Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

The Disaster Artist Blu-ray Movie Review

Hey, everyone, the disaster film is back.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 7, 2018

There were a couple of interesting if perhaps somewhat subliminal cases of “missing in action” at the most recent Academy Award ceremony, above and beyond any people not included in the annual “In Memoriam” segment, a moment in the broadcast that always seems to forget someone important. No, these were in fact absences of living people, both of them not present at least in part due to the #metoo movement. You may have noticed that the tradition of having last year’s winner of an acting award present the award to the opposite gender the following year was not followed with regard to Best Actress, which really should have been presented by Manchester by the Sea’s Casey Affleck, who withdrew from the ceremony after harassment accusations were made about the actor. The other case of “MIA” was with regard to one of those “major” acting categories, namely Best Actor, which many top prognosticators had predicted would surely include James Franco for his work in The Disaster Artist, a nomination that seemed all but secured after Franco not only won a nomination but the actual award for Best Actor - Musical or Comedy at the most recent Golden Globes. While some media analysts point to the fact that voting for the Academy Award nominees had almost closed when a sudden flurry of harassment allegations were lobbed at Franco, others insist that the sudden controversy almost certainly put the kibosh on any potential nod from Oscar for Franco. Whatever the reason for Franco joining the ranks of “Non Nom Anon” (as Debbie Reynolds famously branded herself in a bit written by her daugher Carrie Fisher), The Disaster Artist certainly offers Franco a chance to portray one of the most unique characters he’s tackled in his career.

The Disaster Artist begins with a number of well known entertainment industry talking heads opining about The Room, one of those films that has entered the hallowed annals of “classics” in the “so bad it’s good” category. The Room was the brainchild (assuming he has a brain, that is) of Tommy Wiseau, a character so unbelievable it might be assumed he was the creation of some higher than a kite screenwriter. Wiseau is in a very real sense an International Man of Mystery, with a number of enigmas surrounding him, including his place of birth, his year of birth, his upbringing, and where exactly he got evidently huge piles of money, something that helped him to finance a lark like The Room.

Greg Sestero (Dave Franco) is a struggling actor who is really struggling to get through a San Francisco acting class exercise involving Waiting for Godot. When noted teacher Jean Shelton (Melanie Griffith) asks for a volunteer from the class who might be able to something a little more visceral than Greg’s lackluster attempt, Tommy Wiseau (James Franco) speaks up, and proceeds to launch into one of the most hilariously inept readings of the iconic “Stella!” scene from A Streetcar Named Desire imaginable (if, frankly, something this bad could be imagined). Despite Tommy’s obvious inadequacies as an actor, he sparks something in Greg, and the two start up a kind of sweetly bumbling friendship.

It turns out that not only does Tommy have copious bucks stashed away, as evidenced by the Mercedes Benz he drives, he also has an apartment in Los Angeles he hasn’t been using, and, perhaps experiencing his first true friendship, he invites Greg to accompany him to La La Land where they can chase their dreams. Greg, who has matinee idol good looks, is signed almost immediately by the no nonsense harridan Iris Burton (Sharon Stone), who tells him “Remember — you belong to me.” Tommy, who not only suffers from an unfortunate appearance, but who also speaks haltingly and usually without definite or indefinite articles (something that can be ascribed either to his actually being born overseas despite his claims to be from Louisiana, or to a devastating car accident he mentions at one point), is more or less laughed at by every Hollywood honcho with whom he comes into contact.

But one of the things The Disaster Artist quite sweetly depicts is Tommy’s maybe naive, maybe kind of profound, belief in his dreams, which leads to the central section of the film surrounding the production of Tommy’s, yes, “dream project”, The Room. It’s a slapdash affair from the get go, but one suffused with Tommy’s own weird form of idealism, while also being hobbled by Tommy’s lack of a devoted work ethic. All of that of course contributes to tensions rising on the set, as probably happens more often than not, with everyone from Greg to scrip supervisor (and more or less director) Sandy Schklair (Seth Rogen), attempting to deal with Tommy’s kind of mercurial temperament.

As a deconstruction of all (or at least part) of what is wrong with Hollywood, The Disaster Artist is fitfully engaging, though I have to say after having to sit through innumerable horrible films through the years to fulfill my writing duties, I simply don’t think The Room qualifies as the so-called “worst film ever made”. It’s laughably inept almost every step of the way, and it’s filled with some of the most bizarre dialogue non sequiturs ever “written” (I am assuming they were written), but the film is just kind of silly dreck, at least to my jaded sensibilities. The real allure here is actually the undeniably sweet friendship that develops between Tommy and Greg, even if that friendship encounters a few hurdles along the way. Tommy himself is such a memorable character, The Disaster Artist might have done just as well to provide more of an overview of his life (or at least what he claims has been his life), perhaps with the same kind of "Rashomon lite" approach that informed I, Tonya, with the production of The Room simply serving as one of many vignettes.

The Disaster Artist Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Disaster Artist is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1 (some of the recreations of scenes from The Room are in 1.85:1). Perhaps surprisingly for this film about lo-fi guerrilla filmmaking, the IMDb lists this as having been captured by Red Cameras at up to 6K resolution and then finished at a 4K DI (I don't foresee any 4K UHD release of this title in the offing, but I've been surprised before, especially by Lionsgate, which has one of the oddest "relationships" with its 4K UHD releases of any of the major studios and/or labels). This is an agreeably sharp and well detailed looking transfer, though a lot of the film plays out in rather dimly lit environments where detail levels can lag a little. A lot of the bright outdoor scenes in sunny Los Angeles pop with considerable vigor, and with generally excellent fine detail levels. The palette was just slightly cool looking to my eyes at times, with somewhat less saturation in terms of things like flesh tones than I might have expected.

The Disaster Artist Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Disaster Artist features a Dolby TrueHD 7.1 that derives good surround activity from a number of source cues that populate the soundtrack, as well as some of the cacophony that attends life in Los Angeles. There are several scenes that feature a gaggle of people in frame simultaneously, often in somewhat chaotic circumstances as the film shoot goes to hell in a handbasket, and the track provides nice discrete channelization of both effects and dialogue. Dialogue, effects and score are all reproduced with excellent fidelity and no problems of any kind.

The Disaster Artist Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Director James Franco, Dave Franco, Tommy Wiseau, Greg Sestero and Writers Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber is expectedly raucous at times, but it at least provides proof that James Franco's approximation of Wiseau's patently odd sounding ideolect is not a case of actorly hyperbole.


• Oh, Hi Mark: Making a Disaster (1080p; 13:07) is a surprisingly rote EPK, given the subject matter, but does offer some fun interviews and behind the scenes footage.


• Directing a Disaster (1080p; 7:07) ostensibly focuses on James Franco, but includes interviews with several others.


• Just a Guy Leaning on a Wall: Getting to Know Tommy (1080p; 7:12) has several more talking heads segments like are seen at the beginning of the film, with a bunch of celebrities talking about this very strange character, followed by some more typical interviews, though some interstitials offer a real interview with Mr. Wiseau.


• Gag Reel (1080p; 4:06)


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2:13)

The Disaster Artist Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There are a lot of people who do in fact think The Room is the worst film ever made, and those folks will probably find The Disaster Artist more consistently engaging than those who have never seen Wiseau's stab at auteurism. However, even those who haven't seen The Room will probably be captivated by the patently bizarre character of Wiseau and James Franco's portrayal of him, as well as the unabashedly sweet friendship that develops between Wiseau and Sestero. Technical merits are first rate, and The Disaster Artist comes Recommended.