The Screengrab : harvey milk

The Best of 2008: Leonard Pierce's Picks for the Best Movies of the Year, Part One

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 19:00:00 GMT

2008 is already getting a rap as a bad year for filmmaking, which is entirely unfair -- it's merely a good year that has to contend with coming right after 2007, one of the greatest years in recent cinematic history. It's also the first year where I spent the entire year as a critic living in a city that seems allergic to art films; when it came time to compile my top tens, which no doubt reflect my current cultural circumstances, I found I had seen fewer of the most highly praised films of the year than in any recent memory. Putting this list together involved a lot of work on my part -- not the normal intellectual work of weighing the artistic merits of each movie and finding something to say about them, but the physical work of actually seeing the damn things, when a good half of them didn't play in my city. This is especially true of the 2008 end-of-year releases. But throught a combination of tactics, including but not limited to Netflix, filesharing, begging publicists for screeners, shuttling back and forth to Austin, and, in the case of my #1 pick, engaging in a quest that would, itself, make a pretty good movie, I managed to put together a list of my ten favorite films of the year. I don't know how you loyal readers will take it -- I know that I'm at odds with a few of my Screengrab colleagues on at least a couple of these -- but here I stand, in a year that ain't as bad as it seemed.

10. MILK (Gus Van Sant, dir.)

Three decades too late, but this is the year of Harvey Milk: the new album by an Athens-based band that bears the assassinated San Francisco supervisor’s name is one of the best of the year, as is Gus Van Sant’s biopic of the country’s first openly gay elected official. Noted by Van Sant as the first movie of his return to mainstream filmmaking, Milk has been criticized for taking a straightforward approach rather than showcasing the director’s more experimental side, but, like Spike Lee’s Malcolm X, it largely succeeds because it lets the flashy stylistic touches take a back seat to what is, after all, one of the most compelling political stories of the American century. Sean Penn is rightly getting props for his terrific performance as Harvey Milk; it’s a career-redeeming showing after nearly a decade of missteps. But no one should ignore the excellent supporting performance, especially those of James Franco as Milk’s partner Scott Smith and Josh Brolin as the tortured killer Dan White. Elegant, appealing, timely and persuasive without being preachy, Milk is one of the best biopics of recent vintage.

9. BALLAST (Lance Hammer, dir.)

Lance Hammer’s debut feature film Ballast is being widely proffered as proof that reports of independent film’s death have been greatly exaggerated. The indie scene was on the rocks this year, to be sure, but Ballast is a mighty convincing argument for its continued vitality. It deals quietly and hypnotically with the emotional paralysis into which a Mississippi family is thrown after one brother commits suicide, and its characters – played almost entirely by an amateur cast using improvised dialogue – are so real as to be astonishing. The performances by a batch of promising unknowns are halting, wandering, and unspectacular, because people rarely react to such an event in a spectacular way. Likewise, criticism of the film’s slow pace seem off the mark to me: the movie’s slow movement and stately grace (visually abetted by some incredible cinematography by Lol Crawley) recall Ozu, who was rarely subject to such carping. Ballast is a thing of dark, slow beauty.

8. THE DARK KNIGHT (Christopher Nolan, dir.)

The opinion of a million IMDB fanboys notwithstanding, The Dark Knight isn’t one of the greatest films ever made. Now that it’s available on DVD, its flaws are easy to catch on repeat viewings: too much of David S. Goyer’s heavy scriptwriting hand, a confused and uncentered role for Batman himself, and an ending that continues to make precious little sense. But, by the same token, its strengths are also mightily in evidence, ready for anyone to savor who thinks a big-screen action picture can’t also be a good movie: a number of near-perfect emotional moments, a riveting conjuration of a city caught in the grips of terror, and, of course, Heath Ledger’s absolutely electrifying performance as the Joker, one of the greatest screen villains in history. And, in the same way he used a pulp noir thriller as the framework for one of the most deeply philosophical mainstream movies ever in Memento, Nolan manages to take a superhero punch-‘em-up and turn it into one of the most profoundly political movies of the year.

