Salon.com > James Franco http://www.salon.com Sun, 27 May 2012 13:20:45 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 James Franco: I’ve done the work http://www.salon.com/2011/12/17/james_franco_ive_done_the_work/ http://www.salon.com/2011/12/17/james_franco_ive_done_the_work/#comments Sat, 17 Dec 2011 17:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=10474731 Carter is my double. Whatever I’m thinking, Carter has thought about it too. He’s a great collaborator because we never argue; we just groove on each other’s ideas. We met at the end of 2007 and did a film in Paris called "Erased James Franco." I played James Franco. We did another project with mannequins and mustaches and motorcycles called Double Third Portrait. We wrote and created images for a children’s book called "Hellish." He helped me come up with the idea of acting on "General Hospital"; he helped come up with the idea for "Three’s Company" as a dramatic movie. We did another film together, "Maladies"; it’s about US, Catherine Keener plays him. In "Maladies," the two characters make a pact that if one of them dies the other will finish the dead person’s work.  I would be honored to make such a pact with Carter because he understands me better than most. He has taught me most of what I know about art. Now we’re planning a book of poetry. -- James Franco

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/12/17/james_franco_ive_done_the_work/feed/ 13 Five pop culture items we missed http://www.salon.com/2011/08/18/pop_five_star_trek_slash_fic/ http://www.salon.com/2011/08/18/pop_five_star_trek_slash_fic/#comments Thu, 18 Aug 2011 22:19:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/feature/2011/08/18/pop_five_star_trek_slash_fic 1. Slash-list of the day: "The 10 hottest pieces of 'Star Trek' Slash Fiction" on Ranker.com includes a bizarre hat-tip to Worf/Wesley Crusher stories. That's basically worse than furry porn, and as blasphemous as imagining a Khal Drogo/Bran Stark scenario. 

2. Sign that James Franco is a force of evil of the day: His "art" show, called "High/Low, Rob Lowe" apparently offended the gods so much that they deemed to destroy the Asia Society Gallery, the venue that Franco-stein had chosen to besmirch the art world.

3. Worst remake of the day: Man, and just when I thought the "Lone Ranger meets the werewolves"  was going to Bruckheimer this week into oblivion, we hear Ridley Scott is taking the helm of a "Blade Runner" do-over. OK, but will it have ghost Indians like Obi-Wan Kenobi?

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/08/18/pop_five_star_trek_slash_fic/feed/ 8 Pop Torn: 10 pieces of cultural ambivalence http://www.salon.com/2011/08/06/pop_torn_nicki_minaj_mister_rogers/ http://www.salon.com/2011/08/06/pop_torn_nicki_minaj_mister_rogers/#comments Sat, 06 Aug 2011 12:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/feature/2011/08/06/pop_torn_nicki_minaj_mister_rogers TGIAugust, am I right guys? I cannot wait for summer to be over and for it to be cold again, because you know what they make children say in the Pledge of Allegiance: "Winter is coming." While we're still dealing with the warm weather, though, how about a roundup of all the cultural news that makes you feel like you just don't know what to feel anymore?

1. Jesse Eisenberg in Dostoyevsky adaptation: It sounds crazy, but making "The Double" into a movie might actually be a good idea. Very Charlie Kaufmanesque. Maybe Michael Cera can play his doppleganger?

2. Connor Ratliff is old enough to be president: Well, I'm sold on this guy's campaign. If only the rest of politics were this easy.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/08/06/pop_torn_nicki_minaj_mister_rogers/feed/ 5 “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”: Can James Franco make peace with chimps? http://www.salon.com/2011/08/03/rise_of_planet_of_apes/ http://www.salon.com/2011/08/03/rise_of_planet_of_apes/#comments Wed, 03 Aug 2011 21:30:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/andrew_ohehir/2011/08/03/rise_of_planet_of_apes So I guess this is James Franco's new hipster performance-art career strategy, post-Academy Awards edition: Disappear behind an ape mask in an August B movie. No, I know, I know -- that's not actually Franco in the prosthetic/animatronic/digital/motion-capture/whatever get-up as Caesar, the genetically juiced-up chimp who becomes the leader of a simian rebellion in "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," a curious attempt to re-reboot the venerable sci-fi franchise. That would be Andy Serkis of Gollum fame, midway through one of the strangest Hollywood acting careers since Peter Lorre's, who damn well steals the whole movie as the charismatic ape genius.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/08/03/rise_of_planet_of_apes/feed/ 24 James Franco’s long-con of sexuality and fake art http://www.salon.com/2011/07/20/james_franco_2/ http://www.salon.com/2011/07/20/james_franco_2/#comments Wed, 20 Jul 2011 20:21:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/feature/2011/07/20/james_franco James Franco may be the greatest Icarus metaphor in celebrity culture today. After a great wave of interest in the actor/artist/student/teacher/whatever for the past two years, the media has slowly turned on the handsome renaissance man ever since he bombed as co-host of the Academy Awards.

