The Disaster Artist by Greg Sestero
Reviewed by Steve(n)
If the difference between a crime and an accident is intent, then the international cult phenomenon that is the famously terrible film The Room bridges the gap between an insidiously surreal performance art prank and a contemptible, cinematic atrocity. Ping-ponging between the two ends of the spectrum is Tommy Wiseau, the enigmatic auteur behind the sensation – revered as a wayward godhead in some circles and reviled as a tyrannical buffoon in others. Regardless of its initial impetus, this polarizing movie has mesmerized audiences the world over, and, even if there is nothing tangible to be gained from watching it, it’s impossible to avert your eyes from exclusive footage of a disaster.
No one is better equipped to tell the story of this catastrophic production than Greg Sestero, the costar of The Room, and his memoir The Disaster Artist is a charming, captivating, and slyly uplifting investigation of the film that he helped to create. Beyond mere rubberneck value, The Disaster Artist is an intelligently candid look at the American dream and the lengths to which some people will go to achieve fame. As a young and not-particularly-gifted actor refining his craft in San Francisco at the turn of the millennium, Greg Sestero had the dubious honor of sharing an acting class with a greasy, scarified, and damaged man who implausibly controlled a vast fortune and, among other things, claimed to be a vampire. This man of course turned out to be Tommy Wiseau, and, as the two developed a flawed sort of friendship, a bizarre thing of beauty wormed out of the scrap heap of their shared disappointments and metamorphosed into the worst movie you will ever see.
The Disaster Artist tells a braided story of a mediocre actor’s rise to unwelcome notoriety, the seemingly cursed calamity that was the labored creation of The Room, and, perhaps most intriguingly, Tommy Wiseau’s largely speculative immigrant’s journey from Eastern Bloc poverty to bootstraps riches. Neither a vanity piece nor a sensationalized tabloid, The Disaster Artist is an authentic examination of pure, unmitigated ambition and what is possible when you simply ignore every piece of charitable advice and commit to chasing your weird, inadvisable dreams. Just try to look away.
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Copies of The Disaster Artist are available on our shelves and via bookpeople.com.
BookPeople 
Will definitely try to get hold of a copy of this. The Room is without a doubt the worst best movie I may never be able to force myself to sit through again. It’s always been mindboggling to me that this film ever got made, so maybe this willl provide the answers.