James Franco Does William Faulkner (Not the Good Kind)

First off, let's get this out of the way: Faulkner's title is ungrammatical. It should be AS I LAYEDED DYING. Sheesh. Do I have to pull my Strunk & White out on everyone this days?!

Secondly, Faulkner said that in writing his great novel he wanted to put the Bundren family through all the great calamities of life: flood, fire, and periodontal disease. But little did Faulkner anticipate the great calamity that would befall his Bundren folk.

JAMES FRANCO.

That's right.

Franco! 

Franco!!!

FRANCO!!!!!

Franco gets his buddies to buddy up with him on his buddy project. And what a buddy! Everyone wears britches! Everyone smokes chronic in a corncob pipe! Everyone says "reckon"!!

"I'm Southbound and down, y'all..."

It's like The Beverly Hillbillies, but without all that Jed Clampett in it. This movie makes Snuffy Smith look like Puttin' On the Ritz by John Houseman's Grey Poupon.

"John Boy! You git now, y'hear? I'm wearing a cake on mah head!"

The head of the clan is Anse Bundren. When he opens his mouth, flies with the face of Star Jones drift out. Welcome to true terror.

"Awww, shore now, I reckon I need me them teef. Y'hear?"

The Bundrens take turns learning how to squeal like a pig, a typical hillbilly activity.

"Darl, stop putting all our suffering on Instagram! Y'hear?"

On their journey they learn things about themselves that they didn't already know whittlin' and spittin' back at home. 

 "Do you hear me?! You should never direct!!"

James Franco mugs and moons and tries very hard to look "lit'rary." 

 "I said, DON'T DIRECT!! EVER!! Y'HEAR?!?!"

In the end, everyone gets what they need. James Franco gets new teeth. And we get lights for the exits and shriveled genitals.

"Spring break, ya'll. Y'hear?"

Franco may be no Billy Faulkner, but at least he can write great poetry....

"But I never met those girls,
I only heard about them.
The only people I saw were the ones who hated me,
And there were so many of those people.
It was easy to forget about the people who I heard
Like me, and shit, they were all fucking fourteen-year-olds.

And I holed up in my place and read my life away,
I watched a million movies, twice,
And I didn’t understand them any better.

But because I played a knight,
Because I was handsome,

This was the life I made for myself."


BRILLIANT.

My blog is a fish.