7. IL Y A LONGTEMPS QUE JE T'AIME [I'VE LOVED YOU SO LONG] (Phillipe Claudel, dir.)

This French drama is, with Synechdoche, New York, one of two amazing films made this year by first-time directors who are better known for their writing. Phillipe Claudel, a well-respected screenwriter and novelist, has made a movie as small and controlled as Charlie Kaufman’s is ambitious and sprawling: it’s remarkably tight for a first effort, with none of the excess that often betrays a first effort. With not a single frame wasted, he brings us the story of Juliette Fontaine, a woman whose sister takes her into a distrusting – not to say dysfunctional – family after she has spent fifteen years in prison; Kristin Scott Thomas (who seems an entirely different actress, and a far superior one, in French than she is in English) plays her with an emotional and physical reticence that borders on exhaustion, and she’s perfectly complemented by Elsa Zylberstein as her loving, determined sister. It’s the best family drama in years, understated and nearly perfect at conveying its emotional complexities.

6. MAN ON WIRE (James Marsh, dir.)

The most compelling documentary of the year is based on an event so trivial it would be almost entirely forgotten if not for the existence of the movie: Phillipe Petit’s jaw-dropping, pointless, spectacular, and foolhardy tightrope walk between the two towers of the World Trade Center during its construction in 1974. Filmed by the director of Wisconsin Death Trip and using similar techniques (including some arbitrary, though skillful reenactments), Man On Wire brings us a movie about the WTC that has nothing to do with the terror attacks that brought it down – and yet which cannot escape comparison, with its images of bits of the towers in chaos (though from construction, not destruction), its central plot of a small group of schemers engaging in intricate planning to conquer them (though their motivation is art, not violence), and its unforgettable image of Petit suspended between the buildings, so eerily reminiscent of the shots of those who fell on September 11th. Petit did not fall; we know he did not, because we see and hear him from the movie’s first shots. The fact that it’s so fascinating to watch though we know he didn’t fall is a testament to its power as a film.

Click for Part Two

Screengrab Review: Milk

Paul Clark — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 15:34:00 GMT

Following the 2005 release of Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain, there was some excitement over the possibility that more high-profile gay-themed movies would follow, a development that didn’t really pan out. Now, three years later, Hollywood has once again decided to tackle gay-friendly subject matter, this time the life of slain San Francisco politician and activist Harvey Milk- directed by the openly gay filmmaker Gus Van Sant, no less. But while the film has attained a certain amount of contemporary relevance with its parallels to California’s recently-passed Proposition 8, Milk biggest breakthrough may be the idea that the lives of gay heroes can be boiled down to the Hollywood biopic formula just as easily as their straight counterparts.

Think I’m kidding? Let’s go to the tape: middle-aged Milk (Sean Penn), fed up with his life, moves to San Francisco with his new boyfriend Scott Smith (James Franco). Appalled at the treatment of homosexuals even in the most gay-friendly neighborhood of the most gay-friendly metropolis in America, he’s spurred on to community activism, which ends up leading to politics. After three unsuccessful runs for public office, he finally wins a seat on city’s Board of Supervisors. There, he spearheads a number of major social reforms, including an effort to shoot down the hateful Briggs Initiative in 1978, before being gunned down by a disgruntled formal colleague. Take out the homosexual material and a few of the other details and we could just as easily be talking about any number of civil rights leaders. Hell, there’s even a frightened wheelchair-bound gay boy who inadvertently inspires Milk during his time of doubt, and Smith essentially gets assigned the role of the requisite concerned significant other who wrings his hands and tells Harvey that he’s not devoting enough time to the person who loves him most.

