Milk

written by: Dustin Lance Black
directed by: Gus Van Sant

Hollywood hasn't gotten off its kick of biographical movies. And why not? they seem to produce tons of nominations. Milk is no exception.

Harvey Milk (Sean Penn) is an older gay man in the early 60's in New York. He meets a young hottie Scott Smith (James Franco) on the night of his 40th birthday and they immediately hit it off and go home together. They make a few jokes together and get to know each other.
Cut to about a year later when they decide to pack up and head west. They settle in San Francisco in a gay-friendly-ish area called Castro. Harvey and Scott open up a film shop but they get a not-so friendly welcome by some of the local business owners.

The shop quickly becomes a rest stop for some of the local gay men in the area where they can sit around and talk about issues and help each other out. Harvey is soon known as the go to guy to get stuff done around the community. He organizes a gay and lesbian business owner coalition, he knows the cops and stops them from beating on gay men, he even gets with the teamsters to help with boycotts.

Eventually Harvey gets it in his head to run for city planner. After a few failed attempts at gaining office, Scott decides he can't take Harvey's time in the limelight and they break up. He hooks up with a little Latin dude named Jack (Diego Luna) who is completely nuts. But Harvey continues to press forward and get a seat on the city board.

Meanwhile in Florida a woman named Anita Bryant has formed a religious group that wants to outlaw being gay. The movement sweeps the nation and eventually comes to face California. They want to impose Proposition 6 which will terminate any gay teacher in the state or anyone who supports them.

Dan White (Josh Brolin) is another city planner who is wholesome and believes in a firm family life. He and Harvey dont necessarily see eye to eye but they do need each others support to get certain laws to pass. Eventually Dan thinks Harvey screws him over and looks to get even.

I didnt know a thing about Harvey Milk before I went to see this movie. I mean I figured San Francisco had always been pretty gay, but this movie really lets you know the struggle gay men had to go through to be themselves in the 60s. Gus Van Sant weaves in actual news footage into movie. If I hadn't seen it I would have thought the writers were exaggerating the Anita Bryant angle of the movie. Maybe being raised in this day and age makes me feel more enlightened and i dont see how people could have been so ignorant such a short time ago. Not saying that everyone is on board for people being gay but shit. It was also a coincidence that the movie was released right around the time California had to vote on Prop 8 which would overturn the right for gay people to get married.

Anyway, I'm quite sure that Sean Penn will get nominated for a best actor. James Franco was damn good but I think another nod will go to Emile Hirsch. He plays Cleve Jones who is a young dude from...Detroit i think...who becomes really good friends and basically a campaign manager for Harvey.

But its just a good story. It's not entirely political. It just goes through the struggle of hiding who you are from all the people around you. How friends get you through hard times. And a bit about how promisicous gay men can be.

And like most biopics, they go through what became of the people featured in the movie. I didn't become teary until one of the final scenes in the movie. So if youre a sap like I am, you might need tissues for that bit.

And if youre a tad squirmish about men on men scenes in movies, they do the love scenes pretty tastefully. So don't let that discourage you from seeing the movie. It's a great story.