James Franco

Gather ye party hats and give those kazoos a test run. It’s almost time to say goodbye to another year. And good riddance! (Just joshing—we love ya, 2007!) Here to bide the time—well, 2 minutes and 16 seconds—before the ball drops is a fitting video. The clip features a few celebrities—Will Ferrell, Mila Kunis, James Franco, Sean Hayes, Fegie and others—offering up their New Year’s resolutions for 2008. Mr. Ferrell, for one, nods to the healthy habits of our commander-in-chief; he plans to get at least 13 hours of sleep every night. Hey! If the W.G.A. strike labors on, that might prove an all-too-easy easy resolution to keep. Cheers.  read more »

Three hunky actors have got Milk this morning, landing roles in the biopic based on the life of Harvey Milk. He was America's first openly gay elected official, assassinated in 1978.  read more »

The IMDB gossip page, which usually tells us things we already know, carries a novel piece of information this morning.

James Franco, the James Dean lookalike best known to the public as Peter Parker-friend-turned-foe Harry Osborn in the Spider-Man franchise (but most beloved to us for his turn as Daniel Desario in Freaks and Geeks, of course) is back in college working on his honors thesis in creative writing!

"Part of [the novel's plot] is based on a person I knew when I was younger who got in a lot of trouble and a lot of fights and was arrested a lot and was considered a troubled kid and kicked out of high school," he said. "Then, later, when I graduated high school he was diagnosed as a schizophrenic so I see his behavior as pre-symptoms to getting the help that he needed."