Movie Trailer: Howl

On the day that a McSweeney's parody/recontextualizing of some of Allen Gisnberg's most famous lines made a little ripple on the internet, it is appropriate that a trailer arrives for Howl, the film that chronicles the creation of the poem Howl and the obscenity trial that eventually followed its publication. James Franco stars as Ginsberg, and just as the film wasn't widely praised at Sundance (David and Peter didn't love it) the trailer is only modestly interesting.

The AV Club has the trailer (non-embeddable for now) which I liked primarily for some of the footage of Franco as an older Ginsberg, and for the editing, which uses the clacking of a typewriter as a rhythmic underpinning for the piece. But as the younger Ginsberg, Franco's readings seem more than a little over the top. Not sure I can take too much of that. But the supporting cast, like David Strathairn, Jeff Daniels and Mary-Louise Parker, look reliable and solid.

There's quite a bit of Jon Hamm sprinkled in the trailer as well. Between this, a brief appearance in The A-Team and the fact that he's all over the trailer for Ben Affleck's The Town (which I assume we'll see online before Friday) Hamm is really hitting movie screens hard. Finally.

Here's a quick synopsis for Howl:

James Franco stars as the young Allen Ginsberg, who is still trying to find his voice. The story follows the creation of his groundbreaking poem HOWL, and the landmark obscenity trial that followed. The film also stars David Strathairn, Jon Hamm, Mary-Louise Parker, Jeff Daniels. Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, two filmmakers best known for their documentary features The Times of Harvey Milk and Paragraph 175, make their narrative feature film debut.