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“The Disaster Artist” is actor/director James Franco’s fairly good movie about the making of a belovedly bad movie called “The Room” that has achieved cult status and nurtured a bunch of “Rocky Horror Picture Show”-type customs among audiences at midnight movies, such as throwing plastic spoons at the screen. Franco plays the international man of mystery calling himself Tommy Wiseau who wrote, financed, directed, and starred in “The Room” in 2003.
Nobody knows where Wiseau got the $6 million to pay for his movie about, presumably, the blonde who broke his heart. Here’s the flower shop scene (either from the original or from Franco’s reproduction, I can’t tell the difference):
“The Disaster Artist” isn’t as good as the 1994 film “Ed Wood” starring Johnny Depp as the director of “Plan 9 from Outer Space” (and numerous other contenders with “The Room” for Worst Movie of All Time). But “The Disaster Artist” is a decent entry in the genre of the Passionate Incompetent.
Franco as director and star did a good job of matching a lot of his famous friends in showbiz, such as Seth Rogen, Judd Apatow, Bob Odenkirk, Zac Efron, Hannibal Buress, Sharon Stone, Bryan Cranston, Jacki Weaver, and his brother Dave Franco to the real life losers who were involved in “The Disaster Artist.” My guess is that Rogen is a fun guy to watch bad movies with at home, so “The Disaster Artist” is an attempt to reproduce for the mass audience Franco’s experience of watching terrible movies while Rogen cracks wise.
Wiseau is convinced that he deserves to be a Hollywood movie star despite having some kind of Eastern European accent and a massive speech impediment.
One scene in “The Disaster Artist” mentions that Wiseau decided to become an actor while in the hospital following a car crash. Nobody else more familiar with the story than me seems to believe this, but my guess is that he suffered brain damage in the accident, which could be why he talks funny.
People really like movies. One thing that jumps out at you while reading the history of WWII is that Hitler, Stalin, Churchill, and FDR were passionate movie fans. In contrast, the other Franco, Francisco, who had the good sense to sit out WWII, does not appear to have been.
Where Wiseau got the money to make his elaborate movie, I don’t know. Most of the large cast and crew guessed that it was a money-laundering scheme involving organized crime, but the grandiose and defective Wiseau doesn’t seem like somebody that a gangster would want to be involved with.
Perhaps Wiseau was in a car crash that killed other members of his extended family in New Orleans and he was the beneficiary of a big settlement? For example, comedian Tracy Morgan and the heirs of another comedian appear to have gotten a big payouts from insurance companies for Walmart, whose truck driver ran into their limo in 2014. The rumor, which Morgan’s attorney pooh-poohs, is of a $90 million settlement. Whatever it was, Walmart’s insurance companies are currently trying to claw some of it back on the grounds that Tracy isn’t as crippled as initially feared (of course, his friend remains as dead as originally reported).
Personally, Mr. Insurance Company, I think Tracy Morgan, especially as Tracy Jordan on “30 Rock,” has made my life better-humored, so I’m not really too bothered if he manages to come back most of the way from the coma that your client’s bad driver plunged him into.
Or maybe Wiseau inherited money from his New Orleans relatives? Or got lucky investing during the 1990s tech bubble? Or made a fortune off fake designer jeans? There are a lot of fairly random rich people these days.
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Imagine a film starring this guy and Gary Busey.
I’m a big fan of both movies, both the bad one and the good one based on the making of the bad one. And I read the book which was inspired by the making of the bad one and which became the inspiration for the good one.
OK. Now that that’s clear, two notes:
– The book’s author, Greg Sestero, wrote (I’m paraphrasing) that Tommy Wiseau is the last person he’d have in a criminal enterprise. His money had to have been legally made.
– As for as Njguy73 is concerned, Tommy Wiseau is the true symbol of what it means to come to this country ans reinvent yourself. He’s the real American Dream.
The first million dollar injury settlement in the US reportedly went to Ben Hogan from Greyhound.
Speaking of movies: the new Star Wars is getting rave reviews
You know what it’s messages are? Diversity is strength and is necessary to fight white racism
Looks like you guys worldview is unpopular!
https://orig00.deviantart.net/984c/f/2016/003/6/b/daffy_duck_with_his_lightsaber_by_darthraner83-d9mlman.png
daffy_duck_with_his_lightsaber_by_darthraner83-d9mlman.png (PNG Image, 782 × 990 pixels) - Scaled (46%)Replies: @anonymous, @Charles Erwin Wilson
Entertain us!
-Lentert "I achiev satisfakshun at teh movie" Pitzszs
Are we sure that Tommy Wiseau isn’t really Joaquin Phoenix or Andy Kaufman.
Seems reasonable.
Hogan won 30 PGA tournaments in 1946-1948, but a Greyhound bus encroaching in in his lane hit his car head on in February 1949. Hogan threw himself across his wife in the passenger seat to shield her, which turned out to save his life as the steering wheel was driven into his seatback.
Hogan came back from this near-fatal accident to win six major championships in 1950-1953.
Franco was a huge fan of movies, so much so that he wrote the screenplay to one anonymously which got produced and released during the early days of his regime.
One of the mysterious things about the best “so bad they’re good” movies is that everything about them is wrong. The Room possesses that quality. Even dialogue that makes sense often sounds like it’s spoken out of order. Like they cut up lines from the script, threw them in the air, and shot them how they landed.
There’s a reason the Room (and Rocky Horror for that matter, which I think is definitely a bad movie with mostly awful music) plays well in front of crowds. Viewing it alone is excruciating. Most good crowd-pleasing movies can be viewed in pretty much any context. But bad-good movies must be enjoyed within a group. Or through an intermediary, like on Mystery Science Theater or Red Letter Media.
You know what it's messages are? Diversity is strength and is necessary to fight white racism
Looks like you guys worldview is unpopular!Replies: @bored identity, @Moses, @anon, @JustJeff, @fish, @MichaelRolls
C’monTiny D, we all know that somewhere in a galaxy fav, fav away you are winning:
daffy_duck_with_his_lightsaber_by_darthraner83-d9mlman.png (PNG Image, 782 × 990 pixels) – Scaled (46%)
Franco wrote at least one movie script, iirc under the pen name “Jaime de Andrade”.
edit: General Franco, that is.
Franco was in fact very interested in the power of cinema. His insistence that all foreign films be dubbed by Spanish actors led to decades of supremely unfortunate-sounding movies and TV shows in Spain.
When I lived there in the 90s, the only competently voiced foreign television show was The Simpsons. Absolutely everything else was right out of Women On the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.Replies: @syonredux
You know what it's messages are? Diversity is strength and is necessary to fight white racism
Looks like you guys worldview is unpopular!Replies: @bored identity, @Moses, @anon, @JustJeff, @fish, @MichaelRolls
Tiny you’re just dialing it in with that one. We’ve come to expect more from you, much more.
Entertain us!
Tommy Wiseau’s origins: https://www.reddit.com/r/theroom/comments/1vklp3/i_think_i_have_found_tommys_nationality_new/
I finally watched The Room last year with some people from work and even after years of friends building it up as hysterical it didn’t let me down. The fact that it’s incompetent, bizarre, and completely genuine really makes it perfect group viewing.
One disappointing thing about The Disaster Artist is that while it reproduces most of the funniest scenes of the original movie, Franco forgot that one of the things that makes the original so entertaining is that the whole thing is obviously overdubbed.
Some of the lines in that flower shop scene are so badly dubbed they run over each other.
Interestingly Hitler was a big fan of King Kong, while Stalin liked Charlie Chaplin. One can somewhat understand the racial undertones that could appeal to Hitler from King Kong, but what would make Stalins personality be drawn to Chaplin that I don’t know.
Ed Wood was a great movie, almost as good as Plan 9 From Outer Space itself. Never saw the The Room, but now that you’ve sort of panned it ….
https://orig00.deviantart.net/984c/f/2016/003/6/b/daffy_duck_with_his_lightsaber_by_darthraner83-d9mlman.png
daffy_duck_with_his_lightsaber_by_darthraner83-d9mlman.png (PNG Image, 782 × 990 pixels) - Scaled (46%)Replies: @anonymous, @Charles Erwin Wilson
Tiny is Ducking flying asteroids somewhere in the M31 galaxy.
