He’s hosted the Oscars, acted, directed, produced, taken a stab at art and gone back to college who knows how many times,and now James Franco will release an upcoming novel.

Franco, 33, has sold his first novel, Actors Anonymous, loosely based on his life, to Amazon Publishing, the New York Observer reports.

The book was acquired by Amazon fiction editor Ed Park, a founding editor of The Believer, whose move to Amazon in September caused a buzz in literary circles.

James isn’t a stranger to the literary world. He released a set of short stories called Palo Alto in June 2011.

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James Franco has taken some hits from critics this year due to having immersed himself into seemingly innocent (and sometimes bizarre)  projects that have included porn documentaries, James Dean art shows, publishing short stories, furthering his education, directing music videos and indie films, and posing for eccentric magazine covers.

And he wants you to know that he doesn’t car what you think, because people who usually have something to say about mainstream artists and films are “idiots.”

“I don’t think what I’m doing is confusing,” he tells Flaunt. “What is confusing is that I’m an actor in mainstream film and the people that usually comment on mainstream film are idiots, and they don’t try to think outside of their pop-culture commentaries. It’s so easy to criticize contemporary art from the outside: ‘Douglas Gordon slowed down Psycho so it’s 24-hours long? That’s easy! I can do that.’ That’s how the morons in the blogosphere try to critique my work. But the great thing about it is, is that their critiques are part of my work. I like that they are confused. I like that they make fun of what I’m doing. It’s a beautiful reflection of where our culture is at the moment.”

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James Franco really is the man who does it all! When he’s not acting or directing, he’s pursuing his PhD, making music videos – and soon he’ll be making porn! In a roundabout way.

During a recent episode of Conan, the actor confessed his obsession with porn. After making a homemade porn video with his girlfriend, he got interested in how porn actors really know what they’re doing.

“When I was young, I got a video camera and my girlfriend and I decided to film ourselves and watched it back and said, ‘Yeah, well, let’s never watch that again.’

“Those people in pornos, they are great performers; they’re not just doing it, they’re selling it to an audience.”

“They’re performing so that an audience can get turned on by that kinda thing.”

“My girlfriend and I didn’t know that, so it was just kinda like weird movement. … It was really boring.”

He went on to say he’s making a documentary about pornography, which will involve a San Francisco-based adult entertainment company.

“There’s this amazing facility in San Francisco,” he said, “They do everything in house, they build their props in house. It’s an incredible place.”

Which, most likely is the Mission’s own Kink.com.

According to IndieWire, a tweet from Kink.com actress Rain Degrey from June 26th read:

“Kink.com is all aflutter today because James Francois here shooting his new movie. All these girls want to f**k him! lol.”

The tweet was deleted shortly thereafter.

A documentary about porn would be really interesting… if they could steer away from it turning into a documentary simply about porn. If they could go behind the scenes and find out what’s going on in the actors minds – I think it could be a really interesting topic.

Would you watch it?

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The Oscars aired five months ago, but actor James Franco is still upset about the evening, and the grief he’s been given ever since.

“It’s hard to talk about because it’s like assigning blame — not a fun thing to do,” Franco told Playboy Magazine. “For three or four weeks we shot the promos and the little film that played in the opening. In the last week, when we really started focusing on the script for the live show and did a run-through, I said to the producer, ‘I don’t know why you hired me, because you haven’t given me anything. I just don’t think this stuff’s going to be good.’ ”

Franco insisted that Oscar producers were the one who came up with the idea of having him walk on stage dressed as Marilyn Monroe, and he hated the idea – from the beginning. “I was so pissed about that I was deliberately going to fall onstage and hopefully my dress would fall off or something — they couldn’t blame that one me; I was in high heels. The plan had been that I was going to sing as Cher and then Cher was going to come out onstage; that got axed when Cher and the song from Burlesque weren’t nominated. I told them, ‘Look, this is the thing people are going to talk about, the images they will take away from the show.’ ”

James goes on to explain that once he realized no one was listening to his complaints, he just decided to go with the flow. “I just didn’t want to fight anymore,” he explained, noting that, “Me in drag is not funny.”

“I was going with their program; I wanted to do the material they gave me, not be one of the many cooks doing the writing. There were a lot of cooks who shouldn’t have been cooking, but were allowed to. There were some cooks my manager tried to bring in, like Judd Apatow, who wrote some very funny stuff that wasn’t used.”

