Milk - The Movie

[michaelflanagansf]

Sean Penn Stars In Inspirational Gay Rights Tale "Milk"
11/21/2008 01:14 PM
By: George Whipple

Sean Penn portrays the first openly gay elected official in America, San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk, in "Milk," a new film sure to be in the Oscar race.

George Whipple: Why is the Harvey Milk story the real story of America?

Penn: That's one big question! Because the real story of America is individual freedom. That's what Harvey Milk represented, that's what he fought for, that's what he died for.

Gus Van Sant, who directed "Good Will Hunting," helmed "Milk," mixing restored archival footage and actors.

"Just to keep [singer and anti-gay rights activist] Anita Bryant like from seeming like a cliché we used the real footage of her," says Van Sant. "We had looked for a lot of footage and in doing so we found all kinds of other footage that seemed to fit."

Dustin Lance Black wrote the screenplay.

"I had a theater director who told me the story of an out gay man. So I never knew there was such a thing, and I was a closeted kid, so it did give me a lot of that hope that Harvey talks about," says Black.

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http://www.ny1.com/content/ny1_living/89392/sean-penn-stars-in-inspirational-gay-rights-tale--milk-/Default.aspx?ap=1&Flash

[michaelflanagansf]

Penn: Milk would've helped in AIDS crisis
Published: Nov. 21, 2008 at 9:49 AM

NEW YORK, Nov. 21 (UPI) -- U.S. actor Sean Penn says he thinks gay activist Harvey Milk would have saved lives by drawing attention to the AIDS epidemic had he not been slain in 1978.

Penn, who plays the late San Francisco city supervisor in the new movie "Milk," told reporters in New York this week that he thinks the real-life Milk would have campaigned to get former U.S. President Ronald Reagan to do more to prevent the spread of AIDS and help those suffering from the disease when the number of AIDS cases were on the rise in the 1980s.

"I think less people would've died of AIDS. I think Ronald Reagan would've been forced to address it and it was a tragic loss," Penn replied when asked how he thinks the world might have been a different place if Milk wasn't killed three decades ago by former fellow city supervisor Dan White, who tried unsuccessfully to get his job back after he resigned his post.

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http://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/2008/11/21/Penn_Milk_wouldve_helped_in_AIDS_crisis/UPI-43661227278941/

[michaelflanagansf]

Josh Brolin: 'Milk' story made me cry
Published: Nov. 20, 2008 at 12:24 PM

NEW YORK, Nov. 20 (UPI) -- Hollywood actor Josh Brolin said he knew he wanted to be in Gus Van Sant's new biographical drama "Milk" as soon as he read the script.

The film is about Harvey Milk, California's first openly gay elected official, who was shot and killed, along with the city's mayor, in 1978 by Dan White, another politician who was fighting to get his job back after he resigned his position.

"I had a very visceral reaction to the script," Brolin, who plays Milk's assassin, told reporters in New York Wednesday.

"I read the script and cried and Gus had also sent me the 1984 amazing documentary ('The Times of Harvey Milk,') that I watched with my daughter and both of us were crying at the end of that," Brolin recalled. "So, it was one of those things that was less about the character and more about the story, the fact that we were so moved by it.

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http://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/2008/11/20/Josh_Brolin_Milk_story_made_me_cry/UPI-17821227201875/

[michaelflanagansf]

‘Milk’ screening fills the Whitney
Danika Fears
Contributing Reporter
Published Friday, November 21, 2008

Though Thanksgiving will mark the 30th anniversary of Harvey Milk’s assassination, his struggle is alive today.

Given that two of the most significant moments in the gay rights movement — the legalization of same-sex marriage in Connecticut and the passage of California’s Proposition 8 — happened this month, the release of a film about Milk, California’s first openly gay elected politician, is timely.

On Wednesday night, students spilled out of the Whitney Humanities Center anxiously awaiting a sneak preview of Gus van Sant’s “Milk,” titled after its subject, which was presented by LGBT Studies, the Film Studies Program and the film’s producer, Bruce Cohen ’83.