Franco responded by going into hiding: deleting his Twitter account, sequestering himself to work on his new album with Kalup Linzy and his various academic pursuits, and generally staying away from the burning spotlight that seared his wings. But today ... today James Franco has reemerged, resplendent in gossip and new artistic endeavors. Turns out, he hasn't learned anything at all in the past three months. Welcome to Franco 3.0.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/07/20/james_franco_2/feed/ 31 Today’s must-see viral videos http://www.salon.com/2011/06/29/viral_videos_franco_music_video/ http://www.salon.com/2011/06/29/viral_videos_franco_music_video/#comments Wed, 29 Jun 2011 18:30:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/feature/2011/06/29/viral_videos_franco_music_video 1. James Franco's music video

With drag artist Kalup Linzy, whom the actor is collaborating with for an upcoming album, "Turn It Up." If the new video for their track "Rising" is any indication, we're in for a real treat (laced with LSD and given to you by your creepy neighbor).

 

2. Celebrity tweets as public announcements

Kourtney Kardashian's musing, "Do ants have dicks?" makes that much less sense when some guy is going around yelling it on the street.

 

3. Two movies, one plot

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/06/29/viral_videos_franco_music_video/feed/ 3 James Franco’s crazy new art project http://www.salon.com/2011/06/13/james_franco_museum/ http://www.salon.com/2011/06/13/james_franco_museum/#comments Mon, 13 Jun 2011 18:14:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/feature/2011/06/13/james_franco_museum James Franco's newest art project is either an example of subtle creativity, an extremely shallow con, or a hoax. The actor/writer/student/artist/Oscar host is, to all appearances, collaborating with with Praxis ("the collaborative art team of Brainard and Delia Carey") and curator Vallejo Gantner to create MONA: The Museum of Non-Visible Art.

What's the difference between a museum of non-visible art and an empty room? You may well ask. Here's what MONA's website has to say:

The Museum of Non-Visible Art is an extravaganza of imagination, a museum that reminds us that we live in two worlds: the physical world of sight and the non-visible world of thought. Composed entirely of ideas, the Non-Visible Museum redefines the concept of what is real. Although the artworks themselves are not visible, the descriptions open our eyes to a parallel world built of images and words. This world is not visible, but it is real, perhaps more real than the world of matter, and it is also for sale.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/06/13/james_franco_museum/feed/ 23 Five pop culture items we missed http://www.salon.com/2011/06/08/five_pop_culture_franco_knocked_up_two/ http://www.salon.com/2011/06/08/five_pop_culture_franco_knocked_up_two/#comments Wed, 08 Jun 2011 23:09:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/feature/2011/06/08/five_pop_culture_franco_knocked_up_two 1.) Annoying Judd Apatow prodigy news of the day: James Franco is readying his EP "Turn It Up" with Kalup Linzy for a July 12 release date, which is less than a month after "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" premieres. He literally cannot give it a rest.

2.) Less annoying Judd Apatow prodigy news of the day: Indie darlings Lena Dunham, Charlyne Yi and Chris O'Dowd all join the cast of the "Knocked Up" spinoff. Yi will be reprising her role from the original as a giggling stoner.

3.) "It gets way better" news of the day: Wunderkind Chris Colfer of "Glee" signed a two-book deal with Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. The deal includes a novel and a book of fairy tales called "The Land of Stories." That's in addition to those two scripts he just wrote. For some reason when James Franco does everything it's annoying, and when Colfer does it, it's inspiring. Go figure.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/06/08/five_pop_culture_franco_knocked_up_two/feed/ 2 Moby Awards honor best, worst book trailers of 2011 http://www.salon.com/2011/06/03/moby_book_trailer_awards_2011/ http://www.salon.com/2011/06/03/moby_book_trailer_awards_2011/#comments Fri, 03 Jun 2011 19:45:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/books/2011/06/03/moby_book_trailer_awards_2011  On the surface, book trailers seem like a fairly ridiculous concept: trying to market literature to people who would rather wait until the movie version comes out. Most of the time, publishing houses create trailers that are visually arresting or entertaining, but have nothing whatsoever to do with the book they're trying to sell. That's where the Moby Awards  come in.

