Because James Franco

[TW for violence.]

Legendary producer James Franco is adapting Michael Gregg Michaud legendary biography of Sal Mineo for the big screen. James Franco starred in a biopic about James Dean who starred in two movies with Sal Mineo. Synchronicity! Franco, however, will not appear in this film.

Franco has cast relative unknown Val Lauren (see inset) to play Mineo in the film tentatively titled Sal.

Sal Mineo's performance as Plato in Rebel Without A Cause is often cited as one of Hollywood's first portrayals of a gay teenager. Later, Mineo himself came out, one of the first celebrities to do so, much to the detriment of his career. Mineo was murdered outside his West Hollywood apartment in 1976. He was 37.

Filming of Sal is set to begin this summer.

Whoooooooooops There Is SO MUCH Green in Your Movie!

One of trailers preceding Thor this weekend was the trailer for Green Lantern, otherwise known as The Green Ryan Reynolds, which looks as though it will be as bad as Thor was good. Even though The Green Ryan Reynolds looks like a low-rent garbage disaster, I will almost certainly be seeing it, because nerd.

But let me tell you this: However bad the special effects look in the below trailer, they look even worse on the big screen, which is approximately as bad as they looked on the cover of Entertainment Weekly.

And OMG THIS MOVIE IS SO GREEN. I mean, you expect a lot of green, because no doy, but OMG IT IS SO GREEN. It's so green it looks like it was directed by Joel Schumacher in the mid-90s. It's so green that the title track is "It Ain't Easy Being This Movie," by Kermit T. Frog. It's so green that Big Energy has lobbied Congress to have it banned. It's VERY GREEN, is what I'm saying.

Oh, and also: It stars Ryan Reynolds.


Green planet with lots of green things and glowy green light and people wearing greensuits. They're having a meeting about an "unprecedented danger, an enemy powerful enough to destroy entire civilizations." The One Green Ring has chosen a human "to fight this enemy." And, no doy, the ring chose a straight white dude. What—did you think the ring WOULDN'T choose a straight white dude? That intergalactic ring is totes fluent in Earth's kyriarchal narratives, yo.

Purple Squarehead Alien in greensuit delivers ring to Ryan Reynolds: Here is your personal invitation to become a hero, sir! Ryan Reynolds speaks the oath while holding the green ring near the magical green lantern and gets his own greensuit. He is whisked through space and time to the green planet, where he gets his green training on and receives a green sword. A greensuit gives him the lowdown on his magical superbowl ring: "Its limits are only what you can imagine." Ironically, this is a message that would also be useful for writers of superhero movies. (But CANON!!!!!!eleventy!!1!)

Cut to Peter Sarsgaard, who is obviously evil because his assistant is a black woman and his laboratory is DEFINITELY more teal than straight-up green. Whatever evil he's gotten himself into has apparently settled in his frontal lobe, which is getting distractingly bulbous. Tim Robbins is so going to barf all over that mutant head.

Blake Lively consoles the Green Ryan Reynolds who has doubts about being the chosen one. She believes in him. Yay! Don't let us down, Green Ryan Reynolds, because ALL OF EARTH is counting on you! No pressure, though.

Peter Sarsgaard's head continues to bulbify. Green Ryan Reynolds seeks the help of the other greensuits. He's got a green machine gun! Take that, Peter Sarsgaard. I hope it's enough to save THE PLANET!

P.S. Peter Sarsgaard LOL YOUR HEAD!

The Thor Thread

So, I saw Thor this weekend, and it was actually quite fun. It also passes the Bechdel Test: Natalie Portman and Kat Dennings discuss SCIENCE! (and good job on the SCIENCE!, Sean), and Portman's Jane Foster may be one of the most well-drawn female scientists who's graced the big screen, simply by virtue of her being allowed to look and behave like a real person. She isn't stuck behind a pair of unfashionable glasses that are meant to oblige us to pretend that Natalie Portman isn't beautiful, nor is she socially awkward and graceless and imbued with the other stereotypically characteristics of the Female Nerd. It's evident that Foster is a smart, dedicated, ambitious, and courageous professional woman—who also happens to be beautiful.

Foster also mentions having an ex-boyfriend, which was perhaps just a throwaway line to explain why she'd have men's clothes and an identity to lend to Thor, but that seemingly minor detail is strangely effective in fleshing out the character and underscoring that she's a complete human being, with a personal life (and quite possibly a sex life), in addition to her professional life, that existed pre-Thor.

As regards The Big Canon Controversy, i.e. the casting of the amazing Idris Elba (pictured above) as Heimdall, the gatekeeper for Thor's home of Asgard, well, you all know how I feel about that sort of thing—and, frankly, if one can suspend disbelief to get one's head 'round a magical hammer but can't get one's head 'round a black man playing an imaginary deity BECAUSE CANON!!!!!!eleventy!!1!, one really ought to consider that there is a line at which "canon" starts to operate in the same way as "tradition" to entrench privilege.

There were people who threatened to boycott the film over the casting of Elba as Heimdall (and/or the casting of Tadanobu Asano as Hogun the Grim), to whom all I can say is: Good. I'm glad your racism ruined a fun movie experience for you.

Overall, the movie was pretty decent—a bit of mindless fun. It looks pretty, and the special effects have a nice sort of gauzy retro feel that evokes the 1980's Clash of the Titans and the 1983 Lou Ferrigno classic Hercules. There were a couple of belly laughs, and, despite the absurdly compressed timeline inherent to all such films (sure, everyone can totally become a new person in three days, and doesn't every gal fall in love with an alien titan in like two seconds?), the story's pretty good. Loki's reversal is maybe a little thin, but, again, still quite strong for this sort of film.

My biggest complaint, frankly, is that Kenneth Branagh had Rene Russo (!) on board and didn't do a thing with her. More Rene!

Box Office News

I was scouring the internet this morning for Atlas Shrugged Part 1 news, but there's nothing new out there. It's almost like the whole liberal news media blackout thing or whatever producer John Aglialoro was calling it is real. Except it's not. The truth is no one cares. Not even me, really. (And yet I keep writing about it. It's a sickness.)

Atlas Shrugged Part 1 dropped to 29th place at the box office, pulling a dismal $600 per screen this weekend. That is roughly about six viewers per screening. Ouch! The good news here is that it will be out of theaters ASAP and on DVD shortly. This still doesn't mean you can park wherever the fuck you want when using Redbox though. Just keep that in mind.

Meanwhile, it looks like Mel Gibson is officially box office poison. The Beaver, directed by Jodie Foster, tanked in its opening weekend. Whoops!

In better news, I guess, Thor hammered its way (See what I did there? Yeah, I know, I hate myself too) into theaters with $66M. Also at the top of the heap: two movies about heterosexuals getting married (Jumping the Broom and Something Borrowed), a Christian film (Soul Surfer) and a handful of sequels.

Note, on those sequels, I've never seen anything in the Fast and Furious franchise, not even by accident when flipping the channels. I've never heard of the Hoodwinked series, but I think it's for kids. (Any kids out there that can confirm that?) I hearby nominate Tyler Perry's Madea's Big Happy Family for most awkward film title of the year.

Rounding out the top ten was a cartoon of some sort (Rio), RPattz in a non-sparkling-dracula role (Water for Elephants), and a raunchy teen sex comedy (Prom). Go, modern cinema!