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New York, 12:36 PM
Sun Dec 6
14 posts in the last 24 hours
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12/04/09
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12/04/09
It would at least cover the offending member, wouldn't it?
12/04/09
12/04/09
By "host of possibilities" I'm assuming he means 1) try to fly, get cape stuck, land on third rail, die, hold up trains or 2) get mobbed by teenage girls, flee, land on third rail, die, hold up trains, or 3) just hold up trains.
12/04/09
So James Franco gets a (very) small pass for setting himself up as a New Wave Harold Bloom -- among his co-workers, he is.
12/04/09
There is a creeping willingness to accept weak, watery, silly prose as adequate to discuss art and it chaps my hide, I'll tell you what. I hope his professors sock it to him over this.
12/04/09
My favorite part is where Franco writes "no matter how far I got into the character, I was going to be perceived as something that doesn't belong in the incredibly stylized world of soap operas."
I don't know if anyone else has been watching, but Franco couldn't even get through a scene where a picture fell the other day without almost laughing. I felt like I was watching one of those horrible old SNL skits that Jimmy Fallon laughed through. The only thing that felt out of place with Franco being in that scene was that Franco - whom I think is very talented - was out-performed by the guy who plays Sonny. (Must watch video here: [www.movieline.com]).
Also, there is another Franco-related article in the WSJ blog with that guy, Carter, who is Franco's enabler for all this "performance art." I get the sense from different interviews that Carter (no last name) is a bit of an attention whore who has opportunistically hitching his wagon to Franco for the notoriety.
There is also a video in this one of Franco eating some gold-wrapped ball of almonds with Marina Abramović. Enjoy: [blogs.wsj.com]
12/04/09
"Uh, paintings and stuff?"
"...... Okay."
- The State
12/04/09
After the questioning is supposed to come a reification, a reconstruction. Something to pose a fully realized alternative. Which Franco should know as an actor who's worked in theatre. Simply acting in performace spaces to "disrupt" is fine. But what comes after? One can't simply deconstruct endlessly.
12/04/09
Maybe then, I'll be able to justify all my pot-smoking (which I don't engage in currently, but am about the cultivate seriously in future)
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Of course it's art. Art is anything that's been made with aesthetic intent. There. Simple definition.
Yet people continually go on about what does and does not qualify as 'art', as though there were some elusive quality of 'artiness' that we're all struggling to grasp. What's implicit to the question is the idea that art is somehow special or sacred or whatever; that true art is imbued with 'importance', so we shouldn't accept that just anything may be 'art'.
Bullshit. Most 'art' sucks. And too much bad art gets away with sucking because it qualifies for some standard of artiness that other art does not, no matter how good it may be, and is therefore out of the reach of critical assessment.
Art isn't special by virtue of being art. It's only special by virtue of being good, if and when it is. The question, 'is this art?' needs to be replaced by the question 'is this good art?'
Most of the time the answer's 'no'. When the answers 'yes' then that should be acknowledged independently of any other criteria.
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For instance, yesterday, I posted a handful of links to my own blog about a couple of artists who made "funny" or designed notes and mailed them to everyone in a Pittsburgh neighborhood.
Photos of all the notes are posted to the artist's blog, but they said somewhere in their press that the actual collection of notes or the letters themselves isn't the art, and nowhere do they claim that mailing them to an entire neighborhood or their goal of mailing one to everyone in the world is the art, but instead, they repeatedly say that "the art work consists solely of the discussion between the recipients".
Apparently this is these artists' intent, but do I have to accept that it's their art?
12/04/09
As for me, I think the letters are their art, and the rest of it sounds like kinda pretentious justifications where none are necessary: what is wrong with making funny letters?
So anyway, yeah, the letters (and photos) meet my definition.
12/04/09
The more pressing question is, 'who gives a shit?'
If your art sucks, the fact that it's 'art' doesn't make it suck any less.
12/04/09
I know this is akin to admitting that I'm a serial killer or a pedophile but...yes, I watch soap operas. I started watching them at my momma's knee when I was a kid and have continued with the habit through college, grad school, and now adult working life. I DVR One Life to Live and General Hospital, and watch them, sometimes on ffwd, on the weekend or every other weekend when folding laundry or the like.
But my point is....Franco kind of has a point about the meta aspect of his performance. He plays a mysterious artist named Franco, and yeah, much of the time I've watched his scenes I've thought "this is James Franco playing a guy on a soap named Franco." And it's almost impossible to watch him in the role without being acutely aware that this is a famous movie actor playing a famous artist on a show. It does add another layer of interest to the show.
I think he also has a point about the critically legitimate thing. Yes, soaps are outrageous and silly in many ways. But having "big time movie star" Franco playing against these other soap actors brings home the point that (1) many of these actors on these shows are just as good as him and (2) are not playing roles that much more outrageous than roles Franco has played in other films.
So yeah, I do think it makes (some) people question whether soaps are less critically legitimate. Of course, other people just think it's a soap so why care.
12/04/09
The clips they have posted on Jezebel, the one above and the one the other day on .tv, all say hey - look at James Franco - he's on a soap and now with the op-ed, he's pulled himself further from the context.
12/04/09
Having read about Franco & that guy, Carter, who takes credit for the whole GH idea, I agree with what you're saying about the meta aspect of his performance. But the reason I have trouble watching him without being aware that he's an out-of-place famous actor is b/c a lot of his scenes are just monumentally bad. They're out of place b/c the other acting - that I thought was horrific when I first tuned in - is better than some of his scenes. I'm sure some of that is they're used to the 1-take pace (and terrible writing), but during a couple of his scenes, I've sat there with the same expression of discomfort that I usually reserve for Michael Scott on the Office.
That said, fuck, he's the best soap opera kisser I've ever seen. So kudos on that, Franco.
12/04/09