I’ve never read William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, but I have to think James Franco adapting this (he wrote and directed) is a lot more worthwhile than worshiping Marina Abramovic or whatever other fake art crap the New York crowd is into this week. Here he directs and stars opposite Logan Marshall-Green, Tim Blake Nelson – who excels at dirty-faced Southern poverty – and, strangely, Danny McBride.
The Bundren family of the rural South tries to honor their late mother Addie’s wish to be buried in her birthplace. They spend nine days hauling her coffin in a mule-drawn wagon, battling numerous obstacles and personal demons along the way.
Well everyone is serious and dirt-covered and poor, and seems to be either yelling or whispering the whole time, and there’s a prophetic, marble-mouthed little kid in the middle of it, so I have to think the Oscar chances are good. What this needs is a mega-handsome guy like George Clooney or Bradley Cooper or Ryan Gosling. As we’ve established, handsome + dirt covered = Oscars. See: Bradley Cooper wearing a garbage bag.
Seriously though, what the hell is that little kid saying? I’ve rewound it four times and I still can’t understand anything he says before “told me not to tell…”
