Rem - Unlikely Bunch: REM, James Franco and Lindsay Lohan Make a Music Video.

Unlikely Bunch: REM, James Franco and Lindsay Lohan Make a Music Video.

James Franco has directed a video for REM's song 'Blue', featuring Lindsay Lohan and iconic fashion photographer Terry Richardson. 

A couple of weeks ago we told you about the video that Idris Elba had made for Mumford & Sons, now another interesting mish-mash of musicians and actors have joined forces for another video, and this time around it's a video for REM directed by James Frano, with Lindsay Lohan making an appearance. A truly odd mix of people. But c'est la vie, it could be good. 

In almost 6 minutes of film, the tone is very much the same: jaded America. The 'song' is less a song and more a fairly good example of spoken word poetry by Michael Stipe ("I can be bad poet / Street poet / Sh*t poet / Kind poet too"). Both verbally and visually, with 'lyrics' such as "Twentieth century, collapse into now /Cinderella boy you've lost your shoe" and images of strip clubs and the words 'has been' popping up on screen, the despondency is clear. It's somewhat reminiscent of Godspeed You! Black America's stunning track 'Dead Flag Blues', though REM's 'Blue' holds out much more hope. James Franco's done a stirling job of matching the video to the track, in a way that Elba failed to do with Mumford & Sons. And Lohan basically just plays herself, appearing ina  black leotard, with platinum blonde hair, biting her lip in front of a camera. Good job LiLo. 

The video is surely welcomed warmly by fans as the band announced last year that they were splitting up after 31 years. It's not quite a fitting send off for such an iconic band, but the tone certainly implies reasons for the choice to leave the spotlight. Franco does also cameo, see if you can recognise him in his various garbs: