10. The Disaster Artist
While ostensibly about the making of The Room, aka the worst period movie period ever exclamation point, The Disaster Artist is actually more about the strength of friendship. Dave and James Franco both do a wonderful job of taking characters that could’ve been punchlines, and presenting them as thoughtful, three dimensional creatures.
If nothing else, I appreciate producer Judd Apatow for his ability to create leading men and women from faces that are more common in everyday life than on the big screen – Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, Amy Schumer, Lena Dunham, Melissa McCarthy, Michael Cera, Jonah Hill, and now Kumail Nanjiani. I don’t know his involvement in the movies he didn’t direct, but it doesn’t matter, they all brandish his seal of approval as producer. His latest, The Big Sick, features Nanjiani (also a co-writer, with his wife Emily Gordon) as himself, maybe loosely but still, as a comedian in Chicago who falls for a therapist, Emily (Zoe Kazan).
excellent awkward 