Funny / The Disaster Artist

The book

• First, the obvious: Tommy Wiseau did not understand how to make a movie.
  • Instead of renting cameras like studios do, he bought two cameras, one 35mm and one digital HD, and had them placed in a custom rig to film at the same time, even though they need different crews and lighting to run. No HD footage was used, probably for good reason.
    Graham: How do you even light this set?
    Sandy: Poorly.
  • When asked why he was green-screening the San Francisco skyline even though he could film on an actual rooftop there, Tommy replied: "This no Mickey Mouse production. I want to be professional."
• When Greg had to call Dan Janjigian (Chris-R) to tell him that they were going to reshoot his scenes, Dan's response upon picking up the phone was "Did Tommy blow up the studio yet?"
  • Better still is Greg Sestero's response. "No, but he's working on it."
  • The fact that Dan's Method Acting started to actually scare some of the cast and crew.
• Tommy was so fascinated with the flower shop doggy and its stillness that he asked if it was real. The dog was an elderly pug, a dog not exactly known for being greased lightning.
• Tommy's bizarre first draft, with incomprehensible dialogue ("Promotion! Promotion! That's all I hear about. Here is your coffee and English muffin and burn your mouth.") and nonsensical twists (such as Johnny's car flying off the roof because Tommy believed him to be a vampire). Also, there was a part where someone said to Lisa, "Get your pretty little buns in [the kitchen] and help." This line was not said by Johnny or Mark, but rather Claudette, her mother.
• Greg stating that when he first met Tommy outside of acting class, he hadn't expected him to come out in an immaculate nice-looking car, and had instead been expecting him to show up in a hearse or a de-comissioned ice cream truck, or even land a crop-dusting biplane in the middle of the street.
• Tommy belting out "A Whole New World" from Disney's Aladdin in the shower. Even funnier when you remember that Tommy/Johnny pronounces the word "world" closer to an excessively rhotic "whirl" in The Room.
• Greg debunks the idea that the money Wiseau used to make The Room came from criminal connections... by pointing out that if he were running a criminal enterprise of some sort, Tommy Wiseau is the LAST person he would ever trust to be part of it in any form (even jokingly claiming that he'd be hesitant to run it in the same COUNTRY as Wiseau). Given Wiseau's spending habits and general eccentricity, it's hard to disagree with Sestero on this point.
• Tommy's "interesting" reinterpretation of A Streetcar Named Desire's STELLA! scene in Jean Shelton's class.
• While in San Francisco getting the film's many establishing shots of the city, Wiseau wants to get some shots of Alcatraz prison, so he takes his crew (consisting of his third DP Todd Barron, a techie named Zsolt, and Greg himself) downtown to a large building adorned with two absolutely massive American flags and is home to a number of other businesses leasing the building. Over the course of their time in this choice piece of downtown San Francisco property, it gradually becomes apparent to Greg and the others that Tommy owns the building, despite never having mentioned it to anyone before, despite the fact that they could have simply used its roof to film the rooftop scenes with much less hassle. It's funny in a rather surreal way.
  • While filming establishing shots in a high-end residential area, Tommy attracts the attention of a policeman who asks to see their filming permit (which Tommy did not get, but insisted they wouldn't need). As with every other argument in the book, Tommy tries his "You're wrong!" approach, but once it is clear that he's not going to win against a policeman, Greg and the crew immediately pack everything and scamper.
• Tommy's surreal tribute on the anniversary of 9/11 such as forcing the cast and crew to remain in a hot office with no air conditioning for five minutes in order "to remember the American Flag", restarting the timer whenever any one of them laughed or made a sound, then running after swearing out bin Laden and leading everyone in a chant of USA! USA!
• Greg encountering a rather... interesting collection of Tommy's headshots (duck-lipped and "suave" looking, i.e "Blue Steel"). In his own words, he called them "scary."
• Upon meeting Graham, their new director-of-photography, Tommy says "Oh wow! He does the nice thing! Oh, very good job! Wow! Such excellent work!" in regards to his demo reel... which hadn't started playing yet.
• The film's editor tried to convince Tommy to cut the shot of his naked ass from the movie, on the grounds that the sight of it scared his wife.
• Tommy's encounter with Greg's mom, culminating in her ordering Tommy not to have sex with her son, and Tommy enigmatically replying "we all do."
• When Graham and his crew pack up and leave after not wanting to deal with Tommy's Bad Liar nature, the latter screams at him and calls him a sissy repeatedly.
• Sandy's behavior throughout the production as he increasingly realizes how screwed the movie is.
  • Greg compares Sandy's later public claims to have directed the lion's share of The Room to "claiming to have been the Hindenburg's principal aeronautics engineer".
• When Tommy is told he can get SAG membership by starring in a commercial, he ends up directing, writing, producing and starring in a commercial (mostly swiped from Greg's demo reel) for Street Fashions, a company Tommy owns. The demo reel, by the way, was from a horror movie. Greg imagines the SAG people taking one look at Wiseau's commercial and then frantically combing over their legal fine print to find any excuse to not let this lunatic join their ranks. The commercial can be seen here.
• Tommy submits The Room to Paramount to see if it will be distributed. Greg notes that a reply is usually given after a couple of weeks. It takes the film twenty-four hours to be rejected.
• Tommy's inability to memorise any of his dialogue. When it's not frustrating, that is.
  Tommy: I cannot go on... LINE!
  Tommy: [later take] I cannot... LINE!
  • Moreover, Tommy's inability to remember much of anything. When Greg and Tommy arrived at Tommy's apartment in LA, Tommy had written down the security code to get through the door. The code: 1234. Greg asked why Tommy needed to have such a code written down. Tommy said he would forget it otherwise.
  • The trailer for the movie takes this up to eleven.
    Tommy: I hit her!
    Sandy: No! Do you want to change the line?
• The section in the book that explains who everyone involved in The Room main cast and crew were called "The Players" had a woman named "Merce" (not her real name, for obvious reasons) credited as the head of the art department. Also, another player is a man named Byron, who is credited as being a "stagehand/director of yelling" (and as we learn in the book, he yelled only at Tommy to get him to follow the simplest of commands as according to his own script.)
• Greg describes his encounter with Jeff Corey. Tommy parks across the street and lets Greg out to visit him, and during the course of their conversation, Corey tells Greg that his across-the-street neighbor is Bob Dylan. Greg's mental response? "Tommy Wiseau is blocking Bob Dylan's driveway."
• At one point in the past, Tommy was listening to an English language tape and kept rewinding and repeating the same phrase, "You think it's good, do you?" over and over again as Greg was trying to sleep and causing the latter to say that it's not even a phrase that a native English speaker would say. He then surmised that a phrase that Tommy should be learning instead is "I'd like a refund for these tapes, please." Also, when Tommy's friend/co-executive producer, Chloe, is teaching him lines over the phone earlier (or rather feeding them to him, as Greg said), he commented that after ending the conversation with him that she either simply hung up or killed herself.

