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3 Things James Franco Has in Common With Allen Ginsberg

TresSugar — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 10:00:15 PDT

We were reminded just how perfect James Franco is as beat poet Allen Ginsberg when the trailer for the Ginsberg biopic, Howl, came out yesterday.

He's already PhD-from-Yale smart, but there's plenty more where that came from. Here are three things he has common with the icon he'll play.

Columbia connection: Both studied writing at Columbia University. Allen got his undergraduate degree there and James got an MFA.
Authors: Allen's entire career was his writing. While James has only published one book - a collection of short stories titled Palo Alto - he writes poetry, too. In 2008, he told Blackbook his poetry combines fragments of existing texts. But he didn't talk too much about it, fearing the takeaway would be "James Franco likes poetry." Sorry, James! Besides we're saying he writes poetry!
Art as a hobby: Allen took photos to relax, which were collected and published in Beat Memories: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg, while James paints. In an early interview (back in his Freaks and Geeks days), James said he's been painting longer than he's been acting.

Now we just have to wait until the film, which has been in the works since 2008, comes out September 24.

A Tale of Two Ginsbergs: Franco and Eisenberg

BuzzSugar — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:30:02 PDT

Another Allen Ginsberg movie, you say? Why yes, in fact, in addition to the Ginsberg biopic Howl starring James Franco as the legendary poet (check out some new pics from the set here), now Jesse Eisenberg (of The Squid and the Whale and the upcoming Adventureland) will play Ginsberg in the feature film Kill Your Darlings.

In Howl, the focus is on the obscenity trial launched to censor Ginsberg's long poem "Howl." Kill Your Darlings is not solely about Ginsberg but will tell the story of "the murder that helped spawn the Beat Generation. . . . [Ben] Whishaw will play Lucien Carr, the Columbia U. undergrad who brought together Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac ([Chris] Evans), and William S. Burroughs."

I'll be curious to see how Eisenberg and Franco's portrayals of Ginsberg differ - or match up - in these simultaneous projects. After so much remake and "rebooting" movie news, I can't express how refreshing I find these projects about a real man who genuinely influenced American culture with his art. I say, bring on the Ginsbergs.

Source

Allen Ginsberg Biopic, Howl, Gets Stellar Cast and Crew

BuzzSugar — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 12:46:29 PDT

When I was in high school, I discovered Allen Ginsberg's poem Howl and it astounded me. Ever since, it's been that book on my bookshelf that consistently beckons me to pick it up and read it again, and decades later, it's just as relevant to our times as it was in the 1960s. At the time of its publication, however, some folks were not so enamored with Ginsberg's words.

To commemorate the 50-year anniversary of the publication of Howl, there's a biopic in the works, focusing on "the obscenity trial launched to censor Ginsberg's groundbreaking book-length poem." James Franco will play Ginsberg, and the cast just expanded to include David Strathairn, Alan Alda, Jeff Daniels, Mary-Louise Parker and Paul Rudd. For more details,

The Hollywood Reporter continues:

Among the real-life characters featured in the film are prosecuting attorney Ralph McIntosh (Strathairn), Judge Clayton Horn (Alda), prosecution witness Professor David Kirk (Daniels), radio personality and prosecution witness Gail Potter (Parker) and literary critic and defense witness Luther Nichols (Rudd).

"Fifty years later, Ginsberg's vision is as relevant as the year he wrote it," [one of the film's writers/directors, Jeffrey] Friedman said. "It resonates with issues of free speech, government censorship, militaristic empire building, fear-mongering, sexual conformity and the co-opting of religion."

A documentarian, Jeffrey Friedman is making his feature directorial debut alongside Rob Epstein. The part that intrigues me is that this is the duo, Friedman and Epstein, behind the stunning and Oscar-winning 1984 documentary The Life and Times of Harvey Milk. Director Gus Van Sant, whose biopic about Harvey Milk, Milk, is coming out in October, will executive produce this Ginsberg biopic.

I'm going to be following this production closely. What do you think of this? Have you read Howl or anything else by Ginsberg?

Sex and Hare Krishna: Mad Men's Mother Lakshmi Didn't Follow the Rules

Annie Scudder — Mon, 21 May 2012 12:03:03 PDT

This week on Mad Men, we get a visit from Paul Kinsey, who has gone from progressive, pipe-smoking copy editor to confused Hare Krishna devotee. The Hare Krishna movement was founded in NYC in 1966, the year that's coming to a close on this season, and attracted beatniks like Allen Ginsberg and Beatle George Harrison, one of its most famous followers. The International Society for Krishna Consciousness, or the Hare Krishna Movement, as it is officially known, is based on Hindu traditions and got the attention of the city's hippies when it started. Ironically, it did not back free love.

On the episode, Paul Kinsey's Hare Krishna love interest, Mother Lakshmi, decides to seduce Paul's friend and former co-worker, Harry Crane. Showing up at the office, she lets Harry believe that sleeping together is not against the rules of the religion. You can't blame Harry for believing her, since the Hare Krishna meeting he attended had a strong counter-culture vibe. But in fact, "no illicit sex" is one of the four regulative principles of Hare Krishna consciousness.

Sexual contact is only OK between married couples for the purpose of reproduction, and sex is considered the most powerful connection to the material world, a bond Hare Krishnas want to break. The other three rules include: no eating meat, fish, or eggs, no gambling, and no use of intoxicants. Devoted Hare Krishnas would have disapproved of Roger Sterling's acid drop. But, of course, not everyone followed the rules in the '60s and high-profile members like Allen Ginsberg disagreed with the prohibitions.

Vegetarianism and yoga were part of what made Hare Krishna exotic back in the 1960s, while its negative attitudes toward premarital sex were conventional then. Today, things have switched around. Its rule against sex for pleasure seems extreme, thanks to the sexual revolution, while vegetarianism and yoga have gone mainstream.

Elizabeth Olsen Gets Into Character With Daniel Radcliffe and Jack Huston

Allie Merriam — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 06:36:38 PDT

Elizabeth Olsen donned a '40s-style dress yesterday to work on Kill Your Darlings in NYC. She was joined on the West Village set by her costars Daniel Radcliffe and Boardwalk Empire's Jack Huston. Michael C. Hall, who wasn't in his period costume, was also photographed leaving his trailer.

The movie is one of two recent productions based on Allen Ginsberg's life. This picture, in which Daniel stars as the famous poet, is directed by John Krokidas and has Jack Huston playing Jack Kerouac and Elizabeth playing Kerouac's girlfriend Edie Parker. The plot is based around the 1944 murder of a Columbia undergrad. James Franco, meanwhile, took on Ginsberg in 2010's Howl.

Link Time - Ricky Martin Is Headed to Glee

BuzzSugar — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 13:30:37 PST

See who Ricky Martin will play on Glee - BuddyTV
20 Hollywood stunts gone wrong - The Hollywood Reporter
Daniel Radcliffe may play Allen Ginsberg - Moviefone
Awesome gifts for movie lovers - Rotten Tomatoes
Are The Hunger Games and Twilight joining forces? - NextMovie
Watch Neil Patrick Harris lock lips with Betty White - Aol TV
Did Pan Am get canceled? - Zap2it
Watch the Red Band trailer for Young Adult - /Film
10 TV shows that explore alternative lifestyles - TrèsSugar