December 31, 2008

"Milk" may be the best movie in all of the following categories:

1. Depiction of the political process. (Other example: "The Candidate.")

2. Blending recreated historical scenes with archival footage of historical events.

3. Recreating the look and feel of the 1970s. (Other example: "Boogie Nights.")

4. Making an implicit and effective argument for a political position.

5. Showing a character's emotions through his reaction to opera. (Other examples: "Moonstruck," "Slumdog Millionaire.")

6. Artistic representation of the moment of death.

7. Artistic representation of assassination.

8. A serious drama that creates surprising empathy for a character who doesn't deserve it and is not the hero of the story. (Josh Brolin was painfully brilliant as Dan White.)

9. Depiction of a formal debate in a political campaign. (The debate with Briggs about Prop 6.)

10. A character tells his story into the microphone of a tape recorder. (Other examples: Philip Baker Hall as Nixon in Robert Altman's "Secret Honor," John Hurt in Atom Egoyan's version of "Krapp's Last Tape.")(Not quite in the category: Ralph Fiennes in "The Reader." It's not in the category because — spoiler — he's reading books, not telling his own story.)

11. Scene reflected in a convex mirror. (The fisheye effect.)

12. Scene shot through a window with reflections on the window.

13. Depicting the importance of whistles. (Here's the competition.)

14. Depiction of political apathy. (The first appearance of Cleve Jones, played by Emile Hirsch, who was Chris McCandless in "Into the Wild.")

15. Use of notes stuck all over the wall to create alarm about a character's mental distress. (Other example: "A Beautiful Mind.")

16. Recitation of (part of) "The Declaration of Independence."

17. Actors looking uncannily like the real-life characters they play.

18. Sean Penn movie.

19. Gus Van Sant movie.

20. Movie released in 2008.

216 comments:

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somefeller said...

The same thing seems to have happened with the formerly respectable Nobel prize, with it being awarded to those who criticize the internationally hated Bush administration - Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, and even Yasser Arafat.

I love it when dullards refer to institutions like the Nobel Prize as being "formerly respectable" because they don't follow the guidelines of conservative political correctness. Here's a news flash, the Nobel Prize is still very respectable among most people, particularly most educated people. The only people who rant about its supposed lack of general respectability are buffoons who would get laughed out of any lecture hall or cocktail party inhabited by serious people.

Oh, and one more thing, Yasser Arafat got his Nobel years before George W. Bush was elected President, so I think it's safe to say his later criticisms of the Bush Administration didn't have anything to do with his nomination. Better luck with the next example, chief. (Though I will agree Arafat probably shouldn't have gotten the award. Perhaps his estate and Henry Kissinger can put together a mutual give-back ceremony for their respective awards.)

And a happy new year to all! Hey, and I think I broke the 201 comment barrier on this one.

Mr. Smarterthanyou said...

""Did anybody profit from "Up Your Alley"?""

Miller beer sponsored it, so someone saw a profit. The fact is, this shows us what homosexuals will do when they can. And having local gov't control means they can, because the folks responsible for enforcing the law choose not to, and even send gay and lesbian cops to "police" the event.

The society that Milk helped create is depraved. I think that is the point. He is nobodies hero, except for the depraved and the liberals so silly as to pretend to admire him because it will earn them PC points.

Mr. Smarterthanyou said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mr. Smarterthanyou said...

"I love it when dullards refer to institutions like the Nobel Prize as being "formerly respectable" because they don't follow the guidelines of conservative political correctness."

Don't rearrange the english language to suit your purpose. Political Correctness is a marxist term first used by Mao and now by the US left.

And if Gore is so smart, and the prize is so valuable, why didn't he get a prize for science???

If by saying that the prize is respected by educated people you mean by Liberal Jews (tm) with Liberal Arts degrees, you are right. For the rest of us though, Carter was a failure and still is an idiot, Arafat was a killer and Al Gore is a lying hypocritical idiot.

somefeller said...

If by saying that the prize is respected by educated people you mean by Liberal Jews (tm) with Liberal Arts degrees, you are right.

Thanks for proving my point.

Chris Althouse Cohen said...

it seems that every "gay" themed movie is worthy of adulation from Hollywood, whether it is actually a good film or not.

Name one gay-themed movie that was overpraised by Hollywood.

The few gay-themed movie I can even think of off the top of my head that were even noticed by Hollywood were extremely high quality (Brokeback Mountain, Milk, Gods and Monsters, Bound, Heavenly Creatures, Monster)*. Seems like people make statements like this without actually seeing the movies they think are examples of this. The bad gay-themed movies wind up being straight-to-video trash no one ever watches. It's kind of like looking at all successful black people and saying, "They only got to where they are because of affirmative action," without considering their merits.


*Hey, notice that in the gay male movies there, the gays are good, and in the lesbian movies, they're criminals.

Methadras said...

Zachary Paul Sire said...

Your nonsense has been falling on deaf ears since you put your hands to a keyboard.

And yet, here you are, singling me out.


Little man, you do it to yourself. Over and over and over again. I merely point out the obvious to those who don't know any better. I'm not the kettle you are looking for Ms. Pot.

Methadras said...

Palladian said...

"I'm still trying to mentally prepare myself to watch the Billy Jack sequel which I've heard is so boring that viewing it requires the stamina of a marathon..."

which, we've learned, is just as disgusting as 70 year old men in leather thongs drinking piss.


Ooooo, kinky.

TitusHappyNewYear said...

I think most gay movies are awful and I can't watch them. Watching the trailers for many of these movies makes me queasy.


But the ones that have received attention lately are very good. Examples are Milk, Monster, Brokeback Mountain, Angels in America-which is dated.

I thought Philadelphia and Long Time Companion were horrid.

I also despise many movies with the best friend gay character. My Best's Friend's Wedding comes to mind but there are many more.

Pedro Almodovar movies is an exception to this rule. I love all of his movies which I don't define as gay movies but have gay characters.

TitusHappyNewYear said...

I don't know why someone would want to drink piss. I am not judging or anything. If that's what they are into I say have a toast for me. Based off pictures of that fair it seemed to be older gay men who enjoyed the piss drinking. Why no young gay piss drinkers?

But drinking piss has no appeal to me. I would not want anyone to drink my piss either. I have standards you know.

Chris Althouse Cohen said...

I haven't seen Philadelphia in a long time, so I don't really know if that's a good movie or not. I have a feeling it's a mediocre courtroom drama that is watchable. But that and Longtime Companion (which I've never seen) came out quite a while ago relative to the length of the gay rights movement. At that time, it was a "breakthrough" for a major gay movie to be made at all, and I don't think those two movies reflect how Hollywood currently responds to gay movies. The gay movies now that get acclaim are usually really ambitious, artistic movies that are not all about how wonderful gay people are. And frankly, there aren't that many gay movies, and only two have been Best Picture contenders (including Milk).

blake said...

Gods and Monsters was an excellent film.

Name one gay-themed movie that was overpraised by Hollywood.

I think Brokeback Mountain would fall into that category. If it were about a man and a woman cheating on their spouses, it would neither be particularly interesting nor award-winning nor "important". The dialogue would be considered laughable.

Chris Althouse Cohen said...

Oh, yeah, Bad Education. That's a great movie.

TitusHappyNewYear said...

The gay movies I was thinking about not liking were quite a few that came out at the beginning of the decade: Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss, Trick, Rules of Attraction, Sugar.

My favorite gay movies are:

L.I.E-although it isn't gay but more pedophile-not to equate the two.
Bad Education-amazing-music is incredible.
Paris Is Burning
Prick Up Your Ears
My Beautiful Laundrette
Paragraph 175
Wedding Banquet
Before Night Falls

Chris Althouse Cohen said...

TitusHappyNewYear said...
The gay movies I was thinking about not liking were quite a few that came out at the beginning of the decade: Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss, Trick, Rules of Attraction, Sugar.


Oh yeah, what big Oscar-winning movies those are. I guess Hollywood really does overpraise gay movies.

Trooper York said...

Jager?

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