Seen this trailer a couple of times. Looking forward to this one.

After 30 Years, a Film Returns to a Harrowing Time in San Francisco
On Oct. 28 Focus Features expects to introduce its film “Milk,” directed by Gus Van Sant with Sean Penn in the title role, at a gala in San Francisco hosted by local luminaries, at least one of whom — Senator Dianne Feinstein, then the president of the board of supervisors — was just steps away when Mr. Milk and Mayor Moscone were shot. The movie will begin playing in some theaters on Nov. 26, just ahead of the 30th anniversary of the killings on Nov. 27, then gain wider release as the awards season gets under way.
Already the film is drawing attention as an early contender in the coming Oscar race. Following early screenings, for instance, Hollywood insiders and others have been startled by Mr. Penn’s picture-perfect rendering of Mr. Milk, a politician who was at once gawky, ambitious and unforgettable to those whose lives he touched. “Sean’s portrayal of Harvey is so beautifully right,” Cleve Jones, a Milk friend who is played in the film by Emile Hirsch, said in a phone interview.
New York Times, October 15

Saw Milk this morning. Came home to find this in my Google News feed, which includes the following video, which was shot recently in the same neighbourhood where the events of the movie unfolded over 30 years ago:



If it hadn't been for the film, I might not have "gotten" the significance of the whistles. According to the film, they were used to rally the community whenever a gay-bashing took place. In this video, however, they seem to have become a tool of intimidation.

I could say more, but, y'know, embargoes and all that.

Saw this today and it is very good. I don't know how much I like the film in and of itself compared to how I like it in relationship to the current gay rights climate. Penn and Franco are both very good. Brolin is ok, but really doesn't have as much to do.

FWIW, despite playing in only 36 theatres, this movie is now neck-and-neck with Slumdog Millionaire (which is playing in only 49 theatres!) for a spot in the weekend's Top 10. Apart from The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, which is playing in over 500 theatres, every other movie in the Top 10 is playing in over 2,000 theatres. (And the #12 and #13 movies of the week are playing in over 1,000 theatres, too.)

Movieguide:

I know there has to be another shoe

Overstreet messed around with his quote. It should read:

Pardon, your subtext is showing.

I know we're all inclined to smack Movieguide, but let's take a moment to digest that review. I followed the link. Does this represent a major break, or shift, for the publication? Sure, they point out the homosexuality, and what they call anti-God stuff, but the overall effect of the review is strongly positive.

Isn't it?

I haven't tracked their reviews, but this strikes me as something that might upset their readers.

Well, if you look at their rating chart, Milk is the *lowest-rated* film, and branded as "Abhorrent."

This is probably a case of a freelancer writing a review for them, and then Ted Baehr or Tom Snyder impose their own warnings on top of the volunteer's review.

I've received this same testimony from more than one ex-Movieguide reviewer. They'd write the review, and when the review was published, it would be an entirely different thing. Sometimes, they would write a positive review, but when it was "edited", it would become a negative review.

Remember the positive review of Million Dollar Baby published there? It was quickly removed, and replaced by a condemnation.

I find it pretty amusing that, just to the left of the bright red "abhorrent" rating for Milk on Movieguide, there is a Fandango ad encouraging you to get your tickets for Milk.

Did anyone else think Josh Brolin was playing Dan White as a repressed homosexual in this film? I'm not so much talking about Milk explicitly broaching the possibility and having all the acolytes hooting at him (though that's relevant in the overall scheme of this movie's vileness). I'm talking about the way Brolin played him -- very pinched, very (to me) obviously holding-back with hunched shoulders. And also the scene where he's drunk and tries to attend Milk's party, which I thought smelled like a half-hearted pickup attempt -- getting physically close to him, etc.

That's certainly possible, vjmorton -- though I confess my interpretation of Brolin's performance is heavily influenced by the theory that Sean Penn's Milk openly broaches.

It's interesting how the film seems to want to turn the characters who die into gay martyrs, even though it never gives us any real reason to see their deaths as martyr-ish. The historical Milk, near as I can tell, was assassinated not for any homophobic reasons but because of a political dispute with a fellow city councillor (and the fact that the non-gay mayor was killed too -- killed FIRST, in fact, if this movie's chronology is correct -- also speaks to the fact that there was something other than Milk's sexuality at play here). But the movie wants Milk's death to tie into his gay activism in some way, so the movie has Milk float a theory to the effect that his future assassin might be a closet case -- thus making homophobia (of the self-loathing sort) indirectly responsible for Milk's death. But is there any HISTORICAL evidence to suggest that Dan White was a self-loathing closet case? Or is it just the movie's innuendo that makes us think it might be so?

And then there is ...


It kind of makes you wonder what a biopic about Milk might have been like if it had NOT felt obliged to go the hagiographic route, if it had NOT felt obliged to make everything in his life tie into "the cause" in some way.

