Ralph's Movie Reviews: MILK

Saturday, December 6, 2008

MILK

Political drama
Based on a true story

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Sean Penn: Harvey Milk, a New Yorker about to turn 40
James Franco: Scott Smith, someone he meets in the subway
Emile Hirsch: street hustler Cleve Jones
Zvi Rosenman: David Goodstein publisher of Advocate, a gay and lesbian magazine
Diego Luna: Jack Lira, one of Harvey’s close friends
Alison Pill: Harvey’s campaign manager Anne Kronenberg
Denis O'Hare: California State Senator John Briggs
Josh Brolin: Dan White, former San Francisco policeman
Victor Garber: San Francisco's Mayor George Moscone

REVIEW
The rise of Harvey Milk to a position of importance is adeptly played out making use of flashbacks as he dictates his memoir. Penn and Brolin give outstanding performances; the supporting cast are almost as good.

The melding of archival film and recreations is done in a manner it’s hard to tell them apart, given the attention to period detail. In fact the entire movie looks and feels so real with the exception of a few minor instances.

CLASSIFICATION

for profanity, sexual situations and some violence.

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my ratings system

I've always thought that telling too much about a movie or warning someone about a "twist" at the end deprives the person the pleasure of seeing it as it unfolds, so I don’t do it. You may not always agree with my rating of course, but at least it is an unbiased opinion unlike some of the full time professional reviewers who are on the studio’s payroll.

A few movies you won’t see any review from me:

Scary movies: I’m the world’s biggest chicken and just hate getting the crap scared out of me. I can handle an unexpected door slam, that kind of thing, but a movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat…not for me. Sorry.
Movies geared to the young teen and pre-teen crowd with dialog comprising mostly of crude remarks, awful jokes and lots of rude, socially unacceptable body noises. "The Spy that Shagged Me" comes to mind. (I wonder if the kids know what the British verb to shag someone really means? They probably do; I bet you it’s the parents who haven’t a clue).
Sometimes Hollywood gets on a roll and they produce a series of movies that are all very much alike. For example movies about the CIA were very popular and so we had The Bourne Identity and Bad Company and The Sum of All Fears. They all had the same basic theme and it becomes repetitive. I will see some, but not all of them.

FYI this is my rating system:

0 stars = Terrible: so bad it’s not worth talking about; in fact, I’d pay you not to go
= Lousy: I actually got up and walked out before the end it was just that bad (no kidding)
= Not so good: thought about walking out but hung in just in case it got better (but it didn’t)
= A so-so good movie: I enjoyed it somewhat but wasn’t all that crazy about it
= A really good movie: I recommend seeing it
= An excellent movie you just got to see! I suggest you put it on your "To Do List" it’s that good.

some favourite websites

For those into it, Nitpickers at

has more movie mistakes than you could ever imagine. My contributions can be seen if you check out the Nitpickers Registry and click on the link Nitpickers Listed by Nitpicker Number, select the group 45,401 - 45,500 and drill down to number 45411. Although I have 56 nitpicks to my credit, some have almost 2,000. You wonder sometimes where they find the time to do it.