Doesn't really work as a cinematic experience - some of the animation that accompanies James Franco's reading of Allen Ginberg's poem gets a little dodgy for one, and the music feels wrested from an especially saucy coffee commercial - but there are an awful lot of good bits nestled in this elucidation of that seminal work.Firstly Franco's terrific, even if the accent wobbles here and there and you find yourself looking for the seams in his beard now and then. He captures Ginsberg's swarthy intellect - the side-glanced glee he gets from being the smartest filthiest person in the room, and the violent romance between those two sides that was his life's work, and pleasure.
The supporting cast, when they're allowed to show up, hit fine notes - I found myself consciously waiting for the court-room scenes because they kept trotting out some new actor I love and giving them a moment to shine. And Nivola Hamm Straitharn Balaban Parker Daniels all do get their memorable moments.
Jon Prescott and Todd Rotundi as Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac made for some fine visuals - it won't be any time soon that I forget Franco on his knees in front of Prescott, that's for sure - even if they, along with Aaron Tveit as Ginsberg's lifelong partner Peter Orlovsky, are reduced to background.
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Seemed like 3 unrelated movies - the animated one, the courtroom drama (which didn't directly involve Ginsburg), and the biopic. Only the latter really held my interest.
And where was the sexy? Howl is an ode to cock. The beats were all about sex and drugs and more sex. Yet, we spend very little time seeing Ginsburg get busy with all the hot man meat on screen.
Missed opportunity, methinks.
I thought the same when I saw it at a festival in Kansas City in June. But, then, it's not rally about Ginsberg--it's about the poem, and G's take on poetry as Breath. Maybe someday we'll get something more meaty. But have you ever seen a picture of Herbert Huncke?
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