James Franco: Actor, writer, visual artist, musician, and — in case you’d forgotten — director. The multimedia wonder recently rejoined Twitter (his new handle is @JamesFrancoTV — try to keep up) to post the trailer for his new documentary series, Undergrads. The two-and-a-half-minute clip resembles something you might see on a particularly uneventful episode of MTV’s True Life: bros bullshitting in their dorm room and sucking down Skyy Vodka straight from the bottle, ladies face-painting their nubile legs in school colors, a frat party, a couple making out and then fighting, some cops. Now, it’s likely that this was Franco’s intention; if you’ve read his short story collection, Palo Alto, you’ll realize that he’s kind of obsessed with the minor details of young people’s lives. The question is, will Undergrads be interesting to anyone besides its creator? Watch the preview after the jump and let us know what you think.

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Welcome to “Trailer Park,” our regular Friday feature where we collect the week’s new trailers all in one place and do a little “judging a book by its cover,” ranking them from worst to best and taking our best guess at what they may be hiding. We’ve got seven new trailers for you this week; check ‘em all out after the jump.

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So, here’s the least surprising news in the world: James Franco, who is in just about every movie being made right now and has already played such real-life gay cultural figures as Allen Ginsberg, Hart Crane, and Harvey Milk’s boyfriend Scott Smith, will star as Robert Mapplethorpe in a new biopic. Called simply Mapplethorpe, the film will be directed by Ondi Timoner — who’s known for her cult-favorite documentaries Dig! and We Live in Public – and has just been blessed with a grant from Tribeca Film Institute’s Tribeca All Access Program. Oh, and Joss Whedon fans? Today’s James Franco pop-culture Madlib is rounded out by Eliza Dushku, who is a producer on the project. [via THR]

Back in September, James Franco scored his first The Paris Review byline with a piece that introduced the magazine’s highbrow readership to River, his Gus Van Sant-blessed cut of My Own Private Idaho. In the months since, he has reviewed Restless (an indie love story directed by Van Sant) and written a piece juxtaposing The Descendants with Breaking Dawn. Today, Franco’s latest piece arrived online, and this time he’s using the two movies that he saw over the holidays — The Artist and Puss in Boots — to look at how recent advances in CG technology will impact his own career.

“The Artist is a film about an actor who can’t use his voice in film — and Puss in Boots is an animated film that uses only famous performers’ voices (Antonio Banderas, Selma Hayek, Zach Galifianakis, Billy Bob Thorton, Amy Sedaris),” Franco writes. “Animation has been a part of film history almost since its inception, and animation with sound started at almost the same time as live-action talkies, Snow White being one of the first feature-length animated sound films in 1937. But it wasn’t until Aladdin (1992) and then Toy Story (1995) that recognizable actors started voicing animated characters with regularity. The personalities of the performers is now a huge part of the animation process, and as computer-generated technology advances, the images will only begin to look more lifelike. Pretty soon — in fact it’s already happening, just look at Tintin — it won’t just be the voices that actors provide for CG animators; it will be all the aspects of a performance.”

We’re curious: What do you think will happen to every actor who’s not Andy Serkis as technology continues to advance?

Amazon Publishing has signed a deal with actor and creative superhero James Franco. Actors Anonymous is the tentative title of the star’s first novel, which the Observer reports is a “fictionalized version” on his own (not so anonymous) experiences as an actor. There should be plenty for Franco to pull from, considering his award-winning performances in a range of indie to big budget films. The Believer editor Ed Park — now Amazon’s fiction guru — acquired the sale, much to the chagrin of traditional publishing houses everywhere. Scribner released Franco’s short story project Palo Alto: Stories in 2010, referencing the California city where the actor grew up. Reviews ranged from extremely negative to somewhat hopeful, but only time will tell if his Amazon release will surpass his angsty teen tale.

