Movie Review The Disaster Artist

The Disaster Artist (2017) 

Directed by James Franco

Written by Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber 

Starring James Franco, Dave Franco, Seth Rogen, Alison Brie, Ari Graynor, Josh Hutcherson 

Release Date December 1st, 2017 

Pathos—a quality that evokes pity or sadness.

Pathos seemed to be the defining characteristic of Tommy Wiseau’s abysmal debut feature The Room. The film evoked pathos because it was quite pitiably terrible in every fashion. The film was/is complete and utter nonsense from beginning to end with the witless Wiseau creating a star vehicle for himself despite his complete lack of talent and then directing the whole mess despite his complete lack experience and talent.

Something strange has happened over the years with The Room. No, it hasn’t somehow miraculously improved with time. Rather, it remains terrible, but not pitiable. The film has become a genuine and quite unexpected hit. Fans, yes, real fans, have emerged not to defend the quality of the film but to defend the remarkable experience they’ve had in discovering the film. People quite unabashedly love The Room and by extension its bizarre creator.

Enter The Disaster Artist, a new comic take on the creation of this once pathos-laden effort. The Disaster Artist does not seek to mock the pathos of The Room and Tommy Wiseau but rather, to get to the heart of the genuine side of the appreciation of this once pitiable effort. The Disaster Artist succeeds by reveling in the genuine success enjoyed by the film since it was so poorly crafted and somehow slunk into our collective pop culture in 2002.

The Disaster Artist stars James Franco as Tommy Wiseau. Franco’s Wiseau is a fearless weirdo, probably because he doesn’t’ realize other people find him weird. He has what looks to be a stiff wig of long black hair, an inexplicable accent that he refuses to acknowledge and is deeply paranoid of anyone asking about his life and especially his age. He goes so far as to warn his new friend, Greg Sestero (Dave Franco) to never speak of him in public, never talk about where his money comes from and never acknowledge the enigma that is Tommy Wiseau.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Movie Review: An American Crime

An American Crime (2007) 

Directed by Tommy O'Haver

Written by Tommy O'Haver, Irene Turner

Starring Elliott Page, Catherine Keener, Hayley McFarland, Ari Graynor, James Franco

Release Date January 19th, 2007

Published January 15th, 2007 

There is a delicate balance at play in An American Crime. At once there is a need to demonstrate the abuse heaped upon the unfortunate young woman at the story's center. On the other hand, you risk losing the audience if you dwell or linger on the girl's suffering. Writer-Director Tommy O'Haver takes a just the facts, scholarly approach that does well not to linger but in the end fails to connect emotionally beyond  the simple demonstration of human suffering.

Sylvia Likens (Elliott Page) was by all accounts a pious, devoted young woman who loved her mom and dad and little sister and never harmed a soul.  When she and her sister Jennie (Hayley McFarland) were left in the care of Gertrude Baniszewski (Catherine Keener) it was thought that they would be there just a few months while their parents made their way around the carny circuit.

Three months turned to four and five and though their parents paid Gertrude 20 dollars a month to care for their daughters, that didn't prevent Gertrude from taking out her many problems on young Sylvia. Initially, Sylvia had bonded with Gertrude's oldest daughter Paula (Ari Graynor) but when they had a falling out, the abuse began. Sylvia is blamed for all of Paula's troubles and soon finds herself the subject of inhuman abuses.

Director Tommy O'Haver presents An American Crime with an almost documentary seriousness. Managing the delicate balance of not wanting to revel in Sylvia's pain but needing to demonstrate it, O'Haver retreats often to a courtroom setting where former West Wing star Bradley Whitford is prosecuting Gertrude for Sylvia's abuse.

The court room set allows O'Haver to keep some of the abuse in description rather than having to show too much. The courtroom scenes are based on actual court records, giving authenticity to the scenes and an extra little emotional punch when you see Gertrude's young son Lester (Nick Searcy) describe not just his mother's abuse of Sylvia but also his own. Searcy's sincere, unapologetic recounting of events is chilling.

Oscar nominee Elliott Page continues to seek the anti-Juno, a role that won't remind people of her indelible, fast talking, pop spewing pregnant teen. An American Crime is certainly far from Juno. Unfortunately, it also lacks Juno's ability to connect emotionally. Page's Sylvia is really nothing more than a demonstrative device. We watch as she is abused and we connect as we would with any child being abused but nothing beyond that. An American Crime fails to deepen the tragedy by giving us a character we really bond with.

The same sense of demonstration over connection affects the performance of Catherine Keener. Like Page we witness her actions but we don't connect with them specifically. We know this is a tragic situation and that Gertrude is a bad person but what led her this way? What made Gertrude commit such a heinous crime? An American Crime is good at demonstrating the crime but doesn't venture to guess why the crime took place.

It has to be more than just Gertrude decided to destroy this beautiful young girl. Was she sick? Was she abused? Did Sylvia do something that set off the situation? There is obviously no justification for the crime that was committed but something motivated this crime and failing to ascribe some motivation to it is a dramatic failure.