Still, for all the subsequent fallout and criticism, immediately following the show, Franco said that the feedback was nothing but great, with the telecast’s producer even giving him a hug and informing him, “Steve Spielberg just told me it was the best Oscars ever!”

This despite his seemingly low-energy performance, which Franco explained was all part of his master plan and most definitely not his way of showing that he “wasn’t into it or was too cool for it.”

“I thought, ‘OK, Anne is going the enthusiastic route. I’ve been trained as an actor to respond to circumstances, to the people I’m working with, and not force anything.’ So I thought I would be the straight man and she could be the other, and that’s how I was trying to do those lines. I felt kind of trapped in that material. I felt, ‘This is not my boat. I’m just a passenger, but I’m going down and there’s no way out.’ “

Gotta give it to the guy – it was obvious during the show that he wasn’t given any good material. He knew it – and we knew it. It was painful to watch him onstage!

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All in the name of art! Actor James Franco has a new art project titled Rebel, honoring the movie Rebel Without a Cause, which is an exhibition at the Venise Biennale.

According to the Los Angeles Times, James pays homage to his late Deuces Wild co-star, Brad Renfro, by carving the actor’s name into his arm. Brad fell victim to a heroin overdose back in 2008 at the young age of 25. The actual carving is reportedly documented as a part of the exhibit.

Though there are other contributors to the exhibit, only James is said to have shed blood for the project.

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It’s back to school (again) for Hollywood’s James Franco.

A University of Houston official said on Thursday that Franco has been accepted for the doctoral program in literature and creative writing.

J. Kastely, director of the creative writing program, said Franco plans to enroll in September 2012.

Only 20 people are admitted to the graduate program each year, chosen from about 400 applicants, Kastely said. Half of those are in the doctoral program.

Franco’s soon-to-be status was first reported on Wednesday by Burn Down Blog, which linked to a newsletter for the creative writing program that listed Franco as among incoming students for fall 2011.

Kastely said the actor originally planned to enroll then but has asked to defer for a year.

So what does it take to get accepted in such a selective academic program? According to Kastely, University of Houston ”accepts graduate students based on a writing sample, letters of recommendation and a personal statement. Doctoral students also must submit ‘a strong piece of critical writing,’ to demonstrate scholarly abilities.”

In case you didn’t know, James has just been casted to co-star in ‘The Stare’ with Winona Ryder, a film produced by Jeff Kalligheri and Steve Bowen. Also… the kid is… well… already “well educated.” He has a lot of education under his belt. According to his Wikipedia page, it goes something like this:

Dissatisfied with his career’s direction, Franco reenrolled at UCLA in the fall of 2006 as an English major with a creative writing concentration. Having received permission to take as many as 62 course credits perquarter compared to the normal limit of 19 while continuing to act, he received his undergraduate degree in June 2008 with a GPA over 3.5. For his degree, Franco prepared his departmental honors thesis as a novel under the supervision of Mona Simpson. He moved to New York to simultaneously attend graduate school at Columbia University’s MFA writing program, New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts for filmmaking, and Brooklyn College for fiction writing, while occasionally commuting to North Carolina’s Warren Wilson College for poetry.He received his MFA from Columbia in 2010. Franco is a Ph.D. student in English at Yale University and will also attend the Rhode Island School of Design.

Anyway, I wonder if Franco has to pay tuition to attend. Just thinking… a school like University of Houston could possibly waive his tuition fees since since such a notable Hollywood name would increase the school’s prestige. What do you think?

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Movie stars Winona Ryder and James Franco are getting together on the big screen!

Winona and James will star in The Stare, a Jay Anania-directed film that is the first project funded by Waterstone Entertainment, a new production and finance company formed by producers Jeff Kalligheri and Steve Bowen. Deadline Hollywood reports:

Watersone gets started with The Stare, a drama in which a playwright (Ryder) finds her mind beginning to warp as she struggles to launch her next production. She’s plagued by dreams and visions of being watched, but can’t decide if she’s at the center of a manipulative plot or simply losing her grip on reality. Franco plays one of the performers in the playwright’s production.

The film will start shooting May 6 in New York. I love the two are collaborating!

Who’s going to see this one?!??

In case you didn’t know, in 2010, Ryder was nominated for two Screen Actors Guild Awards, as the lead actress of When Love Is Not Enough: The Lois Wilson Story, and as part of the cast of Black Swan. Franco has been nominated for three Golden Globe awards, winning one, and received an Academy Award nomination for his work in 127 Hours.

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