1. Demi Moore has been cast as feminist icon Gloria Steinem in that Linda Lovelace biopic that we feel like we’ve been reading about forever now, and is finally shooting in Los Angeles. Also part of the ensemble: Amanda Seyfried, who plays Lovelace, Peter Sarsgaard as her husband, and James Franco, who will make a cameo as Hugh Hefner. [via THR]

2. On New Year’s Eve Patti Smith announced that her annual residency at the Bowery Ballroom — a beloved tradition for New York-based rock fans — was coming to an end; according to Lenny Kaye, her lead guitarist, the band will continue doing the yearly batch of shows, just at an alternate location. [via ArtsBeat]

3. Despite underwhelming performance at the box office, Sony says that a sequel to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is still in the works, with Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara already on board to reprise their starring roles. That said, David Fincher has not signed on to direct the sequel just yet. [via Vulture]

4. Elton John would like for Justin Timberlake to play him in a forthcoming biopic that’s in the works; JT previously played a younger version of the legendary performer in David LaChapelle’s video for “This Train Don’t Stop There Anymore.” [via LAT]

5. A pixelated image of Morrissey has been hidden in Google Earth, just outside of the UK’s Salford Lads Club, the venue that appears on the cover of The Smiths’ The Queen Is Dead album. [via NME]

Bonus Buzz: Who’s Writing Rupert Murdoch’s Tweets?

This holiday season, Patrón Tequila came up with a great way to give something to your friends without emptying your wallet. With the “If” Tag app, you can select from a variety of hypothetical scenarios (such as, “If aliens invade, zombies attack, or the robots rise up, you’d be the John Connor to my Kyle Reese), and then select a friend who gets the honor of being your first choice for the gig. You can add a personal message, and then post the whole award right to your friend’s Facebook wall. We were having so much fun with it, in fact, that we decided to take it one step further and pick our top celebrity choices for a number of the “If” scenarios. Click through to see who came out on top for our editors, and why each pop-culture pick made the grade. And if you want to play too, just choose a scenario yourself and tell us who you want in on it in the comments.

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Today at Flavorpill, wondered how many pounds you would gain if you ate an entire bacon tree by yourself. We started counting down the days until Mad Men returns next year thanks to these new photos of Jon Hamm on set. We were slightly afraid of a few of these world record setters — particularly the person behind “fastest time to eat a light bulb.” We found out what it’s really like to be James Franco’s professor. We were amazed by this 100-year-old letter to Santa that was recently discovered in a chimney in Dublin. We read a hilarious new holiday-themed essay by Sloane Crosley entitled “How to Start Your Candy-Cane Collection in 23 Easy Steps.” We decided that we’d like to meet the crazed Trekkies who live in this house — as long as there was a chaperone present. We looked forward to hearing 32 more chapters of R. Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet. We downloaded a new alarm clock app that features fake wake-up calls from Jimmy Fallon. And finally, we were surprised to see how beautiful photos of volcanic activity can be. Prepared to be amazed!

If there are two subjects on which we’ve reached pop-culture saturation point this year, they are James Franco and the Linda Lovelace biopic. Franco has already been in the news once this week, for supposedly getting an NYU professor who gave him a low grade fired. And few days have gone by without a nano-update on Lovelace, which was supposed to star Lindsay Lohan and now stars Amanda Seyfried. So it seemed almost inevitable that Franco would find his way into the production, and now he has — the actor/artist/musician/novelist/etc. is reportedly “deep in talks” to play none other than Hugh Hefner. The walking meme would join a cast that includes, along with Seyfried, Peter Sarsgaard, Bobby Cannavale, Chris Noth, and Hank Azaria. Also worth nothing: While the long-delayed movie hasn’t finalized its cast yet, it has already begun shooting. [via MTV News]

We’ve talked about book cover designs — both new and old — quite a lot this year, and it’s no surprise. Being completely obsessed with pop culture as we are, we’re more than a little bit fascinated by covers, since they manage to combine two of our favorite things: literature and design. We’ve been tracking our favorite covers all year, but to get an expert opinion on the topic, we asked illustrator and graphic designer Andrew Henderson, who runs one of our favorite Tumblrs, Lovely Book Covers (tagline: yes, you should judge a book by its cover), to curate this list of the best book covers of 2011. Since he’s based in Scotland, several of Henderson’s choices are from UK or other foreign editions, which we think makes the list all the more interesting. Click through to see his picks for the most evocative, beautiful, and well-designed book covers of the year, and let us know if you agree with his assessments in the comments! Read More »