Tag: Entertainment

James Franco: Playboy

James FrancoIn his quest to conquer every known strain of academia and the employ every known means of artistic expression, the world’s most attractive polymath, actor/director/painter/poet/writer/model/teacher James Franco, can now add Playboy Columnist to his already enormous resume.

In the current July/August issue of Hugh Hefner’s infamous men’s mag – yes, it’s the issue with Jenny Mc Carthy on the cover… again – the first installment of Franco’s six-part Francofile column appears, starting things off with a Q&A with New York-based Serbian performance artist, Marina Abramovic. What do they talk about and why is it being published in a magazine noted almost equally for its tits ‘n’ ass as its progressive journalism? All I can reveal – I’m gonna read this issue after dinner, I promise – is that topics covered in Franco’s piece with the woman he calls “the grandmother of performance art” include “space, energy, and magic.”

Oh, James Franco. You’re my hero!

Schtupping With Your Clothes On

Fully Clothed SexMore and more these days, it seems nudity is seen as a necessary component of mainstream entertainment. Take this season’s runaway television hit, Girls, for example. Creator and star, Lena Dunham, rips her clothes off seemingly at every available opportunity and while some controversy has brewed since the show’s pilot episode aired back in April, the slights and criticisms lobbed at Dunham and her show focused largely on the socioeconomic status of its characters and the dimensions of her unusually (at least for television) “normal” body. (Never mind the tired plot developments being reused in yet another show that pretends to be pushing the envelope while utterly lacking genuine originality. Never mind that the abundance of nudity on Girls merely perpetuates the objectification of women’s bodies regardless of their size and shape.) Face it, between Girls, Spartacus, True Blood, Magic City and a bunch of other shows I rarely watch, there’s so much bare flesh on TV these days it’s almost becoming a bore.

When it seems every sexually active adult is also a vain, egotistical wannabe-naturist – Girls’ girls included – it’s a relief to find a site like the recently reviewed at MrPinks.com Fully Clothed Sex, which proves you can have, well, fully clothed sex. With its exclusive collection now boasting more than 250 hardcore sex scenes in which the participating women remain fully (or mostly) clothed at all times, here is an entertainment property that genuinely throws out preconceived notions of feminine sexuality and thrusts upon its viewers something bold and original: sex with your clothes on. Sounds dull, I know, but it’s a hell of a lot more fun than watching Dunham’s Hannah passive-aggressively snipe at her remarkably tolerant, but typically (for TV) doltish boyfriend.

Taylor & Burton, Kidman & Cruise, Lohan & Deen?

The Twitterverse was buzzing this past February because novelist and screenwriter Bret Easton Ellis had been tweeting about meetings he was having with James Deen. The adult performer. The male adult performer. The male adult performer everyone seems to adore. As reported by yours truly in a previous missive, Deen was courted by Ellis to star in a film to be directed by Paul Schrader (American Gigolo and the greatest American film you’ve likely not seen, Blue Collar), the script to which he was then in the midst of writing. Deen was to “act and be full-frontal naked banging girls and guys.” In short, the perfect role for him.

Now, four months later, another tweet from Ellis suggests that professional tabloid punching-bag Lindsay Lohan will be starring opposite Dean in the film now titled The Canyons. It stands to reason she might therefore be engaging in some rather risque activities with our big dicked guy next door.

When previously been attached to take the title role in Lovelace, Lohan’s legal troubles led the producers to instead hire everyone’s favorite busty, lily-white nymph, Amanda Seyfried. As director Schrader was quick to point out (typos and all) on the film’s official Facebook Page. nothing is yet a done deal. “Despite what may be reported elsewhere, casting on The Canyons is not quite finalized… Many wonderful young actors submitted auditions and I like to bring some of them to wider attention. Or at least the wider attention that this website provides. Paul S.” (Did he just piss on Facebook? Awesome.)

So, disregarding Schrader’s reminder, we can assume Deen is in, Lohan is in, and we’re gonna watch this most likely incredible movie on its day of release for sure, right? Right. Until then, those questioning whether Schrader can handle something as rampantly sexual as a movie written by the undisputed master of stories about promiscuous, disaffected, drug-gulping twenty-something Americans, starring the world’s most charming male pornstar, and a real-life Hollywood trainwreck, watch this clip of Karvey Keitel and Richard Pryor’s dildo fight in Blue Collar and let your doubts subside. We’re in safe hands here.

James Deen as James Dean

James Deen, James Dean, James FrancoWhen James Dean took the starring role in the now iconic 1995 film Rebel Without a Cause, nobody had any idea that he wouldn’t live to see the films premiere, dying in a car accident one month before its October 27 release date. The public would embrace his character, Jim Stark, as emblematic of the fifties’ trouble youth culture stripped of its innocence in the years after World War II. Dean would go on to solidify his status as an immortal heartthrob, even amidst rumors of his bisexuality and affairs with both costar Natalie Wood and director Nicholas Ray (who also allegedly had a tryst with Wood). Now, thanks to renaissance man James Franco, the behind-the-scenes romps that rocked the Rebel set are being presented in very, very explicit detail.

No, a ’55 Natalie Wood and James Dean-starring sex tape hasn’t surfaced; Franco has just turned to his friends in the porn industry to recreate an imagined encounter between the two Hollywood legends. Presumably cast not just for his name, but also for his sensitive heartthrob status in the adult industry, James Deen finally had a chance to play his namesake in a hardcore flick. Heather Vahn, a vastly underrated performer, plays Natalie Wood and the two get it on in thoroughly hardcore fashion, bringing the backstage tryst to life.

What’s the point? Is this another Axel Braun-directed porn parody? Nope, it’s another of Franco’s art exhibitions, though this time he is ably assisted by Douglas Gordon, Harmony Korine, Paul McCarthy, Terry Richardson, Ed Ruscha, and Aaron Young, who all contribute artistic odes to the era-defining American film.

Those interested can head on over to LA’s MOCA and see the works in person. The exhibition, simply titled ‘Rebel’, runs until June 23rd and will be followed by a book release of the same title.