Posts Tagged ‘james franco’

James-Franco-may-star-in-Linda-Lovelace

Honestly, I don’t know how James Franco has time to sleep sit on the toilet for more than a few seconds everyday. We just recently heard that Franco will direct and star in an adaptation of The Night Stalker along with the plethora of other projects in the works. Now Deadline reports Franco is in discussions to play pornographer Chuck Traynor in a biography of Linda Lovelace, the porn star turned anti-porn advocate. In addition, Kate Hudson apparently has the offer to play the titule role in lovelace. The two will play the husband and wife who made waves in the adult film industry with the infamous 1972 porno Deep Throat.

After quitting the business, Lovelace changed her name to Linda Boreman and then revealed that Traynor had forced her into prostitution and pornography through physical abuse and apparently hypnotism. Written by W. Merrit Johnson, the film is actually an adaptation of Eric Danville’s biography The Complete Linda Lovelace. Franco should be comfortable with the role since Howl directors Rob Epstien and Jeffery Friedman are at the helm of this new biopic. It’s important to note that this project has nothing to do with Inferno, the Lovelace biopic that now has Malin Akerman in the lead role after Lindsay Lohan’s personal problems prevented her from starring in the film. However, apparently both projects are having trouble getting financing together. This one sounds interesting.

The Movie Scoop’s Oscar Predictions

Academy Award nominations will be announced on January 25th. So, just so I can say “I told you so” later, I’m releasing my Oscar picks a few weeks early. No offense meant to my movie critic brethren, but generally speaking most movie critics are kinda nerdy and go for the obvious high brow choices at Oscar time. So, I’ll give you two picks in the major categories. One will be the obvious Oscar choice and the other will be my personal choice. Let’s begin with best movie.

My Choice: The Fighter with Mark Wahlberg. A great true story about a boxer seeking redemption. The fight scenes are the most realistic I’ve ever seen in a boxing movie.
Oscar goes to: The Social Network. The before mentioned nerds will go for this true “geek tragedy”. It’s about a college genius who starts the largest and most successful social network in the world just so he can meet a girl.

Best Actor:
My Choice: James Franco in 127 Hours. Franco plays a hiker who has to choose between dying trapped in a cave or hacking off his own arm to survive. Franco carries the entire movie on his shoulders with an incredible character study on courage and will to survive.
Oscar pick: Colin Firth in The King’s Speech. A very poignant story of an Englishman who overcame severe stammering to become the King of England.

Best Actress:
My Choice: Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone. She plays a 17 year old girl who has to track down her father or risk losing her family’s home, which was put up as collateral for his bail.
Oscar Winner: Natalie Portman in The Black Swan. She plays the kind of dark and tortured character that Oscar voters love.

Best Director:
My Choice: Danny Boyle for 127 Hours. He takes a very dark subject and relies heavily on one actor to tell an amazing story. Warning: the scene with Franco cutting off his own arm will make you sick, but it’s balanced with the story of this hero’s incredible will to survive.
And The Oscar goes to…David Fincher for The Social Network. Once again I attribute the Oscar win to “the nerd effect”.

So there you have it; my take on this year’s Oscar race. I’ll be back in the theater soon picking out the gems for you and steering you safely away from the stinkers. The Oscar’s air February 27th on ABC TV.

Let’s Take A Look At The Movie 127 Hours.

Man is very  inconsequential to nature. It’s a lesson the world teaches us from time to time, making it known that we aren’t necessarily the ruling class on the planet. It’s a lesson a young hiker, Aron Ralson, learned over the course of five days in May of 2003 when his right arm was pinned between a boulder and a rock wall. The struggle, pain, and ultimately, will to survive (which entails so much more pain) Ralston went through is now the basis of Danny Boyle’s new film, 127 Hours.

127 Hours is both a harrowing testament to Ralston and his overpowering continence that allowed him to walk away from that predicament not exactly unchanged. It’s also a vital look at the nature of things, the world as we know it or maybe don’t know it so well, and those instances where it might turn on us blindly no matter how much we might respect it. Above all else, 127 Hours is the closest to a flawlessly executed film to come across all year.

James Franco plays Ralston, an adventurer of all the far corners of the planet. Ralston is tired of the hustle and bustle of life, wants to drive past the mass marketing on every street corner to something a bit simpler. In May of 2003, he ventured to the desert near Moab, Utah. There, in Blue John Canyon, he found himself trapped. A boulder had come dislodged, both it and Ralston fell, and at the bottom of the canyon, the boulder came down on his arm. Ralston was trapped, unable to budge the heavy rock or himself no matter what he tried. That was the beginning of the five days, 127 hours, when Ralston had to overcome lack of water, lack of food, and exhaustion before resorting to drastic measures in order to free himself.

Boyle, never a director who finds himself in the spot of repeating himself, once again pulls of an incredibly accomplished piece of filmmaking. Put into the hands of someone who wanted to just make a straight forward narrative of Ralston’s tale of persistence, 127 Hours would still have been a commendable film based solely on its harrowing narrative. Boyle isn’t satisfied with convention nor does he ever take the path you might expect, cliche or not. From the basic structure of the film in which we never leave Ralston’s side to the way Boyle handles the hallucinations Ralston experienced due to his thirst and lack of sleep to even the way the film’s title presents itself, 127 Hours surprises and engages you with every fervid moment.

Those hallucinations in particular could have come across as hokey or ersatz. Boyle utilizes them to tell us more about Ralston, who he was as a child, what his family dynamic was like, and even who he could be if given the opportunity to live past this moment in his life. They grow increasingly emotional, as well, until they almost become Ralston’s life blood, his one connection still present to the world outside this canyon. They are also what probably forced Ralston to take those drastic measures to continue his life in this world.

That moment is extremely intense. The whole film rides a level of tension even before Ralston becomes trapped. Boyle shoots the environment Ralston has ventured to with as much respect as possible, pulling the beauty and might of the world off in each and every frame of film. The moment Ralston becomes trapped is shot passingly, comes in an instant that neither Ralston nor the viewer could have prevented. The ensuing five-day struggle to hold onto life and sanity is equally shot with a fervor that grasps your interest, never allowing the confined of the locale appear boring or minimalist. However, once Ralston determines he is going to live, once he takes out dull knife and begins the process of removing his own arm in order to free himself, literally like a fox in a trap, all else stops. Boyle doesn’t pull away from the bloody ordeal, something many viewers might not be able to watch, but that’s okay. There’s an understanding there that maybe not everyone will be able to sit and watch Ralston do this to himself, but the attention to detail given in what he does is both undeniable and necessary.

Of course, that moment, as well as 90% of the rest of the film, could have been left to boredom and dulling rubric were it not for the staggering portrayal of Ralston that James Franco has provided. His range of emotions fully on display, Franco is fearless here, never coming across as wanting to hold back on any of the emotions Ralston went through over the course of those five days. Franco pauses in the most ideal of moments, particularly in the scene where Ralston, video camera on hand, makes a tape for his family and friends to see in the case he doesn’t survive. It’s one of dozens of emotionally charged moments in 127 Hours, and it hits home everything this man went through in a few glances this highly gifted actor gives to the camera.

James Franco Cast in Danny Boyle’s Newest Film ‘127 Hours’

Could this be what that “General Hospital” appearance was all about? Just kidding. Production Weekly is reporting on Twitter that James Franco has been cast in Danny Boyle’s new film titled 127 Hours, which tells the story of a mountain climber in Utah who had to amputate his own arm when it got pinned beneath a boulder. We’ve heard plenty of early details about 127 Hours recently, primarily because it’s Boyle’s highly anticipated follow-up to the Oscar winning Slumdog Millionaire. Originally it was Ryan Gosling who was rumored for the role, but it looks like Franco landed it in the end. Shooting will start in early March in Utah.

Similar to the one-man stuck-in-a-coffin film Buried with Ryan Reynolds, 127 Hours is supposed be another one-man-show about mountaineer Aron Ralston. The title refers to the number of hours that Ralston was pinned (it calculates out to about 5 days) before he decided to cut off his own arm and escape before he died at that spot in the mountains. This will be a challenge for Franco to pull off, but with the exuberant Danny Boyle behind the lens giving him direction, I’ve got a feeling we have a true awards contender in the works. Franco has the acting chops to pull it off, it’s just a matter of making it happen. Can Franco pull it off?