Gus Van Sant Milk Movie

There was only one part of the Oscars everyone took seriously: Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black's truly remarkable acceptance speech for Best Original Screenplay.

Milk understood the power of grassroots organizing, the power of the media and the power of his own charisma to raise awareness, shape public opinion and create action.

Milk manages to balance the needs of two very different films in its running time. It is, first of all, a superb biopic, as well as a meditation on the responsibility activists have to the people.

There she was, on the screen, in Milk. Anita Bryant, speaking out about "the homosexual agenda." Back in 1977, she was hugely controversial.

The movie is based on a certain, now almost eerie, fluidness of time, while at the same time being about a distinctly specific time -- merging lines between now and then or here and there.

Last night was the world premiere of Milk at the Castro Theatre! For those who don't know, that's the new Gus Van Sant film about Harvey Milk, starring Sean Penn in the title role.