Milk

i have long believed that one should not be allowed to live in San Francisco before seeing the movie The Times of Harvey Milk, the documentary that won the Academy Award for best documentary the year it came out. that year was 1984, by the way. 1984 was quite a while ago. Anyways, it is not so much that this movie is one of my favorites. i mean, how can a documentary be a favorite movie? rather, it has always just been the subject matter...important times in San Francisco, led by a man named Harvey Milk. It is the movie that documents not only this man's life and his impact on The World, but it also documents what makes me most proud to be from San Francisco.

So obviously, i have been waiting for the release of Milk with bated breathe. i remember, while we were still in SF, thinking "how awesome will it be to see Milk in Denver, and get to see all the SF scenery as an extra nostalgic bonus?" i can make a mountain from a mole hill like no one's business, folks. Screw T-Day. Milk is out.

So we went and we saw. i would break down the demographic as this: 80% older straight and gay couples who already knew the "story". A couple of first straight dates (the awkwardness of straight first dates is palpable and it can take over a whole theater if done badly enough), a few younger gay couples, and one straight married couple who used to live in SF and who have very high expectations of this movie because the wife is borderline obsessed with spreading the knowledge of the man Harvey Milk.

and it was good. it was really good. it was good enough that i have opened up the SF Toll to include this movie as well. it does its job and tells the story, and it does it really really well. in fact the most annoying thing about the movie is that it shows that we were smarter in '78 than we are now. we are repeating our previous mistakes, but worse than the first time. the only fault in the movie is that we, the people of 2008, are stupid and the movie tells us this. but that is not the movie's fault, i think. don't shoot the messenger....pun intended.

what struck me was the conversations outside of the theater when the movie was done. is Milk a gay story? Yes. Is it a San Francisco story? Yes. it is also a story about humanity and civil rights. It is an American story. it is a huge chunk of our...yes, "OUR" history and all the younger folks in the theater had no effing clue about any of it before tonight. but now, if they want to live in san francisco, i will let them. yay them! have fun trying to pay rent! ooh, wait...not where i was planning on going with this.

i watched an interview with Sean Penn once. he basically said that if you are making a movie and you need to heighten the situation to get an audience's reaction, you are actually providing a disservice. you don't get to lie to the audience. that cheapens the acting process and the experience of the movie-goer. it is a simple concept that i appreciate him vocalizing. he honored this in Milk.

so yeah, Milk was great. it gives a bit more insight into HM's personal life. But The Times of Harvey Milk is equally great. both tell the story, but the actors that play the real people are probably better looking. if that is where your priorities lie, get thee to a theater soon. if not, update your netflix, quick like.

oh sorry...i have gone on for so long about Milk. it must be all the twinkies i ate.

and now, onto the real important stuff......christmas FAIL: