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Controversial Cultural Icons Interviewing Each Other

By Alison Nastasi on

The gamine-coiffed creator of Girls, Lena Dunham, is currently on the cover of Interview magazine. Creative comrade Miranda July conducted the chat with the Tiny Furniture director. Both artists have carved their own path in the industry and made careers out of being keen observers, illuminating the unspoken intricacies of the everyday. Each has also faced their share of controversy — arousing criticisms over sex, nepotism, racial insensitivity, and body image, to name a few. We wanted to explore what happens when two cultural icons sit down to interview each other — and we’ve shared the Dunham/July talk past the break. Do these pioneering, celebrity culture makers ask the tough questions? Can they relate to one another, or do they lock horns? Check out the interviews between several controversial cultural icons that we tracked down, and find out. … Read More

News

The Morning’s Top 5 Pop Culture Stories

By Caroline Stanley on

1. James Franco explains that his band Daddy’s new song “Can’t Say Goodbye” was inspired by his father’s recent death. Watch the music video for the track — which features childhood home movies of the actor — here.

2. The National debuted four new songs during their performance at All Tomorrow’s Parties in England over the weekend. Listen to one of the tracks here. … Read More

News

The Morning’s Top 5 Pop Culture Stories

By Caroline Stanley on

1. R. Kelly’s epic hip-hop opera, Trapped in the Closet, is apparently going to be adapted as a Broadway musical. Also: There are 85 additional chapters in the series that Kelly hasn’t even debuted yet. [via Gawker]

2. If you happen to be visiting London over the next few weeks, James Franco will… Read More

Books

Peek at the Ideal Bookshelves of 10 Famous Readers

By Emily Temple on

Thessaly LaForce and Jane Mount’s My Ideal Bookshelf celebrates the favorite reads of notable figures from David Sedaris to Rosanne Cash, creating a portrait of each icon in books.… Read More

Music

Watch A New Video for R.E.M.’s ‘Blue,’ Directed by James Franco and Starring Lindsay Lohan

By Emily Temple on

It’s hard to believe that R.E.M. broke up over a year ago — has it really been that long? Their fifteenth and final album, Collapse Into Now, dropped in March of last year, but it’s only now that this video, created by James Franco for the Collapse Into Now Film Project, has risen to the surface. The video is grainy and unsettling, if still kind of beautiful, like a grown-up version of Less Than Zero, with layered footage, bright lights, and shots of a sexed-up Lindsay Lohan modeling. All this behind a fuzzy track with echoing vocals by Michael Stipe and Patti Smith. Ah, the City of Angels. Click through to watch, and let us know what you think in the comments. … Read More

Film

David Gordon Green Might Be Directing a ‘Little House’ Movie

By Caroline Stanley on

While we realize that there’s a lot driving the decision making process in Hollywood that we’re not privy to — people taking on projects because they owe someone a favor or they need a quick paycheck — today’s news that David Gordon Green is in talks to direct Sony’s big-screen adaptation of Little House on… Read More

Music

Here’s That James Franco/Smokey Robinson Collaboration We Warned You About

By Judy Berman on

We knew it was coming, and here it is: the James Franco/Smokey Robinson collaboration! World of Wonder points us to “Crime,” the track on Daddy’s (Franco and art-pal Tim O’Keefe) new MotorCity EP that features guest vocals from the R&B legend. We’re going to go ahead and call it listenable, which is nicer than what James St. James at WoW had to say (“Can somebody close to Mr Franco please tell him that there are mountains he doesn’t HAVE to climb?”). Featuring the same sort of nostalgic-tropical-Motown vibe as the duo’s debut single, “Love in the Old Days,” it’s big on echoing vocals, campy strings, and endless repetitions of the refrain, “You were a crime I had to commit.” And yet, it’s lovely to hear Robinson’s voice, even if he is singing backup to Franco. Watch the Instagram-hallucination video after the jump. … Read More

Music

James Franco Has a New Motown-Chillwave-Ryan McGinley Music Video for You

By Judy Berman on

James Franco, who has already appeared on Flavorwire twice this week, starring in a NSFW film trailer and paying homage to Cindy Sherman, has a new music video. In true Franco fashion, this isn’t part of his collaboration with Kalup Linzy — it’s a whole new project. He’s teamed up with “musician-artist” Tim O’Keefe to form a band called Daddy. Inspired by Motown and recorded during Franco’s stint in Detroit to film Oz: The Great and Powerful, their first EP is titled MotorCity, features guest vocals by Smokey Robinson, and is set for release this coming Tuesday.

“Love in the Old Days” takes the Motown influence quite literally, to the extent that it even includes some spoken-word interludes, but also has a kind of diffuse, chillwave vibe. Directed by Franco, the clip underlines the latter aesthetic, full of sexy, psychedelic beach shots that recall nothing more than the photos of Ryan McGinley. Revel in the ecstasy of influence below, and read more about Daddy at Rolling Stone. … Read More

Film

Watch James Franco and Heather Graham in the Red Band Trailer for ‘About Cherry’

By Caroline Stanley on

About Cherry, which marks Rumpus founder Stephen Elliott’s directorial debut and has been on the festival circuit for the past year or so, finally goes into limited release later this week. Today, thanks to The Playlist, we have a first look at the film’s very NSFW red band trailer. From the footage presented here, it’s easy to see why it hasn’t made much a of a critical splash; while it’s good fun to see Rollergirl playing an adult film director, and Dev Patel is charming as ever as the doe-eyed best friend of our protagonist — a high school senior who starts doing porn in San Francisco — it’s hard to shake the feeling that you’re watching a Lifetime Original, albeit with a much better cast and higher production values. Click through to check out the trailer now, and let us know if you think this film has potential in the comments. … Read More