Love him or hate him, James Franco can always be counted on to do weird attention-getting things, like playing himself on “General Hospital,” hosting the Oscars in a complete stupor and directing a film that reimagines 40 minutes of explicit deleted footage from the infamous Al Pacino gay leather-bar movie “Cruising.” Now, with the news that James Franco has signed on for a reality show that will look at the world of contemporary art through James Franco’s eyes – something we have all been waiting for, obviously – it got us to thinking: what hasn’t James Franco done yet? Surprisingly, the list is longer than you might think. Take these eight things, for instance:
1) Straight-up porn
Though it seems like something he’d have already done by this point, the fact remains that James Franco has never performed in an actual, straight-up porn movie. Which would be way subversive and edgy, albeit not entirely unexpected. Do it, James Franco, do it!
2) Cloned himself
When it comes to the issue of cloning, a whole host of ethical concerns inevitably arise, making it a perfect shit-stirring publicity stunt for the former “Freaks and Geeks” star. I mean, just think of it: we could all be living in a world with not one but two James Francos. Just think.
3) Made his own twerking video
Miley Cyrus has done it. Rihanna has done it. Leona Lewis has done it. And yet we still have not a single Gif-ready James Franco twerking video to get us through the day. This, my friends, is something that must change.
4) Made a sequel to “Flyboys”
Remember “Flyboys”? No, of course you don’t, because nobody saw that movie. And that is exactly the reason that James Franco would make a sequel to “Flyboys” – because it makes absolutely no sense and serves no discernible purpose. So what’s the holdup? Let’s get this Kickstarter campaign going, everybody.
5) Amputated one of his limbs, for art
James Franco garnered a lot of attention for his arm-slicing antics in Danny Boyle’s “127 Hours,” but of course he was playing a fictional character and did not actually lose a limb in the process. Then again, James Franco is an out-of-the-box thinker – so out-of-the-box, in fact, that if any famous person is going to amputate one of his/her limbs in the name of art, you just know it is going to be James Franco.
6) Eaten his own feces on camera, for art
Hey, remember “2 Girls, 1 Cup” and all the reaction videos that sprang up around it? Remember, America? Now take the viral firestorm erupted from that video and multiply it by 100 million gajillion.
7) Starred in a cooking show
This one occurred to me thanks to “Gangsta’s Paradise” rapper Coolio, who recently sold off his entire music catalogue (in a deal worth hundreds and hundreds of dollars) to fund his very own cooking series. Which was probably a bad idea, but hey, we’re not here to talk about Coolio. So can James Franco actually cook? Who cares?
8) Started a line of grills
After the huge success of this year’s “Spring Breakers,” it seems only fitting for James Franco to parlay his attention-getting role as dreadlocked gangsta Alien into a line of grills, which would be hugely popular with Ke$ha, Katy Perry and also probably a lot of people in the South.
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