Milk (2008)

As expected, Milk delivers. If it's not in a theatre near you this week, just wait. I had seen the trailer a few dozen times and knew the movie was going to be powerful. No, I have not seen the documentary, The Times of Harvey Milk (1984)--maybe after Oscar season. One of the many things that impressed me about Milk was the body language. Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch, and Diego Luna walked, moved their hands, and sat in chairs in character. Their voices were softer, their smiles winsome. Penn, who beautifully conveyed Milk's optimism and perseverance, has won a pile of awards, for acting in Mystic River (2003), 21 Grams (2003), I Am Sam (2001), Sweet and Lowdown (1999), and Dead Man Walking (1995), and for directing Into the Wild (2007), which starred Hirsch (Alpha Dog (2006), Lords of Dogtown (2005), and a favorite of mine, The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (2002)) in a great performance. Despite the distracting (and correct for 70s fashion) enormous eyeglasses, Hirsch was convincing as hustler-turned activist Cleve Jones. The very busy Josh Brolin (this year's W., last year's American Gangster, In the Valley of Elah, Grindhouse, and No Country for Old Men) was a scary Dan White, and James Franco keeps demonstrating more and more versatility from his stoner roots (Freaks & Geeks in 1999 to Pineapple Express (2008)) to teen heart throb (haven't seen 'em) to best friend turned nemesis in the Spiderman series to Milk's sweet boyfriend Scott Smith. I'm an Alison Pill fan (Dan in Real Life (2007), Pieces of April (2003), and especially 2006's brilliant-but-cancelled TV show The Book of Daniel) and wish she had had more to do as Anne Kronenberg, but there was a lot going on. The movie had just the right amount of documentary footage mixed into the portrayals, and faded the photos of the actors into those of the people they played at the end. From 1972-74 I was in my 20s living in the San Francisco Bay area, so it was fun seeing some of the sights of that time, including all those mops of curly hair. Interesting trivia: writer Dustin Lance Black grew up as a Mormon and was a writer on HBO's Big Love.

One of the main plot points was an anti-gay initiative, Proposition 6, in 1978. One cannot help but see the parallel to 2008's Prop 8, which unfortunately overturned gay marriage in California last month, and is now being appealed to the California Supreme Court. Would the vote on Prop 8 have come out differently if Milk had been released in October instead of December? Thursday on NPR, there was a story on All Things Considered about race, gay rights, and Prop 8. As I am white and straight, I can only channel Rodney King and wish that we would all just get along.