milk

no. 90 MILK

Sometimes films just get stuck in my queue, most times, I'm pleasantly surprised that I'm finally getting something after three years. Not MILK, I'm pissed that I wasn't impatient and had to watch it the week it came out. I'm pissed that I haven't watched it three times already this spring.

Gus Van Sant put together a beautiful mosaic. Dustin Lance Black wrote an amazing script. The cast, as a whole, was unbelievably talented. Sean Penn? Sean Penn? God, he's everything and then some. Pardon the comparison, but in Bull Durham, Crash tells Nuke that when he was a baby, the gods reached down and turned his right arm into a thunderbolt, but he's pissing away his Hall of Fame arm on the material and unimportant. Thank god that Sean Penn isn't pissing away his talents and sharing them with the likes of us poor, untalented fools.

Like Brokeback, this was NOT a gay film. I don't care what anyone says. This film screams HOPE. In 2009, right now, we need a little HOPE from Milk. This isn't the exact quotation from Milk, but an mosaic of several pieces for the film that works:

"Last week I got a phone call from Altoona, Pennsylvania and the voice was very young and the person said, 'thanks.' You gotta elect gay people so that the young child and the thousand upon thousands just like him will have hope for a better life, hope for a better tomorrow...

...it's not about personal gain and it's not about ego and it's not about power. It's about the us's out there not just the gays but the blacks and the asians and the seniors and the disabled, the us's. Without hope the us's give up and I know you can't live on hope alone, but without hope, life is not worth living. So you, and you, and you, you gotta give them hope. You gotta give them hope."

I've never been proud of my shitty little WASP town, I turned my back as quickly as I could. But I'll tell you, tears of pride rolled down my face, pride that some kid knew that someone out there was making a change, standing up for those who couldn't stand up on their own. It makes this kid from Altoona, Pennyslvania realize that she speaks out about her differences, about her disability to give HOPE to others, to give HOPE to parents, to give HOPE to lovers, to give HOPE to anyone who is afraid that they cannot be well. This will be my rallying cry, thank you.

Makes you wonder, how does a kid who grew up in a small minded town, one full of prejudice and bigotry just understand to love everyone, to accept them and celebrate them for their differences? It was never a conscious decision, I was made this way and yet my immediate family is not. Nature vs Nurture? LOL