You know what it's messages are? Diversity is strength and is necessary to fight white racism
Looks like you guys worldview is unpopular!Replies: @bored identity, @Moses, @anon, @JustJeff, @fish, @MichaelRolls
Speaking of movies: the new Star Wars is getting rave reviews
You know what it’s messages are? Diversity is strength and is necessary to fight white racism
Wow, really? What a surprise that the people who get jobs as movie reviewers have opinions that are so in line with the message modern corporate America wants to spread.
Personally, I thought the message of the last few Star Wars movies was “We could put the name Star Wars on a video of a dog taking a crap and fanboys would still claim it’s awesome.”. So thanks for the heads-up that it’s changed to something that’s even blander.
The thing about The Room that makes it different from Plan 9 From Outer Space is that Plan 9 is just a stupid movie. The Room is an incredibly inept attempt at making something really heartfelt. It was a guy pouring his heart out, and doing it in the worst way possible, which makes you cringe even harder.
Also, it’s relevant to the current sex abuse frenzy in that, according to the female lead, Wiseau basically just started groping her when she walked onto the set. So it’ll be interesting to see how that’s handled, since Disaster Artists was written before that sort of thing became the hot topic.
I cannot stand Seth Rogan, he is the very definition of a urban pant load and neck beard. He’s the kind of a guy you want to punch just because his very presence violates some rule of nature and decorum.
So I’ll stick with the Elvira movie macabre or MST 3000 for really bad movies. The sci-fi and horror genre’s ate littered odious offering that should have never seen the light of day.
Too many modern movies are simply annoying and bad. Like the later offerings from Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler that are the movie equivalent of wearing a hair shirt.
You know what it's messages are? Diversity is strength and is necessary to fight white racism
Looks like you guys worldview is unpopular!Replies: @bored identity, @Moses, @anon, @JustJeff, @fish, @MichaelRolls
But yours can’t be that popular given how it’s clumsily shoe-horned into all media these days.
You know what it's messages are? Diversity is strength and is necessary to fight white racism
Looks like you guys worldview is unpopular!Replies: @bored identity, @Moses, @anon, @JustJeff, @fish, @MichaelRolls
Ohs Tinys…..you’n kno you was doin dat thing Lenert likes when we was being at the moovy. You’n coulnts been seein teh skreen.
-Lentert “I achiev satisfakshun at teh movie” Pitzszs
“In contrast, the other Franco, Francisco, who had the good sense to sit out WWII, does not appear to have been.”
Well, perhaps Luis Bunuel soured him on films during the ’30’s.
Although in the ’60’s, Spain allowed Sergio Leone to film his Spaghetti Western Dollars Trilogy (and Once Upon a Time in America). Also the WWII film “The Battle of the Bulge” was filmed in Spain. Apparently Spain in the ’60’s was a haven for international film productions.
Yes, and Franco’s film was produced: Raza.
Franco was in fact very interested in the power of cinema. His insistence that all foreign films be dubbed by Spanish actors led to decades of supremely unfortunate-sounding movies and TV shows in Spain.
When I lived there in the 90s, the only competently voiced foreign television show was The Simpsons. Absolutely everything else was right out of Women On the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.
No one could be that weird on purpose.
I think the mystery of Wiseau’s money has been greatly exagerated.
The background shots for the Room were shot from a rooftop of a multistory commercial building near fisherman’s wharf in SF. Sestero was suprised to discover that Wiseau owned the building— which housed his blue jeans business. If you own a building in a prime location in San Francisco can you afford to blow millions on a vanity movie? I think you can.
The $6 million price tag for The Room is also probably bogus. First nobody but Wiseau has ever seen a budget— assuming there even was a budget. The $6 million figure is just something that crew members made up and Sestero repeated in his book. Second, the biggest expense by far was that Wiseau purchased all of the camera and lighting equipment for the film rather than renting it. Either he resold it and got some of his money back or is keeping it for whatever reason. The next largest expense was supposed to be renting a billboard in LA for five years. How much does this cost? A thousand a week? Ten Thousand?
The Disaster Artist is based on a book of the same name that reveals some of Wiseau’s origins, or at least his multiple contradictory accounts of them. He was born impoverished in Poland in the ’50s, illegally immigrated to Strasbourg when he was young (thereby developing his strange muddled accent), worked a series of dirty jobs throughout France, then moved to Chalmet, Louisiana to live with his aunt and uncle and work in their general store. He finally settled in San Francisco on the advice of a friend.
After this is where the story gets vague. Apparently in SF he worked in a “mobbed-up” restaurant. One day a mysterious man with a shaved head came into the restaurant and offered him a job selling cheap toys to tourists on Fisherman’s Wharf. Wiseau was so successful at this that he opened up a booth in an indoor marketplace beside the restaurant he used to work at. His merch expanded to clothes and jewelery. Soon he moved into an actual retail space in a large building. Somehow, he eventually came to own the entire building, which he then demolished to make way for a new four-story headquarters.
Wiseau would come to buy many more valuable properties in SF and open new stores, amassing a fortune. How any of this is possible for such a seemingly dysfunctional person, in such a short period of time, is, well, the stuff of movies.
Certainly the most bizarre theory is that Wiseau is actually the parachuting skyjacker D.B. Cooper. Alas, it almost certainly isn’t true. If Cooper is still alive he would be at least in his early 80’s, and while Wiseau is probably a good deal older than his late 40’s as he claims he definitely could not be that old.
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The Duck’s will join his namesake Muammar in an ignominious death – but not by our hand. It will be his BFF’s that deliver the fatal blow. Nemesis will have her vengeance. And the Duck will be thinking WTF?
Franco was in fact very interested in the power of cinema. His insistence that all foreign films be dubbed by Spanish actors led to decades of supremely unfortunate-sounding movies and TV shows in Spain.
When I lived there in the 90s, the only competently voiced foreign television show was The Simpsons. Absolutely everything else was right out of Women On the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.Replies: @syonredux
The Franco government was also quite accommodating to Hollywood film-makers who were interested in filming big-budget epics in Spain: The Fall of the Roman Empire, 55 Days at Peking, John Paul Jones , etc. Probably the best of the lot was, appropriately enough, El Cid. Anthony Mann’s direction was top-notch (his work here comparing quite favorable to the string of brilliant Westerns that he made in the ’50s: Winchester ’73, Man of the West , The Man from Laramie), and Charlton Heston was quite good as the eponymous hero (David Thompson notes how the film made excellent use of Heston’s “innate Arthurian dignity).
Just got back from seeing The Disaster Artist, and I can heartily recommend it. It’s extremely funny, and Franco is quite good as Wiseau. As Steve notes, it’s not as good as Ed Wood, but that’s an awfully high bar for any film to meet.
“Nobody else more familiar with the story than me seems to believe this, but my guess is that he suffered brain damage in the accident, which could be why he talks funny”
My friend expressed the same thought when we’d watched this at the cinema. Of course, if you are familiar with the hilariously bad ‘The Room’ and enjoyed this film then you won’t want to accept that this could be true. It means you are no longer laughing at a deluded buffoon but someone with brain damage.
Are there any bad movies about belovedly good movies?
I can think of some bad songs about good songs– Eddie Money’s “Take Me Home Tonight”, and recently when I gas up– actually, banana up– at Kwik Trip, I’ll hear some weird emo take on the classic “Heart and Soul”.
One of the guys who camel-nosed in on Hoagy and Frank’s gem is from a large family named Monahan. Haven’s clan?
My mom and her friends would sing something I always thought was “Heart of My Heart”, and they may have called it that themselves. But no, it was “The Gang That Sang ‘Heart of My Heart’”, written in the 1920s and later a big hit for an early-’50s equivalent of today’s boy bands. But “Heart of My Heart” itself is ca. 25 years older.