Material this formulaic (courtesy of Big Love writer Dustin Lance Black) would not seem to suit the recent career trajectory of Van Sant, who has lately made a series of highly experimental meditations on death. However, Milk finds Van Sant largely on autopilot, telling his story in a straightforward style that’s virtually indistinguishable than that of most Oscar-bait dramas. Gone are the spare, largely experiential narratives of his other recent films, in favor of a conventional mode of storytelling, with plenty of stock footage and montages to establish the film’s historical context. And while there’s plenty of first-rate cinematography from Van Sant favorite Harris Savides, Van Sant keeps his trademark expressionistic soundscapes to a minimum. Practically the only scenes in the film that feel unmistakably Van Santian are those involving Milk’s fellow supervisor and eventual killer Dan White, played, in yet another in a string of vivid character performances, by Josh Brolin.

If there’s one thing that’s especially distinguished about Milk, it’s the acting. Not only is Brolin perfectly cast as White, but so are Franco, Diego Luna as Milk’s ill-fated rebound lover, Alison Pill as the butch, no-nonsense campaign manager, Denis O’Hare as the hateful Briggs, and so on. Best of all is Emile Hirsch as Cleve Jones, a former hustler who under Milk’s mentorship is reborn as an activist. And Van Sant wisely lets Anita Bryant play herself in stock footage, letting the smiling, singing anti-gay gorgon serve as a distant, but very real enemy to the beliefs espoused by Milk and his followers. That Bryant would quickly turn from a political force to a punchline in Airplane! in a scant two years is one of history’s more humorous small miracles.

But if the film works- and on balance, I’d say it mostly does- it’s because of Penn, who gives his best performance since… Sweet and Lowdown? Dead Man Walking? Carlito’s Way? Suffice it to say that he’s pretty great here, infusing the wit and intensity that has marked his best performances with a warmth that I’ve never seen from him before. Penn’s Milk is a natural leader because he cares and brings out the best in those around him, but Penn also doesn’t shy away from the thornier aspects of the character. Unfortunately, the film itself isn’t nearly as well-equipped to deal with the contradictions of a man who advocated coming out of the closet yet remained closeted himself for over forty years, who was both an impassioned advocate for social change and a canny politician and self-promoter. At one point, Milk mentions that three of his lovers have attempted suicide, and it comes as a shock because the film so completely paints him as a caring partner and companion. And this, more than anything else, is what keeps Milk from being the cinematic landmark that it so clearly aches to be- that it’s so eager to give the audience Harvey Milk the secular saint that it ultimately forgets about Harvey Milk the man.

Reviews By Request: The Times of Harvey Milk (1984, Rob Epstein)

Paul Clark — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 20:00:00 GMT

As always, I’ll be polling you folks to determine my next Reviews By Request column. To vote, see the poll at the end of this review.

When I floated Rob Epstein’s documentary The Times of Harvey Milk as a possibility for a Reviews By Request column, I did so primarily in anticipation of the upcoming biopic Milk. The principal reason for this is because I generally have a rule against getting my history from “fiction” films, so I wanted to learn about Milk’s life beforehand, the better to concentrate on the performances and filmmaking in Gus Van Sant’s film. Not having seen Milk yet I can’t be sure, but to my eyes, The Times of Harvey Milk, though relatively undistinguished as filmmaking, is invaluable as a cinematic account of the life and legacy of Harvey Milk. It doesn’t tell everything about him- what movie could?- but it’s a great jumping-off point.

One of the biggest misconceptions that The Times of Harvey Milk cleared up for me was that Milk was more or less a one-issue politician. I knew going in was that Milk was the first openly gay man ever elected to major civic office in the United States, so I jumped to the conclusion that his political interests revolved around gay-centric issues, like his successful campaign against 1978’s hateful “Briggs Initiative”, which would have forced California’s openly gay school teachers out of their jobs. However, this was hardly the case. Milk was a vocal advocate for the rights of senior citizens and minorities in San Francisco, and also was a proponent of stricter “pooper-scooper” legislation in the city. One of the film’s most vivid moments is an old news report in which Milk discusses the poop law and dramatically steps in a pile of droppings he’d strategically placed there earlier that day.

