Go see Milk!

It's a great movie! My daughter and just got back from seeing Gus Van Sant's movie "Milk" this afternoon, along with several hundred other people who crowded into the theater with us. It's a faithful and lively depiction of what happened 30 years ago. I wrote earlier about my memories of that time.

Want to know something about how the film was made, about the extras, how Castro Street was remade in its own image, (and the SF gossip and backbiting--yes, I remember that too)Mariva has a wonderful post about being an extra in the movie has a huge set of links.

The uncanny parallels with the fight against Prop 6 which drives much of the movie, and the recent success of Prop 8 in California mean that we don't just see a biopic about someone who died a long time ago; we see both the progress and the struggles still being waged. This moving speech by the Republican Mayor of San Diego, Jerry Sanders, is a testament to the power of change. He is visibly struggling to maintain his composure as he comes out as the parent who wants his daughter and her partner to have equal protection under the law.

Go see it. Sean Penn inhabits the role. I didn't see him at all on the screen, not like Nicole Kidman's Virginia Woolf where I was always aware of her NOSE.