The movie

• The official trailer is practically a "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer. If you've never seen The Room, you would swear that a lot of things shown were made up.
• The montage of filming the "Oh hi, Mark" scene, where Tommy forgets his own lines dozens of times.
  • After 13 failed takes, this happens:
    Tommy: I did not hit her, I... [Beat] Okay, okay, line?
    Entire crew: [completely deadpan] I did not hit her. It's not true. It's bullshit. I did not hit her. I did not. Oh hi, Mark.
  • Take 17: "I hit her!"
    • "No! Do you want to change the line?"
  • Finally, after 67 takes, Tommy finally does a reading in which he manages to recite the entire line without looking at the camera. And the crew erupts with applause!
  • The fact that several of the comments on the trailer are criticizing Franco's performance. Not that he wasn't good, but that he wasn't as bad as Tommy.
  • Best part? They actually show bits of The Room compared to the scenes they recreated. The recreated scenes are actually better than the originals in terms of everything.
  • The first time Tommy manages to get his line right, he smugly stares straight into the camera the whole time.
  • Just the fact that the real Tommy made his own analysis of this scene, talking about, among other things, how he would have directed it.
    YouTube Comment: If James Franco did a breakdown of this video while in character as Tommy, the universe would collapse in on itself.
• The opening of the movie where Tommy performs the "Stella!" scene from A Streetcar Named Desire. Makes Just as Much Sense in Context doesn't even begin to describe it. Especially when he starts climbing a nearby wall King Kong style, then lies on the floor writhing.
• Tommy auditioning for a role. The casting director asks him to reread the lines without his accent. Tommy does so, but manages to sound completely unintelligible.
• During the preparation for the Chris-R scene, Philip Haldiman keeps nervously glancing over at Dan Janjigian, who is taking his character very seriously.
• "Why is he having sex with her belly button? He knows where the vagina is, right?"
  • As intense as Tommy's prima donna moment was during the sex scene, it's still pretty funny watching him stomp around wearing nothing but a sock on his privates.
• "He has it all: good looks, many friends... and also maybe Johnny is vampire. We'll see."
• While auditioning one actress for the role of Lisa, Tommy says "Pretend I am your boyfriend." She screams in horror.
• Juliette Danielle looking on in both sadness and disgust while Tommy humps the red dress for the last scene.
  "I wanted to keep that dress..."
  • And then burying her face in her hands while watching the sex scene at the premiere, occasionally glancing up and saying "Oh my god, it's still going." That actually happened.
• When they arrive at his apartment in L.A, Tommy trolls Greg into thinking for a moment that they were meant to share the bed when Greg asks if there’s only one bedroom. Judging from Tommy’s awkward personality, you’d think he actually means it at first.
• While "Rhythm of The Night" by Corona plays over the credits, you briefly hear Tommy singing along.
• Blink and you'll miss it, but the apartment building that Greg and Tommy live in after they move to L.A. is called the "Ojai". ^note  Pronounced like "Oh, hi!"
• When Sandy goes to the bank to cash his paycheque, he fully expects it to bounce. He is shocked to find out that Tommy actually has the budget to make The Room.
• At the opening night Kyle Vogt realises that he's sitting next to Dan Janjigian, who is unrecognisable from his Chris-R character. In fact if you saw the movie without ever checking the cast listing beforehand, you'd be surprised to notice that the Ax-Crazy Chris-R was being played by Pretty Boy Zac Efron!
• After the credits, we get a scene where Tommy is sulking at a party that Greg invited him to. A stranger played by none other than the actual Tommy Wiseau tries talking to him, with little success.
  Tommy: "My God. What these friends Greg have?" (sic)
  • The famously long-haired Wiseau (who has short hair, glasses, and a mustache in this scene) mocks Franco!Wiseau with "You think you have long hair, you own the world? Is that the idea?"
• Sandy's incredulous reaction to watching the flower shop scene at the premiere
  Flower Shop Girl: "Oh hi Johnny, I didn't know it was you."
  Sandy: "How can you not recognize that man?!"
• Tommy throwing a tantrum over Greg announcing that he's moving in with his girlfriend, only to stop and say, "I hurt my foot."

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