That’s right, boys and girls.
In just a few months, you can relive that same feeling you had when the Olsen twins turned of age as your favorite Disney tweens (including Selena Gomez and whatsherface) take to the screen and bare all but bikinis and kicks for their new flick, “Spring Breakers”:
The premise seems pretty simple: Some college girls who are disillusioned with their boring suburban lives (but hard on cash), decide to take a visit to the other side of the tracks en route to spring break. They rob a store in order to afford a little spending money for their Floridian getaway, get caught, are put in jail, and then a local drug dealer/rapper (seemingly the “king of spring break” and played by none other than Mr. James Franco) bails them out with the income of his recreational activities. They’re suspicious, but grateful enough to follow him home, smoke and snort his party favors, and who knows what else.
I hope the gratuitously tawdry eye candy of this film compensates for the nerve-grating repetition of “Sprrraaang Breaaak”, said every two seconds in the trailer. Seeing as the movie has the same creator as “Kids” (yeah, remember Harmony Korine?), though, I highly doubt it’s going to have a happy ending. Even if it’s amazing.
Meanwhile, there’s been a year long debate over “who James Franco was copying?”
As you may or may not be able to see from the Youtube comments below the video, an L.A. rapper claimed it was he who was being emulated, that he (not Franco) had been contacted to do the film, but was “out of the country” at the time, so that they chose James Franco. As a last resort.
Really? Really?
First, let’s consider the source and the fact that you’ve got at least two other actors in the film who are nearly household names (Gomez and Hudgens) and well known rappers playing in the movie already. If you’re going to fabricate some kind of would-be involvement out of which you were cheated, at least make it credible, and say that rapper Dangeruss (the rapper standing directly behind Franco and rapping with him onstage in the video above) was the one you were vying with for that role.
That I might believe.
Now don’t get me wrong, Mr. Franco admits to “borrowing” from the Riff Raff (among tons of other white boy rappers who also have Elton John Syndrome – AKA dressing stupid to detract from how white and not-gangster they are) style a bit. That’s because the character is manufactured
Elton John Syndrome: A disorder characterized by what would be a list of otherwise unsuccessful artists donning ridiculous garb to gain a fanbase. (See also: Cee-lo Green, Lady Gaga)
It’s made to be interesting and based on the script. If he was going strictly for copying Dangeruss, he would have used his name instead of “Alien”, dreads instead of cornrows, and lost even more weight to get that “gutta butta” gaunt look. The idea, contrarily, was to concoct a character that’s multilayered: Fascinating for film, but ultimately fictional.
Mister Russ was just a muse – no more and no less. If Riff had been involved at all (which he never was), that’s all he would have been either. His anger is misdirected away from the muse and at the multi-millionaire (or billionaire, more likely). It’s what actors do to prep (ie: studying a ton of serial killer documentaries and interviews to prep for a role as a fictional psycho). The Riff-spute is like having Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy getting butthurt for lack of royalties from Silence of the Lambs or The Stranger Beside Me.
“We all go a little mad sometimes” – Ted
Back to the point, though: Think about it, Mister Raff.
Try to just play this logically out in your head. Let’s say you’re not lying. Let’s say you had been first pick for the movie and weren’t out of town, as you claim you were. If – out of the blue – James Fkkn Franco flew in on a magic carpet and expressed one modicum of interest in this role, don’t think for one second your white ass wouldn’t have been shitcanned right then and there.
I think the funniest way to sum it all up is via the following interview Mr. Franco gave at a GQ party:
GQ Eye: With regards to your character in the movie, the rapper Riff Raff has said the role you are playing was originally meant for him. Is that true?
James Franco: None of that’s true. I’ll tell you why he could have never been offered the role. Harmony (Korine, the movie’s writer and director) and I were talking about doing a movie together before Spring Breakers was even conceived. I had been a fan of his work and he wanted to do something and I said, “I’ll do anything with you.” We started discussing ideas and one day he sent me a treatment, which he said he’s never done before, just to run it by me. And it was this idea of these girls going on spring break and then they meet up with this guy who leads them into the dark side. And then he wrote the script. So there’s no chance Riff Raff could have been offered the role. Of course Harmony and I looked at some of Riff Raff’s videos as inspiration, but he was one of a number of people we looked at. I would say the biggest influence on the role was this local Florida rapper named Dangerous. He’s fairly unknown, but he was down there in the place, living the life, and he became the biggest model for me and he’s in the movie.
GQ Eye: So Riff Raff never sent you some of his clothes to wear like he said?
James Franco: No, never. But if he still wants to send me clothes, he can.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you silence the haters.
Like a mufuggin boss.
xoxo
<3~A
Velt
Who wouldn’t wanna hang out and drink some beers with James Franco? He’s probably the only grad student from Columbia to ever dress like riff-raff
Ashley
lol, greg! I think you need to get a blog soon with Meesh 😉 Your wit is unparalleled and getting lost into the great oblivion. I move that it should be collected into an archive of awesome – like now 🙂
<3~A