Delayed Reaction: Milk

The Pitch: How can Sean Penn win another Oscar? How about a gay politician with a distinct way of talking who was assassinated?

This jumped my queue a little after I saw Dustin Lance Black's wonderful When We Rise mini-series. After watching something as expansive as that mini-series, Milk was more concentrated and suffered from the comparison. It was fun to fill in some of the blanks. And, it led me to reading about the "Twinkie defense".

I wasn't very impressed with Sean Penn in this. Now, I'm not a big Sean Penn fan, more as a person, from what I know about him. I can get over that if the role is good enough. He's excellent in Mystic River, for example. He does a serviceable Harvey Milk impression. Was I supposed to get something more from it than that? I always got the impression that this was supposed to be a "special" performance, so I feel like I'm missing something. The rest of the cast is fine.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend