The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made

I've been wanting to read The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, The Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell for awhile now.  My brother and I watched The Room many years ago with some friends; I bought The Disaster Artist as a gift for him several years back because I'd heard it was good; neither of us got around to reading it.  But when I saw a trailer for the movie based off of the book, I told my brother I would drop everything I was reading and read The Disaster Artist instead.  He originally thought I was joking, but true to my word, when he lent it to me I started it.

The Room is a movie created by Tommy Wiseau.  Wiseau writes, directs, produces, and stars in the movie (he plays the main character, Johnny).  Greg Sestero plays Mark, Johnny's best friend who is sleeping with his fiancee. It's a simple story with a simple plot, yet it manages to be absolutely crazy, with nonsensical dialogue, crazy plot holes, and a whole bunch of random shots of skylines.  It's honestly one of those movies you will be wondering how it got made as you are watching it.

The Disaster Artist is the story of how The Room got made, as told by Sestero.  It has two plot threads: the first one is about Sestero's life: how he got started in acting and how he met Wiseau (those two things are really closely intertwined).  The second is how Wiseau made the movie.  Slowly the two stories converge to give you one big long story.

The Disaster Artist is a fascinating look at not only how a notoriously bad movie got made, but also at how hard it is to succeed when you are not a "normal" person (particularly in a place as cutthroat as Hollywood).  I really enjoyed reading it, and look forward to James Franco's movie version this December!