Why ‘Spring Breakers’ Is the Best Thing James Franco Has Ever Done

James Franco. American icon, he of the Academy Awards hosting letdown, the very same man who brought you Harry Osborne in the “Spider-Man” franchise. He’s an enigma, this Franco, appearing one weekend in “Oz the Great and Powerful” a kid-friendly PG film, and then the next in the extremely R-Rated “Spring Breakers.”

James Franco doesn’t do one thing, he does everything. And as the great and powerful Steven Colbert noted, James Franco is a renaissance man … who also might be a complete fraud.

Even the director of “Spring Breakers,” the delightfully named Harmony Korine, had this to say about Franco’s performance in the film:

“He didn’t want to rehearse. When he put in the cornrows and the gold teeth and I heard the accent, I was like ‘whoa.’ He was a maniac.”

The trailer pretty much speaks for itself, a collection of y’alls, leers, and threesomes:

You would be hard pressed to construct a trailer more bonkers than that even if I spotted you Dennis Rodman and a case of Four Loco. Still, if “From Justin to Kelly” has taught us anything, it’s that a spring break film can launch one’s career into the stratosphere. It’s all been leading up to this, his masterpiece, Franco imprinting on the world in a big way. As such, let’s take a look at the Franco’s seminal works, and why they can’t quite measure up to “Spring Breakers”.

Also check out: The Francography!

“Freaks and Geeks”
Why it’s great: Here’s where we first became aware of James Franco, though sadly this beloved series only lasted eighteen episodes. Who’s up for a cheeky Kickstarter?
Why it’s still inconsequential compared to “Spring Breakers”: The freakiness level on display here still aired on NBC. How risque can you get on NBC? Besides Jay Leno I mean.

“Rise of the Planet of the Apes”
Why it’s great: The Apes really brought the acting thunder in this film.
Why it’s still inconsequential compared to “Spring Breakers”: The drugs here turn apes into super apes. The drugs in “Spring Breakers” turn James Franco into Gary Oldman from “True Romance”. Checkmate.

“127 Hours”
Why it’s great: This might be Franco’s best performance in which he doesn’t wear a gold grill and indiscriminately fire off handguns.
Why it’s still inconsequential compared to “Spring Breakers”: His co-star in “127 Hours” was a rock. Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens are much better than a rock. Nicer, too.

“Tristan + Isolde”
Why it’s great: Hahahahahahahhahaha. … History?
Why it’s still inconsequential compared to “Spring Breakers”: Sorry, just seeing if you were still paying attention (wipes tear away from eye). Sidenote: Don’t ever watch “Tristan + Isolde”. The film feels shorter than the opera on which it’s based, and that opera was written by Wagner.

“Milk”
Why it’s great: The inspiring true story of Harvey Milk, James Franco helped portray the rampant discrimination same-sex partners faced in the ’70s.
Why it’s still inconsequential compared to “Spring Breakers”: It’s hard to argue that even a dramatization of the life and times of Harvey Milk is less consequential than “Spring Breakers,” but it’s not hard to argue that at no point in “Milk” did anyone shout “Bikinis and Big Booties Y’all, that’s what life is about!” We rest our case.

“Spider-Man”
Why it’s great: Sadly, it’s not, but it is consequential, simply based upon the box-office returns.
Why it’s still inconsequential compared to “Spring Breakers”: No one in the franchise is named “Alien,” as James Franco is in “Spring Breakers” and thus we rule your Spidey art invalid. Also, The Green Goblin wears a horrible face-mask, whereas “Spring Breakers” proves that a nice shiny grill is always the right way to go. Remember kids: Always.

In the cold light of day, it’s easy to surmise that we might never see a better version of James Franco than the one we see this weekend. He’s a man in full, perhaps not the Franco we want, but definitely the one we need. Spring break, you guys. Spring break, forever.

Laremy wrote the book on film criticism and was too busy getting ahead on the next semester’s assignments to go to spring break.

Categories: Features

Tags: Harmony Korine, James franco, Spider-man, Spring Breakers

The Wizards of Oz: James Franco vs. Frank Morgan

It took Dorothy and company a whole movie to lift the veil on “The Wizard of Oz,” but the better part of a hundred years has given this weekend’s “Oz the Great and Powerful” cinema-goers a touch more preparation for what to expect from the younger version of that man behind the giant curtain. Sure, the new installment revolves around how the Wizard came to be in the first place, but fans can likely expect to see all the kooky smoke and mirrors trickery of old come through just the same.

Really, the biggest distinction might exist within the two chaps playing the guy, Frank Morgan and James Franco. Upon inspection of even their most generic biographical details, the two pretty much seem(ed) to be exactly the opposite of one another. Seriously, the differences between the gents are almost comically severe.

For starters, Frank Morgan came from New York City and was the eleventh (11th!) child of spirits sellers, while James Franco was born in Palo Alto, California to a pair of Stanford-educated intellectual types – a writer and a businessman – and was the first of three boys.

Morgan attended Cornell University right out of the high school gate and brothered up with the boys at Phi Kappa Psi, while Franco, who’d been through the legal ringer a few times already during his disaffected youth, dropped out of UCLA his freshman year and started working the fryer at McDonald’s to afford his acting class pursuits. In all fairness to James Franco, though, he made up his education in spades and now boasts multiple fine arts degrees from prestigious schools (not including Cornell). He’s even said to have set a record for most credits taken in a single semester.

Next, Old Francis M. got his first big break by appearing on the Broadway stage, while James, who supposedly went by the name Ted at some point in his wacky adolescence, sloughed through various TV guest spots in L.A. before landing the now-cult classic one season series “Freak and Geeks.”

 

Franky got hitched at the tender age of twenty-four – the same year he started acting – and had a son, but James is still quite the eligible bachelor at thirty-four.

In his spare time, Frank Morgan fancied boating and hitting the family sauce, while James Franco seems to fancy himself a modern day Renaissance Man whose zest for activity has made him a teacher, a director, a painter, a writer, a musician and everything else under the umbrella of artistry. The two seem politically polar opposites as well, as James Franco exhibits a rather loosey-goosey sort of liberalism while Frank Morgan was regarded as a strict conservative.

As for their rumored behaviors on set, well, Frank Morgan was said to have toted around a briefcase full of mini-bottles while James Franco is known to do things like read Homer and James Joyce in between takes. On the other hand, Morgan has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and James Franco just received his first … and brought an Oz doll with him to the ceremony.

These two gents might live on grouped in Hollywood history as the Wizards that once were, but we’ll sure remember them to be two wildly different individuals.

Categories: Features

Tags: Frank Morgan, James franco, Oz: The Great and Powerful, The Wizard of Oz