About the same time, Charles Gates Dawes, Coolidge’s VP, was brought back to life when his “Melody in A” became “It’s All in the Game”.
Those acts moved truckloads of records between the early-mid 50s and the introduction of the Beatles. Then vanished as if they never existed.Replies: @Authenticjazzman
Wiseau claims his accent is from New Orleans. He and Franco were on Howard Stern’s show last week. He’s a passionate nutjob.
Is thE Disaster Artist worth watching if I didn’t see The Room?
I checked this movie out locally. An afternoon senior ticket was $11.69 with a $1.75 “convenience fee”, so that’s $13.50.
I don’t think so. It will be on Amazon Prime or at Redbox for $1.50 soon enough. Sad, because I like going to movies.
A bit off topic, but I really liked the mystery/thriller novel “Night Film,” about a mysterious cult movie director.
After watching this movie and The Deuce,
think James Franco better actor than thought.
think James Franco better actor than thought.
I've always thought he was very good and don't understand why so many people seem to dislike him so much. Annoyance at his high self-esteem and immense ambition? Envy? I dunno, but it's unlikely to be the quality of his acting.
From Freaks & Geeks on, his portrayals have always seemed right on the money. Here he is as an eminently believable weed dealer--language, subject matter utterly NSFW:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TUTxAK1EqQ
https://xkcd.com/1400/
The rumor is he illegally imported “flawed” i.e. mistakenly sewn jeans straight from the alleys behind Asian sweatshops to America. He started with a kiosk and moved to a few crappy strip mall outlets. The company/store was called American Street Fashion. Made a mint over a decade before NAFTA allowed big retailers to copy his strategy.
Always thought he had some slight autism. He desperately wanted to be an actor, so he ripped off a bunch of scenes from serious dramatic films without understanding them or humans. The Room is entertaining as it’s like peering into a parallel universe where God has autistic logic.
I also recommend this film wholeheartedly, along with the book it’s based on. It’s both hilarious and an interesting spotlight into Hollywood, taken from an unusual angle. Franco went all out in his performance of Tommy, who’s not exactly an easy character to step into. This film was clearly a labor of love for him.
I rarely say this, but my only complaint about the film is that it was a little short. There were loads of hilarious and interesting stories from the book that were not included.
As for Wiseau’s background, Sestero hints at it in the book as best he can without offending Tommy. He was apparently born behind the Iron Curtain, lived in France for a time where he changed his name to Wiseau (which could not actually pass for a French name, as it starts with a “W”), and eventually found the opportunity to immigrate to the U.S. He did live in New Orleans for a time before moving out to California.
As for where he made his money, he was apparently involved in some sort of gray-market clothing distribution scheme. But it’s unclear if this was the true source of the wealth or just something he happened to be doing when Sestero met him.
I think brain damage from the car crash is reasonably likely. I don’t know if he actually has a speech impediment or not, but the book goes into how he would spend hours every night trying to sharpen his English and conceal his accent, and it never got any better.
It appears that Wiseau hated his homeland from an early age and always wanted to be American. It bothers him to no end that he can’t drop the accent that endlessly causes people to question how American he is. There’s a comment on immigration in there somewhere.
To be fair, $90 million is excessive
This is the absolute worst song ever about an awesome song. This abomination dares to reference a classic. It’s the musical equivalent of taking filet mignon, and dunking it in that stuff people put on their fingernails to stop biting them.
You have been warned.
I always just assumed that Wiseau was a Jew and so had access to LA entertainment money and connections that the goyim don’t.
Why go see this when you can watch the real thing? It’s like going to see a cover band of a band that’s still actively touring.
The Room is great fun. Unlike other so- bad- they’re- good movies, it’s a drama, not sci fi so its awfulness comes not from low budget special effects but from terrible acting and script writing.
Ava Gardner was famously fond of Spanish bullfighters and had racked up quite a score of them, which of course outraged Frank Sinatra. She did have to tone down her public antics on the grounds of Spanish propriety and although she kept her mouth shut, apparently hated the Franco regime.
