Howl display at City Lights Bookstore, San Francisco
I know we said we’d stop tooting our horn and posting reviews and response to the Howl movie, but here’s just a few more, not-just-any-reviews, ones that really nail something intelligent down.
First up, a thoughtful one from Peter Simek in Dallas’ D magazine. Richard Nilson’s review in The Arizona Republic points out “the hero of the film isn’t Ginsberg, it’s the poem”. Wallace Baine’s review in the Santa Cruz Sentinel re-iterates the idea that – and what a remarkable thing this is – “Howl is all about the poem not the poet.” And one more, since Allen was a dutiful reader of the rag, here’s Sarah Selzer in The Nation.
How can you endorse this movie. Its a travesty and insult to the man himself. The animations are a complete insult in suggesting such a great poem can't stand on its own and needs a corny tasteless animation to help us get anything from it. You claim to like and endorse Ginsberg and like this movie you really have some thinking to do. Franco can hardly speak the poem. uhhhhhggg……. it just makes me sad that hes going to be remeber via easily pleased idiots