Disaster Artist

The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell, 268 pages

Some years ago, legendary film critic Ken Begg opined that the only way a truly great bad movie can be produced in an era of homogenization, market studies and test audiences is as a vanity project.  The Room is certainly delightfully terrible in every aspect - from set design to music, but especially the script and acting - and every aspect was under the control of one remarkable man, writer-director-producer-star Tommy Wiseau.  But who is Tommy Wiseau?

Since no one seems better qualified to answer that question than best friend and co-star Greg Sestero, it's a bit of a disappointment that he doesn't seem to have a complete answer.  Even in private, Wiseau has been reluctant to discuss his life and deliberately mysterious.  Even the source of The Room's six million dollar budget is unclear.  Yet perhaps Sestero gives the only answer possible - Tommy Wiseau is The Room, and The Room is Tommy Wiseau.

Well-written and consistently entertaining, The Disaster Artist is not only a good description of a slow-motion catastrophe, but also an interesting portrait of struggling actors in LA.