James Franco ♥ Brad Renfro

Whose name would you carve into your arm?

I ask because James Franco carved Brad Renfro's into his... at least photographically. (Is it real? You tell us the next time you see James Franco naked.) This carving was part of the latest issue of The Thing, a mysterious quarterly periodical that comes in the shape of a "useful" object.

I'm not sure how useful a small mirror with "Brad Forever" scrawled in lipstick by Franco's own hand is, but it was fun to open and who am I to judge obsessive actorly devotions?  I have yet to carve an actresses name onto my body but never say never...

<--- I'm pretending that this photo to your left is the exact moment when Franco actually wrote on my copy.

This is only the freshest example that Franco is basically the Lady Gaga of movies: always throwing his eccentric persona at you in ways you're not expecting, even though you're expecting personal eccentricities.

Between this and that very public My Own Private Idaho obsession, we're realizing that James Franco is not an actressexual at all (our kind of people) but the other kind: an actor who obsesses over other male actors.

Or maybe he just really loves The Client (1994) and we just don't know about his Susan Sarandon fetish yet?

What do you suppose his favorite Brad Renfro movie is: Bully? The Client? Apt Pupil?

What's yours?

Curio: Michelle Pfeiffer in Vogue, 1991

Alexa here. Nathaniel's post on stars posing as other stars brought to mind a spread in Vogue that seared my brain when I was a teenager, so much so that I tore it out and saved it.  After a bit of digging in our basement, I found it: a now-famous set of photos of Michelle Pfeiffer by Herb Ritts.  This shoot has her posing as six different characters, which she chose herself. "I had lists and lists compiled, and I did a lot of reading, and it all kind of boiled down to these characters," she said in the accompanying interview.

as Louise Brooks as Lulu

as Laurence from Noël Coward's Private Lives

Another series I remember were the portraits Kevyn Aucoin shot for his books Making Faces and Face Forward (see here for Calista Flockhart as Audrey, Gwyneth as James Dean). I'm no pop culture historian, but I would think that Cindy Sherman's film stills from the 70s and 80s had a heavy influence on this trend well into the 90s and beyond.  But none of these spreads thrilled me as much as these of Michelle. I can only imagine how much fun they were to shoot.

See more of Michelle's characters after the jump, including Maggie the Cat!

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The Notorious Juliette Lewis

Take that Gretchen Mol ;) 

Images via the eye candy heaven also known as Black Book. These pictures are from 2009 but who cares? Bettie Page is timeless. And so is the referential celebrity-as-another-celebrity photo shoot concept.

Remember when we interviewed Juliette Lewis last year? Good times.

When Did Stars Start Posing As Other Stars?

Remember these photos of Julianne Moore as Bette Davis, Ann-Margret and Marlene Dietrich? I can't remember when they were taken exactly. I want to say 1999?

When did all this start? It's a question for the pop culture historians out there. It's been going on for as long as I can remember. And one of the funniest things about is it people get excited each time like it's a new concept. Remember the hoopla over that Vanity Fair Alfred Hitchcock shoot a couple years back when Jodie Foster did The Birds, Javier Bardem and ScarJo did Rear Window and Marion Cotillard did Psycho and so on and so on and so on?

Often this star-on-star mimicry involves Marilyn Monroe. One might have an easier time listing the people who haven't posed as her than listing the people who have. I'm not even talking about the people who have actually played Her (or thinly veiled interpretations of her) in the movies or on television or stage and that list is even longer.

Here's just a small sampling or Marilyn tributes from Madonna, Lindsay Lohan, Angelina Jolie and Scarlett Johansson.

Yes this has a lot to do with iconic imagery and nostalgia but both iconography and nostalgia predate the birth of Marilyn Monroe. Unless the scientists and the zealots are both wrong and the world began on June 1st, 1926. And if it did why the hell was Marilyn Monroe pretending to be Theda Bara?

But anyway... by the time I was born, Marilyn was already well established as Hollywood's most present ghost and she's never stopped haunting popular culture. [Tangent: The first star that I actually remember the death of was Natalie Wood on November 29th, 1981 since West Side Story, which I watched religiously every time I could find it on tv, was my gateway drug into movie freakdom. Rapid onset Oscar mania was just a few years round the corner. Was I trying to fill the hole that Natalie left by discovering Streep, Close, Hurt & Turner, Bridges & Pfeiffer and all the rest?  I was... distraught...  to say the least.]

This subject is on my brain since I unpacked that "Life at the Movies" book and saw this photo of Tony Curtis and Natalie Wood doing a silent film Rudolph Valentino & Vilma Bánky thing.

Isn't that cute? But wait there's more. How about Paul Newman as a swashbuckler a la Fairbanks / Power

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Fonda ♥ Bening

Quite a ringing endorsement of Annette Bening from two time Oscar winner and bonafide legend Jane Fonda. Celebrating the closing night of her acclaimed run in the play 33 Variations, Fonda shared several photos of celebrity attendees including Kathy Najimy, Forest Whitaker, Catherine Keener and this one...

"my favorite actor of all" eh? Fonda has good taste.

Now if only she'd get some good film projects and go for Oscar #3. Hey, maybe a co-starring role with The Bening? Why not?