James Franco is everywhere recently, seen as the highlight of “Pineapple Express” and on the cover of September’s GQ and on Jimmy Kimmel live (like 7 days ago, but still). Where he talks about, amongst other things, his upcoming role as Scott Smith, the lover of Harvey Milk (the first openly gay politician in the US, played by Sean Penn) – where the two men kiss and even share a couple of nude scenes together. They would be nude if it weren’t for those prosthetic penises they both use.

“In Milk, Franco plays Scott Smith, who for many years was Harvey Milk’s boyfriend. In filming a key moment between Franco and Penn, Van Sant was partially inspired by a work by the artist Douglas Gordon in which a man and a woman are filmed kissing. “It just looked very real,” says Van Sant, who was surprised to discover that Franco, who has a keen interest in art and its practitioners, knew Gordon. He also knew that, in order to capture such a natural kiss on film, Gordon had cast two people who didn’t know each other and instructed them to kiss for twelve hours. “Douglas was worried that he contributed to Sean and I having to kiss for twelve hours,” says Franco. “It wasn’t twelve hours, but it certainly felt like it. The first kiss of the movie was out on Haight Street, with, like, 200 people watching, outside. It was a crane shot—I’m sure in the end it will be a really cool shot, but it starts close and then it takes maybe a minute. That’s a long time on film with everybody watching and, like, a fake mustache getting in your mouth. It was long enough that you couldn’t help thinking, ‘Oh, my God, I’m kissing Spicoli.’”

First Showing (where I stumbled upon the article which is now old by Internet standards) wonders whether or not “Milk,” directed by Gus Van Sant, could be this year’s “Brokeback Mountain.” This could mean a number of things. I’m guessing they meant that it could be the mainstream gay film of the year, and it could finally make a real star of Franco, the way Brokeback did for Ledger and Gyllenhaal. Some are even labelling Franco as the next Ledger. Hm. Maybe, the similarities are there but I’m not so sure – yet. We’ve yet to see Franco prove himself as a bona fide “actor” the way Ledger did in the latter years of his career.

Franco goes into some detail about the nude scenes in the video clip below, where he says: “This scene went on for a long time, like half the day, and it’s getting old… and I go over to Sean and I guess he didn’t know that I was wearing a prosthetic. I go, `Sean, you’re such a great actor but you wouldn’t do a scene like this if they asked you; you wouldn’t dive into a pool naked.’ And he said… `Well James, if I was built like you, I would.’ A couple of weeks later we did this scene, where we’re both dancing and we’re naked, and we both have prosthetic penises. He finally put it together that I’m wearing, like, the Boogie Nights prosthetic. And he said ‘James that time in the pool!’ And I said ‘Yeah I was wearing the prosthetic.’ And he said ‘God, I’m so relieved.’ And then, he’s like ‘You show me your prosthetic, I’ll show you mine.’”

After “Paranoid Park,” Van Sant has hooked me for life. Throw in Mr Franco, the man of the hour, as well as good old Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, Emile Hirsch, and Diego Luna, slap on a December 5th release date, and we’re game for what appears to be the gayest film of the year. At least he always treats his suject matter with respect. What is surprising about the film is that it has yet to appear in any form at a single film festival, there hasn’t been a trailer of any kind, and I am kind of getting anxious. Some say it is set to open in San Francisco and bypass most festivals, and others are hinting at a Telluride release. Either way, I cannot wait to see how this “mainstream” Van Sant film plays out.