It's hard to know what, exactly, to think of James Franco and his art, but therein lies the genius: no matter the response you have to his work and eccentric foray into other fields, it immediately becomes a part of his unending spool of captured reality.

Franco, as handsome Hollywood leading man, is not supposed to be venturing into academia and arts visual and performing, critics say. Stick to what you're good at, the lament goes; don't be complicated, because that is quite difficult to process. Be the hiker who lost his arm or the scientist who made apes smart, audiences call. Unmoved, Franco plows on, obtaining degrees wholesale, publishing short stories, opening art galleries based on James Dean films, recutting other directors' films, making porn documentaries, playing meta serial killers on soap operas, making his own micro-indie flicks, adapting novels to screen and bearing his behind on magazine covers.