Take the Money and Run

SMALL TIME CROOKS (2000)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Original Review from 2000

Woody Allen continues to make films his own way, and that is a major feat for an artist who has yet to have a major box-office success since "Hannah and Her Sisters." I am not sure "Small Time Crooks" will change all that, but let me be the first to report that it is one of Allen's funniest and most endearing films since "Bullets Over Broadway."

Playing a loser for the first time since I can remember, Allen stars as Ray Winkler, an ill-judged bank robber married to his manicurist wife, Frenchy (Tracey Ullman). Ray has a new plan to change his life from his current dishwashing activities - to rob a bank vault by tunneling from an abandoned store's basement. The idea is that the store will be turned into a bakery and Frenchy will run it, along with her cousin, May (Elaine May). The surprise is that the cookies they sell become the talk of the town, and so successful that Frenchy and Ray become rich. Only problem is that their taste in clothes and furniture is garish at best ("Go on honey, show them your collection of leather pigs," quips Ray). Thus, Frenchy enlists the help of a British art dealer (Hugh Grant) who will teach her about class and elegance, and education. Naturally, Ray prefers the life he had and gets the impulse to steal all over again by scheming with May to get a priceless necklace.

"Small Time Crooks" made me laugh from start to finish, and I must thank the great writer-director Woody Allen (a comic genius, in my view). His sharp observations about these colorful brand of characters inspires many memorable one-liners, particularly the droll humor involving the typically relaxing charm of Hugh Grant and the high-pitched Ullman (some of it recalls the naive Annie Hall's dedication to reading more books and taking college courses). Also worth noting is the early appearance of Michael Rapaport (who was also in "Mighty Aphrodite") as a bumbling crook, John Lovitz as a possible entrepreneur who has burned down buildings to support his children's education, and the pleasant air of Elaine May's presence (she last appeared on screen in 1990's "In the Spirit") - she gives her character May a rich array of nuances and perfect comic timing. Her character begs the question - is she really smart or is she as ditsy and naive as we might think? The naysayers who feel that the 64-year-old Allen has been dealing with much younger female leads, such as Elisabeth Shue, will applaud the choice of the 60-year-old Elaine May. Frankly, this is of little importance to me - I would still love to see Allen use Sharon Stone as a lead or foil.

Scrawny Allen is as always scrawny Allen, but here he has a slight edge ("I'd like to flatten you, just once") complemented with the adoration of his wife, Frenchy, and makes his character the most magnetic he's played in some time. Tracey Ullman runs hot and cold for me, but she gets to play a trashy, talkative, sprightly woman with an affection for her husband - we somehow know that things will work out between them despite her affinity for the suave Hugh Grant.

"Small Time Crooks" is not laugh-out loud funny (though there are many sidesplitting moments but I could have done without the faux news segment) but it is smooth and refined, as we might expect post-"Crimes and Misdemeanors" or "Husbands and Wives." It is far more relaxed and kinder than Allen's early slapstick comedies such as "Take the Money and Run" or "Sleeper." I would love it if Allen returned to his more serious Bergmanesque period but as sheer entertainment and pointed humor, it is far more lively and less overstuffed than "Sweet and Lowdown" or "Celebrity." Small time business, to be sure, but you will have a grand time. 

This movie is dead enough

DRACULA: DEAD AND LOVING IT (1995)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Revised review from 1996

Funnyman Mel Brooks was at his peak with parodies of specific genres like "Blazing Saddles," "Young Frankenstein" and "Spaceballs," and the underrated gems that include "High Anxiety" and "Silent Movie." But something became amiss after "Spaceballs" when he failed to truly exploit parodying Robin Hood and his Merry Men of Sherwood in "Robin Hood: Men in Tights," a spectacularly dim and progressively unfunny movie that spent more time mocking Errol Flynn's version than Costner's version. Still, nothing in "Men in Tights" compares to the terminal stupidity of "Dracula: Dead and Loving It," using the absurdly cast Leslie Nielsen as Count Dracula mimicking Bela Lugosi's iconic Hungarian accent. Using Nielsen in this film is useful only in reminding us how much better he was in "The Naked Gun" parodies. It would've been wonderful to cast Frank Langella, who played the Count in the 1979 "Dracula" version, because utilizing Langella's nuanced comic gifts (harkening all the way back to Langella in Mel Brooks' own "Twelve Chairs") could've given this film a necessary lift from its own muted and deadly boring comic rhythms. 

The story in this film closely follows Lugosi's 1931 classic as Dracula parades into England with insect-eating Renfield (Peter MacNicol - an actor unsuitable for comedy as proven with "Ghostbusters II") at his side. Mel Brooks plays a thick-accented Van Helsing, the sleepwalking Harvey Korman plays Dr. Seward and where is Cloris Leachman as Frau Blucher when you really need her? And why bring in Steven Weber and Amy Yasbeck from TV's "Wings" when they are given nothing comedic to do? A sure sign of comic desperation: the movie has repetitive scenes of geysers of blood shooting up from corpses. Once, twice, three times too many.

Mel Brooks does pepper the screen with a couple of highlights that are bound to be missed. Most notable is a subtle nod to Scorsese's "The Age of Innocence" but nothing comes of it (it involves opera glasses). I liked the Anne Bancroft cameo where she plays a demanding gypsy which is a particular nod to Maria Ouspenskaya from Lon Chaney's "The Wolf Man." But are audiences going to get the in-jokes and references to Christopher Lee and the myriad Hammer Horror films? I doubt it. Jokes targeting Coppola's version of the good old Count are abysmal. Dracula's ridiculous hair net is actually a...hat! Ha!

"Dracula: Dead and Loving it" basically retells the 1931 film's story without much comic ingenuity - it practically plays it straight. Mel Brooks has gone on to producing some of his best films into musicals. This last directorial effort is splashy blood gags and little else.

Simon Templar as Unintentional Farce

THE SAINT (1997)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
Original Review from April, 1997

There is no doubt in my mind that 1997's "The Saint" is a complete disaster - it is preposterous, predictable to the core, insanely over-the-top and downright embarrassing. Somehow, though, I enjoyed the heck out of it because it is the latest entry in the least understood movie genre known as the Guilty Pleasure genre or the "I hate to admit it, but I liked it" genre. Val Kilmer has a few of those in his repertoire, and this movie is certainly among them.

Based on the lively Roger Moore  TV series of the late 60's, it actually resembles Val Kilmer's own intentional parody of spy films, the hysterical "Top Secret." Kilmer plays Simon Templar, a high-tech thief who can steal almost any valuable from any high-security building or palace. His bank account is almost in the fifty million dollar range - he wants to try out one more caper and then he'll retire. Yeah, we never heard that idea before but usually it is with older men. Templar is still young so why would he want to retire? Who is his employer? Oh, never mind.

Enter Elisabeth Shue as a nuclear physicist (or is she a chemist?) who knows a thing or two about plutonium, and warns underwhelmed fellow scientists of its dangers and capabilities. Templar wants the sacred plutonium, in actuality some sort of cold fusion formula devised by Shue, which is hidden in some fortress but it manages to land in the hands of the Russians who want it for profit value (One of the Russian baddies is played by Valery Nikolaev, who was put to better use later that year in "U-Turn"). At least that is what I gather from the plot, though it is as confusing and labyrinthine as "Mission Impossible." Shue eventually falls in love with Templar and they are both on the run, but from whom exactly?

"The Saint" has various loopholes, characters, double-crosses and plot holes big enough to drive a 65-million dollar budget through that I gave up trying to follow the movie, and decided to enjoy it for whatever else there was. The main pleasure is derived from Val Kilmer's exceptionally clever and engaging performance as the cryptic Saint who disguises himself as a Jim Morrison-like poet, a nerdy scientist, an arms dealer with a wild hairdo, etc. The point of the movie is to witness the various disguises and accents Kilmer has in store, and it is enthralling to watch him perform.

Less enthralling is Elisabeth Shue who has sweet chemistry with Kilmer yet elicits zero charisma and personality - is this the same Oscar-nominated actress from "Leaving Las Vegas"? Her appearance suggests a naughty schoolgirl more so than a scientist giving lectures.

I know I shouldn't recommend "The Saint" but it is unintentionally and unforgivably funny and so entertaining that I didn't mind sitting through it (though I may not sit through it again), It is a clean, inoffensive and innocuous movie with big stars, several one-liners, cardboard villains, some old-fashioned narrow escapes and general derring-do. Don't expect anything resembling art. 

Anxiety-ridden Superheroes

BATMAN V. SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE (2016)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Reprinted with permission by Steel Notes Magazine

Reviewing a comic-book title like “Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice” should be a cinch. The two most iconic superheroes fight each other, there is the diabolical Lex Luthor, Wonder Woman and the potential members for a future “Justice League” film show up and there is some monstrous, Frankenstein-like creation called Doomsday. The fight of the century, lots of ear-splitting explosions on cue, crumbling tall buildings and it is all over. In other words, Michael Bay could have directed this in his sleep. Case closed; millions of dollars later, the studio got itself another cash cow that fell short of those billion dollar expectations. Only none of this is true. The fight of the century occurs at the hour and a half meter and it lasts a mere ten minutes. Zack Snyder’s cool, calculated and elegantly somber film is suffused with political innuendoes and a touchingly brief romance between Superman and Lois. It also asks us to question Superman’s existence – friend or foe? It also has Ben Affleck’s Batman who is conflicted about that flying alien with a red cape. No ordinary comic-book movie by any stretch of the imagination.

Right from the start of the film, I could tell that Zack Snyder found his calling in making something more epic and deeper than what I saw in trailers. Ben Affleck’s aged Bruce Wayne is zipping around Metropolis as he witnesses Superman fighting General Zod (the finale from “Man of Steel”) as they thrash against buildings left and right. The trouble is that one of those buildings is Wayne’s property and he watches it crumbling with his office workers down for the count. Yep, he is none too happy.

Meanwhile, the idealistic reporter Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) is hoping to expose Batman as a masked avenger who literally brands criminals. Yet the evermore cynical Daily Planet editor Perry White (Laurence Fishburne, who supplies a few flashes of humor) won’t have it. Clark lives with reporter Lois Lane (Amy Adams) and they have a tender scene in a bathtub that shows devotion to each other. Still, Lois can’t be engaged in love matters for too long when she faces trouble in the fictional African country of Nairomi while trying to interview a terrorist. This particular section of the film is slightly muddled (and we get a Jimmy Olsen cameo that tragically ends too soon) since it deals with a bullet that may have been engineered through LexCorp. Superman is blamed for killing civilians in Metropolis and in Nairomi and now he faces a congressional investigation – is Superman a threat to the planet Earth? Lois tries to back up Superman as a savior, not a murderer.
 
“Batman v Superman” is not as fully realized as it should be when it comes to the women characters. Lois is on the sidelines for most of the film, Clark’s mother (Diane Lane) is threatened and held prisoner, and even Gal Gadot as the Amazonian Wonder Woman makes one wish she was given more than a glorified cameo where she helps our caped heroes fight that gargantuan creature called Doomsday. This Doomsday has Kryptonian DNA from General Zod and Lex Luthor’s blood. Speaking of Lex, he is played by long-haired Jesse Eisenberg as a pathological, devilish version of Doc Brown from the “Back to the Future” movies. Eisenberg’s Lex waxes on with a frantic speech pattern and anxious use of his hands and dry-witted lines like, “The red capes are coming.” It is a chilling performance that even takes Superman aback.

But even with its glaring flaws, the movie soars with headless enthusiasm. It has a smooth rhythm and texture of coolness and contains a deliberately serious mood with attention paid to its two main characters. It is not all doom and gloom – I especially laughed at the Lex Luthor scene where he is astounded to see Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne together. Ben Affleck would not have been my first choice to play Batman but I did like his restraint and the world-weary edge he brings to it, provided with welcome support from Jeremy Irons as the faithful servant Alfred who provides dry-witted commentary. Henry Cavill still makes a formidable Superman yet it is really Affleck (surprise, surprise!) who walks away with this movie. Director Zack Snyder also walks away with presenting a more epic, ambitious picture than anyone had any right to expect. He presents two comic-book icons as potential terrorists in a world gone mad, with Lex upping the ante on the anxiety everyone feels. “Batman v Superman” may be the first truly post-modernist comic-book movie of the new millennium. 

Counter-Myth to the Warren Report

JFK (1991)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Originally published by Steel Notes Magazine

“Artists use lies to tell the truth. Yes, I created a lie. But because you believed it, you found something true about yourself.”

                                            ― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

I remember a snippet from a largely forgotten pseudo-documentary called "The Man Who Saw Tomorrow" where Orson Welles, who narrated the film, discusses the JFK assassination as foretold by astrologer Nostradamus. A figure's outline is shown inside a grassy knoll at Dealey Plaza that could be another shooter and I remember, at the tender age of 11, being both shocked and riveted by such a finding (not sure a second shooter literally hid in a grassy knoll but that is a discussion for another time). It made an impact on me and it was fulfilled one million fold by Oliver Stone's "JFK," a three-hour indictment of the Warren Commission's reports on the assassination of a beloved U.S. President, John F. Kennedy. The film itself is one of the few genuine cinematic marvels of the 1990's - it is shocking, riveting to the core, blazingly original, exasperating, exhausting and informative with a tremendous macro and microscopic view of the assassination from so many angles that it will leave you gasping for air. It is Oliver Stone's best, most accomplished work, perhaps his most difficult and certainly his most controversial.

Just how controversial was "J.F.K"? A Washingtonian film critic, Pat Dowell, resigned because the editor would not publish her positive review of the film. GLADD came out in full force to protest the film for its allegedly demeaning view of homosexuals, especially the businessman Clay Shaw (Tommy Lee Jones) - however, according to the Los Angeles Times, no member from the group actually saw the film. In fact, GLADD found the film's shooting script objectionable, including a deleted scene (restored to the Director's Cut Blu-Ray/DVD) where Garrison would be falsely accused of soliciting sex from a gay man in a bathroom. Furthermore, LGBT activists were outside the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion attacking "JFK" and "Silence of the Lambs," which were nominated for Academy Awards, for their unflattering and unsavory depiction of gays in general. Critics excoriated the screenplay in its initial drafts while the film was shooting (how did anyone manage to get a copy of the script?) Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather and Jack Valenti attacked the film as a series of lies - Rather had been a reporter on the scene at Dealey Plaza back in '63 but at the time of the film's 1991 release, he had not seen the film yet claimed it was fraudulent. That would be a far more dangerous thing for a journalist to do than whatever inaccuracies are depicted in Oliver Stone's film.

What has proven to be avoided in the discussion of "JFK" is what the film actually entails. Kevin Costner's New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison sums it up best - "let's speculate, shall we?" That is what Oliver Stone's film is - a wildly speculative assessment of various conspiracy theories that have amassed in the public eye and the literary world since that fateful day on November 22nd, 1963. I do not think Stone addresses the film as truth about who actually shot the President and from what angle - after a while, it doesn't matter nearly as much as why President Kennedy was killed. Stone, who co-wrote the massively detailed screenplay with Zachary Sklar (both adapting books by Jim Mars and Jim Garrison), begins with Dwight D. Eisenhower's famous farewell address to the nation about the military industrial complex and leads to feuds and vendettas between Kennedy and the Cubans, Fidel Castro, J. Edgar Hoover, anti-Castro demonstrators, the CIA and on and on. No one escapes Stone's Wrath of God polemic - everyone in the film who is not on Garrison's side is a traitor and a villain and, therefore, complicit in the murder of John F. Kennedy. Of course this is also Garrison's point-of-view, though why he attacked a businessman like Clay Shaw without hard proof remains a mystery (the film reveals in the credits that Clay admitted to having worked for the CIA under oath - that doesn't mean he was responsible and it is no wonder the guy was acquitted).

Stone's sledgehammering style shows a headlong urgency and need for a serious wake-up call to the defenders of the Warren Commission. With the help of gifted cinematographer Robert Richardson (who also lensed "Natural Born Killers," "Salvador" and other Oliver Stone films), the frequent film stock changes from black-and-white, to color, to 16mm, to 35 mm, to strobing the image create a probing, phantasmagorical, mind-bogglingingly "Rashomon" perspective. Various witnesses who saw shooters at the grassy knoll, who claimed to have seen Jack Ruby (the one who shot Oswald, exceedingly well-played by Brian Doyle-Murray) at Dealey Plaza, who saw gunfire emerging from places other than the Book Depository, who saw Jack Ruby and Oswald together at Ruby's nightclub, and who saw Clay Shaw gathering and planning an assassination with Oswald and various characters such as the volatile, chain-smoking David Ferrie (Joe Pesci) and a male hustler (Kevin Bacon) who believes fascism is making a comeback, create enough doubt that Oswald acted alone. Twice as chilling is Sally Kirkland as a prostitute named Rose, who reported Kennedy was going to be killed (as a witness, like most others, she ends up dead). There are also stellar turns from a superlative cast, including Edward Asner as a private investigator and FBI member; Jack Lemmon; Michael Rooker as New Orleans Assistant District Attorney whose loyalty to Garrison fluctuates; Walter Matthau as Russell Wong who first instills doubts about Oswald to Garrison; the unbeatable and uncanny Gary Oldman as the alleged patsy Oswald (the similarities to the real Oswald are beyond eerie) and last but not least, John Candy in an atypical, juicy character role as Dean Andrews, a sleazy lawyer. And we cannot omit Donald Sutherland's mysterious Mr. X who, in an astonishingly captivating sequence, reveals the apparatus behind the conspiracy and who would've benefited from Kennedy's murder - a coup d'etat that may or may not have been a result of Kennedy's planned withdrawal from Vietnam.
Ending the film is a 40-minute monologue by Jim Garrison as he presents the case in  Clay Shaw's trial of what may have actually happened on that day. It is Kevin Costner's shining moment in his career - an amazingly layered, nuanced and emotional speech that few actors could ever do justice or perform with such conviction. We get all the perspectives, the angles, the possibilities, the half-truths, the lies and the overwhelming sense that maybe we will never know the full story. I've admired Kevin Costner for many years but his Jim Garrison performance is one for the ages.

"JFK" has been outlandishly labeled by the late Jack Valenti as propaganda on the order of Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will." "JFK" is not a propaganda piece - it is, as Stone made clear, a "counter-myth" to the Warren Commission Report. That it is, but it also pinpoints to something grander about the nature of art in general - sometimes, as notable documentarian Robert Flaherty ("Nanook of the North") once said, you have to lie to tell the truth. In Oliver Stone's case, you have to lie and invent dramatic situations to get closer to the deeper truth. The truth is we will never know the full truth but we can only suspect.

Joan Crawford did not have the last word

MOMMIE DEAREST (1981)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Reprinted with permission by Steel Notes Magazine

Thirty-five years since its release (met with disdain by some critics), “Mommie Dearest” almost single-handedly was responsible for the decline in quality movie roles for Faye Dunaway. The movie was considered a travesty of Joan Crawford’s memory and had many wondering if it was not just mere exploitation of true childhood trauma (to be fair, Christina Crawford’s book was accused of the same and also faced a second charge – it was accused of being straight fiction). Time has been kind to the film and it has since become a campy cult classic and a favorite of the gay community. The truth is that after recently seeing the film again, and having my unstained memory of it intact from a VHS viewing back in 1981 or ’82, I can say that “Mommie Dearest” is a sustained mood piece of heightened mania, a no-holds-barred look at a physically and emotionally abusive woman.

Faye Dunaway delivers a pure marvel of a performance (perhaps her last), displaying the haughtiness, the sensitivity and the high-pitched madness of a woman who wanted everything perfect. The cost of her perfection and her compulsive habits was not just to her fleeting relationships with men but her strained, pained and unwieldy relationship with her adopted daughter, Christina. Christina is shown at two different ages, one as a precocious child (Mara Hobel, a haunting performance) who is told that she is an inferior swimmer by Joan amongst other things, and then in post-teenage years as a tacitly rebellious woman (Diana Scarwid) who infuriates Joan when she says one of the single most hilarious lines in the entire film, delivered with great zeal: “I…am…not…one…of…your…fans!” As a child, Christina is forced to sit at the dinner table until she eats her meal, forced to clean the bathroom tiles during the middle of the night, and has chunks of her hair cut rather furiously by Joan (Oh, I must not forget those dreaded wire hangers). As the teenage Christina, she is somehow not allowed to date while attending a private school, and is summarily forced to attend a convent of sorts (though too much of that plot thread is left dangling in the screenwriter’s gutter).

This mother-daughter relationship is very well exposed and justifiably tough to watch. Unfortunately, other characters are left on the sidelines of Joan’s overly manicured gardens. Rutanya Alda as Joan’s long-time housekeeper, Carol Ann, is not given enough to do except react with silent gestures and, though we sense her devotion to this maniac of an actress, there is not much else except a series of reactions. Steve Forrest as a Hollywood lawyer, Gregg Savitt, and Pepsi CEO, Alfred Steele (Harry Goz), are two men most central to Joan’s existence but their appearances are somewhat fleeting (though Forrest charmingly captures the Hollywood of yesteryear). The main focus is on Joan’s fractured, violent relationship to her daughter whom she treats as anything but. It is so bleakly presented with no sweeping camera moves or unnecessary frantic cuts that it remains the most honest depiction of parental abuse of its time.

For all of the intrinsic flaws in “Mommie Dearest” with insufficient nourishment provided to secondary characters, the film still has a hypnotic pull to it, swiftly directed by Frank Perry. Scene after scene, the movie mesmerizes even when it isn’t always attentive to character nuance. Joan is shown as a tyrannical monster more attuned to providing emotional support for her beaus than to her own daughter (Joan even replaces her daughter’s role in a soap opera, much to Christina’s chagrin). The frustration, the anger, the resentments are fully explored and vividly realized in the torrential relationship between Joan and Christina. It is neither campy nor comedic – it is real. I am sure I will not have the last word on that.

Footnote: Please read Rutanya Alda’s own “Mommie Dearest Diaries” available at http://www.amazon.com/Mommie-Dearest-Diary-Carol-Tells/dp/1515260607/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1450297568&sr=8-1&keywords=mommie+dearest+diaries

I did not hate this movie, I love this movie, oh Hi Tommy!

THE DISASTER ARTIST (2017)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"The Room" and its director Tommy Wiseau remain mysteries wrapped inside some sort of Ed Wood cube that Pinhead might be afraid to open. Of all the good-bad movies I've seen in my life, "The Room" is one that cannot really be called a movie or cinema. It is an experience but I do not know what that experience is meant to be and what it says about humanity. Possibly something, maybe nothing. It is a memorable, eye-rolling, almost unspeakably watchable experience yet emotionally empty, putting it kindly. Wiseau is a film director whose past remains a mystery (he claims he is from Louisiana) and his available finances are, well, oh Hi Mark! James Franco's "The Disaster Artist," a delightful mixture of "Living in Oblivion" crossed with "Ed Wood," doesn't exactly answer those questions but it does have plenty of warranted laughs and ball-of-fire performances as it proves how inspiring it is to make a film, even if the film is pure rubbish.

James Franco plays the heavily-accented, supposedly New Orleans-raised Tommy Wiseau, who is seen in the opening scene at an acting class where he does a unique version of Stanley Kowalski from "A Streetcar Named Desire." He screams "STELLA!!!" and writhes and gyrates on stage in ways that Marlon Brando would never have attempted. Tommy grabs the attention of another fellow actor, 19-year-old Greg Sestero (Dave Franco), who hopes to do scenes with Tommy. They become fast friends, so fast that Tommy tells Greg to move into his L.A. apartment with him and they will get agents and becomes big-time Hollywood actors, all done with a pinky swear pact! Greg finds an agent but there are no jobs, and Tommy does not fare any better. What is the next step? Well, make a movie of course and Tommy is flush with so much cash ("a bottomless pit") that he buys two 35mm cameras, two HD cameras and film equipment and directs his own screenplay, not to mention plays the title role. Before long, disaster strikes as Tommy has trouble remembering easy dialogue, greenscreens rooftop scenes, duplicates an alley when they can shoot it right outside the studio, laughs inappropriately during many serious dialogue moments, arrives nude to do his sex scene and has it shot from behind ("So they can see my ass! This is an American movie!") and a lot more drama than the melodramatic hysterics of "The Room."The crew is incredulous at every aspect of this production.

When I heard James Franco was involved in this production, I thought he and the writers Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber would just mock "The Room" and play it for laughs. Surprisingly, that is not the case at all. James Franco and his younger brother, Dave, are solid in this film, making their characters humanistic and their friendship rather touching. Though there are plenty of funny scenes, none of them are overplayed and the crucial relationship between Tommy and Greg forms the backbone of the movie. If that relationship did not work, "The Disaster Artist" would have failed miserably despite a game supporting cast that includes Alison Brie and Seth Rogen. Though I would not paint the Wiseau/Sestero relationship on the same level as Ed Wood and Bela Lugosi's depicted relationship in Tim Burton's "Ed Wood," it comes awfully close. In fact, both "Disaster Artist" and "Ed Wood" share many similarities about the perils of small-scale filmmaking (though few indie filmmakers have 6 million dollars at their disposal) and how a friendship can make up for everything else. Greg is frustrated by Tommy's temper-tantrums on the set and yet, after all the fighting and tension of making the movie, there is still a mutual respect and an unmistakable bond.

Filled with terrifically timed cameos (my favorite might be Bryan Cranston and an unrecognizable Zac Efron), "The Disaster Artist" makes me appreciate "The Room" even more so than before. "The Room" might be Tommy Wiseau's bizarre statement on having respect and love for another but, I have to say, James Franco's film says it and does it better. Along with "Ed Wood," "The Disaster Artist" is one of the greatest modern films ever made about independent filmmaking.