Boogie Nights (1997) and The Master (2012)
Even before Franco became involved with the movie adaptation, Greg Sestero’s book “The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made” was described in a Vice review as reading “like the combination of two Paul Thomas Anderson film scripts: Boogie Nights in its focus on a group of optimistic outsiders trying to be artistic with a project that defies all artistic pretentions, and The Master with its arrangement around a bizarre mentor-pupil relationship.”
Boogie Nights also fits particularly for the way Mark Wahlberg and John C. Reilly’s characters record a song they think will be a huge hit but is really just totally awful. In a video for Alamo Drafthouse, Franco talks of how the earlier movie influenced The Disaster Artist. He says:
“You have a lovable cast of characters who are making low-brow entertainment, but the movie itself is on a much higher level of skill and accomplishment than what the characters are doing, and it sort of uncovers the hidden beauty underneath the shlock that they’re making.”
In another video for Alamo Drafthouse, Franco discusses the influence of The Master, which is about a guy who develops a more literal cult following, saying:
“At the center of that film you have this very odd sort of mentor/student relationship, and Tommy and Greg’s relationship in our film is definitely at the center. And it is a mysterious relationship. They came to LA from San Francisco together, [they’re] a very odd couple, very different in their backgrounds, very different in their demeanors, but it was a real bromance and I really believe part of the reason Tommy made ‘The Room’ and wanted Greg to be in it so badly was in a way it’s a love letter to their friendship.”
Man on the Moon (1999) and Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond – Featuring a Very Special, Contractually Obligated Mention of Tony Clifton (2017)
One of the things that bug me in a movie like The Disaster Artist is how much it leans on re-creating existing material. It comes off like fan service just to please people curious about the comparison between the real and the replica. Franco’s movie even delivers the side-by-side showcase of both versions at the end. Man on the Moon, the Milos Forman-helmed biopic of actor/comedian Andy Kaufman (scripted by the same writers as Ed Wood: Scott Alexander and
Larry Karaszewski) is even heavier on replication, so much that it becomes an extra joke for the movie. A kind of stunt that Kaufman would have appreciated. Most of the real-life characters in the movie are even played by themselves.
Portraying Kaufman in Man on the Moon is Jim Carrey, whose incredible performance was wrongfully overlooked by the Oscars. You can see just how deep into the character (as well as “Tony Clifton”) the comedic actor delved in the new documentary Jim & Andy. Carrey gives a single interview about the making of Man on the Moon and director Chris Smith intercuts it with never before seen behind-the-scenes footage plus movie clips from Carrey’s career for an introspectively insightful consideration of method acting.
James Dean (2001)
There’s a bit of winking meta-ness in the way Tommy Wiseau and Greg Sestero idolize James Dean in The Disaster Artist considering James Franco portrayed Dean in this made-for-TV biopic at the start of his career (and won a Golden Globe for his performance). Wiseau, whose own infamous line in The Room “you’re tearing me apart” is taken from Dean’s character in Rebel Without a Cause, actually wanted James Franco (or Johnny Depp) to play him, according to Sestero’s book. Franco believes the choice of him was because of his work here.
Of course, after seeing Franco as Wiseau and then Franco as Dean, you ought to go back and watch the real Dean in his three movies that he starred in before he died. In addition to Rebel, there’s Giant and East of Eden, the latter of which Franco discusses as being a direct influence in another video for Alamo Drafthouse. He says:
“What you’re seeing in East of Eden is a very personal performance by James Dean. The scenes in it and the circumstance in the movie must have triggered his own personal emotions. That personal aspect of East of Eden was very much related to the personal aspect of The Room. Tommy Wiseau, as you can imagine, felt rejected by the world, by the universe his whole life. What happens? He plays Johnny, all-American guy, great guy. I think that is a parallel or a stand-in for the way that he felt betrayed by the whole world.”
Overnight (2003) and Best Worst Movie (2009)
Two more documentary picks this week spotlight other real stories of terrible filmmaking. Overnight, released the same year as The Room, is about Troy Duffy, writer and director of 1999’s The Boondock Saints and its sequel, during the course of him trying to make the former. He winds up burning every bridge in Hollywood he can on the road to finishing and distributing his debut. The Boondock Saints is, like The Room, a bad movie that wound up a cult classic. Though unlike The Room‘s fans, The Boondock Saints fans wouldn’t agree that it’s a bad movie.
Best Worst Movie is a doc about the making of and eventual cult fandom of 1990’s Troll 2. Unlike The Disaster Artist, this film really makes an effort to help us understand why that awful movie turned out as popular as it is and how it developed such a devoted following. I also don’t think you need to see Troll 2 let alone be a fan of the movie for optimal appreciation of Best Worst Movie the way being one of The Room‘s lovers benefits the appreciation of The Disaster Artist.
I Love You, Man (2009)
Debuting at the same SXSW Film Festival as Best Worst Movie, this Apatow-adjacent comedy is very similar to The Disaster Artist in all ways except their setting. I Love You, Man stars another of the “freak” boys from Freaks and Geeks, Jason Segal, as an eccentric and socially ill-fitting yet confident guy who befriends a rather meek fellow played by Paul Rudd. Instead of a making a movie together, in this movie the bromantic duo unites for the sake of Rudd’s character’s wedding, developing out of his need for a best man.
Both movies follow a typical romantic comedy structure only with two guy pals instead of a heterosexual coupling. In both, the bros have some tension as the result of one of them being coupled with a woman, and they make up at the end just in time for a big event. And if none of that was enough to convince you that The Disaster Artist is somehow like a remake of I Love You, Man, despite it being a true story that takes place before this movie was made, the both involve goofy billboard advertisements!
Related Topics: James Franco, Movie DNA, The Disaster Artist
