Tag - james-franco

 
 

JAMES FRANCO

Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 25, 2015
Good People: 'really bad money and a really lame script'
James Franco and Kate Hudson star as Tom and Anna Wright, an American couple trying to start their lives over in London by renovating an old house they inherited. Funds are short, and when their dodgy basement-dwelling tenant dies of an overdose and they find a huge sack of money hidden away, Tom is reluctant to tell the police about it, seeing this as the end to his debt problems. Anna, however, frets: "We don't know where this money comes from. This could be really, really bad money."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 6, 2014
Homefront
Sylvester Stallone must really like Jason Statham, his co-star from "The Expendables" series, because in "Homefront" Sly has given him the lead in a script he had originally written for himself. Or maybe he is just feeling his age these days and slowing down. Not likely, but this film is classic 1980s action in the Stallone mode.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 19, 2014
Paul Haggis: Spinning reality into a web of fiction
"Today, too often, we've gotten used to telling the audience things in bold, in all-caps or underlined, and solving everything for everybody." So says Paul Haggis, the screenwriter and director who won Oscars back-to-back with "Million Dollar Baby" in 2004 and "Crash" in 2005. His new film, "Third Person," is not told in "all caps" — it's an intense exploration of trust and betrayal, about trying to find something real; a film built on an intricate structure of interlocking stories.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 27, 2014
The truth, like porn, can be seen from many angles
"Lovelace" is a biopic on the 1970s porn superstar Linda Lovelace (real name: Linda Boreman), who rose to fame in "Deep Throat," the low-budget hardcore sex comedy that went on to gross something like $600 million. Its story is based almost entirely on "Ordeal," Boreman's 1980 account of her career in which she claims to have been forced by her abusive, pimp-like husband Chuck Traynor to do the film. Yet dig a little deeper into Boreman's life and it becomes clear the only proper way to film this story would be like Akira Kurosawa's "Rashomon," from several different angles: The truth is hazy and the story changes depending on who's telling it.

Longform

High-end tourism is becoming more about the kinds of experiences that Japan's lesser-known places can provide.
Can Japan lure the jet-set class off the beaten path?