'The Disaster Artist'

The film follows Greg Sestero (Dave Franco), an aspiring film actor. When he meets the weird and mysterious Tommy Wiseau (James Franco) in an acting class, they form a unique friendship and travel to Hollywood to make their dreams come true.

Having only seen the movie The Room for the first time in 2015 with a housemate at the Hayden Orpheum Theatre in Cremone, Sydney, I was interested to see this film when it was announced. While I'm a student filmmaker myself, I've been taught certain things that make a good film. The Room is a perfect example of a terrible film, but at the same time, it's popular for basically all the reasons why it's bad; because it's a funny bad.

Originally, I was a bit skeptical about James Franco playing the role of Tommy Wiseau. James Franco's performance in this is incredible. His accent and mannerisms are a spot-on imitation of Wiseau's, and he manages to make you feel sympathy towards the character, too. It's one thing to so directly portray such a unique individual and make doing so incredibly funny, but it's another thing entirely to make him feel (almost) like a real person, and to make you genuinely care for him. He really did a wonderful job at getting Tommy's characteristics, mannerisms, and accent down really well. My friend, who showed me The Room originally, was skeptical about both Dave and James Franco in the lead roles. Mainly because she hadn't seen the film just yet due to being busy. I assured her that both did a good job at their roles in the film.

Dave Franco had a less flashy role than his brother's, sure, playing Greg Sestero, but he did a good job as the more grounded, 'straight man' type character. And some of the casting was genius too- I could list almost everybody, but special mention should go to Josh Hutcherson, Zac Efron, and Jacki Weaver.

The film is based off of the book that Greg Sestero wrote in regards to meeting Tommy, finding acting jobs and the process of doing the film, The Room. While I haven't read the book yet, it's something that I will have to check out at some point.

James Franco did an excellent job at directing the film, as well. What was also interesting is that both Greg Sestero and Tommy Wiseau both had small cameos in the film The Disaster Artist. While the film probably won’t make my top ten of films this year, it was definitely worth watching.

The camera work for the film was really well done. The production design for the film was really good, as well. As the film is set in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the production design does help reflect this time period that the film is set in. The script writing was done fairly well, as it did help that the film was based off the book that Greg Sestero wrote in regards to the making of the film The Room.

I found some of the pacing for the film to take a bit too long. There could have been some scenes in the film that could have been left out to help quicken up the pace of the film. The musical score for the film was good, as well. What was really interesting was that, at the end of the film, they showed some of the scenes they recreated beside the actual scenes (from The Room). It was quite interesting to see how close they were to the actual scenes.

It was also interesting to see some of the footage that was taken at the actual premiere of the film for The Room in 2003. Both The Room and The Disaster Artist are worth checking out. Although I recommend seeming The Room first before seeing The Disaster Artist.