James Franco is the newest member of the Order of the Embarrassing Celebrity Tweet. Many reviews of the Broadway production of Of Mice and Men, which opened Wednesday and in which he plays George, have been positive, but Ben Brantley in The New York Times wasn't so enthusiastic. So Franco let loose with a tweet (since withdrawn) calling Brantley "SUCH A LITTLE BITCH HE SHOULD BE WORKING FOR GAWKER.COM." (Ooh, insult!)
It may be that the actor merits some forgiveness for showing an overly thin skin. An all-around cultural darling, he's conquered many worlds since his breakout role in TV's Freaks and Geeks – or at least made respectable inroads into many worlds. To take just one example: Just as Franco's Broadway debut was underway, his photography exhibition New Film Stills opened at the Pace Gallery. In the photographs Franco recreates Cindy Sherman's iconic Untitled Film Stills series, duplicating Sherman's scenarios, poses, and outfits. "I am an actor who inserts himself into his work," Franco said in reference to the photography project.
He's also a filmmaker, a "prolific academic," a painter, a poet – and a math whiz, and not just because of his "mathematically perfect" face. Someone who's used to recognition and respect in everything he does just might not know how to handle a review that calls his work "largely monolithic" and "often understated to the point of near invisibility."
In fact, Brantley's is by no means a harsh review of the production, which also stars Chris O'Dowd and Leighton Meester. But "middling" definitely describes it, and James Franco is accustomed to edginess, not "middleness." And certainly not – to use the real word for it – anything that smacks of mediocrity.
