THE DISASTER ARTIST

THE DISASTER ARTIST is the story of a cult character called Tommy Wiseau and the cult film he accidentally made, called The Room.  I'd not heard of or seen the former before James Franco championed their cause with this film.  It turns out that Wiseau was and remains a deeply shady figure - no-one knows his age, origin, or where he got his money. As the film opens Wiseau (James Franco) is attending acting classes in San Francisco. He's rich, thickly accented, and delusional about his talent. Nonetheless, he takes up with his friend Greg Sestero (Dave Franco) and they move to LA to find work.  Being talentless, and for Wiseau, also creepily weird, unsurprisingly no-one hires them. And there the story should've ended. Except that Wiseau is delusional and rich, so he decides to make his own movie! The wastefulness is extreme - he buys both film and digital cameras, builds sets unnecessarily, and starts work on a film that he truly believes is going to be great. Except that it's appalling, hampered in no small measure by his own awful script and acting. And this goes hand in hand with increasingly dictatorial and mean-tempered behaviour on set. Still, the juggernaut moves toward its opening night and when the audience laughs AT rather than WITH the film, Wiseau chooses to believe that he was making a comedy all along. He keeps the film in cinemas for two weeks on his own dime, hoping to qualify for the academy awards. Of course, it doesn't make money or get any awards, but sinks into obscurity until it gains a "so bad it's good" rep at midnight screenings.

I had a good time watching THE DISASTER ARTIST until I didn't. By that I mean that Wiseau is a weird enough character, and James Franco's impression is so superb, that it's truly captivating. But about half way through the film, I realised that there was nothing else in this film for me. The painstaking recreation of seminal scenes in The Room didn't interest me. It's a bad film being made badly! So the overall verdict is - THE DISASTER ARTIST is worth seeing for Franco's impression of Wiseau - but as it doesn't actually dig behind that persona - or give us anything but a cliched friends falling out narrative arc - it outstays its welcome.

THE DISASTER ARTIST has a running time of 104 minutes and is rated R. It is rated 15 in the UK for strong language.  

The film played SXSW and Toronto 2017 and opened last year in Australia, Canada, the UK, Ireland, the USA, Philippines, UAE, Argentina, Netherlands, Norway, Iceland and Spain. It opens on Jan 4th in Portugal; on Jan 11th in Hong Kong; on Jan 12th in Finland and Romania; on Jan 19th in Mexico and Taiwan; on Jan 25th in Brazil and Greece; on Feb 1st in Germany and Denmark; on Feb 9th in Poland and Sweden and on March 7th in France. 

THE FAULT IN OUR STARS

Apparently THE FAULT IN OUR STARS is based on a wildly successful novel by a chap called John Green about a couple of cancer-ridden teens who fall in love before tragedy inevitably befalls them.  So I entered the cinema expecting a kind of LOVE STORY movie in which wise-cracking, beautiful kids suffered and I cried and in that bizarre and slightly morally questionable way, felt better for it.  Well, I was only half right.  This is a handsome film. Handsomely cast, handsomely shot, and earnest even in its dry wit.  The star-crossed lovers are suitably pretty and witty and their portentous/pretentious names signal just how seriously this movie takes itself. The kids might be post-modern about their disease, but this movie isn't. We're never for a minute allowed to forget how tragic and wonderful it all is.  I could talk at length about how kids don't really talk like that, and teenage love, especially under extreme stress isn't really like that - how it's all just a fairytale of suffering.  But then I'd sound like the anti-hero of the piece - the deliciously spiky author Peter Van Houten, as played by Willem Defoe - a man so bitter and twisted that even the angelically patient kids tell him to go fuck himself. (It should, of course, not surprise you that the spiky novelist is also softened by the kids gorgeous loveliness.)  

I guess I can some up my gripes as follows. First, from a cerebral perspective, there's a cognitive dissonance.  The whole point motivating narrative of the story is that Hazel Grace  (Shailene Woodley - THE DESCENDENTS) gives Augustus Waters (Ansel Eglort) her favourite book by the aforementioned author - a book that she describes as being the only one that ever described how she felt as a cancer sufferer - the book that they travel to Amsterdam to hear explained.  But  I found myself asking whether this movie, if seen by a teenage cancer sufferer, would provide the same service? Would it live up to the ideal of being authentic and uplifting and empathetic?  Does it describe something real and admirable and truly tragic?  For me the answer is no. Because nothing about how these kids look, feel and are whisked on a magical journey felt real - and because of that, using cancer felt exploitative.  My second gripe comes from the heart.  The movie just didn't make me cry - maybe because of the artifice I mentioned before and in spite of the genuine chemistry between it's two lead characters. In fact, the character who moved me most - who's anger and frustration seemed more real, was Augustus' friend Isaac (Nat Wolff).

So basically, it's a thumbs down for THE FAULT IN OUR STARS because I disagree with the very contradiction at its heart - the authentic book that is embraced by the in-authentically perfect suffering couple.  I guess what that means is that I wanted to see a movie based on the fictional novel by Peter van Houten rather than THIS movie based on THIS book by John Green.  Can I really criticise this movie for not being another movie? It's well enough made, after all?  Perhaps I am being unfair. All the same, it's just not for me.

THE FAULT IN OUR STARS has a running time of 126 minutes and is rated PG-13.  The film is currently on release in the USA, Egypt, Jamaica, Trinidad, Australia, Brazil, Belarus, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, New Zealand, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Russia, Slovakia, Austria, Canada, Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Mexico, Poland, South Africa, the UAE, Bahrain, Switzerland, Chile, Germany, Denmark, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Montenegro, Macedonia, Oman, Qatar, Serbia, Bulgaria, Norway, Romania, Belgium, Israel, Dominican Republic, the UK, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Singapore, Cyprus, Lithuania and Sweden.  It opens in Cambodia on June 25th, in Argentina and Uruguay on June 26th, in Ecuador and Turkey on June 27th, in Spain, India and Venezuela on July 4th, in the Netherlands and the Ukraine on July 10th, in Finland on July 11th, in Thailand on July 24th, in Malaysia on July 31st, in Hong Kong on August 14th, in France on August 20th,  in Indonesia and Taiwan on August 22nd, in Slovenia on August 28th, in Azerbaijan and Italy on September 4th.

(500) DAYS OF SUMMER - twee

(500) DAYS OF SUMMER is a hipster movie in love with its own kookiness. It thinks it’s being truthful about modern dating, and daring in its fantasy sequences. But what we really have is a romantic drama about a vapid, irritating woman and her schmuck of a boyfriend. The schmuck is played by Jospeh Gordon Levitt, taking a break from his typically grittier fare with an outing in G I JOE earlier this summer, and now this confection. He plays a greeting card writer and geek, who falls for the cute office girl. He wants a relationship – indeed he thinks he’s in one already. She refuses to “put labels on it”. You could interpret Zooey Deschanel’s character as emotionally scarred and, therefore, afraid of commitment, but then, right after dumping the schmuck, Summer marries another guy. The schmuck is understandably dismayed, as was I. It also doesn’t help that we don’t meet the guy who is so she’s suddenly so sure about it. Because of this rather opaque writing, the girl’s motives are unclear and her behavior hard to understand. The result is that, despite the innate charm of Zooey Deschanel, Summer came across as basically a bitch, and I just wasn’t interested in her, or in any man content to be screwed over by her. Harsh, but there it is.

(500) DAYS OF SUMMER played Sundance 2009 and opened earlier this year in the US and Canada. It is currently on release in the UK, Australia and Italy. It opens next week in the Netherlands and on October 1st in France, New Zealand and Taiwan. It opens on October 8th in the Czech Republic, Singapore and Turkey. It opens on October 22nd in Germany, Russia and Spain, and on October 30th in Finland and Norway. It opens in November in Belgium, Croatia, Brazil, Poland and Argentina. It opens in December in Slovenia and Estonia and on January 9th in Japan.