Milk

Review: An inspiring, yet tragic film about the gay politician Harvey Milk. The great ensemble cast led by a truly remarkable performance by Sean Penn drives this film. The unique characters brought to life by the talented supporting cast draws you in and makes you feel vested in Milk's cause. Gus Van Sant comes through and breaks free from the monotony that biopics tend to fall into and delivers a fine tribute to an inspiring person.
Rating: 4/5

Award Consideration: Milk is nominated for eight awards and should probably take home at least one. Perhaps in any other year I'd pick Sean Penn for best actor, but this year Mickey Rourke's performance is an insurmountable. I also don't think this is the best film of the year. It's a great film, unquestionably, but not the best. Slumdog Millionaire is still the best of the nominated bunch, and I'm going to stick with it for best picture, with Milk coming in at second.

I do think that the best directing award should go to Gus Van Sant. Sant's work is a little all over the place for me. I loved Good Will Hunting and really disliked the critically acclaimed Paranoid Park. In Milk, Sant reined in a potentially messy movie with a big name cast and made it work. Boyle did a great job with Slumdog, but I'd give a slight edge to Sant for best director.

Josh Brolin is a bit of a mystery to me for best supporting actor, since I don't think he was even the best supporting actor in the movie. He was decent, but not all too memorable.

The screenplay for Milk was fine, but I'd have a hard time giving best original screenplay to a biopic. I'm also a bit confused on why its nominated for best costume design. The costumes seemed pretty mundane and by the books. These two nominations seemed more like acclamation padding than anything.

This leaves best editing and score. It takes a lot for me to actually recognize a deserving winner in either of these categories and Milk really didn't stand out for me in either. However I might go with it for best score if for no other reason than Danny Elfman is amazing in general.