Great observation. One of the things we often see with all sin, and sexual sin in particular, is that it does in fact become the focus of everyone's view of a person - and sometimes of the person himself or herself. To live a full life then sex needs to be a part of the whole of a person, something that sin doesn't really let us do since it takes over and requires our full surrender to it.

Denny

Hmmm...it seems to me that there is more than one force at work in that. The people who "oppose" the sin tend to define a person by the sin as much as anyone. In fact, Paul felt comfortable creating a list of people who will not enter heaven-defining those people solely by their particular sin. Is it that the sin becomes the focus for the person committing the act? Or is it that the people who stand in opposition of the act define the person by the sin?

Was Harvey's death completely unrelated to his sexuality? Or was there simply more than one issue at play?

In the particular case of the sin of sodomy in today's society, that's not a close call. Indeed the average homosexual becomes quite perturbed if you say he shouldn't define himself as "gay" and/or try to speak in the traditional Christian anthropology of sin, conversion and grace -- "that's self-loathing, inauthentic," "who are you, you hater?" "you deny I exist," etc.

Further, in this day and age one is more likely to be involuntarily forced to be defined by the sin by homosexuals than by Christians (i.e., outing and false imputation). MILK glancingly refers to the former in a positive context and is one long act of the other -- two of myriad reasons this movie is awful.




In real life, it was not completely unrelated but mostly not. After all, White killed Moscone too and did so first (yes, the movie is accurate on that score). And while the movie MILK includes the reasons for White's falling out with him (mostly not homosexuality-related), it is played otherwise-entirely as a gay martyrdom story.



There is no actual evidence whatsoever.

And no ... "he musta been because all homophobes are" or "every Jesus needs a Judas" is not evidence.

A Friend to Gays and Antigay Dictators Alike
It’s not surprising that Sean Penn, thanks to his star turn as Harvey Milk, is becoming a hero of the gay community -- likely to be showered with acting prizes, and deservedly so. But his outspoken admiration for the Castro and Chavez regimes should make everyone think twice.
James Kirchick, The Advocate, December 9

Oh for heaven's sake. What are you doing reading the Advocate, and what does that have to do with this (excellent) film?

Holy Moly! wrote:
: What are you doing reading the Advocate . . .

I go where the interesting links take me.

: . . . and what does that have to do with this (excellent) film?

I dunno, what does a movie star's offscreen persona ever have to do with the agenda-driven movies in which he stars?

I still haven't seen this film, but I thought John Podhoretz's review was a useful reminder about the parts of Milk's life that, he says, aren't reflected in the movie. If I had seen mention of these oversights in any other review of the film, I wouldn't bother posting the link. But I haven't.

I wonder why.

The thing is, the Harvey Milk of Milk is not the real Harvey Milk, and Milk the movie is a sham. The movie turns an incendiary, mau-mauing, take-no-prisoners radical of the 1970s into an ingenuous teddy bear. ...

[The] Randy Shilts biography, The Mayor of Castro Street, is the unofficial inspiration for the movie--the real Milk was a smart, aggressive, purposefully offensive, press-savvy attention hound who believed the cause of gay rights would be advanced if there were riots in the streets of San Francisco. He was always on the hunt for a casus belli. By contrast, the cinematic Milk convinces the San Francisco police to let him organize an impromptu march to prevent a riot.

The real Milk was a sexual liberationist of a very specific 1970s type. "As homosexuals, we can't depend on the heterosexual model," Shilts quotes him as saying to one boyfriend in San Francisco by way of explaining why he had another boyfriend in Los Angeles. "We grow up with the heterosexual model, but we don't have to follow it. We should be developing our own lifestyle. There's no reason you can't love more than one person at a time." Shilts adds: "That ultimately was what his politics were all about, Harvey decided."

Milk was murdered three years before researchers identified the AIDS virus, which was the horrifying natural refutation of his doctrine (and which took the life of Scott Smith, the man with whom Milk moved to San Francisco from New York in 1970). It is understandable that screenwriter Black and director Gus Van Sant do not want to muddy their iconographic portrait with the inconvenient truth about Milk's polyamorous views or behavior. They no longer represent the vanguard of the effort to expand gay rights, which is now focused almost solely on the institution of marriage. But it is a distortion, and a significant one.

Darrel: What say you about this?

Not enough of a student of Milk's life to know. It is important to keep in mind the 70's mindset, especially in the LGBT community. To be able to be out must have felt like being a kid in a candy store without supervision. There was a lot of that in the heterosexual world at the time as well. I do think the film did show that he was ready to jump on an issue and use a riot to get his platform.

