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Today I saw Milk and it's a terrific depiction of the rise and assassination of the first openly gay man elected to office in the US. I saw the documentary The Times of Harvey Milk when it came out and it was very good (and deservedly won the Academy Award for Best Documentary) but this dramatization, incidentally based on the documentary, brings several new things to the story.
Sean Penn's brilliant acting makes Harvey Milk larger than life -which in the movie he is and should be--he's the embodiment of a major civil rights movement that has been building momentum since Stonewall and through the AIDS epidemic. The movie also brings to life Dan White, the man who murdered him and SF mayor George Moscone. Josh Brolin is excellent and terribly believable in the role of a man too tightly wound not to snap. (Brolin did a great job in W too).
Alison Pill was unrecognizable (to me) as Anne Kronenberg, the woman brought in to manage Milk's campaign. I'd seen her on Broadway in The Lieutenant of Innishmore by Martin McDonagh and Mauritius by Theresa Rebeck, and didn't realize it was the same actor (possibly because of the curly hair).
James Franco was also wonderful.
Weirdly, but he and Brolin were in the movie I watched last weekend, In the Valley of Elah--I didn't recognize Franco at all (just noodled around the web to find a still of him in the movie--and had no idea! Franco is cuuuuute and sometimes resembles my two cousins...
Penn's going to win the Oscar for Best Actor....bet on it.
Sean Penn's brilliant acting makes Harvey Milk larger than life -which in the movie he is and should be--he's the embodiment of a major civil rights movement that has been building momentum since Stonewall and through the AIDS epidemic. The movie also brings to life Dan White, the man who murdered him and SF mayor George Moscone. Josh Brolin is excellent and terribly believable in the role of a man too tightly wound not to snap. (Brolin did a great job in W too).
Alison Pill was unrecognizable (to me) as Anne Kronenberg, the woman brought in to manage Milk's campaign. I'd seen her on Broadway in The Lieutenant of Innishmore by Martin McDonagh and Mauritius by Theresa Rebeck, and didn't realize it was the same actor (possibly because of the curly hair).
James Franco was also wonderful.
Weirdly, but he and Brolin were in the movie I watched last weekend, In the Valley of Elah--I didn't recognize Franco at all (just noodled around the web to find a still of him in the movie--and had no idea! Franco is cuuuuute and sometimes resembles my two cousins...
Penn's going to win the Oscar for Best Actor....bet on it.
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