Best F(r)iends: Volume 1

Some of this is great, especially Wiseau's gonzo,crazy performance, but some of the rest is utter crap, Sister's awkward performance & the pretentious shooting. So it's hard to pin down because it can be entertaining and boring, captivating and infuriating. In a way it tries too hard , but fails too far. See it anyway.

This film is nuts. It starts off slowly. Jon (played by Greg "O hai Mark" Sestero) is a drifter who stumbles upon Harvey (Tommy "I'm fed up with this wurld" Wiseau). Harvey gives him a job for a day. The next day Jon comes back to Harvey for a full-time job. Little does Harvey know that Jon is going to betray him by selling bags of Harvey's gold teeth. What a story Mark (I mean Jon).

I saw the UK premiere of the extended cut and the audience was going crazy. There were a few references to The Room and whenever they happened the audience applauded with frenzy. It's not The Room, and I'm not going to compare them as others will do this. I will say that if you want an entirely unique viewing experience which will make you laugh at the poor/legendary acting and scratch your head with bewilderment, this is the film.

Best Friends is very good, and it is very bad, so it's impossible to give it a legitimate score with the usual ranking system. As stupid as this sounds, it's true, so I'll be interested how critics approach Best Friends on it's release.

The 9/10 is for the experience I had while watching it. It really is awesome to see Tommy and Greg acting again opposite each other, so this should not be missed.

It was ok. nothing really great about it or as memorable as the room. the best parts of the movie were the room references. they were very crafty and well placed. after that it was pretty blah. the production and acting were a little better but the plot lacked and i almost dozed off a few times. greg is definitely a talented guy but i really feel like he should let tommy write the scripts moving forward.

This film is way wackier than The Room on terms of sanity, it's written by Greg Sestero and he did a great job with it. I saw it at an event with Tommy and Greg live and it had the whole audience in hysterics. Although, we did only watch a 'preview cut' for it and I was rather disappointed to not see some of the scenes that I've viewed in the trailers online.

Tommy is crazier than ever in this and is more like you'd imagine him in real life which is a pretty stellar depiction of what he is actually like.

It started off slow and I was getting a bit bored but it picked up quickly. It's truly cinematic despite being filmed on a 'small' budget. The sets look great and the story is original. This is really a film where you can see the friendship of Greg and Tommy flourish. I look forward to seeing the theatrical version in hopes that some of the funny scenes from the trailer like Tommy smearing Vaseline over Greg's face makes the cut. If you love Tommy Wiseau, you'll love this!

Best F(r)iends establishes Greg Sestero as an interesting and quite exciting storyteller. And at the same time it serves as a great closing chapter in the entire Room story that has now expanded over books and film - not to mention The Room itself. Its a great love letter to the unique friendship between Sestero and Wiseau, and its great to see how Tommy actually gets a part that suits his style. In this film, he delivers genuinely touching moments and shows a great vulnerability at times. Greg also creates a nice underplayed character in the homeless Jon, searching for some sort of human relationship after the loss of his mother. These two souls who each has a deep sadness in their lives, finds a kinship in each other. Probably not unlike the real versions of Sestero and Wiseau. The story is told as a noir thriller, and works like this in quite a few places, as well as taking really intersting and original turns, which kept me curious about what was waiting around the next corner. Unfortunately the direction and editing drags the film down. In some scenes it seems like the director has been more interested in the technical aspect, instead of directing the actors, or maybe it comes down to inexperience. But the editing is what really does the film a huge disservice. Scenes go on way too long, they dwell on overly long shots, and there are several moments that just seems unnecessary, and dull. Scenes that should have been cut. And then there are several slow motion cuts, which just seems kinda pretentious. The film is also edited by the director, and its seems to me like has been way too close to the material to actually see what the film needed. He is in love with his own shots (he is also the DP), and seems more interested in showing those, than actually telling a story. And the score (great as it is by Dan Platzman of Imagine Dragons) is also weirdly edited, and seems spliced together with other parts of the score in some scenes. And generally the film would benefit from more quiet moments, without having the score intrude in basically every scene.

Because of all this, the film at times comes across as more of an amateur / student production, which is really too bad because as I've stated, I really enjoyed the story as well as Wiseau and Sesteros performances, which still made me have a good time. Better editing could have just lifted this into something really special and totally unique. I am still looking forward to part 2 though, since there are a lot of exciting questions being put forward in this one, and a lot of places it could go. Just hope that it will be a tighter experience.