MILK Post-Release Discussion

I think Penn will get a nod --not sure about the win. Have to see The Wrestler and Benjamin Button first. Would like to hear from others on this film. I thought it was a great return to form for Van Sant.

I loved the hell out of this movie too. It's in my top 3 right now for this year.

It's a guarantee for multiple Oscar nominations, likely in Picture and Directing. As well, I expect Sean Penn to get nominated, and likely win.

Truthfully, though, I'd like to see James Franco get a nomination. Between this and Pineapple Express he's shown himself to be a valuable emerging character actor, and I thought he brought so much warmth and gravity to this film. He didn't have a flashy part like Brolin or Penn, but he was the one I walked out of the theatre most surprised by. Kinda like the Gary Oldman-in-Dark-Knight effect.

Just came back from seeing it. It was fantastic. I was surprised to find out that Danny Elfman did the score. And Emile Hirsch was also great as Cleve Jones.

I don't like to get hung up on potential nominations since I stopped caring about awards a long time ago. But for those who haven't read "The Mayor of Castro Street" I strongly advise you do. Although I was a little bit thrown off by the definition of the "twinkie" defense at the end. I thought the "twinkie" defense was based on White was showing signs of depression and crazy by eating junk food and not crazy because of the junk food.

And despite what happened with Prop 8. It really does amaze how much further we've gotten (Despite other giant roadblocks but there are anti-discrimination laws out there on the books)

It's one of the best films I've seen this year and I also agree with Franco. The guy has serious range and you just saw this year with this and Pineapple.

One other thing I wanted to mentioned. During the scene in which Harvey talks to the kid from Minnesota and advises him to get out. I really got into it and when they pulled back to discover the wheel-chair which means he couldn't leave. I actually fell for that. Van Sant you son of a bitch. Ya got me.

I'm sad to read that. When they first announced this film, a few of the other posters and I had brought up that we hoped they would actually deal with the defense presented rather than the defense as presented by pop culture i.e. the "twinkie defense."

You are right, the defense that was actually presented was that the shooter's horrible diet and weight gain were signs of a profound depression that made him a danger to himself and others and thus guilty by reason of insanity.

For some reason, the idea that San Francisco, of all places, was so filled with homophobes that a winking "the Twinkies made him go craaaaaazy!!!!" defense caught on and it's still presented as what happened in some college introductory psych courses, which is extremely unfortunate. If that's the depiction they go with in the picture, then the film really does a disservice to the people of the City and County of San Francisco and their court system. The disservice it does to the mentally ill community is probably compounded by what I'm now assuming is a total whitewashing of People's Temple's influence in the Moscone and Milk campaigns.

To be fair, the film doesn't show White with any junk food compulsions at all, forcing the audience to take his character for what it was - a likely repressed gay man striking out against Milk and Moscone.

Was this film in the can before the Prop 8 disaster?

I saw it yesterday at The Grove. This was such a powerful film, and it resonated powerfully with the audience in that packed theater in West Hollywood. I have to say, there were scenes in which I wanted to get up from my seat and scream "fuck you, you bigoted bastards!" to Briggs, Anita Bryant, etc. I don't think I was the only one who felt that way.

I don't know if Sean Penn gave as strong of a performance as the other actors. As much as I think he has chops, he has a hard time breaking away from his own off-screen persona. I couldn't get past the fact that it was Sean Penn pretending to be Harvey Milk. That being said, Emile Hirsch stole the show. The support cast of this movie was fabulous. I hope Hirsch gets nominated. Franco did a good job, too. Diego Luna (Jack/Paco/Taco?) did a good job playing a Hispanic queen, but I thought he just distracted from the central element of the film, or at least what I was interested in: the politics.

I really, really liked it. Definitely Van Sant's best movie. I loved the first act of the movie, and that the audience is plunged directly into a love scene between Milk and Scott. Indeed, the relationship between Milk and Scott is so well fleshed out. I could see from the performances of Penn and Franco that these men had a deep, enduring love for each other. The relationship of two mature lovers forced apart by circumstances and reunited on a semi-regular basis, to be honest, fantastic. I know it's based on a real relationship, but that doesn't mean that the relationship will be portrayed so well. I have to hand it to the writer of the movie (forget his name) and Franco and Penn.

That being said, I thought the film had some pacing problems, particularly from the end of the second on (the debates between Briggs and Milk, and the tragic demise of Milk and Moscone). The sheer energy of the first act and most of the second act isn't regained until pretty much the end of the film.

Whether this is a true classic will have to wait. I was engrossed fully in the film, but in part because I think this is such an important subject. The forces of intolerance cannot win. If they do, all minorities will suffer. Once you legislate bigotry against one group of outsiders, it will be much easier to roll back the protections that other minorities have won in this country. I firmly believe that the civil rights gains in this country are by no means irreversible.

See what I mean? It's too much of a product of these times, which is why I ask how close to being in the can this film was before Prop 8. Maybe it's just that Prop 6 and Prop 8 were so similar in their insipidness that parallels are just impossible to avoid.

I hope this plays big out there. If it convinces just one more person of the importance of granting gays and lesbians the full protections under the law that heterosexuals enjoy, Milk will have been a success. I love how the film presented the issue for what it is: a lack of compassion and empathy for your fellow man. It humanized the debate in a powerful, powerful way.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving to you too!

I was totally engrossed by this film. As someone who had never even heard of Harvey Milk till I read rumors of a film being made about him, I thought Van Sant and Co. did a great job making sure you had all the information you needed to let the film just sweep me away.

I don't have much baggage with Penn, so I thought his performance was amazing. Not a weak link in the cast. Franco's having a great year, exhibiting the promise he showed in Freaks & Geeks. Emile Hirsch already had me with Speed Racer and it was great to see him in such a different role (I haven't seen Into The Wild yet). I do agree that Diego Luna did come off as a distraction to the film (the film is definitely aware of him as such) but that was no fault of Luna.

When it comes to theorizing about Oscars, I don't envy someone who would have to choose between Mickey Rourke and Sean Penn.

I don't think Penn was a weak link by any means, I just thought that the other actors inhabited their roles as actual people better than Penn. I don't know, it's a bit hard to explain. It's not like I'm unsympathetic to Penn's politics, etc. and was distracted by that.

I thought Luna did a good job, and perhaps the film treated Jack/Paco as a distraction purposefully, but I have a hard time believing that. Milk clearly had affection for the guy, and the movie wasn't outright dismissive of Jack/Paco, either.

Well the film ends at the assassination and not at the trial. And there's no mention of Jim Jones and the people's temple but if it had been. It would have been out of place because the focus was strictly on Milk and his world. Had the scope been not as intimate, I'm sure it would have been referenced.

It would have had the same effect had out of nowhere Moscone referenced the Zodiac killer or in Zodiac Greysmith mentioning the Milk murder. While both are going on at the same time. The scope isn't broad enough to somehow capture both things and still maintain focus. It would have been out of place and would have came off like name dropping.

And as for homophobes. I don't know how long you have lived in the bay area but San Francisco was very much a blue-collar conservative town (It hosted the 1964 Republican convention of all things) and you had people like Dan White making up the political majority for decades.

As for the trial itself, I would highly recommend reading The Mayor of Castro Street which details just how fucked up the trial was and its aftermath. Truly one of the great miscarriages of justice.

And as for Luna, the guy he was playing I believe was basically a shifty drifter. Jack Lira was a distraction to Harvey but because Harvey had a thing for those type of guys. He just went for it, sadly ending up with a suicide.

I think I understand. Penn's performance was clearly more affected than the rest of the cast and I can see how that might not totally work for someone.

The film wasn't outright dismissive of Jack/Paco, but Harvey's friends certainly were. I guess his place in the film was to really visualize the self-fulfilling prophecy of his lovers' tendency to become self-destructive. Franco's character was the only one strong enough to leave before he reached that point. At the moment, it just seems to me that his character was there so that the film didn't de-sexualize Milk to make it a 'safer' film. Just because Milk became so political didn't mean that it was the only part of his life. I think that's valuable, but I'm not sure how important it is to the overall story other than the sacrifices that were made to reach the end.

I could see the Jack hanging himself thing coming a mile away, but not because it was telegraphed or done poorly. Hispanics, when it comes to love, are crazy. Whether they be gay men or straight women, it's all the same.

Nuts I tells ya!

I kid because I love, and I'm one of them. I just thought it was funny that it was the Hispanic gay guy who went all out and crazy.

Plus Star Wars mania was sweeping the nation at that time! Why wasn't this mentioned in the film!? It's Star Wars, c'mon!

Wait, so the Zodiac killer, Milk, and the Jonestown nuts were all happening at the same time in SF? SF in the 1970s/early 80s can't be beat!

What the fuck were they putting in the water back then? (I was going to make some joke about the Worst Cookbook Ever thread after that question, but decided to leave the question a rhetorical one.)

Not only that but there was a series of killings known as The Zebra Murders (There's a book on it. But it's pretty crappy) in which two black men were killing white people. Not only was one of the potential victims Art Agnos (The man who Milk ran against for the assembly seat and future mayor who then lost his job because he showered with two LA DJs as a prank) but Dave Toschi was also involved in the investigation.

San Fransisco was like an episode of LOST back in the day!

It certainly had it's bad shit going down during the 70s.

I can't wait to see this! Sean Penn, Gus Van Sant, Danny Elfman... Pretty much everything I've heard so far has me drooling.

I won't be seeing it at a Cinemark theatre though, and I encourage my fellow Chewers to boycott Cinemark as well. You can't support Prop 8 and expect to make money off a gay film

Which just so happens to be getting made into a film too.

God damn I'm looking forward to this movie - but it doesn;t come out here until the end of bloody January. Gah!

Awww, buck up! You've got AUSTRALIA!

I'd swap a hundred 'Australia's for the chance to see Milk and The Wrestler this weekend.

I saw this at the Castro Theatre, which was really the best way to experience the film. Anita Bryant's first appearance made the audience erupt in hisses and boos, and even the most mundane San Francisco in-jokes got huge laughs (though I did love "What's the biggest problem in San Francisco?" "The piss smell in the Tenderloin").

I think Sean Penn has this one in the bag for Best Actor. He made me forget that I was watching Sean Penn and not Harvey Milk himself, and he held his own against some very, very talented supporting actors (Brolin especially). I'd also love to see Emile Hirsch get some recognition, if only because he was freaking adorable.

One thing I didn't like: the fact that they used the "I'm forty-years-old and I haven't done a thing" scene again at the end. I feel it would have been stronger if they hadn't showed it in the beginning. I also wish we could have gotten more of that last phonecall between Scott and Harvey, if only because it was a great scene.

Yes... I KNOW you would! I saw both this past week for free (the other being The Wrestler)! You can start hating me now.

I agree. This is one of those ideas where if it clicks with me, I'll defend it. Sometimes there are moments where I DO want to see such scenes reiterated because seeing them with my own eyes again is different from just thinking about it for myself, but in this case it didn't feel right with the identity of the film. Felt like a last minute editing decision (whether it was or not) even on first viewing.

Oh, and a question. One that hopefully EdHocken can help me with. The framing device for the film where Harvey Milk is making a recording of his final statement in case something happens to him... Is this something Harvey Milk really did or was it constructed for the film? The film never really makes that clear.

That sounds awesome. My crowd always seemed on the verge of cheering or boo/hissing, but felt like they kept themselves restrained. Near the end, there were two instances of an individual trying to start some applause during triumphant moments (and they were truly triumphant moments), but it didn't catch on. Hehehe. But the film did get polite applause at the end.

Damn good movie. Penn hasn't been this likable and vibrant in a loooong time. Everyone else is spot-on also.

Emile Hirsch has played Chris McCandless, Cleve Jones and Speed Racer within the space of a year. That fucking guy is going for the Gary Oldman Versatility Award.

Someone save me a trip to Wiki: Anita Bryant is dead, right? And please tell me it was a long, drawn-out agonizing death.

Sorry, Ratty, that wench still breathes air.

Milk did in fact make a tape of himself to be played in case of his death. He really did believe that he wasn't going to be made 50. His words about if a bullet should strike him in the brain that it destroy every closet door is a real quote.

And oddly enough the remark about the tenderloin got some laughs down here.

So eerie. That's amazing. I'm kinda relieved that it was a real thing as opposed to an artificial framing device. Thanks!

It would have been really strange had it been a framing device but it is real. I strongly recommend you either see the documentary or read The Mayor of Castro Street for a much further elaboration on Milk and the aftermath of his murder.

I know it was speculated that had Mlik lived he would have been gunning for being board president at some point. I also wonder had he continued to live would he have made it through the AIDS crisis during the 80s?

If Milk had lived he either would have been very good or very bad for the AIDS crisis. Part of me thinks his brand of politics and the amount of power he may have had, especially if he was board president, would have gotten more attention towards the epidemic when it was needed most, especially early on. The other part thinks that he could have very easily turned out to be one of the activists who saw preventative measures like closing the bathhouses to be a step back, even though that was one of the big ways the disease was spread.

MILK or Slumdog Millionaire. Which movie does a guy see tomorrow?

SLUMDOG. I think it needs more support than MILK. Plus, it's the better film.

I think you'd win with either choice.

Milk is powerful. Slumdog is joyous and lovely. It really depends on what you want from a movie that night.

