It’s not enough that James Franco is currently starring in the biggest mainstream movie currently at the box office (Oz the Great and Powerful) and also the most buzzed-about indie film headed there soon (Spring Breakers). The ever-ambitious actor has still got time to advance his unusual music career via a remix of his Daddy track “Love in the Old Days” plus a freaky NSFW six-minute video that he directed himself.
The Ted James 1999 Remix recasts the original Beat-inspired beach-bum soul jam as a claustrophobic beat-addled noise trip, while the accompanying clip finds a deranged priest lording over an occult wedding held at a strip club. The guests wear animal masks, hold candles, and generally eschew shirts. The officiant, played by iconic film experimentalist Kenneth Anger, plays a theremin while the topless couple tongue-kiss.
“When I went to NYU for film, I was always looking for ways to Anger up my films,” says Franco via statement. “My first one in particular, ‘The Feast of Stephen’ owes a lot to Anger, the way his camera transformed a gang of real 1960 bikers into homoerotic gods. In other films and projects I loved the way he took celebrity and the occult and fused them in Eisensteinian juxtapositions to achieve a greater, spiritual/aesthetic significance.”
To recap, Franco recently directed a pair of bizarre music videos for R.E.M. — the Lindsay Lohan-starring “Blue” and I Can Haz Grease-burger “That Someone Is You” — and also lip-synced along with Justin Bieber’s “Boyfriend” quite masterfully. Also, SPIN premiered his aptly titled Daddy video “Creep” last year shortly after the project, which includes musician-artist Tim O’Keefe, was announced. And yes, it’s all rather ridiculous.