Milk is a movie about Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in America. It is fine, but I think that everybody is giving it a lot more credit as a great movie because of its subject matter, what I like to refer to as Guess Who's Coming To Dinner syndrome. Sure, the GLBT movement needs as much support now as ever, but that doesn't automatically elevate this movie into the annals of film history. The acting is great from pretty much everybody involved, from Sean Pean to Emile Hirsch to Josh Brolin to James Franco, but it's chock full of cliches (Harvey Milk and his friends repeatedly joke about him NOT MAKING IT TO FIFTY foreshadowing get it), and it's often fakely sentimental. It's a good film about an important figure in American history, but I think it's a mistake to count it among the best films of 2008.RATING: 67%
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I haven't seen it yet, so I'm just talking out of my hat BUT--
Just because a movie stars Sean Penn (or any other major star) as gay or disabled doesn't make it Oscar material (see also: Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, I Am Sam, Rain Man, Monster, Brokeback Mountain, etc.)
Gay actors play straight characters all the time and don't get nominated for making out with the opposite sex.
And when I saw the trailer with Bowie's "Queen Bitch" playing in the background, I thought, you've got to be kidding.
dept. of stating the obvious
annals of film history
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