Celebrating the best and the worst of book trailers with a statuette of a golden sperm whale, last night's Second Annual Moby Awards were held at the Powerhouse Arena in Brooklyn. With categories like "Most Celebtastic Performance," "Best Small House Press Trailer" and "What Are We Doing to Our Children? (good or bad, you decide)," the ceremony is more tongue-in-cheek McSweeney's party than Paris Review gala.

According to Salon's senior book writer and Moby Awards judge Laura Miller, the best book trailer of the year didn't even take home a prize, though it was nominated in the category for best "Book Trailer as Stand Alone Art Object":

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/06/03/moby_book_trailer_awards_2011/feed/ 4 James Franco promotes self-mutilation as art http://www.salon.com/2011/05/18/james_franco_self_mutilation/ http://www.salon.com/2011/05/18/james_franco_self_mutilation/#comments Wed, 18 May 2011 19:19:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/feature/2011/05/18/james_franco_self_mutilation James Franco, spokesperson for very good ideas, had a hand in a new installation at the California's MOCA. Well, part of a hand, anyway.

Not only did the Academy Award nominee work with writer/director Harmony Korine to film naked women having a gang fight with machetes -- don't worry, it's an homage to "Rebel Without a Cause" -- but his contribution to the exhibition involved someone filming him while he carved the name Brad Renfro into his arm with a switchblade. According to the LA Times article:

Franco, who had a hand in the other artists' projects, also made work for this show in homage to the actor Brad Renfro, who died in 2008 at age 25 of a heroin overdose. He had Renfro’s name carved into his right arm with a switchblade, documenting the carving in photography and film. (The carving itself could be seen as one of the show’s more permanent artworks.)

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/05/18/james_franco_self_mutilation/feed/ 5 James Franco puts another doctoral notch in his degree belt http://www.salon.com/2011/04/25/james_franco_mfa_houston/ http://www.salon.com/2011/04/25/james_franco_mfa_houston/#comments Mon, 25 Apr 2011 18:05:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/feature/2011/04/25/james_franco_mfa_houston James Franco is getting another degree in creative writing. What are you going to do about it? Just because there is no legitimate way to tell how many degrees Franco currently has doesn't mean he shouldn't try to get more!

I mean, it's not like he has a book or anything. Or is getting a doctorate at Yale. Or has a creative writing MFA from Columbia University already. Or is taking classes at RISD. Or Skyping into a class that he is not teaching about editing videos of himself. Or teaching an NYU poetry class, where he'll be enrolling for another MFA this fall. (You only need one link for all this B.S., lucky you.)

From Huffington Post:

James Franco has won a spot in a University of Houston creative writing program.

The university confirms that the actor nominated for the 2010 Academy Award for best actor in “127 Hours” has been accepted for the school’s doctoral program in literature and creative writing. Creative writing program director James Kastely tells the Houston Chronicle that Franco plans to enroll in September 2012.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/04/25/james_franco_mfa_houston/feed/ 30 “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”: Science’s worst idea yet http://www.salon.com/2011/04/14/rise_of_the_apes_trailer/ http://www.salon.com/2011/04/14/rise_of_the_apes_trailer/#comments Thu, 14 Apr 2011 14:52:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/feature/2011/04/14/rise_of_the_apes_trailer Based on the new teaser trailer for "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" I assume that this movie is going to be the prequel to the famous 1963 film, "Planet of the Apes." (I could have also guessed that from the title, but sometimes I like to take the long way around.) I would also surmise after watching the trailer that this movie will fall somewhere between the Tim Burton/Mark Wahlberg remake of the original and "Mystery Science Theater's" screening of the Japanese film "Time of the Apes" in the cinematic spectrum of Pierre Boulle novels.

To me, the scariest part of this film's underlying concept is how close our society is to actually having a James Franco geneticist. Right? I mean, one phone call to Johns Hopkins and suddenly that kid has a doctorate in making a race of super-monkeys, just 'cause. Which, by the way, finally answers the question "Does it matter how many college degrees James Franco has?" Apparently those degrees make the difference between a regular future and some "Sliders" reality overrun by evil monkeys because someone thought it would be cool to play god as part of his next performance art installation.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/04/14/rise_of_the_apes_trailer/feed/ 24 Is “Your Highness” the worst film ever made? http://www.salon.com/2011/04/07/your_highness/ http://www.salon.com/2011/04/07/your_highness/#comments Thu, 07 Apr 2011 01:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/andrew_ohehir/2011/04/06/your_highness "Your Highness" must have seemed like a great idea at the outset -- and by "the outset," I mean the six baked minutes it took co-writer and star Danny McBride to scribble the basic concept on the back of an unpaid invoice from the swimming-pool guy. That basic concept appears to be "Cheech & Chong make 'The Princess Bride,'" or perhaps "Beavis and Butt-head meet 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail.'" Except, two things: Both of those concepts sound way funnier than this movie is in practice and, no, it shouldn't take six minutes to write that. I'm thinking there was a lot of giggling and high-fiving and talking in junior-high Shakespeare accents involved.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/04/07/your_highness/feed/ 69 James Franco goes on “Colbert Report” to defend all his degrees http://www.salon.com/2011/04/06/franco_james_video_colbert/ http://www.salon.com/2011/04/06/franco_james_video_colbert/#comments Wed, 06 Apr 2011 12:49:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/feature/2011/04/06/franco_james_video_colbert James Franco is one prickly pear. It makes me wonder how he handles his class critiques over at Yale/NYU/Columbia/RISD/some place called Columbia University in Hollywood, etc.