The film depicts Milk, played by Sean Penn, who led San Francisco’s gay community in a triumphant battle against Proposition 6, a measure that had aimed to rid public school systems of homosexuals across the country.

Considering the recent controversy surrounding California’s Proposition 8, Ron Gregg, one of the screening’s organizers and a senior lecturer in Film Studies, said the release of the film would resonate with students during such a politically charged time. He described a palpable energy at Yale.

“I’ve never felt the buzz around a film on campus like this,” Gregg said.

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http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/26684

[KittyHawk]

You've got a wealth of info, Michael, but I wanted to see a picture, too.


Harvey Milk

[KittyHawk]

Sean Penn as Harvey Milk

[michaelflanagansf]

Exclusive: Gus Van Sant Sheds Light on Milk
Edward Douglas
November 21, 2008

Gus Van Sant is certainly one of the more fascinating filmmakers of the last few decades, especially having directed the popular Oscar-winning film Good Will Hunting. He made a couple more high-profile films and then ultimately turned his back on Hollywood to focus more on experimental indie fare like 2003's Elephant, a haunting reenactment of the Columbine High School shootings.

After more than ten years, Van Sant's name is once again being bandied about amongst awards prognosticators for his new movie Milk, a stirring biopic starring Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, a 40-year-old gay man who moves to San Francisco and starts a grassroots movement among the gay residents of Castro Street. Harvey, a strong supporter of equal rights regardless of sexuality, is soon running for political office, trying to become the supervisor for District 5, and eventually becoming the first openly gay man to be voted into a public office.

Obviously, Sean Penn's performance, one that's likely to get him another Oscar nomination, is a big selling point for the movie, but Van Sant's ability to create a riveting film out of Dustin Lance Black's script will certainly get him renewed attention as a director. The ensemble cast includes James Franco and Diego Luna as two of Harvey's lovers during the eight years of his political career covered in the movie, while Josh Brolin plays Harvey's main political rival Dan White, whose professional jealousy contributed to Milk's untimely death in 1978.

ComingSoon.net got on the phone with Van Sant while he was doing the L.A. junket for the movie a few weeks back. As we learned, Van Sant is not exactly the most talkative filmmaker we've spoken to, generally getting less responsive as the interview progressed, so who knows what was going on at the other end of the phone line?

ComingSoon.net: Recently, you seem to have been going more towards the indie and experimental route. Was it just the material that got you back doing more a studio movie?

Gus Van Sant: Well, there wasn't anything in particular. I always wanted to make a film about Harvey, and this script just sort of appeared, and the script itself presented somewhat of a style, just by the way it was written, that didn't suggest... a lot of the films like "Gerry," "Elephant," "Last Days" and "Paranoid Park" were written in a certain way to be filmed in the way they were filmed. This was a pretty traditional 100-page script, like 120 scenes, and just by the virtue of the number of scenes, you start to have a pacing that's more convention.

CS: You did have your actors doing quite a lot of improv on some of your other films so was there room to do any of that here?

Van Sant: Yeah, we could have improv-ed and we did, a teeny bit, but I think the period and the political nature of the dialogue was confining in a way that the type of improv that would be occurring was hard to keep it within the period, unless you had a pretty good knowledge of the period politics. We did have daily papers that pertained to the day, but in the end, we were just lucky to get the stuff filmed that we needed to present the screenplay. We didn't really go off into areas like that so much on this film.

CS: I assume Dustin did a lot of the legwork and research on the script beforehand, so did you do any research on Harvey Milk yourself or go back to the '84 documentary? What was your process when you came on board?

Van Sant: Well, I'd been involved in a project in 1993 that was Oliver Stone directing and he decided not to direct it. That's really where I heard about the project, through Rob Epstein, who had made "The Times of Harvey Milk." At that time, then yeah, there was a lot of study and I lived with Cleve Jones, and I met some of the people that were the real characters and lived close enough to the Castro to sort of soak up its energy. It was '93, so it was a lot different than it is now. It's actually changed in those ten years quite a bit, the Castro itself, in the last fifteen years. There are condos, there's families, a lot of straight people. It's not the same. Even in '93, it had a little bit more of a connection to '78. I mean, it was devastated by the AIDS epidemic, but the research I did was all the way through the last ten or so years.

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http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=50456

[michaelflanagansf]

You've got a wealth of info, Michael, but I wanted to see a picture, too.


Harvey Milk

It's kind of spooky to see them side by side.

Jim (jim.grrr) said that the way he speaks gave him chills because it sounded so much like Harvey.

[michaelflanagansf]

Anatomy of a tragedy
IN 'MILK,' Van Sant and his cast re-create sad day in a city's history at a time when its repercussions are still being felt
 November 23, 2008
BY BILL ZWECKER Sun-Times Columnist

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- Thursday will mark the 30th anniversary of the assassination of San Francisco city supervisor and ground-breaking gay activist Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone.

The two were shot to death in their city hall offices on Nov. 27, 1978, by Dan White, Milk's deeply disturbed former city council colleague, who regretted his resignation and was attempting to get his job back.

On Wednesday, the eve of that tragic anniversary, Harvey Milk's unlikely rise to a key role in the history of gay rights in the United States will be showcased in director Gus Van Sant's ''Milk,'' starring Sean Penn in the title role.

Recently, Van Sant and the key actors in the film -- with the exception of the often press-shy Penn -- gathered to reflect on Milk the man and ''Milk'' the film.

From Van Sant's viewpoint, ''Sean always was the only actor who could possibly play Harvey and be believable.'' Openly gay himself, Van Sant is happy Milk's story -- largely unknown to an entire generation of young people, including some of his actors -- will now become part of their consciousness.

''That was one of the main reasons I did it,'' said Van Sant, noting that the release of the film comes at ''something of a weird time ... shortly after [California voters passed] Proposition 8 [outlawing gay marriage], but also coming right after the election of Barack Obama."

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http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/movies/1293593,SHO-Sunday-milk23.article

[jack]

CRAP!!   

i checked the focus website and locally, and i can find no booking dates for MILK.  not only here, but ANYWHERE in florida.  isn't that keeping it a LEETLE close to the chest?

[michaelflanagansf]

CRAP!!   

i checked the focus website and locally, and i can find no booking dates for MILK.  not only here, but ANYWHERE in florida.  isn't that keeping it a LEETLE close to the chest?

No Milk in America's most phallic state!!!  Why, why...that's unamerican!!!

Can't you use your new found fame to fix this Jack?

[michaelflanagansf]

Milk: The Man, The Movie
The story of the Harvey Milk biopic from Gus Van Sant, James Franco, Emile Hirsch and Josh Brolin
by Will O'Bryan
Published on November 20, 2008

It takes a certain amount of stature to get a school named after you. With an elementary school in San Francisco and a high school in New York City, Harvey Milk has that sort of stature. And why shouldn't he? He became a pioneer in the modern gay-rights movement by winning a seat -- running as an openly gay man -- on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977, sworn into office in January 1978.

That win was cut painfully short. Within a year of taking office, after leading the charge against California's failed Proposition 6, aka the Briggs Initiative, which would have banned gays from working in public schools, he was assassinated. A fellow supervisor, Dan White, killed both Milk and Mayor George Moscone in City Hall. White, a conservative supervisor, could have faced the death sentence for first degree murder, but was convicted instead of voluntary manslaughter, sparking riots in San Francisco. White was paroled in 1984 and committed suicide not long after.

November 27 marks the 30th anniversary of the shootings, dubbed ''Black Monday.'' And nearly to the day of this infamous anniversary, on Wednesday, Nov. 26, the motion picture Milk will be widely released in the United States.

Thirty years on, much progress has been made. Openly gay people serve not just locally, but in Congress. Many jurisdictions recognize same-sex partnerships and prohibit discrimination against GLBT people. Then again, much remains the same. Not only does Milk open on the heels of the successful Proposition 8, repealing Californians' court-recognized right to marriage equality, but Milk the man made headlines in September when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill marking Harvey Milk Day. That won't stop gay people -- and their allies -- from hitting theaters during the long Thanksgiving weekend.

