R.E.M.'s Mini Movie For 'Blue', Directed By James Franco, Starring Lindsay Lohan

R.E. M. may be a thing of the past, but they still release videos, and this one for ‘Blue’, off their last LP ‘Collapse Into Now’, was posted by the band on November 15th.

Directed by one of my famous neighbors, James Franco – I read the guy just bought a new home in Silver Lake! – the mini movie looks like a cheesy and blurry homage to old Hollywood, I mean I don’t think he forgot any of the landmarks of Sunset and Hollywood boulevard, from the Roosevelt hotel and the Chateau Marmont to the Roxy and the stars on the sidewalk!… did he want to play some video games with Lana Del Rey? Instead we get Lindsay Lohan doing what she does the best, pausing and being sexually provocative. This girl seems to embody racy classic Hollywood, as she just played Elizabeth Taylor and is staring in this upcoming sexual noir thriller, ‘The Canyons’, written by Bret Easton Ellis…

The vocals are by Michael Stipe of course, but also Patti Smith and this video is part of the ‘Collapse Into Now Film Project’, a series of films for each song of the band’s last album. But why is this video coming so late? After all it was a 2011 album and project. The Huffington Post suggests it may have been because of Franco’s busy schedule or Lohan’s erratic behavior. Anyway, it looks more like a Hollywood movie than a real video, or rather a Hollywood movie seen through the eyes of the hipster generation.