But The Times of Harvey Milk isn’t just about the man, but about, yes, the times in which he lived. San Francisco became a haven for homosexuals during the 1970s, including Milk himself, a former Wall Street analyst who moved West during the sixties. Already into his forties, Milk unsuccessfully ran for public office three times before being elected city supervisor, a beneficiary of a new San Francisco policy that required supervisors to represent specific districts rather than the city as a whole. As one of the interviewees states, “we had finally elected one of our own.” Indeed, this same election would also elect the city’s first Chinese-American, the first African-American woman, and the first committed feminist to the city board.

The fifth (and final) newly-elected city supervisor was named Dan White, who of course would eventually kill Milk and Mayor George Moscone. White’s trial and the fallout from the verdict take up most of the film’s final third, and this is its most troublesome aspect. Most of The Times of Harvey Milk is devoted to historical accounts of Milk’s work and impressions of his life by people who knew him, but in the section on White’s trial, Epstein includes some unfortunate editorializing by the people he interviews, in which they posit that White’s reduced charges (for voluntary manslaughter rather than murder) were the result of homophobia among the jurors. While this was no doubt a factor, so too was the boneheaded move by the prosecution to play White’s taped confession for the jury, which only served to humanize him and make him seem penitent. But whatever the reason, White’s verdict- predicated on the now laughable “Twinkie Defense”- remains a colossal blunder by the courts.

Much more interesting, and illuminating to Milk’s legacy, is a pair of public events that followed Milk’s death, the first a candlelight vigil a few days after Milk was shot, the second a full-scale riot in reaction to the White verdict. It’s in the second case that Milk’s absence is most profoundly felt. The Milk we get to know throughout the course of The Times of Harvey Milk was not about violence or fear, but a positive inspiration to others- as someone else once put it, “a uniter, not a divider.” In one of his most famous speeches, Milk said, “you gotta give ‘em hope,” a message that seems particularly relevant today, considering the hopeful message of change put forth by our recent President-elect. How unfortunate, then, that there was no Milk-like figure to lead the movement to defeat California’s Proposition 8. With anti-gay marriage laws being passed across the country, will we soon see the times of the next Harvey Milk? Only time will tell.

The end of the year is fast approaching, and with that the time to make end-of-year lists and awards. However, ever since I went and got myself a life, I haven’t had time to catch all the movies I’d like to see. So for the next couple of months, I’ll be devoting the Reviews by Request polls to 2008 releases only. This week, five acclaimed- and very different- movies from which to choose. Should I see the latest documentary from the great Herzog, which sadly never made it to my area? The weird-looking kids’ movie from Kung Fu Hustle’s Stephen Chow? A Berlin Golden Bear winner from the director of the awesome Bus 174? A lightweight French cinematic bonbon starring Amelie’s own Audrey Tautou? Or would you like me to review the latest from cinematic enfant terrible Harmony Korine? Ball’s in your court:

Which should I watch next? | BuzzDash polls

As always, the comments section is open. See you in two weeks!

Taking Stock: Why Cinemark Shouldn't Get Your "Milk" Money

Phil Nugent — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 19:00:00 GMT

On Election Night, November 4, California voters passed Proposition 8, which will amend the state Constitution to officially define marriage as an union between a man and a woman, effectively canceling out a state Supreme Court decision that recognized same-sex marriage as a Constitutional right in California. Other anti-gay initiatives were passed in other states that night, but the California measure struck many as a special betrayal; as Caitlin MacRae wrote last week, "News of its passing left many shaking their heads, wondering how a state like California could give its votes to Changey McHoperson and at the same time approve a socially regressive constitutional revision. But in spite of its hippie radical reputation, California's voting trends generally look a lot like the rest of the nation's: a wide red middle, book-ended by blue. And though change has been the watchword of recent months, we sometimes forget that with change comes an inevitable backlash from those who fear becoming displaced in society." (MacRae also wrote, "Still, Prop 8 is on the losing side of history. The sex-panic button regularly gets hit in response to social change, racial tension, economic instability and foreign wars. The majority gets majorly freaked out when other people win the rights that they already enjoy, as though rights are finite and should be stockpiled like so many cans of beans in case of nuclear fallout.") Among the many grossed out by this squalid display of petty bigotry was Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who in the past has toed the (Republican) party line against same-sex marriage, but now, like the hero of an action movie who, having come face to face with the suffering he has inadvertently caused, turns against his vile masters, urged supporters of same-sex marriage to "never give up. They should be on it and on it until they get it done." (Schwarzenegger also advised the California Supreme Court to see what it can do about overturning Prop 8 before he has to go down there himself and start some shit.) In the meantime, those pissed off have been making their voices and pocketbooks heard by levying boycotts against some of the people who donated vast sums to the campaign for Proposition 8, which has to be one of the stupidest ways anyone ever came up with to announce to the world that they have too much money. One of these worthies is Alan Stock, whose position as CEO of the Cinemark theater chain has made it possible for his new enemies to make him the center of a gesture so improbably perfect that even Schwarzenegger might have to let out a low, admiring whistle.

"No Milk for Cinemark" is a Facebook-based campaign designed to encourage people to make whatever effort they must to not see Gus Van Sant's Milk, which stars Sean Penn as the martyred gay rights activist Harvey Milk, and which is one of the most highly touted pictures of the year, at a Cinemark chain theater. The movie opens November 26; it only took the protest organizers a few days to hit their initial gosl of thousand names, so what happens between now and then is gravy. Whatever one thinks of boycotts in general, it's hard to imagine that Milk himself wouldn't have had a few choice things to say about the idea of a company whose boss spent close to $10,000 to prevent gay marriage benefitting from a movie that celebrates his own efforts to prevent the adoption of legal measures designed to make the lives of gays worse. The third-largest cinema chain in the country, Cinemark was last in the news some ten years ago as the result of a long, drawn-out battle with the Department of Justice, which alleged that the design of the theaters' stadium-style seating was discriminatory against disabled patrons. (Cinemark finally settled the case out of court.) In Stock's defense, it should be noted that it makes all the sense in the world for him to be really concerned about what people can and can't do in California, since he lives in Plano, Texas. Reportedly his hobbies include staring straight ahead, parking in handicapped spaces, casting long, lingering gazes at the pool boy when he has his shirt off, and receiving e-mails and phone calls from people who want to know, since he has so much cash to spread around, how's about he help out with their mortgage?

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: May 31-June 6, 2008

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 21:00:00 GMT

School may be out of the summer, but we’ve still done plenty of learning this week at the Screengrab, on a variety of subjects:

Gender Studies: Heterosexual Males Survive “Sex and the City”

Current Events: When Movies Are Too Timely

Political Science: Harvey Milk and Great Black Presidents

English Literature: No Shit, Sherlock

Seventies Studies: Summer of Sam, The Way We Were and Damien: Omen II

Music Appreciation: OST “Drowning by Numbers”

Statistical Analysis: Screengrab Underestimates Ladies

Social Studies: Taverns on the Screen: Top 10 Barroom Scenes

Comparative Research: Coffy vs. Foxy Brown and Herzog vs. Ferrara

Recreating Gay Liberation in the Seventies for "Milk"

