- Currently, this is what I am predicting: this movie gets nominated for Best Picture and, if it wins, legions of Brokeback Mountain fans say that this is the Academy’s way of making up for the fact that Crash beat Brokeback in 2006. It will be the “safe” gay choice for septuagenarians in the Academy who had their gay hymen broken by Ang Lee and are now ready to come out of the closet with Gus van Sant. They want you to know they are progressive! This movie has the right mix of edgy politics and sentimental cheese that people will like it and not feel alienated.
- I think like most biopics are prone to doing, Milk tends to stick a little squarely to the chronology of the timeline at the expense of doing a lot of character development. The first portion of the film where Milk runs for office and loses on several different occasions is done in a way that makes you picture the screenwriters with a ticky-box list of major events in Milk’s life. I suppose this is symptomatic of any “origin” story, be it biopic or superhero flick, where in showing us how someone got to the point where they enter the public sphere and people sit up and take notice, we have to hit a series of connect-the-dot moments first. I guess I’m usually more interested in they “why” surrounding those dots, not the dots themselves.
The movie really hits its stride whenever Milk is going toe to toe with Dan White (Josh Brolin) but, again, I’m not sure enough is done with their relationship. Needs more scenery chewing! It’s another one of these films where Something Monumental™ is being depicted but not enough is done to convey that monumentality.
- The passing of Prop 8 should only serve to highlight how little things have changed in the thirty years since the events in this movie take place. It was pretty effing depressing, to be completely honest, to think that so many people could fail so spectacularly on issues that really don’t impact them. How do you teach homosexuality in schools, anyway? People fucking fail and it’s upsetting.
- Sean Penn was pretty great in this. It occurs to me I haven’t seen him in anything since Mystic River.
- James Franco played the role of supportive but long suffering wife to Sean Penn and, naturally, he couldn’t take it anymore and left
with the kids to go to his mother’s. He’s essentially Sissy Spacek in JFK. I really liked him in this, though; he was low key and reasonable and had the greatest hair ever. It should always be the 1970s in the World of Franco. Also, there’s a naked swimming shot, although no full-frontal if that’s what you’re wondering about. - Josh Brolin continues on his path to Hollywood domination.
- Diego Luna was fucking ridiculous and thus I felt moderately bad that I didn’t actually feel bad when he killed himself.
- The real revelation in this movie for me was Emile Hirsch, oddly enough. He stood out considerably considering the talent he was going up against. It probably helps that I’ve only ever seen him in Alpha Dog. He was equal parts cocky and caring and I liked how he was BFF with the single female supporting character. I imagined it was because they had the same hairstyle.
- Between this and Quantum of Solace, I feel I’ve now seen Tosca in its entirety.
Milk
Solid.
IMDB Plot Synopsis The story of California's first openly gay elected official, Harvey Milk, a San Francisco supervisor who was assassinated along with Mayor George Moscone by San Francisco Supervisor Dan White.
2. This is also something which I did not entirely like about this movie, this alternation between “public” and “private” scenes – I’m a sucker for character driven stories and the whole set-up of the movie kept me a bit from enjoying that. But Sean Penn nevertheless managed to stand out and hold his own against that, which may not have been “easy”, so I think he really deserved the Oscar for this one.
4. I do agree with you on this once, 100% – I see this performance on a par with Ben Kingsley in Gandhi; Penn has a tendency to disappear in his role the same way Sir Ben did. I’ve seen some pictures of the real Harvey Milk and it’s very hard to see the difference.
9. I’m not sure whether you have noticed, but there is one scene where he listens to a record of Tosca, and the way he plays the reaction to the music is just SO like Tom Hanks listening to music in Philadelphia – just look at the way he waves his hands!