Are You Being Serious? James Franco Still Wants You To ‘Consider This Sh*t’

springbreakers james franco alien
When A24 first asked Academy Voters to consider James Franco‘s performance as Alien in Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers many, myself included, viewed it as a marketing stunt. Since then however the studio has never stopped believing in the film and the iconic character it managed to create. Last week cult director John Waters singled out Spring Breakers as his favorite film of the year. The film holds a fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and also got mostly favorable reviews on Meta Critic

While I still believe that it’s highly unlikely that Franco will even be nominated, A24’s committed marketing effort to keep promoting the film even months after its home video release have to be commended. The consideration video is well-edited and shows some of Franco more dramatic acting, instead of him reciting funnier and more coarse lines. At the end Faith (Selena Gomez) asks Alien: “Are you being serious?” and he replies “What do you think?”, which could of course also be read in view of their Oscar campaign. Simple, but genius.

11 comments

      • thomasjford

        I just thought it was overly arty and pretentious without much to back it up. I’m a guy and even I got a bit bored of the endless shots of half naked girls seemingly for no real reason.

      • davideperretta

        Oh I see, well it’s definitely not for everyone 🙂 I tend to like artsy films with long takes, but maybe I do it on purpose to be “different” and yes, pretentious 😉

      • thomasjford

        Don’t get me wrong I love certain artsy movies as well but I thought this one was trying to be controversial and challenging but not succeeding. It didn’t help that all the characters were totally unlikeable.

      • davideperretta

        Interesting! I didn’t get that “trying to be controversial”-vibe, usually that’s also something that pisses me off. I have to agree the characters are all kinda shitty haha! But that’s almost always the case with Harmony Korine’s films 🙂

      • thomasjford

        Agree to disagree with this one Davide! What about Only God Forgives? That’s another film that I wanted to like but was just a bit bored by because it placed style over substance. Maybe I’m just getting old and impatient!

      • davideperretta

        🙂 Well, I actually have to agree with you on that one! I just couldn’t relate to any of the characters and it just felt empty.. And I loved Drive. Oh well!

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