Just when you think you might have had enough of James Franco, along comes Francophrenia to either whet your appetite for more of the actor-director's avant-garde pursuits — or officially turn you off to them forever.
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The film: The Broken Tower (2011), available on DVD via Focus World
Why it's an Inessential Essential: Straight out of New York University's Tisch School for the Arts, actor-turned-aspiring filmmaker James Franco helmed, starred in and adapted The Broken Tower: The Life of Hart Crane, Paul Mariani's biography of the titular turn-of-the-century poet. Franco's moving film — his first feature as a director to be commercially released — depicts Crane (played by Franco, of course) as a frustrated artist striving for an avant-garde artistic ideal that he would never fully realize.
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