Poll Position: "Milk" (2008)

“Milk” won last week’s poll by a good margin. So it would be only fair to cover it. Now I’ve had my eyes on this movie for a while, both for it being a biography and it had Sean Penn. Not knowing much about Harvey Milk, I’m not the proper person to judge how factual this movie is. So my review will mainly be about how entertaining the movie was to me. Hopefully even with my ignorance, I’ll learn something and hopefully enjoy the ride also. Full details after the jump.


This movie is a biography of Harvey Milk’s life from the age of 40 to his death. We watch his life as a gay rights activist and his fight to become California’s first openly gay man elected into office take place. He has dealt with a lot of struggle, both personal and political. He has troubling relationships, until he moves to San Francisco’s growing gay community. Where he purchases a shop to sell cameras, sadly he is not welcomed into the neighbourhood by the majority. This is where he feels he needs to stand up and fight for his beliefs. First he runs to be the supervisor of Castro District in S.F. But even after failing a few times, he doesn't know when to quit. Watch him as he succeeds winning a battle for the gay community.

Now I hope most of this story is factual, and doing some quick research I can say most of it is sound. And if this entire story is true, than this has been a very powerful story. Similarly to the African Americans wanting the same rights as the majority, the homosexuals put up a strong fight through their struggles as being a minority. At the end of the movie, it’s nice to see the world slowly getting rid of our ignorance and seeing humans as what we are and not who we do.

Sean Penn plays the charismatic and adorable Harvey Milk.

If we disregard the story for a second, I have to give it to James Franco who played Milk’s lover Scott Smith and Sean Penn who was Harvey Milk. They were so damn perfect for each other. It was like cookies and Milk, just a perfect combo. Again, not knowing a lot about their real life counter parts, the two and the whole cast made their roles greatly believable. I’m just in utter shocked at how many roles Penn can pull off. From a stoner in “Fast Times at Ridgemond High” to a father with a developmental disability in “I Am Sam”. It is cool to see him play so many different roles, all different from each other. Yes he was amazing but Oscar winning? That's debatable. After watching Mickey Rouke in 'The Wrestler", I really like Rouke a lot more. But again, what do I know?

Franco was amazing as Milk's main help.

Though the movie did make me angry at a few scenes, but none of it because of the actual movie. It was more the approach of the opposition against homosexual acts. I was just in disbelief at how some people think and react to the world changing, where it be a resident, police officer or even a fellow supervisor of a district in San Francisco. But this brings a great relationship between Milk and Dan White, who is more a conservative supervisor in S.F. Both White and Milk hit it off great, all in until Milk did not support one of White’s views against the opening of psychiatric hospital in S.F. As their relationship dwindle, a lot is assumed by both parties. As White starts to get jealous of Milk's new popularity, desperate times calls for desperate measures. I don't want to spoil it, but it gets bad before it gets good.



Two parts really stand out as being real powerful to me. One being the obvious when there is a candlelight vigil being held by tens of thousands of gay community members from Milk’s camera shop to City Hall. And second being when Milk dies and you see the building where they show the opera shows in the background. To slightly spoil it, Scott and Harvey was supposed to see it together and now they will never! That moment was tear jerking!

There isn’t much more I can say without being any more political than I already am. “Milk” was certainly an entertaining movie. I loved watching the powerful movement develop. I was glad to see that a lot of this movie is optimistic and has a fun mood to it even though it has a dark undertone following it. Both Franco and Penn stole the show with their chemistry on screen. And I love biographies and this was the cherry on top!