BuzzSugar

A Tale of Two Ginsbergs: Franco and Eisenberg

BuzzSugar — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:30:02 -0700

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

Beowulf: The Movie

BuzzSugar — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 16:05:13 -0700

You may have heard about this project of Robert Zemeckis' (Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Forrest Gump) to turn the epic poem Beowulf into an animated movie which, it was recently announced, will be screened in IMAX theaters. The movie's official website is up and running (though it basically just features dancing flames, dramatic music and a cast list), and now a Dutch website has posted photos of the posters for the movie, including the one above. The posters aren't groundbreaking, but they have piqued my curiosity in this project.

Namely, I wonder who, exactly, is going to see this? It's animated like many children's movies are, though I've never scanned my memory for works of literature to make into children's movies and gone, "Oh, I know! Beowulf!" Yet are adults interested enough in the story - even an adaptation written by Neil Gaiman - to see a classic piece of literature made into a CGI movie on an IMAX screen?

I must say, however, that the cast of actors voicing the characters is quite impressive:

Angelina Jolie as Grendel's Mother
Crispin Glover as Grendel
Anthony Hopkins as King Hrothgar
Robin Wright Penn as Queen Wealhtheow
John Malkovich as Unferth
Alison Lohman as Ursula
and Ray Winstone, who I don't know, as Beowulf

What do you think? Come November 16 will you be checking out Beowulf?

What's Buzzworthy? Irish Writers

BuzzSugar — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 07:51:25 -0700

Hooray for St. Patrick's Day falling on a Saturday this year! In addition to watching Irish movies and partying with Yum and PartySugar, I thought now would be a good time to consider the works of some great Irish writers.

I have some old standbys, like Frank McCourt, who wrote Angela's Ashes, and Maeve Binchy, author of Circle of Friends. For this week's Buzzworthy challenge, I'd love to find out which Irish writers are your favorites. They don't have to be novelists or memoir-writers either: Oscar Wilde was Irish, and W.B. Yeats is one of the world's greatest poets - in my humble opinion.

Using BuzzSugar's cool Buzzworthy bookmarking tool, just find the books you love on the Web, bookmark them as Buzzworthy, and tag or title your choices with the phrase Irish writers. Then, I'll post the readers' favorites next week.

To find out how to create a Buzzworthy bookmark, read more

Don't worry: TeamSugar makes it easy to bookmark and capture anything on the Web that you consider "Buzzworthy." If you already have a "That's Fab" button on your browser's tool bar, you can use that to bookmark your Buzzworthy items. If you don't have the TeamSugar bookmarking button on your toolbar, you can learn how to get it by watching this video.