midnight

What are the ingredients necessary for a compelling story? What constitutes a compelling performance? Do “good” and “bad” really exist, or are they merely arbitrary concepts designed to be tossed around like the ol’ pigskin in your average everyday game of tuxedo football? These are just some of the questions posed by Tommy Wiseau ‘s The Room , the indie production whose thoroughly inscrutable intentions went on to spawn a thousandscreenings (and cries of “You’re tearing me apart, Lisa!”) after its 2003 debut — and while few of those questions will ever receive a definitive answer, Room-bedeviled cineastes have now been gifted with more food for thought in the form of The Disaster Artist . Directed by and starring James Franco as Wiseau, it’s an affectionately tongue-in-cheek look at the story behind the scenes of a so-bad-it’s-good cinema classic — and although it would be impossible for any movie to truly get inside Wiseau’s artistic process, critics say this Disaster is still an effortlessly entertaining dramatization. Of course, it’ll be more entertaining if you’ve actually seen The Room beforehand, but either way, this is one of Franco’s proudest moments, and a pat on the back for anyone who ever aimed for the creative moon, only to end up sailing into a different galaxy.