Phil Nugent — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Paul VanDeCarr visits the sets of Milk, Gus Van Sant's biopic starring Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, where throngs of unpaid extras have been recreating the protest marches and public gatherings on behalf of gay rights that were a feature of Milk's political career in San Francisco in the 1970s. Half a dozen years after Milk's assassination, Rob Epstein made him a nonfiction movie star with his classic 1984 documentary The Times of Harvey Milk. That picture was screened at the Castro Theater for the extras to help "educate and inspire" them and get them in the right frame of mind. Also coaching from the sidelines was Milk's political protege, Cleve Jones (who's played in the movie by Emile Hirsch, who Penn directed in Into the Wild), who "is here tonight too to get the hundreds of extras into character. He tells the crowd the original marches happened in response to the repeal of gay rights ordinances in Florida and Kansas. It was bad enough that gay rights were being curtailed elsewhere, but the bigots were headed for San Francisco, the one place in the country gays and lesbians had carved out for themselves. An initiative by State Senator John Briggs was being put on the ballot to ban gays and lesbians from teaching in California's public schools. 'So the mood on the street was pissed off,' explains Jones. 'And that's what you are tonight. 'You're pissed off!'"

Wading into the crowd, VanDeCarr met a lot of people who don't sound as if they needed the coaching. One of them, Anna Damiani, fled Florida after anti-gay legislation was passed there in 1977 and came to San Francisco "as a refugee from Anita Bryant." Another extra recalls that, "I always knew I was gay, but Harvey Milk's assassination made me come out." The movie's producer, Bruce Cohen, takes pride in how "this shoot has really connected with people here. Every day some person stops by or remembers where they were, or were friends with Harvey, or have a story to tell, or their lives were touched. And when you're surrounded by that — the director, the writer, the actors — you can't quantify the value of that to the soul of the film."

Gus Van Sant and "Paranoid Park": "It's the End of a Certain Way I Was Making Films"

Phil Nugent — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Sam Adams writes in The Los Angeles Times that Gus Van Sant sees his new film, Paranoid Park, as "a transitional film, moving him once again toward the mainstream." The first thing to say about this is that, compared to the so-called "Death Trilogy" of films that Van Sant has made since 2002 (Gerry, Elephant, and Last Days) while under the influence of director Bela Tarr, he may be right. The second thing is that Van Sant's notion of the mainstream and Michael Bay's may barely be on speaking terms. It's not clear that it has all that much in common with the Van Sant of Good Will Hunting or Finding Forrester, either. The new movie differs from his other recent work in that it had an honest-to-goodness script (based on Blake Nelson's young adult novel). But as Mike D'Angelo noted here recently, it has many of the trademarks of Van Sant's forays into experimental filmmaking: nonlinear storytelling, long, long takes, even oddball music choices. The teenage skateboarder hero, who is carrying a secret that's killing him inside, strolls down a high school corridor on his way to a sit-down meeting with a police detective as Billy Swan's lovably woozy "I Can Help" ("It would sure do me good/ To do you good") wobbles on the soundtrack.

Back in the late 1980s, Mala Noche and Drugstore Cowboy made Van Sant the great hope of the indie movement before the movement itself really had a star system and an identity. After the ambitious My Own Private Idaho, his adaptation of Tom Robbins's Even Cowgirls Get the Blues turned out to be the kind of disastrous conflagration that can turn a filmmaker's reputation to ash in one puff. Even those who thought the director needed to re-invent himself were surprised at how thoroughly he dug in as a Hollywood pro, first with the commercial-indie black comedy To Die For and then with Good Will Hunting and Finding Forrester. If Van Sant sees these kinds of films as marking distinct stages in his career — he has said that with the Death Trilogy and Paranoid Park he has reached "the end of a certain way I was making films" — he's always worked hard at doing the best job he can and is fluid in his notions of what collaborators belong on which projects. Harris Savides, his cinematographer on Gerry, Elephant, and Last Days, first teamed up with him on Finding Forrester. Now they're working together on his next movie, Milk, starring Sean Penn as the martyred, openly gay San Francisco politician Harvey Milk, a large-scale period drama that will give the director the chance to recreate San Francisco in the 1970s, in the first full glow of gay liberation — what Van Sant himself describes as "the creation of a gay class of people, from nothing, or from a subclass that was below the surface." The new project, the realization of a long term dream of Van Sant's, returns him to the general subject of Elephant, et al. — death in the public sphere — with a "more conventional" storytelling approach, but for Van Sant, conventionality remains something with which he has to make his uneasy peace. "You can never really get there," he says of such concepts as "the real" Harvey Milk, "So you might as well have an analogy rather than a biographical depiction."

