film at all and felt like a throwaway creative decision on the part of Franco and Trost (the DP).

As it stands, it's a perfectly acceptable comedy, but doesn't feel like anything more. But maybe that's just a failure of my own expectations.

[u/RPDRNick]

While I definitely didn't dislike this movie as much as the RLM guys, I did dislike it for almost all the same reasons they talk about. It makes me feel a little less crazy to see other people agree with my own thoughts on this.