After apparently reading our article calling his MFA-grabbing into question, James appeared on "The Colbert Report," calling himself Frank Jameso (new "General Hospital" character?), an evil twin who knows what to ask his brother to make him mad.

"Does he think he's a Renaissance Man, or is modern America so intellectually bankrupt that anyone pursuing any cultural enrichment of any kind makes him seem intellectual?"

Wow, shut up, James Franco. That's not even a real question.

When Stephen says that he didn't see Franco studying backstage, the flash of real anger in the actor's eyes makes his whole stupid grandstanding kind of worth it. Also, when he tells James that Marlon Brando is basically calling him a pussy. Backtrack, fat Franco! Backtrack!

 

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/04/06/franco_james_video_colbert/feed/ 45 James Franco quits Twitter…but for how long?? http://www.salon.com/2011/04/01/james_franco_quits_twitter/ http://www.salon.com/2011/04/01/james_franco_quits_twitter/#comments Fri, 01 Apr 2011 20:02:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/feature/2011/04/01/james_franco_quits_twitter So James Franco has quit Twitter today, which is a very big bummer for me, personally, as his ability to lifecast while simultaneously hosting the Oscars was kind of the highlight of my 2011 so far. Franco only managed to stay on the social networking site for a month and a half, and unlike other celebrities, his abrupt departure doesn't seem like a reaction to some feud or public misstep. So why did he quit? We look to other Twitter quitters for a clue.

See, celebrities have a difficult time with Twitter. On the one hand, it gives them direct access to their fans in a way that was previously impossible, allowing them to promote the very best version of themselves while giving the illusion that they are letting people into their private thoughts and lives. On the other hand, sometimes famous people -- like the rest of us -- forget that there is a difference between thinking something and tweeting it, and end up oversharing some thought or private picture.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/04/01/james_franco_quits_twitter/feed/ 0 The James Franco academic pyramid scheme http://www.salon.com/2011/03/30/franco_nyu_teach_poetry/ http://www.salon.com/2011/03/30/franco_nyu_teach_poetry/#comments Wed, 30 Mar 2011 17:10:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/feature/2011/03/30/franco_nyu_teach_poetry I think I've gone through every stage of the James Franco celebrity life cycle: Denial ("There is no way he's actually doing this much!"); Anger ("Screw that guy for making the rest of the world look bad!"); Bargaining ("Hey, if I could just score one 'Spider-Man' movie, I promise to get four master degrees as well!"); Depression ("My life sucks compared to this guy"); and Acceptance ("Fine, James Franco, you are a superhero. I give up"). The man is everywhere: from hosting the Oscars, to cutting a music album, to getting his Ph.D. at Yale for creative writing english literature while simultaneously getting an MFA at New York University. Not to mention his performance-art side projects he does with Kalup Linzy, or the class for Columbia College Hollywood that he's going to teach called "Master Class: Editing James Franco ... With James Franco." Or, you know, his acting career.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/03/30/franco_nyu_teach_poetry/feed/ 21 The Oscars’ black hole of boredom http://www.salon.com/2011/02/28/oscars_ohehir/ http://www.salon.com/2011/02/28/oscars_ohehir/#comments Mon, 28 Feb 2011 16:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2011/02/28/oscars_ohehir Oscar has fallen, and he can't get up. Now, if you get that reference, you're probably: A) too old to belong to the demographic that was supposedly being hunted by the producers of Sunday night's dreary and confused telecast, and B) too young to have written most of the shtick. Presented with one of the most varied and interesting lists of nominated films in recent memory -- many of which had actually been seen by large numbers of paying humans -- the academy managed to screw up its messaging totally and create a soul-sucking black hole of boredom.

