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1.07k reviews for:
The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made
Greg Sestero
4.29 AVERAGE
1.07k reviews for:
The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made
Greg Sestero
4.29 AVERAGE
A very human recount of what it means to struggle to survive, with one’s identity, with cultures outside of your own, to escape poverty, to glide between classes, and to follow one’s dreams. All in the context of “The Room,” the bad writing and acting of legend, yet all the heart behind it makes it a magical watching experience.
even more shocked since reading this that no one actively tried to murder tommy wiseau during the making of THE ROOM.
emotional
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Bullying, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship
Minor: Medical content, Car accident
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
fast-paced
This was great. I was addicted. What an insane story.
Loved reading more about one of my favorite bad movies. So much is revealed! Walking away from this book, I realize that this movie really is about (in the words of Tommy Wiseau), "You, me, and everyone in America." But, really, it's very much about him and his life.
If you’re worried about spoilers because you haven’t yet seen The Room, the cinematic masterpiece on which this book is based, fear not. There is literally nothing I could write here that could spoil it for you. In fact, I could transcribe the entire script, including stage notes, and it wouldn’t detract from your enjoyment one bit. Like all brilliant works of art; words simply cannot convey its majesty. To know The Room, one must experience The Room. And I would recommend that everyone do so, specifically in a movie theatre surrounded by Room connoisseurs. It’s an unforgettable ordeal.
My first Room experience occurred quite unexpectedly one Thursday evening about three years ago. My friend, who had just returned from a three-month trip to San Francisco, persuaded me to go with him and some others to the Prince Charles Cinema off Leicester Square. He told me that while in the US, he’d discovered an indescribably terrible film with a cult following, and he had to share this with as many people as possible.
What followed was one of the most wondrously bizarre experiences of my life. On entering the theatre there was a palpable buzz of excitement. It was clearly filled with a mix of Room veterans (all armed with spoons and hipflasks full of vodka mixed with scotch) and their slightly nervous newbie mates. My friend had forgotten to bring the requisite spoons (which he said we would need to throw at the screen at certain key moments) and so advised we sit on the second row, where we could hoover up all the spoons that hit us in the back of the head and throw them instead. This turned out the be one of the least eccentric things that occurred in the two hours which followed.
The film is ostensibly about Johnny, a GREAT GUY whose evil, manipulative girlfriend Lisa is TEARING HIM APART by getting off with his BEST FRIEND Mark, played by Greg Sestero. It’s a 6-million-dollar trip into the deviant mindset of Tommy Wiseau, the film’s writer, producer, director and star (he plays Johnny). The film is a series of non-sequiturs, every character is an enigma and - probably most important to its cult following - it is side-splittingly funny in its amateurishness. The degree of audience participation at public screenings of this film is INSANE. There was barely a moment when people weren't shouting, chanting, throwing things at the screen, drinking along, or running to the front of the theatre to wave. It was incredible.
As I tried to convey earlier; it is impossible to do justice to this brilliant and deranged piece of film-making. The overall effect is dreamlike in its weirdness. It’s hilarious and genuinely thought-provoking - the main thoughts being ‘HOW DID THIS FILM EVER GET MADE???’ followed by ‘WHY ARE THEY WEARING TUXEDOS’ and ‘WHAT’S WRONG WITH HER NECK?!’
Fortunately, in 2013, some ten years after the film was released, Greg Sestero attempted to answer some of these questions by coauthoring The Disaster Artist with Tom Bissell. The book chronicles Greg’s relationship with Tommy, from meeting him in acting classes, to befriending him, then becoming his room-mate and, finally, being financially strong-armed into starring in Tommy’s vanity project.
