SummaryIn 1977, Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, becoming the first openly gay man to be voted into major public office in America. His victory was not just a victory for gay rights; he forged coalitions across the political spectrum. From senior citizens to union workers, Harvey Milk changed the very nature of...
SummaryIn 1977, Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, becoming the first openly gay man to be voted into major public office in America. His victory was not just a victory for gay rights; he forged coalitions across the political spectrum. From senior citizens to union workers, Harvey Milk changed the very nature of...
Three decades ago, Milk and his ilk were able to enlist President Jimmy Carter and future President Ronald Reagan in the gay fight against Prop. 6. But this fall, Barack Obama was all but mute on Prop. 8. Some community organizers, like the President-elect, are more cautious than others. It's a shame Harvey Milk wasn't around to recruit him.
Harvey Milk embodied the concept that "all politics is personal," and by presenting the famed Mayor of Castro Street's personal and public lives with such clarity and empathy, Van Sant has made something very rare in Hollywood -- a genuinely powerful political film that works equally well as a story of personal triumph.
Sean Penn in one his masterly roles, as Harvey Milk, narrating his history in own words. Milk was nearly a paladin of minorities and especially the LGBT community, always facing prejudices of closed minds. What also stands out is the support casting and the period setting.
The deeply heartfelt Milk is more of a surface skim: a fairly standard biopic – if a very fine one, indeed – but never the transcendent work one would have hoped from the filmmaker or his subject.
I can admire the professional flexibility that leads Van Sant from slow-motion, half-experimental works like "Paranoid Park" or "Last Days" to an inspirational, Oscar-season package like Milk, but I wish he could split the difference between his two modes more effectively.
A triumph through and through. Milk views the life of one very important and unique individual who believed in the human right and happiness. Dustin Lance Black has written one of the finest screenplays in recent history. Matched with brilliant direction from Gus Van Sant and another Oscar-winning performance from Sean Penn, it's perfection.
When Van Sant gives himself up to commercial movies, leaving out personal interests and passions, he ends up making ordinary films that seem to be lacking a bit of soul. And "Milk" is just one of them.
no, but god knows we keep trying..
Milk
Unlike any other biography, it floats on to its wisely picked specific topics and stays true to its nature throughout the course of the feature which is of around 2 hours and is filled with enough material to feed the audience. Gus Van Sant's attempt is plausible and visible but it fails to project the aspired on-paper script that is adapted powerfully and written brilliantly by Dustin Lance Black. Sean Penn; as the protagonist of the feature, is doing some of his career's best work here that is not easy to ignore and is supported well enough by the cast like Josh Brolin and James Franco who holds tightly onto their parts. Milk has a smart written script that is unfortunately not executed to the perfection (it sticks to you throughout the feature) but is overpowered by stellar performance and a heart right at the centre of it.
Milk is worth a watch primarily for a sensational central performance from Sean Penn. He absolutely captivates the viewer by utterly inhabiting the role of Harvey Milk. Within this performance there are questions to be asked, however. Was Milk really a hero or a villain? He was a charismatic, influential and iconic member of the **** community who tirelessly attempted to further **** rights and equality, but the film also portrays him as completely single-minded, willing to sacrifice anything to further his own political aims and career, and rather prone to side-lining anyone who became important in his personal life. While the first half of the film is relatively engaging, documenting Milk's arrival in San Francisco and his early campaigns for political office, the second half becomes a little too pretentious and symbolic and tends to lose sight of characters and what they wanted to achieve. Penn always keeps the film watchable, and it is helped by further strong performances from James Franco and Josh Brolin, but as a viewing experience, the film runs out of a little steam towards the end. I did like the use of archived news footage, which served as a useful grounding point for the story, but there is only so far a few good (and one outstanding) performances can take you in terms of storytellign and the overall viewing experience. I don't regret watching Milk for a moment, but I wish director Gus Van Sant had spent a little more time on developing key characters and their motivations, otherwise they become charicatures - Harvey Milk comes across as an unfeeling radical, and Dan White a paranoidly image-obsessed conservative.
A pathetic movie that was extremely boring with James Franco that gets on my nerves every time I see him on screen. A good attempt that failed miserably.