I promise you, dear reader, that I take no delight in reporting a significantly low attendance for the Cineworld exclusive advance-screening of James Franco’s The Disaster Artist. As a story which charts and recreates the creation of a notoriously bad cult movie, it’s already quite a niche piece of work. No bad thing, given its subject. But as such, the film rests is theatrical hopes on two key factors: a) That the viewing audience has seen Tommy Wiseau’s The Room, and b) That the viewing audience don’t mind being reminded that they’ve seen Tommy Wiseau’s The Room*1. As the Venn-diagram of that demographic crossed with Unlimited Card holders in the South Oxfordshire area showed, audiences will be ‘select’ for this feature, and intentionally so.
More worryingly, looking around the room at the attendees I’m fairly certain some of them had come along because it was an advance screening of ‘a comedy movie’ and they had no idea what The Room is really like*2, despite The Disaster Artist’s best efforts to illustrate otherwise.
Adapted from producer Greg Sestero’s book on his memories of making the film, this comedic-dramatisation opens with a series of vox pops from the likes of Kristen Bell, Kevin Smith and JJ Abrams, speaking in reverential tones about the continued sustainability of The Room and its enduring appeal on the midnight circuit. From there we jump back to late 1997 when young aspiring actor Greg meets the outlandish Tommy at a drama class and the two begin to inspire each other, albeit to make a dreadful movie, and progress toward the evening of the film's 2003 Hollywood premiere.
As a separate entity, The Disaster Artist itself is perfectly acceptable. With the James Franco portraying the raven-haired auteur Wiseau and his brother Dave playing Sestero, they manage to lose their usually-annoying screen presences into the roles completely. But in order for this film to work, it does require you, the viewer, to believe that there is some artistic or historical worth in The Room. Even at its most insightful, this is just a fairly good re-telling of something awful; not pointing and laughing, but being supportive and understanding of a demonstrably atrocious piece of work. There’s no doubt that The Disaster Artist is made with absolute commitment*3, but it spent 103 minutes reminding me of the worst 99 minutes of my life…
While every artistic effort may indeed be valid, it does not automatically follow that every result should be rewarded. Stop encouraging this shit.
The Room, to be honest..
If it's your thing, absolutely.
Validate cloying inanity? Yeah.
No.
No.
No.
Level 1: This has got the director of The Force Awakens in it. In one of those 'as himself' roles, but it still counts.
*1 I’ve mentioned this before, I’m sure, but it certainly bears repeating in relation to The Room: I don’t believe in ‘so bad it’s good’ cinema. A bad movie is a bad movie, and other than an example to learn and progress from (for both audiences and filmmakers), low standards should not be encouraged or celebrated. By all means make a cheap, schlocky exploitation film, but make a good one. And I don’t care how much The Disaster Artists paint’s Tommy Wiseau’s failed vision as noble and inspirational – sometimes, just sometimes, if everyone’s telling you you’re crap, it’s because you really are crap. [ BACK ]
*2 The ambling pace with which several viewers made their way to and from the toilet during the film suggested they held no real agenda to minimise the amount of the movie they subsequently missed. Although to be fair, at least they did come back; no walk-outs for this one. [ BACK ]
*3 And the film’s closing side-by-side reconstructions of The Room's iconically bad scenes are self-indulgent beyond belief. Yeah I get it, you can time a setup and mimic over/under-acting, good for you, mate. [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Full disclosure: I've never seen an episode of Baywatch. But that shouldn't matter, right? Paramount certainly don't seem to think so, with the erstwhile jewel in the crown of Saturday evening programming dusted down and retooled in sunbleached widescreen for the next, hopefully unfussy, generation.
So, you know the drill. Something, something, the Baywatch crew are A Family™; something, something evil drug-dealing property-developer; something, something action-sequence approximately every twelve minutes. There's the muscly one, the thick one, the hot one, the geeky one, and the other two attractive ones that the story doesn't know what to do with, so they're just hanging around in the background most of the time. Also, dick-jokes. This film hopes you haven't seen dick-jokes before.
Formulaic, self-satisfied and more fixated with bathing-suits than even a film set on a beach should be, this feels like Michael Bay directed a studio-comedy. Baywatch is the film that went to the party dressed as 23 Jump Street, but received compliments all night for its Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates 2 outfit.
It's not without a certain juvenile charm, but that wears thin in short order and the film is littered with jokes which must have looked hilarious on paper, lost completely between sloppy editing and uninspired performances. Although that's often a by-product of having six writers onboard. And for every high-framerate jumping stunt or glorious beach sunrise, there's an intercut shot which was so obviously filmed on a soundstage with shoddy lighting and colour-timing, that it might as well be plasticine stop-motion for all its visual continuity. And of course there's a reel of what would normally be out-takes, but are mainly lines of dialogue which were dropped from the film entirely (for reasons which become apparent as you watch). I suppose I should be thankful this wasn't made starring Mark Wahlberg, at least…
But ultimately, I've seen worse. In fact, I've seen worse with this cast. Plus, the sun, sand, unfeasible gymnastics and erratic gunfire has reminded me that I haven't played Vice City Stories for too long. So I've got that to look forward to again…
…and can we all stop pretending David Hasselhoff is some sort of post-ironic cultural icon, please? He was wooden back in the day, he's worse now that he thinks he's doing it deliberately*1.
