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Milk (Gus Van Sant, 2008)
I watched Van Sant's To Die For just after I watched Milk, so I tried to reconcile how I felt about both films since, aside from Good Will Hunting, they are probably the director's most mainstream films. What I noticed was that both To Die For and Milk tell their stories from multiple perspectives, yet from a mostly-linear way of storytelling. I was a little taken aback, since I'm well aware of the Milk story, not only from the media of the time, but from the Oscar-winning documentary The Times of Harvey Milk, to hear Sean Penn speaking into a tape recorder in the first five minutes predicting his own assassination, but hey, that was apparently Harvey. I have to admit that I also had a little bit of difficulty getting into the early scenes because of the different perspectives, but eventually things turned into something easier to grasp as a person's life, not only as a personal journey but as one set in the big picture.
As the film progressed, I tried to measure Sean Penn's performance against Mickey Rourke's in The Wrestler. I have loved Sean Penn ever since I saw Taps, but when he played Jeff Spicoli, I thought that he deserved an Oscar right there. I was sure he'd win one for Dead Man Walking, but it didn't happen. Instead, he got his Oscar for Mystic River, a film I find watchable but mammothly overrated. It's only Clint Eastwood's skill as a storyteller which makes this totally-predictable and surprisingly-overracted film as good (average, at best) as it is. But who am I to say? The people I thought gave the worst performances in Mystic River all got Oscars or at least nominations. So being the human who I claim I really am, I'm watching Penn very closely in Milk with a "C'mon, show me what you've got" attitude. During the first half, I just don't see Penn being as believable a human being as Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler, and trust me, I don't really have any reason to tell you that I lionize Rourke, no matter what he's done in the past. Anyway, eventually, and I realize that most of this started to kick in during the last 15 minutes of Milk, but I started to really see Penn as THE MAN Harvey Milk. Maybe it's because most of the tragedy and triumph occurs at the end of the film, but I actually started to believe that Penn wasn't just acting, but that he was living and that somehow what he had to say, in the context of last year's election and Proposition 8 (as opposed to the earlier Proposition 6 in the fllm Milk) was perhaps more important in the Big Picture than what Mickey and Aranofsky were attempting in The Wrestler. Then again, the Golden Globes and BAFTA seem to contradict SAG. Let's see... what am I talking about here? Oh yeah, it's going to be a Bee-ach to pick Best Actor this year.
I watched Van Sant's To Die For just after I watched Milk, so I tried to reconcile how I felt about both films since, aside from Good Will Hunting, they are probably the director's most mainstream films. What I noticed was that both To Die For and Milk tell their stories from multiple perspectives, yet from a mostly-linear way of storytelling. I was a little taken aback, since I'm well aware of the Milk story, not only from the media of the time, but from the Oscar-winning documentary The Times of Harvey Milk, to hear Sean Penn speaking into a tape recorder in the first five minutes predicting his own assassination, but hey, that was apparently Harvey. I have to admit that I also had a little bit of difficulty getting into the early scenes because of the different perspectives, but eventually things turned into something easier to grasp as a person's life, not only as a personal journey but as one set in the big picture.
As the film progressed, I tried to measure Sean Penn's performance against Mickey Rourke's in The Wrestler. I have loved Sean Penn ever since I saw Taps, but when he played Jeff Spicoli, I thought that he deserved an Oscar right there. I was sure he'd win one for Dead Man Walking, but it didn't happen. Instead, he got his Oscar for Mystic River, a film I find watchable but mammothly overrated. It's only Clint Eastwood's skill as a storyteller which makes this totally-predictable and surprisingly-overracted film as good (average, at best) as it is. But who am I to say? The people I thought gave the worst performances in Mystic River all got Oscars or at least nominations. So being the human who I claim I really am, I'm watching Penn very closely in Milk with a "C'mon, show me what you've got" attitude. During the first half, I just don't see Penn being as believable a human being as Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler, and trust me, I don't really have any reason to tell you that I lionize Rourke, no matter what he's done in the past. Anyway, eventually, and I realize that most of this started to kick in during the last 15 minutes of Milk, but I started to really see Penn as THE MAN Harvey Milk. Maybe it's because most of the tragedy and triumph occurs at the end of the film, but I actually started to believe that Penn wasn't just acting, but that he was living and that somehow what he had to say, in the context of last year's election and Proposition 8 (as opposed to the earlier Proposition 6 in the fllm Milk) was perhaps more important in the Big Picture than what Mickey and Aranofsky were attempting in The Wrestler. Then again, the Golden Globes and BAFTA seem to contradict SAG. Let's see... what am I talking about here? Oh yeah, it's going to be a Bee-ach to pick Best Actor this year.