Milk Review

The best performances are the ones that are charasmatic and over -the-top. Why do you think that Daniel Day Lewis is considered one of the best actors of all time? That theory holds true to Sean Penn in the new movie Milk. His perfomance alone, like most Day-Lewis movies also, makes the movie one of the best of the year.

Milk is about the politician Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected into major office. The movie is a bio-pic in the truest sense of the word. We follow Milk with his partner Scott Smith from New York to San Fransico where they recieve an unfriendly welcoming in their neighborhood which inspires Milk to ralley the gay community into the Castro distric where he was currently living. After succesfully raising a boycott against Miller Light companies with Milk would prosper and those anti-gay would fail.

This is when Harvey has the realization that the gay community needs one of their own in office. After several failed attempts at running for City Supervisor in 1977 he won. He met resistance with another member on the board Dan White (Josh Brolin). To make a long story short White gets laid off and ends up assassinating both Milk and mayor George Mascone.

The film has a great cast. On top of Penn and Brolin, we also has Emile Hirsh and James Franco. While all the performances are good Penn of course stands out. He's over the top and charasmatic and most of all funny. Director Gus Van Sant beautifully blends the music and archival footage inter-laced with the real footage. The score is...gay to say the least with a lot of hippie seventies songs and opera music.

Milk will be making my Top 10 movies of the year (*SPOILER*). Penn...best actor of the year? We'll wait for The Wrestler in a couple of weeks. Grade - A