C.H.i.P.s. (even though this is nowhere near as offensively poor, to be fair).
No.
I hope not.
No.
Probably not, but that really depends on how effusive you are about it.
There is; composer Christopher Lennertz seems to have worked it into the track running behind the jet-ski chase and ensuing punch-up.
Level 2: Jon Bass is in this (in a part clearly written for Josh Gad), and he was in last year's Loving along with Joel 'Young Uncle Owen' Edgerton.
*1 Watching him mangle his few lines of already-simplistic dialogue in this film is embarrassing. Okay, it's maybe not the most humiliating thing David's ever appeared in but he got paid for his return to Baywatch, which in many ways makes it worse. The film acts like Hasselhoff's appearance is some sort of surprise cameo that the audience weren't expecting, apparently unaware that its own opening credits feature the words "and David Hasselhoff" (the same goes for Pamela You-Know-Who's walk-on*2). Guardians 2 only pulled this shit off because the rest of the film was so good, and even then the final musical number threatens to undo that goodwill. Seriously film-makers, stop it. [ BACK ]
*2 And while I normally steer well-clear of casting cheap or tasteless aspersions on the physical appearance of the seasoned performers, I've got to say that it looks like Pamela Anderson is being played by a drag-queen in this movie. And yeah, a footnote within a footnote. How very meta… [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
In an unforeseen move, a gap in the blockbuster schedule appears to have brought us exactly the kind of filler usually reserved for the graveyard-shifts in March and October. No matter, this film's set on a sunny tropical island, and it is currently Summer round my way, so break out the Hawaiian shirts and Margaritas, it's time to go and be obnoxious at somebody's wedding!
Yes, Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates*1 follows the titular brothers, notorious within their family circle for ruining parties and get-togethers, as they're ordered by their parents to find dates for their younger sister's wedding in the hopes that this will calm them down and avoid embarrassment. After they advertise their requirements on Craigslist - including the free holiday to Hawaii where the wedding is to be held - they end up attracting the kind of guests who are even more badly behaved than they are. And thus the comedy arises…
When the film is running through its genre-standard gags and set-pieces (booze, slapstick and dick-jokes), it's amusing enough. However, the moments of ill-judged (and ill-executed) characterisation are where the cracks really start to appear. The harder the film tries - whether it's raising the gross-out stakes or being brazenly, self-indulgently sappy - the closer it edges to failure. And while Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza, Adam Devine and Zac Effron are all likeable screen-presences, they do little to gel together and are largely on autopilot here. Kendrick and Plaza come out of the whole thing better than their male counterparts (even though the former looks visibly out of her depth on several occasions), but there's the feeling throughout that the principal quartet are capable of so much better.
The main story's Hawaii setting underlines that this is very much the white-trash cousin of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and other than the apparently quasi-biographical aspect, this movie could have been made at any point in the last 30 years, with any cast, and had ultimately the same effect. This will be perfectly fine for a night in with some friends, but it's nothing you probably haven't seen elsewhere. As provocative as Mike And Dave tries to be, it's ultimately harmless, if potty-mouthed, fluff.
Ninety-eight minutes of drunken shouting and embarrassment. Generally speaking I identified with that, but I'm deducting a point for the mortifying finale-performance of This Is How We Do It and for the closing credits gag-reel of improvised out-takes, each one succinctly demonstrating why it didn't make the final edit.
If you're with friends and you're going to have a few drinks before or after, sure.
Then again, you could wait three months and have just as enjoyable time doing that at home.
Not as much as it thinks it does.
No.
Probably not.
No, but that eagie-screech is in there.
Level 2: This movie stars Adam Devine, who provided voice-work for Ice Age: Collision Course alongside Simon 'Dengar/Plutt' Pegg.
*1 And fair fucking play to the powers-that-be for naming this film "Mike And Dave…" rather than "Mike & Dave…". Punctuation breaks hashtags, and movie-titles featuring ampersands are a recurring bugbear of mine. At least this way people can tweet about the film properly. Yes, it's the little things that make me happy.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Bad Neighbours 2 (or "Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising" if you're not in the UK)
Cert: 15 / 92 mins / Dir. Nicholas Stoller / Trailer
In the opening 60 seconds of Bad Neighbours 2, Rose Byrne's character is sick onto the face of Seth Rogen's character*1 while they're having sex. Now, this early on in the proceedings you should still be able to nip back out to the ticket-counter and ask for a refund*2 before spending the following ninety minutes doing something more productive and/or rewarding. As an added bonus, you can still tell people you've watched Bad Neighbours 2, because that scene is a perfect crystallisation of everything which is to follow…
So, a couple of years after the events of Bad Neighbours, Seth and Rose find themselves expecting another child (which serves as the paper-thin excuse for the aforementioned emetical joke), so are looking to upgrade to a larger home. Next door's frat-house from the first movie has fallen into disrepair, its inhabitants having moved out after graduation (the main core of which return for this film in separately filmed scenes, presumably written and added well into post-production). But the sale of the Seth and Rose's house is threatened when Zac Efron helps Chloë Grace Moretz*3 set up a sorority house next door for plot reasons! The girls move in and have parties and are noisy and outrageous and it upsets their adult neighbours, not because they're old and stuffy but because it reminds them they're slipping into middle-age! Yes, again. No, it is a different film because this time it's girls living next door instead of guys and this one's got a '2' at the end of the title, so it's definitely different. And anyone who says it's the same three jokes as last time for another hour and a half is lying! Or has seen both films.
Some of you might expect the replacement of a fraternity with a sorority to be used as a device to let the female performers take the narrative lead and maybe show the guys how it's done! Some of you would be disappointed. The only real feint towards equality here is that all of the characters are equally awful, and are treated as such. "I'm sick of guys telling us what to do!" says Chloë to her two sorority co-founders, not five minutes after the trio had been told what to do by about 100 of their female contemporaries, necessitating the new group in the first place. This level of social oneupmanship continues throughout the film (in exactly the same way that it didn't when it was guys living next door) and is almost completely unresolved. Any messages the film tries to impart relating to either gender or generational divides are as incoherent as they are insincere.
Other than the thematic-collander and recycled story, it's slapstick, weed references and knob-jokes all round*4. A few of these land well, but can't excuse the vehicle used to deliver them. But hey, the other two people in the auditorium laughed heartily throughout the film, so I'm clearly in a minority, statistically at least. Nothing new there, either.
Much like the film's opening scene, Bad Neighbours 2 is Universal's comedy department vomiting into the mouth of their audience whilst simultaneously fucking them and telling everyone it's funny.
Maybe it is, I suppose it depends on where you're sitting...
The first one.
This is a £3 DVD (and not a good one), inexplicably playing in your local multiplex at a 300%+ markup..
…annoy me? Yes.
No.
Yes.
No.
Level 1: Dormé's in it.
*1 Do the characters have names? I have no idea. I mean, they're barely even characters...
*2 By this point you will have already sat through the trailer for the Mother's Day. Those three minutes alone entitle you to a bit of your money back.
*3 When the acclaimed actress Chloë Grace Moretz signed on to star in The Equalizer, I imagine she did it as a gesture of goodwill, not least since she'd be working with Oscar-winner Denzel Washington. The end-result of course was that she had a very small role in a slightly lacklustre action movie, but there was no real harm done, either to the genre, box office figures or her career. Likewise, Chloë's performance as Hit-Girl in the well-received Kick-Ass more or less assured her place in its somewhat underwhelming sequel. But again, I think we can all see the logic which went into her autograph at the foot of the contract. But what chain of events has lead to an undeniably promising young performer, whose best work should yet be ahead of her, appearing in the lazy, unasked-for sequel to a charmless, unwarranted original? At what point in her life was CGM chilling out on a Saturday night with a bunch of friends, when she sat bolt upright on the sofa and pointed, spellbound, at one of Seth Rogen's also-ran movies and gasped "That! I want to be in THAT! Get my agent on the phone! Are they making a sequel? Can I FINANCE a sequel just to be a canonical part of this cinematic saga??". Because there's little-enough reason for the main cast to leave the house for this dross without besmirching the CVs of even more people, too.
*4 To the film's credit, there's a pretty good Insidious 2 joke in there, which is executed with more subtlety and wit than the rest of the movie put together. That's it, though.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Bad Neighbours (or "Neighbors" if you're not in the UK)
Cert: 15 / 97 mins / Dir. Nicholas Stoller
Is this really only 97 minutes? It seems longer when you're in there. Nick Stoller's frat-boy comedy feels like a spiritual successor to Superbad and Knocked Up for its star, Seth Rogen, who comfortably eases into the role of the mid-life crisis next door, and he and Rose Byrne give the most value for money in their roles as suburban parents who have a fraternity house move in yards away from them. The film has plenty of chuckles and a few scattered belly laughs, as well as all the dick, fart and weed jokes you've come to expect from this ensemble.
What it lacks, unfortunately, is both heart and narrative drive*1. Bad Neighbours never becomes more than a collection of individually humourous sketches, and when they're played in succession, the whole thing starts to sag. By no means awful, but it's an also-ran, even by Rogen's fluctuatingstandards.
But, as I sat down in Screen 2 to watch this film, the trailer was playing for the Mrs Br*wn's B*s film, followed by the trailer for A Million Ways To Die In The West, then Blended. Which pretty much makes Bad Neighbours the average-looking punter who rolls up to a party with a bunch of ugly friends in an attempt to make themselves look hotter.
And after a fashion, the film succeeds on that level if no other.
Well, all the best gags are spoiled by the trailer, so yes.
Sometimes.
Not for me.
DVD, tops.
Nah.
Maybe, but it won't be by my choosing.
I didn't hear one.
Do you get the feeling that Christopher Mintz-Plasse knows he's painted himself into a corner, now?
*1 I know that sounds like I'm asking too much, but the Rogen-penned Superbad had both, as did Stoller's Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
