Dvd
Milk
Filmed on location in San Francisco, Milk is Gus Van Sant's account of the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in the USA, who was assassinated by another politician. Sean Penn (in an Oscar winning performance) plays the titular character Harvey Milk, with Josh Brolin and Emile Hersch slotting into the other main roles. Harvey Milk's life has been the subject of an Oscar winning documentary, but this is the first time his story has been fictionalised. It should be accurate however, with many of his friends and colleagues appearing on camera.
Starring Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, Emile Hirsch, James Franco, Diego Luna, Brandon Boyce
Directed by Gus Van Sant ('Paranoid Park', 'Last Days', 'Elephant', 'Good Will Hunting')
Written by Dustin Lance Black
Festivals & Awards Best Actor for Sean Penn and Best Original Screenplay - Academy Awards 2009.
True Story, Drama, Biography | 2hr 8mins | Rated (M) | contains offensive language & sexual references | Origin: USA | Official Site »
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The Talk
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Flicks review
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5
This was always going to be good – it's got Sean Penn (Dead Man Walking) in it and director Van Sant is a master of both arty indies (like Paranoid Park) and more commercial fayre (Good Will Hunting). But it's better than good – it's awesome.
It's not easy to tell a story with a known ending (the film starts with Harvey Milk's death, then skips back) and keep people riveted, but through impeccable characterization and powerhouse acting you feel so involved with these people that by the end you're almost in denial about how it will turn out. All of this plays out with beautiful period-evocative production and cinematography too (by Harris Savides, who was DoP on David Fincher's Zodiac).
While Penn's performance is the truly immaculate centrepiece, the supporting cast are no passengers – Hirsch, Luna and Franco are fully believable as Milk's variously camp gang. Meanwhile, Josh Brolin (as Milk's rival Dan White) seethingly snowballs from diplomatic geniality to murderous ire as his power is undermined. At the tragic climax he's quietly terrifying – it's a real edge-of-your-seat moment to cap off a film filled with passion, politics, humour and heartbreak.
Not just a meticulously crafted tale, Milk is a reminder of how involving – and how important – cinema can be, a fictionalised biopic that feels documentary accurate. Give these people some Oscars.
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The people's reviews
6 reviews
Press Reviews
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Chicago Sun-Times [Roger Ebert]
Sean Penn never tries to show Harvey Milk as a hero, and never needs to. He shows him as an ordinary man, kind, funny, flawed, shrewd, idealistic, yearning for a better world.
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Empire [UK]
4
Milk thoroughly deserves all of the press ink that will doubtless be spilt over it. Wear your 'Vote Penn' Oscar pin with pride.
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Hollywood Reporter
The film is superbly crafted, covering huge amounts of time, people and the zeitgeist without a moment of lapsed energy or inattention to detail.
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Los Angeles Times
There's nothing terribly wrong with Milk, it's just that its celebration of a culture and a neighborhood, its valentine to the early days of gay rights activism, is mostly more conventional than compelling.
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New York Times
Harvey Milk was an intriguing, inspiring figure. Milk is a marvel.
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Rolling Stone [USA]
It's a total triumph, brimming with humor, heart, sexual heat, political provocation and a crying need to stir things up, just like Harvey did. If there's a better movie around this year, with more bristling purpose, I sure as hell haven't seen it.
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Variety [USA]
Brolin's work is superlatively expressive of the inchoate impulses roiling inside his sorry character. But good as most of the cast is, the show belongs squarely to Penn.
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