Just because it made my cry

7 Responses to Just because it made my cry

1. 1

   ed says:

   February 23, 2009 at 8:31 am

   Me
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   Carol says:

   February 23, 2009 at 10:02 am

   See “Milk” – I sobbed throughout it. It is so beautifully done and reminds of how horrible its been for glbt folks and how much we still need to do. Harvey really made such a difference.
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   FilthyGrandeur says:

   February 23, 2009 at 10:06 am

   i’ve really got to see this movie…
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   Tim Jones-Yelvington says:

   February 23, 2009 at 10:39 am

   Thanks for posting this — I missed this part of the program. I’m glad Milk one something content-related and not just performance-related (altho I thought Sean Penn’s speech was badass. That’s the way to be an ally). It’s a great film because…
   ~it is about a social movement and not just a charismatic individual
   ~it doesn’t normalize its characters’ lives. if anything, I think gus (and maybe this screen writer as well?) makes some pretty gutsy decisions about including some pretty marginal lives, practices and experiences that aren’t easily reconcilable with a cozy mainstream LGBT-type activism. It isn’t always abt sex, but sometimes it actually is.
   ~I think it creates space for a conversation abt the tension between glbt rights work that treats gayness like a coherent ethnic identity or political lobby to be extended rights and privileges within existing political structures and Queer activism that advocates for a broader social justice… (there’s some interesting stuff early-on abt collaboration w/ labor unions and an emphasis on broader counter-cultural practices, but the arc of Milk’s political career is also the gradual construction of GLBT folks as A political power block, and we begin to see why this framework may have its limitations.

   …it’s def worth seeing.

   … I finally saw Slumdog on Sat night and was pretty appalled by it.
5. 5

   PG says:

   February 23, 2009 at 12:54 pm

   “Milk” is very good, better than I expected. It’s the rare biopic that held my attention throughout, because it focuses on what we really care about, which is how Harvey Milk became an activist, beginning with his 40th birthday. Near the end of the movie, there’s an awesome scene where he’s demanding the mayor’s support and saying that if the mayor isn’t with him, he’ll tell all of “his people” not to vote for the mayor, and the mayor says, “You know who you sounded like just now? You sounded like Boss Tweed or Mayor Daley.” And Milk grins at him as he walks out the door, “Gay people with power, how scary is that?”

   I would have liked a little more development of Dan White, but they did a pretty good job even there.
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   Lilian Nattel says:

   February 23, 2009 at 2:09 pm

   I’m waiting to see it on DVD. Thanks for posting that.
7. 7

   chingona says:

   February 23, 2009 at 2:42 pm

   Near the end of the movie, there’s an awesome scene where he’s demanding the mayor’s support and saying that if the mayor isn’t with him, he’ll tell all of “his people” not to vote for the mayor, and the mayor says, “You know who you sounded like just now? You sounded like Boss Tweed or Mayor Daley.” And Milk grins at him as he walks out the door, “Gay people with power, how scary is that?”

   One thing I really liked about the movie is that it provided a very realistic view of all the non-glamorous, mundane, petty crap that goes into politics and political victories, from Milk not winning election until they did away with city-wide elections to his introducing an ordinance to make people pick up after their dogs as a way to get support outside his traditional constituencies, but it never let that reality drown out or take away from what Milk achieved. The story could hold all that reality and still offer the inspiration and the hope to others that you see in the clip here.

   I have the documentary in my Netflix queue right now. A number of people have told me Milk was good but the documentary was actually better.