Screengrab Review: Paranoid Park

Peter Smith — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Review by Mike D'Angelo.

Taking a brief and very welcome break from memorial filmmaking — Columbine, Kurt Cobain, a forthcoming Harvey Milk biopic — Gus Van Sant achieves thrilling new heights of lyrical expressionism with Paranoid Park, his fractured adaptation of a young-adult novel by Blake Nelson. Frankly, I was so certain that I never wanted to see this particular director set foot on a high-school campus again that I contemplated a restraining order. But this brilliantly schizoid character study — structured as the letter-cum-journal entry of Alex, a skate punk with a guilty conscience (sensational newcomer Gabe Nevins, found via MySpace) — digs into the teenage mindset with a clarity and eloquence that Elephant, with its distracting (and, to my mind, obscene) echoes of real-world tragedy, couldn't possibly achieve. Ostensibly, the plot concerns Alex's involvement in the accidental death of a security guard. But since this act of involuntary manslaughter (briefly seen in gruesome detail) is wholly fictional, Van Sant and Nelson's appropriation of it as an overarching metaphor for the furtive, free-floating sense of shame that accompanies puberty feels bold and incisive rather than deeply disrespectful.

Meanwhile, Van Sant's formal dexterity just grows more and more astounding. He sometimes rivals Alain Resnais here with his conflation of editing and memory, skipping back and forth in time in a dissociative frenzy that has no use for conventional signposts or explanations. And even when Van Sant flirts with cliché, he does so in a way that's forbidding and strange: You've seen the scene where the distraught protagonist sublimates his/her grief in the shower a hundred times — but never like this, with the contrast cranked up to near-abstraction and the camera intently focused on the rivulets of water that flow from Alex's long hair as he stands silently, head bowed. I could have done with a bit less emphasis on Elliott Smith on the soundtrack, perhaps, but the film's other musical choices, ranging from Billy Swan's "I Can Help" to snatches of Nino Rota's score for Juliet of the Spirits, are magnificently contrapuntal. This is still very much a mood piece, but Van Sant, after two consecutive films centered on sacrificial lambs, has made an overdue and welcome return to recognizable human beings.

Morning Deal Report: I Fought the Law and I Won

Peter Smith — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 16:00:00 GMT

Josh Brolin will play Dan "Twinkie Defense" White, the disgruntled ex-cop who murdered Harvey Milk and San Francisco mayor George Moscone in 1979, in Gus Van Sant's Milk.

That Ed Norton twins comedy, Leaves of Grass (?), is written and will be directed by Tim Blake Nelson, the director of that high-school Othello adaptation O and the actor from O Brother Where Art Thou. Curiouser and curiouser.

Angelina Jolie to play sexy spy.

— Peter Smith

Morning Deal Report: Bruce Willis to Play Robot

Peter Smith — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 16:00:00 GMT

Well, the unthinkable has happened. The Writer's Guild strike has pushed back the start of production on the Da Vinci Code sequel Angels & Demons and Oliver Stone's Vietnam drama Pinkville.

Bruce Willis will star in The Surrogates, a sci-fi thriller directed by Jonathan Mostow, about a future where people stay indoors all the time and only venture out to interact in the form of robot doppelgangers better-looking than they are. That sounds almost metaphorical.

Gus Van Sant's Harvey Milk biopic, Milk, has beaten Bryan Singer's Harvey Milk biopic, The Mayor of Castro Street, to the punch.

— Peter Smith