Earlier this month, several people involved with Milk, from director Gus Van Sant and writer Dustin Lance Black -- both gay, notably -- to actors such as Emile Hirsch and Josh Brolin, sat with reporters to discuss what it took to finally get this movie made, the experience of filming it, and what they may have taken away.

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http://www.metroweekly.com/feature/?ak=3917

[michaelflanagansf]

How Van Sant finally got Milk
It took director 15 years to get slain gay politician's story into theatres
Nov 22, 2008 04:30 AM
John Hiscock
Special to the Star

SAN FRANCISCO–As the party's celebrity guests swirled around him and 1970s-era disco music blared, the normally shy and reserved Gus Van Sant allowed himself an expansive smile of satisfaction.

"I've been working towards this for more than 15 years and now it's finally happened," he said, while greeting the seemingly endless procession of people waiting to shake his hand and congratulate him.

It has taken the 56-year-old director that long to bring the story of slain San Francisco gay rights activist Harvey Milk to the screen. Beset by legal hurdles, setbacks and a frequently changing cast, he twice abandoned the project to direct other movies, but always returned to Milk (which opens Wednesday).

The party, at San Francisco's City Hall, was attended by the film's stars – Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch, James Brolin, Diego Luna and James Franco – as well as the city's current mayor, Gavin Newsome, and various other dignitaries. The venue holds a special significance because it was in the offices upstairs that 48-year-old Milk, a member of the city's board of supervisors, and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were shot to death by fellow city official Dan White on Nov. 27, 1978.

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http://www.thestar.com/article/540628

[michaelflanagansf]

Here is the portal to the San Francisco Bay Guardian's 'Milk' issue:

http://www.sfbg.com/entry.php?entry_id=7521

This is worth looking at as the Guardian is the progressive free weekly in San Francisco that was around when Harvey ran for office.

[michaelflanagansf]

Podcast: Bacall puts her lips together and blows a giant kiss to "Milk"
The Feinberg Files by Scott Feinberg
L.A. Times

The stars were out in force last night in New York for a special screening of and after-party for "Milk," the Focus Features biopic about gay rights activist Harvey Milk.

Director Gus Van Sant, screenwriter Dustin Lance Black and stars Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, James Franco, Emile Hirsch, Joseph Cross and Alison Pill were all in attendance, as were numerous other notables including Tony Bennett, Steve Buscemi, Dick Cavett, Patricia Clarkson, Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Peter Dinklage, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Adrian Grenier, Jill Hennessy, Ed Koch, Carson Kressley, Ang Lee, Frances McDormand, Natalie Portman, Charlie Rose, Mickey Rourke, James Schamus, Julian Schnabel, Liev Schreiber, Stanley Tucci, Jon Voight, Naomi Watts and Rainn Wilson.

Over the course of the evening, I had the opportunity to speak with several of the aforementioned guests about "Milk" and other 2008 awards contenders, and also with one other guest whose reaction to the film could offer a key clue about its awards prospects over the months ahead. First, allow me to set up the story....

In 2005, "Brokeback Mountain" — the first major American motion picture to center around homosexuals — swept the critics and guilds awards en route to eight Oscar nominations, including one for best picture. Then, in perhaps the most shocking upset in Academy Awards history, "Crash" was announced as the winner, and despondent "Brokeback" fans began looking for an explanation.

They quickly found one: During the run-up to the Oscars, several high-profile Academy members made controversial statements about "Brokeback." The two most famous examples are Tony Curtis, who said he would never see the film but still voted in the category anyway, and Ernest Borgnine, who said, "I didn’t see it and I don’t care to see it.... If John Wayne were alive, he'd be rolling over in his grave." These remarks were subsequently cited as proof that the cause of the loss was homophobia within the Academy, particularly among the older voters who make up the majority of the membership.

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http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/files/2008/11/milk-gets-a-big.html