Posts tagged James Franco
“Milk” Poignant and Frightening
Dec 18th
Poignant and Frightening
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
MILK is the Gus Van Sant film about the political career of Harvey Bernard Milk, who in 1977 was elected to San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors and was credited with being the first openly gay elected official in U.S. history.
Tragically, a year later when he was only 48, Harvey was shot and killed along with Mayor George Moscone in City Hall by Dan White, a former city supervisor who had resigned his position, but wanted his job back and took out his frustration on the mayor and Harvey.
Sean Penn plays Harvey, and he is just absolutely great in the role. Expect him to win a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actor.
Josh Brolin plays Dan White, and he could easily win a nomination for Best Supporting Actor, himself.
The film begins in November 1978 and uses the conceit of showing Harvey dictating into a tape recorder and commenting on the events that we then see in flashback as the film progresses.
In 1970 Harvey meets Scott Smith, played by James Franco, in New York City. It is Harvey’s 40th birthday, and he confesses, “Forty years old, and I haven’t done a thing that I’m proud of.”
Two years later they move to San Francisco together and open a camera store on Castro Street, the Number 1 destination for gays at that time. Harvey says that the police hated the gays, and the gays hated them right back.
Harvey became known as The Mayor of Castro Street, but he says that he might have invented that title for himself.
He decides to run for a real office, but he loses the election, being told that he is too old to be a hippie. In 1975 Harvey runs again, cleaning up his hippie appearance so that he looks like the successful businessman he was. He loses again.
Harvey’s personal life suffers, but he gains new friends as well as loyal supporters who finally help him win a seat on the Board of Supervisors in 1977.
Dan White also wins a seat, and Harvey forms an unlikely alliance with the former policeman and fireman on a number of causes they support. You could almost say that they even became friends.
And then all hell breaks loose.
MILK is poignant, enlightening, engrossing, and frightening, but mostly frightening in light of the recent current events.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Milk – Movie Trailer
Nov 26th
Academy Award winner Sean Penn takes the title role in Gus Van Sant’s biopic tracing the last eight years in the life of Harvey Milk, the ill-fated politician and gay activist whose life changed history, and whose courage still inspires people. When Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977, he made history for being the first openly gay man in American history to be voted into public office. But the rights of homosexuals weren’t Milk’s primary concern, as tellingly evidenced by the wide array of political coalitions he formed over the course of his tragically brief career. He fought for everyone from union workers to senior citizens, a true hero of human rights who possessed nothing but compassion for his fellow man. The story begins in New York City, where a 40-year-old Milk ponders what steps he can take to make his life more meaningful. Eventually, Milk makes the decision to relocate to the West Coast, where he and his lover, Scott Smith (James Franco), found a small business in the heart of a working-class neighborhood. Empowered by his love for the Castro neighborhood and the success of his business, Castro Camera, Milk somewhat unexpectedly begins to emerge as an outspoken agent for change. With a growing support system that includes both Scott and a like-minded young activist named Cleve Jones (Emile Hirsch), the charismatic Milk decides to take a fateful leap into politics, eventually developing a reputation as a leader who isn’t afraid to follow up his words with actions. In short order, he is elected supervisor for the newly zoned District 5, though this seeming triumph is in fact the catalyst for a tragedy that starts to unfold as Milk does his best to forge a political partnership with Dan White (Josh Brolin), another newly elected supervisor. Over time it becomes apparent that Milk and White’s political agendas are directly at odds, a revelation that puts their personal destinies on a catastrophic collision course.
“Nights in Rodanthe” What’s the Point?
Oct 2nd
What’s the Point?
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
NIGHTS IN RODANTHE is the latest film to be made from a novel by romance novelist Nicholas Sparks, and if the films are true to his novels, then I would have to say that Sparks has a problem with endings.
The film doesn’t have a problem with casting, as once again Richard Gere is teamed with Diane Lane in a love story.
However, you have heard of a “meet cute”? Their characters “meet long.”
Rodanthe is a little village on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and the film begins with Adrienne Willis getting ready to leave her home and go to Rodanthe for a weekend in order to take care of her best friend’s home, which is a bed-and-breakfast smack-dab on the beach.
But when her estranged husband arrives to pick up their two teenage children, he surprises and shocks Adrienne by saying, “I want to come home.”
Meanwhile, we see Dr. Paul Flanner finish selling his house in Raleigh and traveling to Rodanthe for the weekend, and we see how just getting there is an adventure.
Paul checks in, saying he might stay as long as four nights, and because he is the only guest, he takes his food from the dining room into the kitchen to eat with Adrienne, saying that he doesn’t want to eat alone.
Well, we can all see where this is heading, can’t we? And when a storm hits and they secure the house against it together, they are drawn toward each other even more.
Now, there is a back story for Paul, and he is in Rodanthe for more than just a weekend vacation, but this serves only to slow down the inevitable ending, right?
Wrong! The back story creates the ending, which is completely unexpected and not true to everything that comes before it. It is not so much a cheap ending as it is a “cheat” ending.
The film is manipulative, because it wants to create a specified feeling in the audience, but it goes on much too long and has that cheat ending.
In fact, you could even say that it is too schmaltzy and has an unsatisfactory ending, but all in all, we have to ask ourselves, what is the point of movies and stories like this?
NIGHTS IN RODANTHE left me asking “What’s the point?”
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”