Before They Were The Beat Gen

by The Daily Front Row

 (NEW YORK) Whether lured in by an undying adoration for Beat Generation icons like Allan Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac or bewitched by a fascination with Harry Potter’s next act, the chic set piled into the Paris Theater last night to see Daniel Radcliffe as Ginsberg in Kill Your Darlings. Last night, The Cinema Society and Johnston & Murphy hosted a screening of the flick, which depicts the Beat era greats long before their heyday in the Bay Area—back when they were a bunch of kids at Columbia University circa the Forties. Spoiler alert: Murder does ensue, as the Faulkner-cribbed title portends, but so does friendship, copious drug dabbling, romantic entanglements, and the early flits of lit brilliance. 

After the respectful throngs of fans and reporters hoping to grab a soundbite or exchange a few words with Radcliffe dissipated, the crowd grabbed their popcorn and headed into the theater. “To those of you wishing me happy 40 bday doesn’t start until midnight. So, for the record, you’re witnessing me premiering my first film in my 30s!” exclaimed director Jack Krokidas of the “labor of love,” a project 10 years in the making (and shot in merely 24 days).  As the cast’s blokes like Dean DeHaan and Jack Huston were brought to the front, Krokidas thanked them: “They made my dream cast come true…I didn’t mean to get this emotional!” 

After the lights dimmed and the crowd took in the screening (watch out for a brief but great turn by Elizabeth Olsen as Kerouac’s girlfriend Edie Parker) the scene, which included Parker Posey, Gay Talese, Zachary Quinto, Jason Ritter, and Chris Benz, migrated south for an afterparty at TAO Downtown. The Qui-spiked concoctions bore cleverly lit-leaning names like The Poet and The Kerouac. Odds are, after the afterparty was…some bedside reacquainting with the Beat boys’ greatest works.
ALEXANDRA ILYASHOV

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