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.
Aaron Sorkin is brilliant, one of my favorite writers, but he has patterns and traps he sometimes falls into: rat-a-tat dialogue that is sometimes more clever than it should be, a dogged everyman as his central character, unrelenting idealism. It’s why, despite some fantastic moments, The Newsroom was a bit of a failure. And it’s why, despite some missteps, Molly’s Game is a triumph. Based on the book/true story of Molly Bloom, an Olympic skier who sidestepped her future plans to become the host of an exclusive high-high-stakes poker game, raking in millions on both coasts until her eventual arrest. The film jumps around between the case and Molly’s retelling of what lead to her eventual downfall, a bit too similar in structure to The Social Network (which Sorkin wrote), but it’s still a funny, surprising and interesting look at the underground poker world.
excellent awkward 