Tag: howl

Official Trailer and Poster Released For ‘HOWL’ Starring James Franco

Hello guys and gals! It’s your good friend Melissa again, with another tasty movie snack. This time its the new trailer and poster for “HOWL”, starring James Franco as Allen Ginsberg. The official press release states:

Opening in New York and San Francisco on September 24th, 2010 and

in Los Angeles on October 1st, 2010.

Directed by: Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman

Starring: James Franco, David Strathairn, Jon Hamm, Bob Balaban, Alessandro Nivola, Treat Williams,

Mary-Louise Parker and Jeff Daniels

Starring James Franco in a career-defining performance as Allen Ginsberg, HOWL is the story of how the young poet’s seminal work broke down societal barriers in the face of an infamous public obscenity trial. In his famously confessional style, Ginsberg – poet, counter-culture icon, and chronicler of the Beat Generation – recounts the road trips, love affairs, and search for personal liberation that led to HOWL, the most timeless work of his career. HOWL interweaves three stories: the unfolding of the landmark 1957 obscenity trial; an imaginative animated ride through the prophetic masterpiece; and a unique portrait of a man who found new ways to express himself, and in doing so, changed his own life and galvanized a generation.

HOWL is written and directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman and stars James Franco, David Strathairn, Jon Hamm, Bob Balaban, Alessandro Nivola, Treat Williams, with Mary-Louise Parker and Jeff Daniels. The film is produced by Elizabeth Redleaf and Christine Kunewa Walker for Werc Werk Works and executive produced by Gus Van Sant and Jawal Nga.  The animation design is by Eric Drooker, with cinematography by Edward Lachman, production designer by Therese DePrez, costume design by Kurt and Bart and a score by Carter Burwell.

So check out the trailer and poster below. This is sure to be a fantastic film!

And now for the poster…

Sundance 2010 Preview: HOWL

James Franco is known for comedy, but for any of you that watched MILK knows the guy definitely has some incredible acting chops. Add in the fact that he will be playing one of my favorite poets Allen Ginsberg and this film is set to be one of the best films at Sundance. That is all that needs to be said about this film so I will leave you with a portion of the Ginsberg poem the film is based around:

       I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
              madness, starving hysterical naked,
       dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
              looking for an angry fix,
       angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
              connection to the starry dynamo in the machin-
              ery of night,
       who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat
              up smoking in the supernatural darkness of
              cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities
              contemplating jazz,
       who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and
              saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tene-
              ment roofs illuminated...

Official Synopsis:

It’s San Francisco in 1957, and an American masterpiece is put on trial. HOWL, the film, recounts this dark moment using three interwoven threads: the tumultuous life events that led a young Allen Ginsberg to find his true voice as an artist, society’s reaction (the obscenity trial), and mind-expanding animation that echoes the startling originality of the poem itself. All three coalesce in a genre-bending hybrid that brilliantly captures a pivotal moment—the birth of a counterculture.

HOWL is playing at the following times:

6:00 PM Thu, Jan 21 Eccles Theatre
6:30 PM Fri, Jan 22 Screening Room, Sundance Resort
2:30 PM Sat, Jan 23 Library Center Theatre
11:15 AM Tue, Jan 26 Racquet Club
6:00 PM Wed, Jan 27 Broadway Centre Cinemas VI
3:15 PM Fri, Jan 29 Eccles Theatre

Franco Vehicle ‘Howl’ Gets Financing

james-francoallen-ginsberg

‘Howl’, the Allen Ginsberg biopic, is getting pushed into production.   James Franco has already signed on to star as the famous poet, and Werc Werk Works has picked up the financial side of the film.

The film will center on the obscenity trial over Ginsberg’s poem, as well as an animated re-imagining of the poem itself.   Ginsberg’s poem, “Howl”, was originally considered to be obscene and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who published the poem in a book of poetry, was arrested and charged with its publication,on October 3, 1957 Judge Clayton W. Horn ruled that the poem was not obscene, and “Howl” went on to be come one of the most popular poems of the Beat Generation.

Gus Van Sant will executive produce the film, and Rob Epstein (‘The Times of Harvey Milk’ and ‘The Celluloid Closet’) will direct.

Source: Variety