Look at this shit! It's Wednesday afternoon, and time for The Franco File, Movieline's daily — at least for this week — coverage of James Franco's genre- and gender-bending multimedia artistry. On Monday, I brought you, "Hangin'With Da Dopeboys," the JF-directed video from Florida rapper Dangeruss, who inspired the actor's Alien character in Spring Breakers. On Tuesday, it was time for another Franco-helmed clip for his band Daddy. And today? Another clip! But this one's more of a rap video, in which Franco does a turn-off-your-cellphones PSA for the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, TX that riffs on one of Alien's Spring Breakers monologues and references key moments from Pulp Fiction and Spider-Man. The video has like three endings, too, which is part of Franco's I'm-flying-on-instruments genius. more »
It's Tuesday afternoon, time to figure out what James Franco has done today to merit our attention. Well, lookie here: The Spring Breakers star has donned lipstick, eye shadow and a Rolling Rock cap to promote the release of the music video for "Love in the Old Days (Ted James 1999 Mix)" by his band with fellow Rhode Island School of Design alumnus Tim O'Keefe. Better yet, Franco directed the clip and cast one of his underground idols, Scorpio Rising filmmaker and Hollywood Babylon author Kenneth Anger as a theremin-playing occult priest. Yeah, it's that kind of freaky. more »
It's only Monday and James Franco is already having a good week. And that could translate to a good week for Florida rapper Dangeruss, too. Despite Franco's much-maligned performance in Oz The Great and Powerful, the movie was the top performer at the box office this past weekend, earning $42.2 million domestically, and the blogosphere is already championing him for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his work as the drug dealer Alien in Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers. Meanwhile, that picture, which opens wide this weekend, racked up the best per-screen average of the year so far — $90,000 — in limited release at three theaters. more »
“Oops! … I Did It Again” isn’t one of two Britney Spears hits performed onscreen in Spring Breakers, but that song’s self-aware spirit of coy misbehavior is stamped all over Harmony Korine’s most mainstream provocation to date. Following four college girls’ descent from Florida spring-break debauchery to the even more vertiginous lows of thug life, this attractively fizzy pic may be a shock to the system for fans of teen queens Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens, but remains pretty toothless titillation by its writer-helmer’s standards. Unfamiliar multiplex exposure awaits the aging enfant terrible, though the youthful target audience may seek it out on newer media. more »
Harmony Korine is passionate about making films his way. "I just want to be the greatest of all time — the greatest that ever did it," said Spring Breakers director, who described his latest work as "beach noir."
more »
The Spring Breakers trailer has FINALLY arrived, and it's even more packed with girls and guns and bikinis and James Franco's grimy braided hot mess than I'd ever dreamed. Also, the words "Spring Break" are spoken so many times in these two minutes of mayhem (I count 11 feverish utterances) that it's seeping into my subconscious. Watch and whet your whistle for the March 22 opener after the jump and start working on your Franco-as-Alien Halloween costumes now.
more »
Forget all those "most anticipated movies of 2013" lists — there's only one major motion picture event I can't wait to get my mind blown by, and that's Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers. Tween idols on a crime spree, James Franco channeling Riff Raff, the ATL Twins, and love for the pop powerhouse that was '00s-era Britney Spears... who can resist? Are we not human beings? Today Vulture's got the U.S. poster debut to tease the Spring Breakers marketing wave that's coming in the next few months, which will have me floating in a fluorescent fever of anticipation until March.
more »
Polyglot actor-cum-performance artist James Franco has struck again, releasing yet another of his multitudinous side art projects unto the world for dissection and intense theoretical analysis, and — nah, just kidding! Here's a video of Franco lip-synching to Justin Bieber's "Boyfriend" in full Biebs gear, mop top and pubescent cherub-grin and all, as he and Spring Breakers co-star Ashley Benson writhe around in a brunette wig like they're in the world's worst American Apparel ad.
more »
The timing is perfect: Harmony Korine's co-ed caper Spring Breakers, starring former tween queens Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson, Rachel Korine, a RiFF RaFF-channeling James Franco, and all the VICE-ready skankster stars one film can hold, is set for a spring 2013 release via A24 and Annapurna Pictures.
more »
It appears that Selena Gomez is dipping into another Mickey-less role, solidifying her catapult into adulthood. Gomez is starring with Ethan Hawke in a film titled Getaway. A photo hit the internet today with the hoodied (with baseball cap) former child-star in the front seat of a vehicle with Hawke in the pic.
more »
James Franco is still channeling all those Renaissance Men from - well, the Renaissance. The actor, director, artist, student, musician, model, writer (have I forgotten anything?) hit the Toronto International Film Festival last month promoting his latest in Spring Breakers by director Harmony Korine, in which he plays a low-brow thug. But now it's late September and it's time to roll out with something else. This time, it's a music video with his newly launched musical project, Daddy, with artist Tim O'Keefe.
more »
Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival is still days away, but festival-goers in Venice will catch the world debut Wednesday and already the film is making some initial waves with "raunchy" and "raucous" being just two operative words to describe the feature about a quartet of sexy college girls whose plan to rob a fast food joint to fund their spring break getaway goes awry. And that is just the beginning. The film stars Selena Gomez, James Franco, Vanessa Hudgens and Heather Morris.
more »
I hope the action in Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers picks up after this scene. The film, which will premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September, is about four college girls — played by Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Rachel Korine and Ashley Benson — who get mixed up with an arms and drug dealer, played by a Kevin Federlinesque James Franco, after they rob a restaurant to fund their spring break vacation and land in jail.
more »
James Franco, Selena Gomez, and Harmony Korine are down in Florida filming Spring Breakers, a movie about four coeds (including Disney tween queen Gomez) indebted to a rapping dealer named Alien (Franco) after they rob a bank to finance their spring break trip and he bails them out. All of this sounded innocent enough, at least as much as a Korine film can seem, until images of Franco emerged from the set. Some called his look Kevin Federline-esque; rapper Riff Raff stepped forth to actually claim, proudly, that Franco's cornrowed, blinged-out drug dealer persona was based on him. In any case, get a look at your 2011 Oscar nominee James Franco as... I don't even know what to call this. Movieliners, caption away!
more »
James Franco, Selena Gomez, and Harmony Korine are down in Florida filming Spring Breakers, a movie about four coeds (including Disney tween queen Gomez) indebted to a rapping dealer named Alien (Franco) after they rob a bank to finance their spring break trip and he bails them out. All of this sounded innocent enough, at least as much as a Korine film can seem, until images of Franco emerged from the set. Some called his look Kevin Federline-esque; rapper Riff Raff stepped forth to actually claim, proudly, that Franco's cornrowed, blinged-out drug dealer persona was based on him. In any case, get a look at your 2011 Oscar nominee James Franco as... I don't even know what to call this. Movieliners, caption away!
more »