Milk

By: Scott Cranin
In-House Review - Nov 22 2008

Our favorite film of 2008, Gus Van Sant's best effort to date and containing what is possibly Sean Penn's best performance ever, Milk is entertaining, illuminating and riveting from the first frame to the last. I am 52 years old and know the story of Harvey Milk quite well. I remember Dianne Fienstein's choked-up announcement of his assassination. I remember the dark night after the trial. None of this meant anything as I sat in the dark theater and watched Dan White (Josh Brolin) crawl in through the basement window and my heartbeat raced. I wept several times, laughed frequently and joined in the cheers as the film ended. Gus Van Sant's has created cinematic magic with Milk.
The story begins with Harvey Milk in 1972 (Sean Penn) as a closeted insurance salesman picking up a trick in the NYC subway. That trick was Scott Smith (James Franco), a hippie boy instantly charmed by the Jewish closet-case, who urged him to create a new life for the two of them. Off they went to San Francisco to change the world, and have fun on the way. Harvey opened a camera store on the still-straight Castro St which soon became a drop-in center for gay boys helping to create what became a gay mecca. Inspired to make change Harvey and his buddies launch a politically-naive first campaign for the SF Board of Supervisors. Harvey had a pony-tail and populist stump speech. He came very close for a first-timer. The buddies became a campaign organization that launched two more runs for the Board of Supervisors and a run for the California State Assembly. With all this politicing Harvey's relationship with Scott crumbled and he was left to his own devices. Harvey met and nurtured a young politico Cleve Jones (Emile Hirsch) who went on to found the AIDS Quilt organization. His next boyfriend was the tragically unbalanced Jack Lira (Diego Luna) who never gelled with Harvey's friends.
With superb performances, set design that appeared to reconstruct Castro St in the '70s and a score by the brilliant Danny Elfman, Gus Van Sant has created an essential film for your collection. Not stinting on the gay romance, intimate scenes and kissing, Milk is the story of a legendary gay hero told in legendary style.

By: JANORM

The first time is viewed this film, I was a basket case for two(2) days afterwards. The emotinal rollercoaster ride, especially if you were a young adult (25-35 yrs) during this time, was almost mind shattering. We have a tendency to bury things in our minds and try to forget. This film hit me like a Tsunami!! All this repressed knowledge and activity came flooding back with a vengence of its own volition. It took a couple of weeks to assimulate it and still am working with some aspects of my own life from that period of time. This film by Gus Van Sant will go down in history as one of the greats, along with Brokeback Mountain. Even a lot of my straight friends were very impressed by this film. It is by far a true classic and needs to be added to your collection. ONLY ONCE IN HISTORY DOES A TRUE LEADER EMERGE!! NJMJr

By: Toby Ross

Having lived the era in my early 20's must say it took me back in to a somewhat more innocent time. Although I did not hang out in the Castro (I was more to be found with the riskier trashier bunch on Polk Street) I was familiar with that area and ventured there myself once in a while. I met Harvey as I was entering the evening show of the first week of the film, The Exorcist, he caught my eye and we got to be talking, his warmth and ability to reach out stunned me...I liked him instantly and he stayed with me for a while after I went in (30 minutes later I had a hard time readjusting to Linda Blair as the demon Pazuzu shouting "your mother sucks cocks in hell")

OK:) I'll stop joking and get into it.

Mr. Dead man Walking freaked me out, I didn't know he had "this" in him...it was prefect...that slight Jewish nerdiness...the sense of conviction and the way it affected others, he was a man on a mission and you knew it right away. I always thought he was our JFK, reflecting all the hopes and dreams and sadly carrying with him the omens of a bygone era at the same time and a hint of tougher years to come. He had to be.

I saw it twice, mainly because of Mr. Penn. The night of the awards I will be hoping he wins.