Near the end of American Crime there is a device employed by director O'Haver that can fairly be called a cheat or merely O'Haver screwing with the audience. I won't go into the details because it may be a mystery to some who see it, but I was irritated by it. It comes down to a series of seemingly important scenes that turn out to be the director's way of filling time and creating false drama.

If An American Crime was so unfilmable that this device was necessary to invent and inject some drama into the movie, don't make the movie. The crime seems compelling enough to me. The device employed is an unnecessary screw job to the audience.

An American Crime is based on a true story from Indiana in the 1960's. At the time it was the single worst documented case of child abuse in American history. The prosecution of Gertrude was a national story and today would likely be the subject of endless Nancy Grace hours and CNN specials. Writer-director Tommy O'Haver connects with this story better than our drive by media likely would but not by much.

His scholarly chronicling of the crime and word for word courtroom reenactments are better suited to the documentary feature than to the dramatic movie. His approach is too distant. Without the ability to get closer to these characters we are merely left as after the fact witnesses to the demonstration of pain and suffering.

Movie Review Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist (2008) 

Directed by Peter Sollett

Written by Lorene Scafaria 

Starring Michael Cera, Kat Dennings, Ari Graynor, Jay Baruchel

Release Date October 3rd, 2008

Published October 2nd, 2008 

One goal of a good critic is to try not to judge a movie before seeing it. That isn't so hard for me except when I really want to like a movie, sight unseen. I really wanted to like Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist before I saw it. I like the cast, I liked the premise. As I watched the movie I ignored my niggling doubts and kept track of the things I liked. Now, as I sit to write the review, the flaws are crisper and my lingering doubts have replaced much of things I tried hard to love.

Michael Cera is one of the most likable actors to come along in years. From his adorable George Michael Bluth on TV's Arrested Development to his breakout in Superbad and Juno, Cera has grown before our eyes and is prepared to become a huge comic star in the classic Tom Hanks vein. For his latest starring role he plays Nick a musician in a gay rock band.

Nick is not gay but his two bandmates are. Nick, as we meet him, is bumming over the end of his relationship with Tris, a bubble -headed private school girl who abruptly dumped him on his birthday. Thankfully, Nick's bandmates won't let him sit home and cry, they drag him off to New York City where they have a gig and then a quest to find a legendary band performing in secret.

Kat Dennings plays the Nora half of the title, a dyspeptic music loving soul who happens to be an acquaintance of Tris. As Tris has discarded Nick's many mixed cd's Nora has picked them out of the trash and found Nick a kindred musical soul, though they have never met. That changes that night in New York City when Nora, her best friend Caroline (Ari Graynor) and even Tris head into the city and happen upon Nick's band and a mutual quest for this mythical band "Where's Fluffy".

I won't give away Nick and Nora's meet cute other than to say the contrivance is pretty weak even by romantic comedy standards. Once together there is no question that they are meant to be together. The question then for director Peter Sollett is how to believably keep them apart until they are supposed to be together. Thanks to Cera and Denning's prickly repartee this is one of the few things that really works.

What doesn't work, quite shockingly, is the film's music conceit. In a movie called Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist one would quite fairly expect a lot of really great music. What you get is a lot of mediocre indie bands from some yet printed insert in Paste Magazine. The songs on Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist sound remarkably indistinguishable from one another, whiny alt-rockers too hip indies, gay rock. No R & B. No hip hop, this soundtrack has a remarkably white, bourgeois sensibility for an 'infinite' playlist.

Worse yet from my perspective was the filmmakers inability to craft one singular music/movie moment. In the best movies with strong musical sensibilities the filmmakers craft a scene that combines music and film in a way that transcends both expressions. Who can forget Say Anything and Peter Gabriel's In Your Eyes, Moulin Rouge and the performance of Roxanne, every second of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova's sublime duet in Once.

Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist needed a moment like that, an expression of the way Nick and Nora's musical souls were entwined. It is referred to and indeed assumed but it doesn't exist in the movie. I have many issues with Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist but none with stars Michael Cera and Kat Dennings. Cera and Dennings spark terrific chemistry first as strangers, then as sparring partners and finally as love interests. Dennings has toned down the goth persona that had driven her type casting as recently as August's The House Bunny, and the change serves her well.

Here, Dennings is a leading lady with quirks that set her apart from the typical rom-com heroine. As for Dennings' co-star? What more can I say about Michael Cera. The kid just gets better and better with each succeeding role. Even in this flawed teen-centric romance Cera crafts a thoughtful, humorous, well observed performance.

Both actors, as well as the tremendous, hard-working supporting work of Ari Graynor, are lost, adrift in a movie that knows the lyrics to every Judd Apatow, Cameron Crowe and John Hughes movie, but ironically not the music. Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist plays like a mix CD of Apatow, Crowe and Hughes and while I am not adverse to a good classic mix, I was hoping for something more... original.

With Cera and Dennings Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist has a lot working in its favor. Unfortunately, by recycling the best of teen-centric romance and coming up short on the music side of things, Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist fails to rise above its many influences. The movie really failed for me however by not finding one song and one moment to transcend all of the whole. The best movies with a strong musical presence do that.