As to the shift from that until now which he says is almost totally focused on marriage, that is probably a combination of devastation of AIDS, the maturing of the movement and other more pressing issues having been dealt with. Should it be seen as a bad thing that LGBT people want to have firmly established relationships rather than finding as many partners as possible?

Darrel Manson wrote:
: I do think the film did show that he was ready to jump on an issue and use a riot to get his platform.

Yes, as I recall, in the film, he makes an impromptu speech with the city's blessing to prevent a riot AFTER he gets some of his friends to threaten a riot in the first place. But I could be conflating a couple scenes, there.

Thanks for that Advocate link, Peter. The article is really enlightening. It certainly reinforces the idea that Penn and some other movie stars are way out of their league when they attempt to be political activists. The most damning quote:

"In the early years of the regime, Raul Castro was notorious for ordering the summary execution of its opponents, including people whose only crime was their homosexuality. This is the man with whom Penn was “in stitches” knocking back glasses of red wine."

Ouch.

OK, saw it, and although I knew ahead of time that some respectable critics had been lukewarm at best toward this film, I was still very surprised at just how conventional a film it is. That it rates number 4 on Ron's combined list of MCN and IndieWire critics' tabulations is hard to see as anything other than a vote for a cause, rather than for the film.

I've noticed in the year-end polls quite a bit of love for Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park. I'm thinking that might be the Van Sant film from this year that merits serious attention. Milk is well acted, but even there, I'm nonplussed. Penn is good, but he's always good. What's with Andrew O'Hehir's claim that the Academy should just box up the Oscar now and put Penn's name on it? That kind of campaigning affects the race and hurts the other candidates for that trophy. Were the Penn performance so clearly a front-runner, I woudn't have a problem with O'Hehir's lobbying, but I didn't see a slam-dunk Oscar winning performance from Penn here. I was more impressed by James Franco, who's never come close to giving a decent performance in the films I've seen him in. Here he's pretty good, as is Emile Hirsch. But Hirsch/Penn collaborated to much better effect in Into the Wild, I thought.

Brolin is alright, but he's better as the lead actor in W. -- a performance that tops Penn's Milk, in my book.

Christian wrote:
: I've noticed in the year-end polls quite a bit of love for Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park. I'm thinking that might be the Van Sant film from this year . . .

Eh? I saw it in October 2007. And I did not see it at a festival. (Oh, wait, I saw it as part of a "festival repeats" series AFTER the festival. Hmmm. Oh, and the IMDb indicates it had a "limited" release in the U.S. beginning in March, though it opened in various European and Asian countries in 2007. Hmmm again.)

: Penn is good, but he's always good.

Oh, I disagree. Milk marks the first time in a LONG time that Penn hasn't been smothered by his own self-importance, whether on-screen or off-screen.

Yeah, I had thought Paranoid Park was from last year, but I keep seeing it on year-end polls for 2008. Haven't researched it. As for Penn, he's good here, but is he the sure-fire Oscar winner? Whether or not he's been "smothered" in self-importance "in a LONG time" (don't know how many years and months might constitute that), it hasn't been a long time since he won an Oscar. He won in 2004, was nominated in 2002, was nominated in 2000, was nominated in 1996. Other than the 1996 role, I didn't quite get what all the fuss was about with those other performances (one of which I still haven't seen), but I'm not so blown away by his work here in Milk that I think the Oscar should already be engraved with his name.

Christian wrote:
: As for Penn, he's good here, but is he the sure-fire Oscar winner?

I would hope not, but I can certainly understand why this performance has captured so many people's attention. It's kind of like how Dianne Wiest became a shoo-in to win for her hilarious role in Bullets over Broadway, eight years after she had won another Oscar for Hannah and Her Sisters -- people had seen her in many Hannah-type roles (the mousy sister, the mousy wife, the mousy mother), but Bullets showed a whole new side to her (and a fun side, at that!) which got everyone's attention and convinced them that she really WAS a great actress after all. Similarly, many people have remarked that Penn's performance in Milk shows a fun side to Penn that has been sorely lacking in most of his recent film roles, including the one that he won an Oscar for four years ago.

Fun? He smiles and cracks a joke every now and then, but the film is framed with his recording of his rise to political prominence -- just in case he gets assassinated. That's a pretty heavy frame in which to have fun, but OK, yeah, he does do some things in Milk that he hasn't done in other films.

I just saw this report from Nikki Finke, who claims to have reliable Oscar-race sources. She admits that it's way too early to make any clear calls as to who the nominees will be, but I'm somewhat comforted that her sources don't see Penn as a lock to win the award, even as they expect him to be nominated:

The only real mystery surrounding the Oscars is the Best Actor category with Sean Penn for Milk, Frank Langella for Frost/Nixon, Clint Eastwood for Gran Torino, and Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler all seen as having an equal chance to win. My insiders say Langella may have the edge right now among the older voters, and Penn with younger voters, but Rourke is also starting to be singled out. It's too early to speculate on other categories since the vast majority of Oscar voters don't even start screening most DVDs until after Christmas.

To quote Al Capone in The Untouchables, "Like a lot of things in life, we laugh because it's funny and we laugh because it's true." This report from the New York Film Critics Circle ceremony is, like, one of the funniest things I have read in hours, maybe even days, and I wish I could have seen Josh Brolin deliver this statement himself:

* Again Brolin, after chiding Sean Penn for the actor's self-seriousness (or was he chiding those who chided Penn for his self-seriousness? So hard to tell) had a whole riff, said in a deadpan voice. with theatrically long pauses.

"Quite an actor Sean Penn, quite an actor. [Pause] Amazing. [Pause] And now I'm an asshole. Like Russell Crowe. Because I'm not as smart as Sean. [Pause] Quite an actor. [Pause] Amazing actor. I've loved you in Milk, I thought what you did with that role was incredible. We've known you as an actor who doesn't smile very much. And the fact that you smiled as much as you did in this film is amazing. Truly incredible. You are an amazing actor. You are going to get the Oscar. Because you smiled so much."

For what it's worth, before I had even seen this report, I had seen Mike D'Angelo's Twittered remark: "It's like, how much drunker could Josh Brolin have been at tonight's NYFCC dinner? And the answer is none . None more drunk." So I'm reading these deadpan pauses with that in mind, as I grin and laugh and grin some more.

Barbara Nicolosi:

I'm not even going to write what the storyline of this movie is, because I wouldn't want any of you to think that has too much to do with the actual true story of the seriously tragic and macabre character who was Harvey Milk. The movie story might have gone into the twisted soul who over the course of his life drove four of his five lovers to commit suicide. I mean come on - THAT'S A STORY! (The only other man in history whom I have ever heard of who had that many suicides in his close inner circle was Hitler....I'm just saying...)

The film fails basically because there just isn't any material in the biography to convincingly transform the radically narcissist, sex-obsessed community organizer, Milk into Ghandi. They had to work so hard to sanitize this creepy dude, that they ended up stripping the movie of any potential interest. It's a bore.

Anyone know if there's any documented basis for what she's saying here? I DO know that some critics have chastised the film for dropping in that one passing reference to Milk's suicidal lovers without ever really making anything of it -- but not because they think Milk drove his lovers to do it, rather because it's the sort of personal experience that maybe shouldn't be reduced to a single line of dialogue. (Yes, yes, one of Milk's "current" lovers goes on to commit suicide within the film, but he does so because Milk has been neglecting him, and NOT, as far as the film is concerned, because of any direct experience of homophobia, per se.)

Peter, I don't understand your blacked-out reference to "homophobia." Nicolosi is saying Milk drove his lovers to suicide, but she doesn't mention homophobia as the cause. Am I missing something?

I don't have further insight into the suicide angle, but I appreciate Nicolosi's characterization of the film as a "bore." It certainly bored me; I got up to buy a coffee at one point, so I could stay awake, then went out about 20 minutes later for a refill, missing, in total, about 4-5 minutes of the film.

More interesting to me is to read Nathan Lee's review of the film, which, to my eyes, is quite negative, although I feel like Lee, or his editors, strained to put a positive spin on the movie. As for Milk's sexual hedonism, Lee writes:

Harvey is drawn into local business politics and the burgeoning gay scene that would soon revitalize the Castro as a thriving queer mecca. Milk rushes through this late-blooming springtime of Harvey’s career, glancing at his formative alliance with the local labor union, and averting its eyes completely from his enthusiastic sampling of San Francisco treats. “No more pot and bathhouses,” Harvey soon declares, clean-shaven and suit-wearing, as he readies for a run at political office.

Later:

Accepting Milk as prophet on top of hero, figurehead, and martyr, Van Sant has gone from meditating on inscrutable saints to something quite close to overdetermined hagiography.

And yet the film has cropped up on year-end "Best" lists too numerous to mention.

I felt like it was 10 minutes too long, maybe, but overall I really liked the film. I recognize that the Milk in the film was pretty different than the Milk in real life, but I sorta knew that going in to the film. It didn't affect my experience, though.

Christian wrote:
: Peter, I don't understand your blacked-out reference to "homophobia." Nicolosi is saying Milk drove his lovers to suicide, but she doesn't mention homophobia as the cause. Am I missing something?

Um, my point is that the film, perhaps without realizing it, actually agrees with Nicolosi that Milk himself may have been responsible for his partners getting suicidal, whereas the character of Milk within the film seems to want to pin the blame for this on the broader society's homophobia. There is a disconnect there within the film, and Nicolosi apparently thinks the film should have gone further in exploring what it was about Milk HIMSELF, rather than "society", that was responsible for his partners' attempted suicides.