James Franco

James Franco

  • J. D. Salinger's War

    The Catcher in the Rye is Salinger’s war book. Although it’s masked as a coming-of-age novel, it is about a character dealing with PTSD. Holden is J. D. Salinger, working through his loss of faith in humanity and all of the atrocities he...

  • Jake Gyllenhaal Is the Perfect Gumshoe in ‘Prisoners’

    Prisoners is awesome. I loved, loved, loved it. The atmosphere, the pacing, the framing, the acting, and the subject matter are all so good. I love that my man Jake Gyllenhaal is back as a hard-hitting actor. His detective Loki is mysterious...

  • Writing to Live in Hollywood

    F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Pat Hobby Stories and the Coen Brothers' Barton Fink are twisted, nightmarish takes on what happens when writers come to Hollywood—they're often crushed by the bureaucratic machinations of the small-minded...

  • Cormac McCarthy’s 'Child of God'

    It is Cormac McCarthy’s m.o. to uncover the underbelly of American history and explore some of the most violent and immoral acts swept under the façade of progress and civilization. Child of God, a book which I adapted into a film, is no...

  • 'Sal&#242' Revisited

    Pier Pasolini's 20th-century take on the Marquis de Sade's 18th-century masterwork of depravity might be stomach turning, but it's also staggeringly honest about the power and chaos of unchecked desires.

  • What We Talk About When We Talk About a Couple of Carver's Short Stories

    Yesterday I got roasted for a Comedy Central program that will air on Labor Day. Naturally, that made me think of Raymond Carver, the American short story writer who's regarded as one of the masters of the form, even though he isn't all that funny.