Oh, and damimegood... that **spoiler**scene with the kid in the wheelchair calling the first time was moving enough, but when he calls back at the turn of the tide... wow...**Spoiler**

Good Oatmeal.

I mean, I'm not going to lie, I wept at the end, but still, this was no longer a passion play.

I have no idea what Dellamorte is talking about, so let's move on. I thought this was a pretty amazing film. It's hard to rank it as Van Sant's best, but it's definitely the best thing I've seen Sean Penn do in a long, long time. I feel like he gave the performance of his career.

One of my favorite things about the film was the way Van Sant seamlessly integrated archival footage into it. Definitely gave things a more authentic feel.

This is a good for you somewhat by the numbers Oscar picture. Van Sant pokes in here and there, and everyone does good work, but it almost doesn't feel like a movie to me, so much as a the greatest hits of a fairly interesting guy. The songs are good, but it's not an album.

Succinct. Perfect summation.

Seconded. I'm going to use the shit out of that (with due credit, of course).

Having no idea who he was or the background of the story, i loved the film.

So many great performances and a topic so relevant today. Amazed by the sad parallels with Prop 8. Penn is incredible. His reaction when they win prop 6 is an amazing range of emotions.
Really surprised by Franco, what a terrific year for him.

Totally moved by this film. Penn, Franco, Emile... the whole cast was amazing!

Random thoughts:

- Harvey and Scott's relationship was totally heartfelt and came across as genuine. Harvey and Jack's felt forced. I didn't get why Milk was with him and his death was obvious from the get go. It didn't have the emotional heart of Penn's relationship with just about everyone else.

- I LOVE that it took a woman to get Milk elected!

- I found Milk's strategy to out all the gays as a really interesting way to get out the vote. On the flip side, they spent so much time showing the opposition and the huge odds, that I felt that something was missing when they cut to the win. I still have no idea how they accomplished that feat.

- "Where'd he come from?" or whatever the line was, was the line that got a huge laugh out of me and the crowd when Jack appeared in the hallway as White drunkenly confronted Milk.

Saw it at BAM, same reaction. Gays and straights alike!

Agreed. I told my friend after we left the theater that I liked the film, but wish it hadn't been a series of montages. I know there was a lot to cover in those eight years, but I still feel like everything was glossed over.

The "Where'd he come from?" scene was probably my favorite in the whole film. Even when Milk had left, Josh Brolin just kept rambling. "I don't...I don't even know where he came from. I...Where? ...DAN WHITE HAS AN ISSUE!" Heath Ledger, eat your zombie heart out.

I did a double feature today with this and Frost/Nixon with a friend, and I have to say that this one left me a wee bit underwhelmed. Penn gives a great performance, but for me, it wasn't until the film focused on his fight against Prop 6 that it hits its stride and I really became engaged in it. I found Diego Luna to be over the top as Jack, and I couldn't understand why Milk was with him or what he saw in him, so I quietly celebrated when he offed himself while my friend cried on my shoulder. I enjoyed the film and Penn's performance, but personally, if Penn wins for this over Langella for Frost/Nixon, I'll be very disappointed.

Well the reason Milk went for Lira was because I believe Lira was his the kind of guy he went for. Regardless of the flaky batshit behavior.

And the funny thing what Dre is saying. I feel that way about Frost/Nixon.

It seems like such a cheap shot but I fell for it. Hook, line and sinker.

The entire Harvey/Jack relationship left me wondering why as well. Just because he "needed" Harvey? He showed up out of the blue at the camera store, appeared fucked up on drugs, and Harvey, while running for office, invites him into his life? Come on Gus, give us a little more motivation there. Overall I enjoyed it, but that relationship did nothing for me.

Moment of complete horror. Walking out of the movie with my girlfriend I see my HR Manager James, who is a very proud out of the closet gay man. I asked him what he thought, and he asked us as well. My girlfriend coughs up "It was OK, but James Franco wasn't gay enough. Everyone else was flaming, why wasn't he?" That comment is dumb enough on its own, but toss it in with my gay HR Manager, and I am positive I was mortified and blood red.

That was pretty dumb. And speaking of dumb I came across some Op-Ed in which the writer bitched that SF wasn't gritty enough and that Harvey was neutered because there only existed one sex scene. The hell? I know the guy is gay, I don't need to see deep dicking to emphasize the point.

There were plenty of sex/make out scenes. The problem was that they obscured people's faces with shadows so we wouldn't get the full impact of man on man kissing. It really annoyed me.