Recent Entertainment.ie interviewee James Franco has signed on to star in the Allen Ginsberg biopic Howl. Franco seems to have something of a penchant for playing iconic figures of yesteryear, having previously played James Dean in 2001. Ginsberg is one of the foremost figures in the beat poetry phenomenon in the 1950s and the film will centre on the obscenity trial which was launched to censor Ginsberg's famous book-length poem "Howl". "Fifty years later, Ginsberg's vision is as relevant as the year he wrote it," co-director Jeffrey Friedman said. "It resonates with issues of free speech, government censorship, militaristic empire building, fear-mongering, sexual conformity and the co-opting of religion." A light-hearted film for all the family this ain't!