The Disaster Artist: How The Room Happened

Get your head around this: Tommy Wiseau has now joined the ranks of Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Sergei Eisenstein, and yes Ed Wood as a director whose life has inspired a dramatic film treatment—a form of recognition that has thus eluded Carl Dreyer, Yasujiro Ozu, and Michelangelo Antonioni. It is easy to understand why. The making of his comically melodramatic potboiler The Room was certainly dramatic. Supporting cast and crew could hardly believe their eyes, but Wiseau’s co-star and best friend will try to stick it out and smooth over the rough patches in James Franco’s The Disaster Artist (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

If you haven’t seen The Room, think of it as a Woody Allen straight drama in the Interiors tradition, but executed by Ed Wood. Many thought the story of the well-to-do Johnny, who is inexplicably betrayed by his lover Lisa, was autobiographical—a suspicion Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber’s screenplay seems to winkingly confirm.

Initially, Greg Sestero was drawn to Wiseau because of his passion. When they moved out to LA together to pursue acting careers, he was the perfect roommate, especially because he already owned a comfortable flat there. What was the source of Wiseau’s considerable bank account? Just where did he come from and how old is he anyway? These are questions The Disaster Artist can never answer, but acknowledges as the great mysteries of our time.

Regardless, both Sestero and Wiseau mostly scuffled in Hollywood, even though the former managed to sign with a talent agent. For obvious reasons, casting directors just had no idea what to make of Wiseau, but rather than give up, he sat down and wrote a juicy part for himself to play. That screenplay would become The Room. During the unruly production, script supervisor Sandy Schklair could tell it was bad, but even he was unprepared for the lunacy of the final cut.

Disaster Artist will inevitable be likened to Tim Burton’s Ed Wood and the comparisons are justified. Both celebrate the eccentric vision and defiant persistence of their subjects. Frankly, they suggest the world would be somewhat poorer without their wacky, ridiculously grandiose magnum opuses, which is arguably true. Can you imagine life without Plan 9 from Outer Space?

Franco smoothly directs the chaos and he adds considerably more madness with his career-defining performance as Wiseau. Not merely portraying Wiseau as a self-centered, un-self-aware nut-job (although there is definitely that), he also gets at the man’s underlying insecurities. He is a mess, but he is definitely something else.

In the role of Sestero, Franco’s brother Dave nicely serves as an audience surrogate and frustrated voice of reason. Seth Rogen earns some big laughs, but also deserves some credit for being willing to look like a bit of a jerkweed as Schklair. However, nobody was as good a sport as Ari Graynor, who portrays Juliette Danielle, the unfortunate actress who had to play an excruciatingly uncomfortable sex scene with the naked Wiseau.

There are dozens of Hollywood celebrities making cameos as either themselves or people tangentially related to Wiseau and Sestero, but the film really doesn’t need them. It works just fine as a bromance and a grade-Z riff on Truffaut’s Day for Night.  That said, viewers should definitely stay for the stinger after the closing credits. Ultimately, it is a surprisingly endearing, forgiving, and downright idealistic celebration of the creative process, as misdirected as it might be. Highly recommended for cult movie fans, The Disaster Artist opens this Friday (12/1) in New York, at the AMC Loews Lincoln Square uptown and the Regal Union Square downtown.

King Cobra: True Crime Gets Deadly Dull

It is supposedly a crime drama based on Andrew E. Stoner & Peter A. Conway’s nonfiction book Cobra Killer: Gay Porn, Murder, and the Manhunt to Bring the Killers to Justice, but it only takes the cops about thirty seconds to arrest the perps. Maybe the term “manhunt” is used euphemistically. Despite the intentionally lurid subject matter, you will be hard-pressed to find a duller, dingier, more vacuous film than Justin Kelly’s King Cobra (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

In the early 2000s, apparently anyone with a digital camera and a website could become a player in the gay porn industry. For Stephen, his nocturnal side light as producer-host “King Cobra” was the only relief from a life of quiet desperation. He was already moderately successful when he recruited seventeen-year-old Sean Paul Lockhart (mistakenly believing him to be eighteen), but the videos the performer shot under the name “Brent Corrigan” took his company to a whole new level. For a while, everyone enjoys their success, but when Lockhart decides to leave King Cobra, he discovers the spurned producer holds the trademark on the Brent Corrigan name.

Meanwhile, escorts and self-styled pornstars Harlow and Joe really want to work with Corrigan. Deep in debt, they are convinced a video co-starring Corrigan and Harlow will solve all their problems. Of course, it has to be Lockhart under the Corrigan name. He is willing, but King Cobra is not.

One of the many problems with King Cobra is the murder and the subsequent investigation are compressed into the final ten minutes. The overwhelming majority of the film is devoted to Lockhart’s hopes and dreams and angsts and insecurities of the killers. Frankly, this material couldn’t sustain a fifteen minute short. Clearly, Kelly hopes we will be distracted by the naughty business, but it quickly gets boring (particularly if it doesn’t float your boat to begin with).

How mind-blowing is it to see Alicia Silverstone playing Lockhart’s mom?  Actually, she is not bad—maybe the best thing about Cobra. To be fair, Christian Slater is also very good playing the profoundly sad Stephen (the King), but the film’s general crumminess is in keeping with the recent underwhelming additions to his filmography, such as The Adderall Diaries (another utterly unwatchable James Franco joint), Stranded, and Playback. Franco probably considered Joe the Psycho to be another opportunity to display his gay-friendliness, but it is an awfully schticky, perilously clichéd character. At least we notice him, whereas neither Garrett Clayton nor Keegan Allen have any presence or depth as Lockhart/Corrigan or Harlow.

To reiterate, the real problem with the film is not the subject matter. It is just an unforgivable snore fest. Arguably, it takes unique talent to make pornography and murder boring as Hell, but somehow Kelly pulled it off. He even squanders 1980s icon Molly Ringwald in an entirely inconsequential role. Tedious yet still sleazy, King Cobra is not recommended for anyone when it opens today (10/21) in New York, at the IFC Center.

Sundance ’15: True Story

Who is the bigger user, the disgraced journalist or the alleged family murderer? It is a close call, but the “journalist” has no competition when it comes to willful self-deception. Mike Finkel’s strange and problematic relationship with Christian Longo provides the dramatic grist for British theater Rupert Goold’s ripped-from-the-tell-alls feature debut, True Story (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

For a while, Finkel was the golden boy at the New York Times, scoring numerous Sunday magazine covers. Then he was busted for “compositing” victims somewhat haphazardly in a human trafficking story. At least Longo was still a fan. While on the lam, he used Finkel’s name as an alias. Intrigued by the connection, the real Finkel pays a jail house visit to the man accused of killing his wife and three children. Recognizing a story that could salvage his career, Finkel agrees to co-author a book with Longo. Of course, he assumes it will be exculpatory, but early trial developments leave him feeling confused and betrayed.

Clearly, this is not a film looking to rehabilitate the NYT’s scandal-plagued image. Gretchen Mol plays Finkel’s editor as an ice cold CYAing Machiavellian, which might be the truest aspect of True Story. The ironic postscript also serves as a final middle finger to the Gray Lady. However, Goold and co-screenwriter David Kajganich are not trying to do any favors for Finkel or Longo either. In all honesty, everyone comes out of it looking badly, but that makes it fascinating to watch.

Christian Longo, the media savvy sociopath, just might be the role James Franco was born to play. He is so frighteningly convincing turning on the charm and manipulating everyone around him, it makes you wonder. Although, it is a far less showy role, Jonah Hill’s Finkel is also believably slow on the uptake (so much so, it also makes you wonder). Mol is suitably severe, but True Story is not a great vehicle for actresses, completely wasting Felicity Jones as Finkel’s more guarded but nearly personality-less girlfriend.

Franco and Hill’s scenes together have fair degree of crackle, but the suspense never really rises above room temperature. Frankly, there are no miscarriages of justice in True Story, unless you count the Times getting off easy after yet another journalistic scandal. Yet, it is strangely refreshing to see a film that is not out to gin up cheap outrage. Recommended for those who appreciate adult drama, True Story screens again this Thursday (1/29) and Saturday (1/31) in Park City and Sunday (2/1) in Salt Lake, as part of this year’s Sundance.

Tribeca ’12: Francophrenia

Prepare yourself for an act of slumming as performance art.  If you were somewhat bemused by James Franco’s decision to play a recurring guest-starring role on the soap opera General Hospital, you will wonder why you wondered after watching Francophrenia (Or: Don’t Kill Me, I Know Where the Baby Is), the actor’s latest extended middle finger to his ever more beleaguered fans, co-directed with Ian Olds, which screens during the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Evidently, a baby has been kidnapped from the famous fictional hospital, but Franco (and presumably Olds) considers that plot line too trite to bother explaining for Francophrenia’s audience.  All we need to know is that James Franco magnanimously lent his prestige to the soap, as long as he played a killer also called Franco.  Ostensibly, Francophrenia documents the production of an extra special episode filmed on location at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, but anyone expecting a candid behind-the-scenes look at the show will be sorely disappointed.

Instead, we watch long sequences of the clearly disinterested subject signing autographs and sitting in make-up, while voiceovers try to pose a dichotomy between Franco the actor and Franco, the character, calling into question which is ascendant in any given scene.  The problem is neither Franco is sufficiently established to create any dramatic or aesthetic tension between the two.  All we know is Franco the construct is a murderer, whereas Franco, the NYU film school grad, co-directed Francophrenia, which is absolute blue murder to watch.  Essentially, this film is like the old Airplane! sunglasses gag.  When you peel away one Franco’s smirk, you only find another smirk underneath.

Frankly, Francophrenia never deconstructs or subverts soap operas (or documentaries) in any meaningful way.  We simply watch Franco float above it all on his cloud of hipster superiority.  While allegedly an experimental film, Francophrenia suggests the co-directors have only a cursory familiarity with the genre.  The mere fact that Franco would deign to associate with such low brow daytime dramatic fare is thought to be sufficiently intriguing in and of itself.  Indeed, the only real take-away from the film is the nauseating contempt Franco (the actor or the construct, it hardly matters which) so obviously has for fans of the show.  However, he might just miss those rubes when they are gone.

 

Ultimately, Francophrenia is not a film, nor is it a concept.  It is simply another manifestation of Franco’s continuing fascination with his own celebrity.  Franco’s fans should be strongly dissuaded from seeing it, because it might be a rather bitter experience for them.  They will find the joke (if it can be called that) is at their expense. Of course, there is no reason for the rest of us to endure it either, but for those looking to masochistically stoke their anti-Franco resentments, Francophrenia screens again tonight (4/24) and Saturday (4/28) as part of the Tribeca Film Festival.