My boyfriend and I just watched HOWL at the Berlinale. We just tried to put together some good reasons why this is a good movie. And why not. Here we go:

+ James Franco
+ The way the movie reveals the relations between Ginsberg’s live and the poem
+ The court scenes (which must have been easy to shoot because they are based on the original protocols)
+ The poem itself which is being read completely by Franco (click here if you don’t know it yet)
+ A song called “Father Death” Ginsberg himself sings at the end of the movie (watch it below)

- The horrible animations which illustrate the poem as if it was a Pearl Jam song (looks like these animations guys had no idea what the whole thing is about)
- The flashbacks (which depict scenes of Ginsberg’s live in a completely clean way, not really showing anything of the pain this guy went through)
- The way the movie romanticises (gay) history in general (which is something typical for Epstein and Friedman)

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