This book was much more absorbing and insightful than I would ever have expected. What could easily have been a 300-page pisstake aimed at milking The Room’s hardcore fan following was actually a sensitive portrait of a confused and lonely man interspersed with engaging stories from the set of the film. The plot darts back and forth in time between the late 90s, when a young Sestero is trying to make it in Hollywood while negotiating his relationship with the volatile Tommy, to the early 2000s when a bunch of actors and professional film engineers are thrown together in a carpark in LA to make Tommy’s bizarre vision a reality. And it does answer some of the burning questions that the movie throws up. How did the actors feel about the film? Answer: confused, sometimes angry, but mainly desperate to further their careers. How did it get made? Simple - huge sums of money (from a mysterious source) and a staunch unwillingness to compromise on Tommy’s part. What was going on with her neck? Apparently a bad posture and unflattering clothes (I’m still not satisfied with that explanation).
Probably the least engrossing parts of the book were those describing Sestero’s own drive for Hollywood stardom. I suppose it helps to flesh him out as a person, but one glance at his imdb profile will tell you that it’s not a happy ending, making these bits both awkward and depressing.
Perhaps the most interesting part was where Greg pieced together the scraps of information Tommy had given him about his past to try and work out who he was. No one (other than the man himself) knows for certain, but it appears that Tommy fled a poor and unhappy childhood in communist-bloc Eastern Europe and gradually made his lonely way to America. Tommy is drawn as a deeply flawed, slightly scary, and mostly pitiable character. While Sestero tries to highlight his good traits (his optimism, his ability to throw himself into a project wholeheartedly, his unapologetic uniqueness), he also doesn’t pull any punches when it come to describing the darker parts of Tommy’s personality. Mostly, Tommy is just deluded; he doesn’t understand why he’s lonely, he doesn’t know why people don’t appreciate his acting talent, he doesn’t realise that people can see straight through his incessant lies. He has a genuinely deviant mindset and that’s what makes The Room so brilliant - it’s an unintentionally hilarious piece of outsider art. Most outsider artists make do with a pen and paper or paintbrush and canvas; but Tommy funneled millions of dollars into creating his artwork. And to be fair to him it paid off - few films inspire the kind of love and devotion that The Room does.
If you haven't yet had the chance to go to a screening of The Room then I strongly recommend that you do. And take some friends. Once you've done that, I strongly recommend you read this.
-------------------------------------------
*** MY FAVOURITE SCENES ***
3) "Me underwears" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHXkcZh_kqY) - This is 24-carat awkward gold. What I love is that the viewer has just seen the scene in which Mike loses and retrieves his undergarments; not long after, we get to re-live the whole thing one more time as Mike relays this complete nonecdote to Tommy, who responds ‘I got the picture…that’s life’. This bit genuinely makes my toes curl every time. Genius.
2) "What a story Mark!" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ4KzClb1C4) - HAAAHAHAHA. ‘I DID NOT! … Oh Hi Mark’. As is explained in The Disaster Artist, it took over three hours to film the first seven seconds of this scene. Why? Because: "Tommy couldn’t remember his lines. He couldn’t hit his mark. He couldn’t say 'Mark'. He couldn’t walk. He couldn’t find his eyeline. He would emerge from the outhouse mumbling, lost, and disorientated. He looked directly into the camera. He swore. He exploded at a crew member for farting: 'Please don’t do this ridiculous stuff. It’s disgusting like hell'"
But the real centrepiece comes a little bit later. "HAHAHAHA, what a story Mark!". Enough said.
1) The Florist (www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK9zo19yctU) - This is the clip I show people when I’m tipsily trying to explain The Room to them. It has everything. The garbled script, the wooden acting, a complete lack of any discernible point. A dog... God, it’s just incredible. Also, if you watch closely, the car at the beginning doesn’t park properly at first and so the driver readjusts it. And that was the best cut. Just wow.
My first Room experience occurred quite unexpectedly one Thursday evening about three years ago. My friend, who had just returned from a three-month trip to San Francisco, persuaded me to go with him and some others to the Prince Charles Cinema off Leicester Square. He told me that while in the US, he’d discovered an indescribably terrible film with a cult following, and he had to share this with as many people as possible.
What followed was one of the most wondrously bizarre experiences of my life. On entering the theatre there was a palpable buzz of excitement. It was clearly filled with a mix of Room veterans (all armed with spoons and hipflasks full of vodka mixed with scotch) and their slightly nervous newbie mates. My friend had forgotten to bring the requisite spoons (which he said we would need to throw at the screen at certain key moments) and so advised we sit on the second row, where we could hoover up all the spoons that hit us in the back of the head and throw them instead. This turned out the be one of the least eccentric things that occurred in the two hours which followed.
The film is ostensibly about Johnny, a GREAT GUY whose evil, manipulative girlfriend Lisa is TEARING HIM APART by getting off with his BEST FRIEND Mark, played by Greg Sestero. It’s a 6-million-dollar trip into the deviant mindset of Tommy Wiseau, the film’s writer, producer, director and star (he plays Johnny). The film is a series of non-sequiturs, every character is an enigma and - probably most important to its cult following - it is side-splittingly funny in its amateurishness. The degree of audience participation at public screenings of this film is INSANE. There was barely a moment when people weren't shouting, chanting, throwing things at the screen, drinking along, or running to the front of the theatre to wave. It was incredible.
As I tried to convey earlier; it is impossible to do justice to this brilliant and deranged piece of film-making. The overall effect is dreamlike in its weirdness. It’s hilarious and genuinely thought-provoking - the main thoughts being ‘HOW DID THIS FILM EVER GET MADE???’ followed by ‘WHY ARE THEY WEARING TUXEDOS’ and ‘WHAT’S WRONG WITH HER NECK?!’
Fortunately, in 2013, some ten years after the film was released, Greg Sestero attempted to answer some of these questions by coauthoring The Disaster Artist with Tom Bissell. The book chronicles Greg’s relationship with Tommy, from meeting him in acting classes, to befriending him, then becoming his room-mate and, finally, being financially strong-armed into starring in Tommy’s vanity project.
This book was much more absorbing and insightful than I would ever have expected. What could easily have been a 300-page pisstake aimed at milking The Room’s hardcore fan following was actually a sensitive portrait of a confused and lonely man interspersed with engaging stories from the set of the film. The plot darts back and forth in time between the late 90s, when a young Sestero is trying to make it in Hollywood while negotiating his relationship with the volatile Tommy, to the early 2000s when a bunch of actors and professional film engineers are thrown together in a carpark in LA to make Tommy’s bizarre vision a reality. And it does answer some of the burning questions that the movie throws up. How did the actors feel about the film? Answer: confused, sometimes angry, but mainly desperate to further their careers. How did it get made? Simple - huge sums of money (from a mysterious source) and a staunch unwillingness to compromise on Tommy’s part. What was going on with her neck? Apparently a bad posture and unflattering clothes (I’m still not satisfied with that explanation).
Probably the least engrossing parts of the book were those describing Sestero’s own drive for Hollywood stardom. I suppose it helps to flesh him out as a person, but one glance at his imdb profile will tell you that it’s not a happy ending, making these bits both awkward and depressing.
Perhaps the most interesting part was where Greg pieced together the scraps of information Tommy had given him about his past to try and work out who he was. No one (other than the man himself) knows for certain, but it appears that Tommy fled a poor and unhappy childhood in communist-bloc Eastern Europe and gradually made his lonely way to America. Tommy is drawn as a deeply flawed, slightly scary, and mostly pitiable character. While Sestero tries to highlight his good traits (his optimism, his ability to throw himself into a project wholeheartedly, his unapologetic uniqueness), he also doesn’t pull any punches when it come to describing the darker parts of Tommy’s personality. Mostly, Tommy is just deluded; he doesn’t understand why he’s lonely, he doesn’t know why people don’t appreciate his acting talent, he doesn’t realise that people can see straight through his incessant lies. He has a genuinely deviant mindset and that’s what makes The Room so brilliant - it’s an unintentionally hilarious piece of outsider art. Most outsider artists make do with a pen and paper or paintbrush and canvas; but Tommy funneled millions of dollars into creating his artwork. And to be fair to him it paid off - few films inspire the kind of love and devotion that The Room does.
