James Franco is seen in Toronto during the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 2011JENNIFER ROBERTS/The Globe and Mail
FRANCO FICTION?
For a guy claiming to have never slept with Lindsay Lohan, James Franco certainly has a lot of details about spending the night with a troubled actress – named Lindsay.
The actor has penned a short story for the fiction issue of Vice magazine in which a not-so-fictional version of Franco finds himself in a Hollywood hotel room with a character who just happens to have the same first name as the problematic actress.
Titled "Bungalow 89" and written in a stream-of-consciousness fashion, the story opens with Franco setting the scene for an unexpected encounter.
"Once upon a time a guy, a Hollywood guy, read some Salinger to a young woman who hadn't read him before," he writes. "Let's call this girl Lindsay. She was a Hollywood girl, but a damaged one. I knew that she would like Salinger, because most young women do."
In short order, Franco gets to what seems to be the point of his story: To tell the world that he did not have sex with Lindsay Lohan. Sure, they were in bed together, but nothing happened.
As Franco writes: "Now we were lying in bed. … She had her head on my shoulder. She started to talk. I let her."
Last March, In Touch Weekly was first to publish photos of a handwritten list naming the names of three-dozen males – including several Hollywood A-listers – with whom Lohan allegedly had sexual relations.
Among the more familiar names: Ashton Kutcher, Zac Efron, Justin Timberlake, Colin Farrell, Adam Levine, the late Heath Ledger – and James Franco.
One month later on the cable program Watch What Happens Live, Lohan confirmed that she compiled the infamous list as part of her rehab treatment at the Betty Ford Clinic.
"That's a really personal thing, and it's really unfortunate," said Lohan at the time.
In the days to follow, Franco repeatedly denied that he and Lohan had physical relations.
During an appearance on The Howard Stern Radio Show, the actor admitted to kissing Lohan one torrid night at the Chateau Marmont but said she was "delusional" in her claim that they did the deed.
Insisted Franco: "I never had sex with Lindsay Lohan. It's a lie. I will swear on my mother's life that I never had sex with her."
All of which is related in the Vice short story (keep in mind the story was part of Vice's "fiction issue") as Franco's thinly veiled version of his real self ends up feeling empathy for his visitor.
Or in his words: "I ran my fingers through her hair and thought about this girl sleeping on my chest, our fictional Hollywood girl, Lindsay. What will she do?"
And because revisionism has its benefits, Franco closes his story with the earnest hope that "fictional" Lindsay finds some manner of inner peace.
"I hope she gets better," he writes. "You see, she is famous. She was famous because she was a talented child actress, and now she's famous because she gets into trouble. She is damaged."
Over to you, Lindsay.
KEEPING PACE
Author George R.R. Martin has joined Twitter, but we probably shouldn't expect a torrent of tweets from him. The creator of the Game of Thrones novel series finally created a personal Twitter account (@GRRMspeaking) on Monday and has so far tweeted once: "I don't tweet all that much, please check out my live journal page." A subsequent tweet from Martin's longtime publisher Random House (@atrandom) stated, "We can officially announce that @GRRMspeaking is the real deal (though he won't be tweeting much)."
Source: Mashable
SHE'S BACK
Sigourney Weaver will resurface in all three upcoming sequels to the 2009 blockbuster Avatar. The fact that Weaver's character of Grace Augustine died in the original film hasn't deterred director James Cameron from confirming that the actress will appear in the upcoming sequels in a role yet to be determined. "Sigourney and I have a long creative history, dating back to 1985 when we made Aliens," said Cameron. "She's playing a different, and in many ways, more challenging character in the upcoming films."
Source: Hollywood Reporter
ON THE MEND
Paul McCartney has rescheduled several upcoming U.S. shows as he continues to recover from a virus. The ex-Beatle announced Monday that seven of his concerts south of the border that were originally slated for mid-June will now be rescheduled for October. Last month, McCartney, 71, cancelled three concerts in Japan after he was stricken with a respiratory virus.
Source: People
NICE CATCH
If you thought Weezer were cool before, wait until you see their drummer catch a Frisbee mid-song. During last weekend's show in St. Augustine, Fla., drummer Patrick Wilson and his bandmates were performing the song Beverly Hills when a fan in the crowd sailed a Frisbee in their direction. Wilson neatly caught the flying disc and put it in his mouth, all without missing a single beat. Since being posted on YouTube last weekend, the video has earned close to 100,000 views.
Source: Mashable
YOUTH MOVEMENT
Norman Lear may be one of the most respected producers in TV history, but nobody wants a new show from him. At last weekend's Producers Guild of America conference, the 91-year-old TV veteran railed against ageism and detailed his frustration at his concept for a sitcom set in a retirement village repeatedly being turned down by networks. "They don't want to touch the demographic," said Lear. Best known as the creator of All in the Family and The Jeffersons, Lear got a big laugh from the crowd with his title for a proposed TV series: "Guess Who's Dead?"
Source: Deadline