Zeroville

It's 1969. Cinephile Ike Jerome (James Franco) arrives in L.A. He has a tattoo of Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor on the back of his shaved head. A Place in the Sun is his favorite movie. He befriends a film editor and becomes one himself. He falls for film star Soledad (Megan Fox) and starts working on her movie. Self-important producer Rondell (Will Ferrell) is a bully.

Before using a single frame of film, James Franco needs to figure out what kind of movie he's making. This starts with Franco playing a serial killer. Ferrell seems intent on making a comedy. Megan Fox is doing a tragedy. Everybody is doing something a little different. It's messy and disjointed. It has a surreal feel but in an amateur way. Filmmaker Franco leaves a lot to be desired. Eventually, he arrives in a place where he's trying to be an arthouse surreal director. It may be pretentious but at least, it's something concrete. Franco should keep trying but he's nowhere near good enough to make something like this work.

In principle there could be a great movie here. In practice, like others have said, the idea seems to have been to pack multiple movies into one, and that rarely works.

Let's move past the banal question of whether it was "faithful to the book" and consider it on its own merits. There's the kernel of a great idea here, a film that luxuriates in movie trivia and in explaining technical details, while constantly having fun with the idea of ignoring the movie filming timeline of our reality (cf the catchphrase "f$%# continuity", writ large).

The problem is that Franco makes three rookie mistakes.

• he doesn't stick to *that* movie; instead he insists on throwing in other stories, most jarringly the Soledad love story. Look, we get it, Megan Fox is pretty. But that doesn't mean she has to be used (and used up) in the most boring way possible. Compare with the much more interesting use of Dottie, not as love interest but as teacher/explainer of Editing.

• movies (and books) about obsession, about "here's how much I love something and why" can be done well. But again, you have to avoid the rookie mistake: the book has to be about obsession *generically*, not about your particular obsession. Once you list details, every person on earth (and that's most of them) who doesn't agree with your exact ranking of first through tenth greatest whatever's loses interest.

That's why Juliet, Naked is so much better a movie than High Fidelity (oh shut up, you know it's true!) because they both deal with obsession, but one doesn't make the mistake of going into specifics.

• third rookie mistake: "explaining" via mental illness, dreams, and visions, the crutches of the lazy and incompetent screenwriter.

You don't need to explain in a movie! The audience will happily accept magic realism -- the Simpsons have been doing it for 30+ years. Purple Rose of Cairo? True Lies? Neither of them felt a need to justify their magic realism as the product of dreams or mental illness.

Or, of course, Inglorious Basterds and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Again, just tell the story, don't "explain" why it doesn't match consensus reality!

Franco keeps trying with this stuff (compare _The Disaster Artist_) and I appreciate his trying. I just hope he learns from each misfire and next time executes in a more focussed fashion.

There are not enough well-done obsessive movies -- most of them are pathetic shambles, either cautionary tales about "here's how you will suffer", or watered down by including uninteresting stereotypical side plots -- and I think Franco has it in him to do the job right, once he has the courage to do it his way, not the Hollywood way.

The score on here is very unfair. This is a literary story told competently and at times with some great ideas. Loved the meta editing on editing, the fake Lucas and Spielberg meets Coppola scene, love all the nods to film in both style and reference. Maybe the idiots who say this makes no sense need to watch Lost Highway and Suspiria (the original) at least before criticizing this film. I liked it a whole lot more than The Irishman, if that's any help. Megan Fox really needs more work like this. She's pretty great in this.

This film has meaning a depth and meaning to someone, but that someone just isn't me. Maybe that someone is you? If you're a big fan of cinema history, you might have a chance of understanding this film. And I think any comparisons to "Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood" aren't straight. This film is a passion project, and to some could become a cult classic. But to me, I just wanted to Rogen/Robinson/Franco laugh out loud. That's what I expect from this cast, but hey! they've earned they're stripes, so can make what they want, for themselves andd industry insiders. I wish I got this film, but I just don't

Greetings again from the darkness. In this age of comic book movies and remakes, creative and artistic filmmakers are to be commended for sticking to their vision, no matter how cloudy. James Franco has put together a most unusual career as both actor and director. Here he takes on both in this adaptation of Steve Erickson's novel, with a screenplay by Paul Felten and Ian Olds. It's a movie seemingly made for movie nerds, but this particular movie nerd, while enjoying some of the homages, mostly found this to be too messy to recommend.

James Franco plays Vikar, a socially inept loner with a shaved head and permanent scowl. On that head is a tattoo of Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift from A PLACE IN THE SUN, the first movie the sheltered Vikar ever saw (11 months ago), and the one that initiated his obsession with movies. Vikar finagles his way into the industry - first as a set builder, and then under the tutelage of veteran film editor Dotty (Jacki Weaver) - reaching award winning status as a filmmaker. Along the way, the character of Vikar recalls Chauncey Gardner in BEING THERE. Is he a genius, or so simple-minded that his thoughts are accepted as brilliant?

It's 1969, and in an early scene, Vikar is interrogated by police regarding the murder of Sharon Tate. This is our first indication that fact and fiction will be blended here to make whatever points the film is trying to make. Vikar befriends Viking Man on the set of LOVE STORY, and we soon realize John Ford wannabe Viking Man (played by Seth Rogen) is a stand-in for John Milius ... a Hollywood legend worthy of his own film. The two new friends attend a beach house party where a group of up-and-coming filmmakers are brainstorming in the living room. Represented are Steven Spielberg, spit-balling a shark movie; George Lucas, yammering about robots; and a young Scorsese and Coppola.

Vikar is soon attracted to and dreaming of a beautiful actress named Soledad Paladin (Megan Fox). This shift of gears to romance from industry commentary does the film no favors. The film is at its best when Vikar is navigating the waters of a Hollywood in transition, including an old school power producer played by Will Ferrell. One of his scenes has him singing "Lum-de-lum-de-lai" in an odd show of power as he attempts to win the girl. Others making an appearance include Danny McBride, Dave Franco, and Craig Robinson - as a burglar who educates Vikar on the nuances of SUNSET BOULEVARD, Erich Von Stroheim, and MY DARLING CLEMENTINE. Joey King has a key role as Soledad's daughter Zazi, and she even sings on stage.

There are so many nods to Hollywood, that the film plays more like an experimental art project or trivia game than an actual story. The famed Roosevelt Hotel is featured, as is Frances Ford Coppola's (played by Horatio Sanz) out-of-control film set of APOCALYPSE NOW. A quite colorful description of John Wayne is offered up, and the silent classic THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST takes center stage. We even get Iggy Pop and The Stooges at CBGB, and the first song we hear is "It's My Life" by Eric Burdon and The Animals. A key note here is that this was filmed in 2014, and has been caught up in a quagmire of bankrupt distributors ever since. That could explain the questionable flow and editing, but we can assume the wild camera angles were all part of Franco's plan. It really plays like an experimental film and it covers a few years, though we are never really sure how many. The twist at the end is pretty easy to predict, and unfortunately, it leaves us wondering where an obsession with cinema is likely to lead us.