If you haven't yet had the chance to go to a screening of The Room then I strongly recommend that you do. And take some friends. Once you've done that, I strongly recommend you read this.
-------------------------------------------
*** MY FAVOURITE SCENES ***
3) "Me underwears" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHXkcZh_kqY) - This is 24-carat awkward gold. What I love is that the viewer has just seen the scene in which Mike loses and retrieves his undergarments; not long after, we get to re-live the whole thing one more time as Mike relays this complete nonecdote to Tommy, who responds ‘I got the picture…that’s life’. This bit genuinely makes my toes curl every time. Genius.
2) "What a story Mark!" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ4KzClb1C4) - HAAAHAHAHA. ‘I DID NOT! … Oh Hi Mark’. As is explained in The Disaster Artist, it took over three hours to film the first seven seconds of this scene. Why? Because: "Tommy couldn’t remember his lines. He couldn’t hit his mark. He couldn’t say 'Mark'. He couldn’t walk. He couldn’t find his eyeline. He would emerge from the outhouse mumbling, lost, and disorientated. He looked directly into the camera. He swore. He exploded at a crew member for farting: 'Please don’t do this ridiculous stuff. It’s disgusting like hell'"
But the real centrepiece comes a little bit later. "HAHAHAHA, what a story Mark!". Enough said.
1) The Florist (www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK9zo19yctU) - This is the clip I show people when I’m tipsily trying to explain The Room to them. It has everything. The garbled script, the wooden acting, a complete lack of any discernible point. A dog... God, it’s just incredible. Also, if you watch closely, the car at the beginning doesn’t park properly at first and so the driver readjusts it. And that was the best cut. Just wow.
This book is genuinely terrifying and utterly hilarious at the same time. I could not put it down. Literally devoured it in one go. What a story, Greg!
I always find it fascinating to learn about a particular film's behind-the-scenes details. The filmmaker in me is always curious how specific shots are accomplished, or what on-set drama occurred that spurred (or deterred) creative ingenuity.
The Disaster Artist is the extreme version of that kind of story. In it, the majority of The Room'sdisastrous production is detailed by Greg Sestero (on top of his own, personal experiences with Tommy Wiseau) and it's sometimes difficult to read. However, by the end of it I felt that I had a better understanding of what is going on in The Room and in Tommy's head.
Oddly enough, I actually relate to Tommy in a certain way. I understand the struggle that comes with trying to break into the arts (the film business in particular). It's not easy to make a film, much less a film that completes production, much less a film that gets released, much less a film that recoups its budget. Tommy had the smallest chance in the history of small chances to succeed with this project. And yet, somehow, he did.
That's inspiring. I hope I am never like Tommy on a film set, nor do I hope my films are half as bad as The Room. However, I do hope that I always have a passion, a drive, and a determination that is half-as potent as Tommy's.
The Disaster Artist is the extreme version of that kind of story. In it, the majority of The Room'sdisastrous production is detailed by Greg Sestero (on top of his own, personal experiences with Tommy Wiseau) and it's sometimes difficult to read. However, by the end of it I felt that I had a better understanding of what is going on in The Room and in Tommy's head.
Oddly enough, I actually relate to Tommy in a certain way. I understand the struggle that comes with trying to break into the arts (the film business in particular). It's not easy to make a film, much less a film that completes production, much less a film that gets released, much less a film that recoups its budget. Tommy had the smallest chance in the history of small chances to succeed with this project. And yet, somehow, he did.
That's inspiring. I hope I am never like Tommy on a film set, nor do I hope my films are half as bad as The Room. However, I do hope that I always have a passion, a drive, and a determination that is half-as potent as Tommy's.