Toby Ross

By: Amos Lassen

"MILK"
Van Sant Gives Us the Film We Have Waited For

Amos Lassen
Harvey Milk is a gay icon even in his death. He spearheaded a revolution for civil rights while he remained tender and gentle. Gus Van Sant brings us the Harvey Milk story in his biopic "Milk" and it is an amazing experience. It is storytelling at its best with a literate screenplay and a cast that gives wonderful performances. The film not only lets us know who Harvey Milk was, it takes us into his life and it plays with us emotionally. More than anything else, this is a gay motion picture of which we can all be very, very proud.
The film begins with a montage of new footage of gay bars being raided in the 1960's and takes us through a capsule of gay history that ends with the march of thousands to honor the slain Milk. The film offers no apologies but is an exquisite testament to a man of courage and strength and in Harvey Milk we see somewhat of a microcosm of gay life as it was. Almost every scene has at least one gay character in it and we see gay men behaving like everyone else, whether cooking, working, dancing, arguing, supporting each at the death of the man who was a hero to them. Even though the film is about the attainment of civil rights for gay people and much of the dialog is about anti-gay discrimination, there are many tender moments in the film when the demonstrations for equality are not shouting and marching but just trying to live.
It has taken forty years to get this picture to the screen and now that it is here, I can only praise the film, the director and the cast. This is a film that takes viewers into our world in a way that no other film has done.
Van Sant gives a movie that is fair to all and we see Harvey Milk and comrades as non-perfect people but we also see them as people who have no agenda with which to hurt people. All they want is fair treatment by all.
Sean Penn fills the screen as Milk. Harvey Milk was a New York Jew who was loud and excessively brassy and he had a smile that could light up a room coupled with a great sense of humor. Penn is obnoxious and flirtatious, shameless and stubborn and from research it is easy to find that there are indeed aspects of his character. Yet he was also a gentle man who was brave and smart. What I can say about Penn's performance is that he is Harvey Milk, a gay man who struggled to get the world to come to terms with him.
The other actors also personify those people in Milk's life. James Franco as Milk's lover, Scott Smith, acts with emotional intensity. Smith is at the center of the film as the man who lights the fuse to set off the spark of hope in his mate. He was obviously the love of Milk's life.
Emile Hirsch as Cleve Jones is brilliant with his hot-blooded performance as he evolves from a hustler and male prostitute to a significant and vigilant gay rights advocate. He is literally on fire. Josh Brolin as Milk's colleague and assassin, Dab White, excellently walks the line between disgust and curiosity. His actions are mysterious as they were until the day he committed suicide in the 1980's.
The film focuses on Milk's political career and the issues that became part of his campaign. Van Sant manages to capture the era by using historical footage of the Castro-the neighborhood where Milk lived and of Milk's political enemies (including Anita Bryant who caused so much damage to our fight for freedom).
The film is long and clocks in at two hours but it never bored. There are few women in the film aside from Ann Kronenberg (Allison Pill), a lesbian who was greatly responsible for Milk's campaign successes but we must remember that when Milk lived in the Castro, there were no women there. It seems to me that what Van Sant was doing was to take the audience into the loves of gay men and show us their pluses and minuses.
As I watched Milk, I could not help but wonder how it managed to make it to the screen-just the idea of a movie about a dead gay civil rights leader does not seem to be box office fodder, But we are so lucky to have this film for so many reasons-the main one being to let the younger generation of gays know a bit about her history and a period in time that we almost had our own Camelot. Will the movie male a difference in people's minds? Those that hate us will not go to see it anyway but for those who claim to tolerate us (I hate that word) or do not understand us or our struggle, they may well discover that our issues are not gay issues but human issues.
The movie moves the viewer. I know I shed a few tears and I was out of America during the time of Harvey Milk. Other viewers may become very upset at what they see and will probably attribute the movie to a gay agenda. We see physical affection between men but so is bigotry and is hatred.
One thing the film teaches is that lives cannot be led in fear and as people we, unlike the gay men in the opening scene, do not have to hide our faces from anyone and anything.
It is the humility and talent of Gus Van Sant that places Harvey Milk in the screen and this hugely emotional paean to one of our lost leaders is a monument to his memory. We have not yet fulfilled Harvey Milk's vision. He is no longer here bur WE ARE. We're getting closer to his goal and I am sure it will come. Harvey Milk was a huge human being and his story is important, intriguing and quite remarkable. Here is a movie that must be seen and savored. Everything comes together. It is so important for us to carry on with what Milk began. We not only owe that much to him, but to society and, above all, to ourselves.