Went to a screening of "Milk" with pals Sean and Pat. Though I didn't cry, I was moved in so many, many ways.
Sean Penn is note perfect as the slain gay rights leader.
Seeing and hearing Anita Bryant go on about "the children" and "family values" as ways to take away rights from gay people made me think sadly, in light of today's Prop 8 issue, how "the more things change, the more they stay the same." The same tired arguments to defend the words "marriage" and "family" in ways that seem/ed scared and defensive.
This film has inadvertantly come out at a great time. I hope people get angry and stand up and out.
So odd seeing a time AND place from my life and past recreated on screen.
Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated on November 27, 1978. I was 16, a junior in high school at St. Ignatius College Prep in San Francisco. I went to school with Chris and Jon Moscone, the mayor's sons. I will never ever forget walking up the stairwell at school to go to what I think was my fourth period class and saying hello to Jon coming down the stairs. It was in that classroom that the principal announced over the tannoy that Mayor Moscone had been killed. (Harvey Milk was never mentioned, I should mention.)
Life was never the same after that year in San Francisco. Jonestown (my dad had Jim Jones's son as a patient - loads of demi connections to all that was going on.) had just happened and now these murders and the aftermath. Another classmate's father was murdered at the Water Dept. at Lake Merced. Another funeral. Another day off school. We passed the scene when my mom drove us to school.
I was able to talk to Josh Brolin after the screening. He played Dan White. I went to grammar school with Dan White's cousins. We had an interesting chat. He met Dan White's son, the one whose baptism we see in the film. It was a moving portrayal of a guy in over his head. Dan White ended his sad life in the car in the garage with a hose pumping in carbon monoxide. Everyone loses.
Sean Penn is note perfect as the slain gay rights leader.
Seeing and hearing Anita Bryant go on about "the children" and "family values" as ways to take away rights from gay people made me think sadly, in light of today's Prop 8 issue, how "the more things change, the more they stay the same." The same tired arguments to defend the words "marriage" and "family" in ways that seem/ed scared and defensive.
This film has inadvertantly come out at a great time. I hope people get angry and stand up and out.
So odd seeing a time AND place from my life and past recreated on screen.
Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated on November 27, 1978. I was 16, a junior in high school at St. Ignatius College Prep in San Francisco. I went to school with Chris and Jon Moscone, the mayor's sons. I will never ever forget walking up the stairwell at school to go to what I think was my fourth period class and saying hello to Jon coming down the stairs. It was in that classroom that the principal announced over the tannoy that Mayor Moscone had been killed. (Harvey Milk was never mentioned, I should mention.)
Life was never the same after that year in San Francisco. Jonestown (my dad had Jim Jones's son as a patient - loads of demi connections to all that was going on.) had just happened and now these murders and the aftermath. Another classmate's father was murdered at the Water Dept. at Lake Merced. Another funeral. Another day off school. We passed the scene when my mom drove us to school.
I was able to talk to Josh Brolin after the screening. He played Dan White. I went to grammar school with Dan White's cousins. We had an interesting chat. He met Dan White's son, the one whose baptism we see in the film. It was a moving portrayal of a guy in over his head. Dan White ended his sad life in the car in the garage with a hose pumping in carbon monoxide. Everyone loses.
Go see "Milk." It will see you at the Oscars. And hopefully see you standing up for Equal Rights.
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