Howl (2010/Oscilloscope Blu-ray) + Prayers For Bobby (2008/Lifetime/New Video DVD)

 

Picture: B- & C+/C+     Sound: B- & C+/C+     Extras: B-/C+     Features: B-/C+

 

 

Two different dramas about real life gay men have been issued with mixed results, but what is more unusual is the known names attached to them.  Both are about a history that is being discussed more and more and how Gay Americans are as important as anyone else.

 

The Rob Epstein/Jeffrey Friedman biography of Allen Ginsberg is entitled Howl (2010) after the landmark book by the real-life writer, Beat Generation icon and counterculture giant played here by James Franco.  Franco has been oddly criticized for playing a series of gay men, maybe because most actors will not take on the roles, but he should be commended for playing people who are considered outsiders.

 

Franco also plays first-person narrator and we get this crosscut with footage of the obscenity trial over the book and segments of animation throughout that make the final result a little uneven.  It is experimental, but no matter how faithful the animation may be to work by Ginsberg, it tends to not break up any biopic conventions and though Franco is a good actor, the constant surfacing of his own personality (we’ll call them “Franco-isms”) constantly damage a suspension of disbelief that he is Ginsberg.  That’s a shame, because he is good here otherwise, but as a whole, I expected more.  David Strathairn, Jeff Daniels, Jon Hamm, Alan Alda, Mary-Louise Parker, Bob Balaban, Alessandro Nivola, Treat Williams and Paul Rudd also star.

 

The famed Music Video and feature film director Russell Mulcahy (Highlander, The Shadow) helmed the telefilm Prayers For Bobby (2008) with Sigourney Weaver as a highly religious mother who has children and one of them turns out to be gay.  Her son (Ryan Kelley in the title role) is not certain at first, but starts to realize he is gay and when he trusts his brother (who turns out to be a blabbermouth), debate breaks out and Mary Griffith (Weaver) is especially shocked.

 

She turns to God, but Bobby decides to follow things his way and becomes increasingly uncomfortable and feels unwanted as things go from bad to worse.  The supporting cast (including Henry Czerny as the father trapped in the middle) is also good and convincing as the story unfolds.  I am a big fan of Weaver, but it is hard to believe her as a mother who is so strictly religious and though she makes the best choices in her performances, she is not totally convincing as being so strict (being meaner might not have helped either) and the teleplay has formulaic trappings that make it too predictable at times and even unintentionally campy, unfortunately.  Still, it is an interesting story and a good change of pace for Mulcahy, instead of his usual genre work.

 

The 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image on the Howl Blu-ray is a little soft throughout since this was shot in HD and is stylized somewhat, but is still watchable enough and better than the anamorphically enhanced DVD also included that is softer still with color and Video Black that is poorer.  Bobby is also an HD shoot that is also anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 and the results are the same as Howl in being very soft, even though it is not s stylized.  The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) lossless 5.1 mix on Howl is not bad, but this is a low-budget, dialogue-based film so only expect so much from the playback.  Both DVDs have Dolby Digital, with Howl offering an even weaker 5.1 mix than the DTS-MA on the Blu-ray and Bobby 2.0 Stereo that is good for a TV movie.

 

Extras on both include making of/behind the scenes featurettes, with Howl adding director’s Research Tapes including interviews with the real-life Ginsberg & the friends who know him, a feature length audio commentary with Franco and the Co-Directors, Ginsberg reading the book on cameras from 1995 and Franco’s audio reading of the book.  Blu-ray exclusives include more from Ginsberg’s 1995 taping at The Knitting Factory in New York also reading Sunflower Sutra and Pull My Daisy and John Cameron Mitchell doing a Q&A with the Directors at the Provincetown Film Festival.  Bobby adds Meet The Stars, PFLAG PSA with Weaver, Trevor Project PSA with Daniel Radcliffe, Road To The GLADD Awards and Interviews with the real life Mary Griffith, Weaver and other cast members.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo