Pete Travers gives the film four stars, writing:
Milk is Van Sant’s best film, which is saying a lot, since his generous intelligence and unforced grace shine through whether he’s sailing the mainstream (Good Will Hunting, To Die For) or riding riskier indie currents (Drugstore Cowboy, My Own Private Idaho, Elephant). Van Sant means for his film to strike a personal chord, whether Harvey is talking a closeted teen out of suicide or talking himself into keeping up the fight when his own love life is crumbling. Harvey’s words — “You gotta give ‘em hope” — are carved into a bust of the populist hero that went up in May in a rotunda of San Francisco’s City Hall. The movie is a more fitting memorial. It brings Harvey to life for a new generation instead of setting him in stone. Penn makes Harvey so vivid and spoiling to be heard that you want to introduce him to people. John McCain, meet a real maverick.
The NY Times AO Scott writes:
“Milk” is a fascinating, multi-layered history lesson. In its scale and visual variety it feels almost like a calmed-down Oliver Stone movie, stripped of hyperbole and Oedipal melodrama. But it is also a film that like Mr. Van Sant’s other recent work — and also, curiously, like David Fincher’s “Zodiac,” another San Francisco-based tale of the 1970s — respects the limits of psychological and sociological explanation.
Dan White, Milk’s erstwhile colleague and eventual assassin, haunts the edges of the movie, representing both the banality and the enigma of evil. Mr. Brolin makes him seem at once pitiable and scary without making him look like a monster or a clown. Motives for White’s crime are suggested in the film, but too neat an accounting of them would distort the awful truth of the story and undermine the power of the movie.
That power lies in its uncanny balancing of nuance and scale, its ability to be about nearly everything — love, death, politics, sex, modernity — without losing sight of the intimate particulars of its story. Harvey Milk was an intriguing, inspiring figure. “Milk” is a marvel.
Roger Ebert gives the film four stars and says this of Penn:
Sean Penn amazes me. Not long before seeing “Milk,” I viewed his work in “Dead Man Walking” again. Few characters could be more different, few characters could seem more real. He creates a character with infinite attention to detail, and from the heart out. Here he creates a character who may seem like an odd bird to mainstream America and makes him completely identifiable. Other than the occasional employment of Harvey Milk’s genitals, what makes this character different? Some people may argue there is a gay soul but I believe we all share the same souls.
The list of raves goes on and on. More on Metacritic
No Response for "Milk Hits, Earns Raves Across the Board"
I’m not surprised — who could be? — to see superlative reviews for this film. Seems like destiny to me.
bp lock yet?
This is always a little like Christmas – eagerly anticipating something great- then getting it.
Step One for “Milk”s ascent to Oscar acclaim, an unrelenting gush of critical awe, has brightly come to pass. Up next will be Step Two: a parallel heft in popular, monetary, adoration. Here’s hoping moviegoers at large revisit and embrace the maxim: “Milk: It does a body good.”
i think it will get BP nod….
It got very good review from EW’s Owen Gleiberman as well.
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20242612,00.html
By the way EW trashed Australia. And it is not the only one. I think Australia is losing its BP nod
I’d call this a lock for a BP nod. I’m looking forward to seeing this tomorrow.
I can’t wait to see this. It looks like a Best Picture film.
All those reviews you’ve included Sasha are soooo beautiful and the best writing, most moving writing that I’ve ever read of Scott and Travers.
And they are not exaggerating. Sean Penn just won his second Oscar.
And yes, I’d say it’s a lock for BP.
And James Brolin is getting very, very good reviews, too. I think he’ll be nominated as well as the screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, the director Gus Van Sant and his great cinematograhper. James Franco, might even get in, too….
And as I said, they are not exaggerating.It’s a classic.FINALLY! We get one this year.
Yep…….It’s a Best Picture nomination lock.
Stephen….Do you think it’s a lock for the win or nomination?
This has been a good year for franco. That weeds movie and now this, good for him. It’s good to see Diego Luna in a critically acclaimed movie. Been a fan of him and Gael Garcia Bernal ever since Y tu mama tambien.
Stephen do you think Sean can hold off Clint for the win?
It will most likely be the best reviewed bp nominee this year. Best reviewed movies rarely win the big prize. Then again Slumdog Millionare also has opened to great reviews as well. I would love to see Milk or Slumdog win bp.
I think it’s a lock for a nomination for Best Picture. Focus has to climb “Brokeback Mountain” to win it. Maybe three years later and the late Heath Ledger probably a lock for the win for Supporting Actor, miracles could happen in homophobic, closeted Hollywood…
I think Sean Penn’s reviews back up what I’ve been saying since I saw it. And Clint was never considered a great actor…
The nomination for Clint for acting is sort of a combo consolation prize and retirement gift. But nothing can stop Sean’s momentum. I think he’ll win.
The picture might not. But it should. But after predicting “Brokeback” like crazy, and it sure LOOKED like a winner. It won everything else EXCEPT the Oscar that year….Oh, and the SAG ensemble…which went to “Crash.” I sure HOPE it would win Best Picture.
Roger Ebert, Peter Travers and A.O.Scott are all straight men as far as I know, and the reviews, were, what’s the word “eligiac.”
But then I myself have been a gay activist all my life, and I never thought I would live to see the day when such a beautiful, profound, important mainstream movie would be made about activism.
So yes, Sean is a no-brainer for the Best Actor win. Everything else is *fingers crossed* and Focus has to REALLY pull all the stops out…
But James Schamus and crew have been through the mill with a gay positive, ground-breaking film before. “Brokeback” which really DID change a lot a lot of things.
But as Anne Hathaway said on “Oprah” when she had her, Jake, Heath and Michelle on for “BM”, “What does one award mean, when we’ve gotten all these others and all these wonderful things have happened because of this film?” or words to that effect….
Sean’s on the cover of Variety right now with the entire paragraph of Travers’ that Sasha quoted.
I stood there in the drug store looking up at it…I could barely believe my eyes…It was a beautiful moment…
Great news and no less than I expected.
Defying precedent Milk’s (homo)sexiness will be its compeptive edge with the Academy this year.
I think Penn will win best actor. It is going to be pretty hard not to give it to him. I see his biggest competition being Frank Langella. I really can’t see the acedemy giving it to Mickey Rourke and Eastwoods new movie doesn’t look good.
Unfortunely in my country, “Milk” opens only in February (as “Milk – The Voice of “). I read the script, saw the documentary a few years ago, and very curious to see the movie, and maybe if any of those four previous undergorund works of the director, somehow ressonates (a special mood with the camera in a particular scene, etc) in “Milk” .
To me, Van San’ts masterpiece is still “My Own Private Idaho”, with unforgetable perfomances by River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves – Reeve’s best still today. Last October 31th, 15 years from River Phoenix dead (same day as Fellini) are completed. IMO, Phoenix demonstrated such greatness* that is not a delirous to imagine him, 2008, as one of the Hollywood’s finest, an actor in the same level let’s say….as Sean Penn.
* (in “Stand By Me”, “Little Nikita”, “Dogfight”, “Idaho”, “Silent Togue” being just a charming man in “Sneakers”, but specially in “Runnig On Empty”, a underrated gem by Sidney Lumet with a incredible script by Jake and Maggie Gylenhaal mom, Naomi Forner; can’t believe how she doesn’t write more often)
Forgot. “Milk – The Voice of Equality”
My God, I’m creating words. Sorry. “Resounds” not “ressonates”, of course.
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