There were the Four Lads, the Four Aces, the Four Preps, and at least one other such outfit, not counting The Four Seasons and the Four Tops. And the Lettermen, and a bunch of others not named the Four [Something]s too. Male white/((white)) pop quartets , not R&B, doo wop or barbershop acts. (There was some overlap in repertoire: everyone in easy listening did Gaudio/Crewe songs and the more popular Motown chestnuts, as well as the occasional jazzed up barbershop tune, but these acts were clearly outside those genres.)
Those acts moved truckloads of records between the early-mid 50s and the introduction of the Beatles. Then vanished as if they never existed.
Movie ticket prices seem to be going up very rapidly. I think the theaters that switched over to giant recliners for seats kept their prices down for a little while and are now trying to cash in.
You could watch a compilation of the most famous scenes on youtube. That’s enough.
I have just watched the AlphaGo Movie, it is so sycophantic I assume that the AI had a hand in its creation
You know what it's messages are? Diversity is strength and is necessary to fight white racism
Looks like you guys worldview is unpopular!Replies: @bored identity, @Moses, @anon, @JustJeff, @fish, @MichaelRolls
What a unique and interesting message of the sort I’ve never seen in any film ever. Except all of them. Obviously.
“In contrast, the other Franco, Francisco, who had the good sense to sit out WWII, does not appear to have been.”
Franco was a huge fan of movies, so much so that he wrote the screenplay to one anonymously which got produced and released during the early days of his regime.
Blu Ray cover:
Tommy’s DVD interview(partially overdubbed):
Tommy’s AMA:
Tommy’s reviews of “The Room”:
http://www.imdb.com/user/ur3129190/comments
Of course it all depends upon one’s opinions, but “Groovy Kind of Love” – perhaps most famous for having been covered by Phil Collins, but written by a seventeen-year-old in twenty minutes, may be a bad version of Muzio Clementi’s Sonatina in G Major, though one cannot say it is about that piece.
Larry McNally’s “The Motown Song,” made famous by Rod Stewart, is pretty god-awful, but it’s about a genre.
I think “Take Me Home Tonight” is a masterpiece of pop-rock, and Ronnie Spector agreed at least enough to sing on it herself, so whaddaya whaddaya…?
Those acts moved truckloads of records between the early-mid 50s and the introduction of the Beatles. Then vanished as if they never existed.Replies: @Authenticjazzman
You forgot the greatest of them all :
The four freshmen.
“Poinciana”, “Day by day” etc. : Pure magic.
The marvelous bone solo on “Day by day” still rings through my mind after sixty-plus years on wax
Authenticjazzman “Mensa” qualified since 1973, airborne trained US Army vet, and pro jazz musician ( plus vocals)
Led to another incredible vocal group: The Beach Boys.Replies: @Authenticjazzman
think James Franco better actor than thought.Replies: @slumber_j
After watching this movie and The Deuce,
think James Franco better actor than thought.
I’ve always thought he was very good and don’t understand why so many people seem to dislike him so much. Annoyance at his high self-esteem and immense ambition? Envy? I dunno, but it’s unlikely to be the quality of his acting.
From Freaks & Geeks on, his portrayals have always seemed right on the money. Here he is as an eminently believable weed dealer–language, subject matter utterly NSFW:
“People really like movies.”
Include me out. But I’m grateful Steve watches them for us and deciphers the entrails.
One thing I can’t get my head round is the number of childless, uber-feminist SJW females who love love love horror/gore/Tarantino type stuff, including plenty of women being slaughtered, yet get terribly upset if a woman (holding the right views of course) gets mildly criticised online.
Can anyone explain this paradox?
Yep : Rampant incurable insanity.
Authenticjazzman "Mensa" qualified since 1973, airborne trained US Army Vet, and pro Jazz musician.
Since Ed Wood was mentioned, I’d like to take this opportunity to praise one of my favorite movie jokes: when a stagehand is asked which dress he prefers, and he says he’s colorblind, “But I kinda like the dark gray one.”
Well, perhaps Luis Bunuel soured him on films during the '30's.
Although in the '60's, Spain allowed Sergio Leone to film his Spaghetti Western Dollars Trilogy (and Once Upon a Time in America). Also the WWII film "The Battle of the Bulge" was filmed in Spain. Apparently Spain in the '60's was a haven for international film productions.Replies: @a reader
Once Upon a Time in America was shot in the U.S., Italy, France and Quebec.
Include me out. But I'm grateful Steve watches them for us and deciphers the entrails.
One thing I can't get my head round is the number of childless, uber-feminist SJW females who love love love horror/gore/Tarantino type stuff, including plenty of women being slaughtered, yet get terribly upset if a woman (holding the right views of course) gets mildly criticised online.
Can anyone explain this paradox?Replies: @Authenticjazzman, @BB753
” Can anyone explain this paradox?”
Yep : Rampant incurable insanity.
Authenticjazzman “Mensa” qualified since 1973, airborne trained US Army Vet, and pro Jazz musician.
Four Freshmen were great.
Led to another incredible vocal group: The Beach Boys.
OK. Now that that's clear, two notes:
- The book's author, Greg Sestero, wrote (I'm paraphrasing) that Tommy Wiseau is the last person he'd have in a criminal enterprise. His money had to have been legally made.
- As for as Njguy73 is concerned, Tommy Wiseau is the true symbol of what it means to come to this country ans reinvent yourself. He's the real American Dream.Replies: @Percy Gryce
As I recall from The Disaster Artist (the book), Tommy Wiseau made his initial money from peddling little toys and tourist gewgaws–particularly little toy birds, from which he gained the nickname “The Birdman.” He turned that into some kind of clothing importing business. But he also got funding from an insurance settlement after a warehouse fire, about which there is the strong implication that the fire was set.
The Star Wars prequels.
More seriously: Under the Rainbow:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083254/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rm09nLK-Pg8Replies: @Percy Gryce
Yes, the RLM boys get The Disaster Artist (the movie) right: it’s a sugar-coating of the story told by The Disater Artist (the book): Wiseau is basically a manipulative asshole who often gets a pass because he’s damned weird.
He was a cameraman and apparently he, a veteran of silent B&W era, actually was colorblind.
Yes, I let those proxies watch my bad movies for me and then, through their commentary, transform them into art.
Led to another incredible vocal group: The Beach Boys.Replies: @Authenticjazzman
Beach boys were okay, but they never came close to the sophistication of the Freshmen, plus the Freshmen did Jazz which of course elevated them to another artistic level.
I would wager to say that the Beach Boys would have held their own in a Jazz setting.
Oh yeah and the “Hi Lo’s” : wonderful.
Authenticjazzman “Mensa” qualified since 1973, airborne trained US Army Vat, and pro jazz artist.
Include me out. But I'm grateful Steve watches them for us and deciphers the entrails.
One thing I can't get my head round is the number of childless, uber-feminist SJW females who love love love horror/gore/Tarantino type stuff, including plenty of women being slaughtered, yet get terribly upset if a woman (holding the right views of course) gets mildly criticised online.
Can anyone explain this paradox?Replies: @Authenticjazzman, @BB753
You mean stuff like Roth’s Hostel? (Hostel 2 was pretty good for its genre though absolutely disgusting from a non-cinematic point of view.
It was a big hit for Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, so I thought you were talking about Graham Gouldman, who wrote many those dark-sounding, minor-key northern English pop hits of the day. (His father was a cantor.) But no, it was by Carol Bayer Sager and Toni Wine, both teenagers.
Seven degrees of separation department: I was on a high profile gig recently (82-year-old major artist), and the pianist/conductor said Don Shelton, who joined the Hi Lo’s in 1959, and is now retired in Palm Springs, had mentioned that his long-time Singers Unlimited partner, Bonnie Herman, would surely like to see the major artist’s show. To which one of our violists (a fabulous jingle singer in her own right), responded, “sure, I’ll text her.” To me, an amazing casual exchange among some of finest popular music artists Western Civilization has produced.