One way of explaining what happened last night is that the Oscar producers tried to tack young and hip, just as academy voters tried to tack mass and mainstream, correcting for several years of more audacious indie-style winners like "The Hurt Locker," "Slumdog Millionaire" and "No Country for Old Men." The result was a great big middle-of-the-road splat, presided over by a monumentally uncomfortable pair of stars, the miffed-looking James Franco and the perky-like-a-little-coffeepot Anne Hathaway.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/02/28/oscars_ohehir/feed/ 64 James Franco’s Oscars of apathy http://www.salon.com/2011/02/28/oscars_2001_telecast/ http://www.salon.com/2011/02/28/oscars_2001_telecast/#comments Mon, 28 Feb 2011 14:45:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/feature/2011/02/28/oscars_2001_telecast "The Color of Beige"

A Short Story by James Franco

James Franco had a feeling this Oscar hosting gig was a bust when he ambled onstage dressed as Marilyn Monroe and the crowd at the Kodak Theater took entirely too long to register that it was him. And when they did figure it out -- somewhere around the time that Franco said, "I just got a text message from Charlie Sheen!" -- they just sort of tittered politely.

The fact that Franco, the young, studly, intellectual actor-artist-filmmaker-short fiction writer who won an Emmy for playing James Dean and was up for a best actor Oscar for  "127 Hours" during that very telecast, was abasing himself for a laugh -- well, that was supposed to be, if not the joke, then part of the joke.

But it was a non-starter. Why?

Maybe the problem was that Franco was going for a young, hip, meta-star approach, and making a joke of the very idea of drag by just standing there next to his co-host, Anne Hathaway (whose daffy-slice-of-cheesecake thing was at least good for a smile),  and the crowd got that, but didn't think it was funny.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/02/28/oscars_2001_telecast/feed/ 87 Nic Rad’s “Celebritist Manifesto”: James Franco fan art becomes actual art-art http://www.salon.com/2011/02/22/james_franco_celebrity_manifesto_nic_rad/ http://www.salon.com/2011/02/22/james_franco_celebrity_manifesto_nic_rad/#comments Tue, 22 Feb 2011 14:12:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/feature/2011/02/22/james_franco_celebrity_manifesto_nic_rad We are a nation obsessed with James Franco. That doesn't mean we like him. At this moment in time, the 32-year-old actor might be the most versatile artist of our generation, with the ability to pick up almost any creative endeavor on a whim -- from writing novels to portraying Allen Ginsberg to cutting an album to creating art installations that will appear in scenes in "General Hospital," for which Franco is also portraying a character named Franco who makes art installations (oh god, our collective headache!) -- and get instant recognition for his "accomplishments." Not to mention that this weekend he'll be both hosting the Oscars and is up for a best actor nod for "127 Hours," meaning that he might have to miss a class at Yale, where he is earning his Ph.D. in literature (don't worry, he'll make up the credit). Oh, and he is set to teach a class called "Master Class: Editing James Franco ... with James Franco" at some place called Columbia College Hollywood, a class that is either cleverly po-mo or the most narcissistic thing a Hollywood actor has ever attempted, depending on how you look at it. But you know this already, because James Franco news has saturated all forms of media, from tabloids to the New York Times.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/02/22/james_franco_celebrity_manifesto_nic_rad/feed/ 6 But where was James Franco? http://www.salon.com/2011/02/14/grammy_award_where_was_james_franco/ http://www.salon.com/2011/02/14/grammy_award_where_was_james_franco/#comments Mon, 14 Feb 2011 12:13:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/feature/2011/02/14/grammy_award_where_was_james_franco It was the night of the Grammys, and a tall, burly man named Hank guarded the front door with a clipboard. A couple of paparazzi were forming a line behind the barriers hoping to get a glimpse of Eminem or Katy Perry as they arrived early for their sound checks.

A young man approached Hank with a warm smile. He was trailed by several bored-looking guys with cameras. "Hi there," the young man said, "I'm James Franco, this is my film crew, and I'm here for my Grammy."

Hank had been briefed on this scenario and had his lines rehearsed. "I'm so sorry, Mr. Franco, you know I can't let you inside the theater. You aren't up for a Grammy Award this year."

James Franco looked puzzled. "I'm not?" he asked. "How is that possible?"

"I don't know," said Hank. "You just didn't make any music or spoken-word albums in 2010."

James Franco seemed to consider this for a moment. "Are you sure? I thought I made an album this year. Let me think." James began ticking his accomplishments off on his hands, " I was on 'General Hospital,' wrote a book, made some conceptual art installations for the MoCA, starred in '127 Hours,' began my master's program at Yale, directed a documentary about 'Saturday Night Live,' wrote a book. Wasn't there an album in there somewhere?"

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/02/14/grammy_award_where_was_james_franco/feed/ 4