Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Load of rubbish!!

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Howl, a movie entirely based on a poem written by Allan Ginsberg, one of the pioneers of the Beat Generation, with the same title, is one of the best examples that highlights freedom of expression, aggression due to social taboos, a writer's creative freedom and the problems associated with it and the consequences that a writer or a creator of a creative work has to face if he/she took refuge in the fact that creative freedom and freedom of expression are to be taken for granted. This has always been the major cause for concern for so-called unconventional writers. It is quite clear that mainstream writing has been reduced to a medium wherein the writer is merely forced to cater to the needs of the "reader" with conservative outlooks, as it has been for ages, instead of how it should actually be, i.e. a writer speaking his heart out. Of course, we have come across many such incidents in the past, and have also witnessed the writer's names not only fade into the depths of oblivion but also getting erased from all records and pages in the history books. Their identities and very existences have been questioned and debated for doing what they believed in and doing what they loved doing. In spite of the fact that certain works had literary quality, such works were the eyesores for certain conservative readers, yet the cynosure of all eyes for few others. Allan Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems was a direct reflection of his upbringing in a society strapped with moral, social, cultural and religious taboos. Writing was a merely a medium to vent his frustration and anger towards a society that treats its own people as aliens or outsiders. His works, especially Howl looks at the very same aspect of life with a magnifying glass. His homosexual tendencies, his world view of life's happenings and other views expressed in his poems put the state of mind of the writer under the scanner, as it was evident from the clear disregard of the writer towards the needs of the readers and placing his own manifestations of thoughts ahead of all else, which is very important for any writer to represent any true work with a degree of authenticity. Talking about the movie in particular, the movie has been handled with utmost care. The director of the movie has taken good measures to ensure that the legacy of Allan Ginsberg lives on, whilst providing cues to other such similar or upcoming unconventional writers to come out of their shells. What makes it more special is the fact that conservatism was at its peak in the 1950s and that was exactly when Allan Ginsberg made his works public. This served as an inspiration to millions of non-conservationists who were trying really hard to express themselves and emerge out of their cocoons to stand against people who opposed radical changes. The Hippie culture, censorship in movies, inter-racial romance and many other taboos in the 1950s took the driving seat for most part of the 1960s and has since stayed strongly with us. The taboos of the 50s or until the 60s, finally gained a moral victory over the so-called conservationists, thereby opening up a plethora of new ideas to think, debate, analyze and ponder about. This sudden change also influenced the way people started thinking, the various cultures and a bevy of other organized structures. Howl and other poems was a major and prominent part of the victors' side. Freedom of expression, creative freedom, emerging out of one's "moral" shell and various other aspects that were previously considered to be taboo derived new-found meanings which facilitated more and more creative works of literature and art to be created and made public, which surprisingly found many takers from the opposite camp as well... This evoked a sense of awakening in the minds of the people to open up to a playground of unheard ideas and thoughts. The brainchild of imagination was the surreal movement, which started gathering momentum in the 1970s. Interconnected threads – Allan Ginsberg's life experiences and the way it is received by the readers and the society as a whole, and how a candid interpretation of a writer is blown out of proportion and dramatized forms the core of the movie. It also has its share of animated sequences with a hint of surreal treatment, probably to suggest the fact that imagination is like an open field where anyone can achieve anything and infinite dreams can be realized. The crux of Allan Ginsberg's Howl and other poems has been replicated with intricate detailing and juxtapositions of contrasting thoughts of the readers who testify for and against the writer at the obscenity trial. On a biopic-style ending point of view, Allan Ginsberg's life has been documented in facts on screen. There is an almost surreal treatment to the film, with the animated sequences in perfect amalgamation with certain key elements in Allan Ginsberg's life, or to be precise, one particular incident in his life of major significance, Howl and its almost ridiculous and astounding obscenity trial. The film and the book, in particular, was certainly an eyeopener to many a people in terms of its literary treatment and gave heart- felt writing a whole new meaning and dimension.

The film starts with the interesting claim that every word spoken was actually spoken.The film isn't a documentary, though it is very similar to one. It centers on several key events so that no dialog needs to be added beyond the historical. A reading of "Howl", the obscenity trial, and two interviews. Each is shown in parts to create a narrative with the suspense being the outcome of the trial. We see the courtroom, the defendant's lawyer, Jake Ehrlich (Jon Hamm) and prosecutor Ralph McIntosh (David Strathairn), Judge Clayton Horn (Bob Balaban) and several of the expert witnesses. Here the debate was whether "Howl" was obscene and thus the book store owner was guilty of selling "obscene" literature. We also hear interviews of Ginsberg as he gives background information on himself and his poem. Eventually, of course, the poem is not ruled as obscene and the bookstore owner is let go. Several more intimate moments about Ginsberg's life, particularly his relationship with his mom are seen. It's nice to see Franco portray Ginsberg and attempt to imitate his distinct idiolect and mannerisms. Ginsberg always had a unique way of talking, perhaps a product of his New York, Jew upbringing or perhaps because of his experiments with drugs, jazz, and performing arts. The movie is a more intimate portrait of Ginsberg than I was expecting. I felt that they probably put too much emphasis on his relationship with his mother. A lot of lobotomies were performed at the time, and abuses in mental health care continue to this day. I would hardly put the guilt on Ginsberg, an icon of counterculture. Furthermore, I liked how Ginsberg was portrayed as a struggling artist. His success came, but it took some work. I also really liked the cartoons that were used to illustrate the poem. I found they complimented the emotional exploration of the film. I'm not sure I would recommend this to anyone who's not a fan of Beat Literature, but I did enjoy it. Of course, I'm a fan of the Beats.

I'm surprised that this film worked as well as it did, and that it has been received as well as it has here. I read Howl about 5 years after Ginsberg wrote it, when I was in high school, and, like it or not, it became part of my thinking in the fifty years since then. Still in high school, I could quote passages from the poem at my friends, who would follow up with the next passage, etc. Boooring. But if you had told me that a film would be made about it, with a script constructed of trial transcripts and interviews in the public record, alternating with a recreation of Ginsberg's first public (paying-public; there was ONE previous reading of the full poem) reading of the poem, I wouldn't have expected much. And I would have been wrong. It's well-done and well-acted, and no excuses are made for anything about Ginsberg or his work. I was dismayed at first to see the poem interpreted into animation, but the filmmakers were savvy enough to produce the animation in the style of the times, i.e., 1955, when Disney's Fantasia was still the state of the art, and the animation in Howl could have come out of the Night on Bald Mountain section. In the end, it worked, I think, by keeping the viewer visually in the world of the poem itself, rather than in the biographical material about Ginsberg or the trial and the litigants. So if you want to watch a movie about a poem, and the poet and his friends, but mainly about the poem, this one does a pretty good job.

I was pretty skeptical of this film's premise: that it could simultaneously do justice visually to one of the most iconic and bizarre pieces of poetry in American history while saying something new and interesting about both Ginsberg and the infamous obscenity trial.Boy, was I wrong!The juxtaposition of black-and-white shots of Ginsberg reading aloud from "Howl" in a coffee shop (even the crowd was amazingly well portrayed) and the animation sequences that did a brilliant job of illustrating even very complex passages was utterly phenomenal. Weaving the artistry in with a rambling soliloquy by Ginsberg and layering in increasing bites of the trial itself created a rich tapestry in which to enjoy the multi-dimensional lives of Ginsberg and his colleagues and friends and lovers.There were several occasions on which I thought the transitions were a little rough, and a couple of scenes dragged on a bit too long, but only those minor blemishes kept this film from scoring a rare 10/10 from me.