Reviewing Milk and Frost/Nixon

I had been thinking about posting these reviews already, but Darragh has spurred me on with his dislike of Milk, which I find incomprehensible!

I went along to the Gaze premiere of Milk in the IFI a couple of weeks ago.  And I’m not ashamed to say that it was the most wonderful circumstance to see the movie in – surrounded by friends old and new, and utterly safe in the knowledge that there’d be no heckling, unless the movie really sucked.  I also had the advantage (not one enjoyed by Darragh), of knowing a great deal of the story, as Harvey Milk remains somewhat legendary in the history of queer politics.

Sean Penn’s performance was, to my mind, dazzling.  His willingness to play Milk as he was – fey verging on camp, is remarkable in it’s honesty (and less ‘safe’ for a straight audience than Brokeback Mountain or other recent movies have been).  James Franco is also wonderful and the relationship between himself and Penn is movingly witty and plausible, though Josh Brolin as Dan White seems to have become something of a caricature in my recollection. 

My major question mark over the movie was the remarkable lack of women.  Which didn’t massively surprise me in relation to Milk’s core campaign team, but moreso in the shots of various rallies and parades, where gay men and drag queens seemed ten-a-penny, and I found myself scanning the shots to try and locate women. Now, I’m not a San Francisco historian, and perhaps I’ll be corrected on this, but surely there must have been more women supportive of Milk’s campaigns than the number implied by the film? (answers on a postcard or in the comments would be greatly appreciated!).

The other movies I’ve seen recently are Ché – Part 1, and Frost Nixon.  I really enjoyed Ché, but it was too long ago for me to recall much more than the perfection of Benicio Del Toro playing Guevara.  It’s clearly a part he was born to play, and I’m disappointed not to see him nominated for an Oscar.

Frost Nixon, on the other hand, I recall vividly.  Again, I got to see a bit of a preview, as Jonathan from Limelight offered me a ticket, and I was delighted to attend (and delighted to meet properly, and chat to Darragh at the movie!).

Michael Sheen has received enormous plaudits for his role as David Frost, and Frank Langella is exceptionally worthy of all of the attention he is receiving for his spot-on portrayal of Nixon.  And what I found particularly interesting about this movie was the different approaches adopted by the two leading actors.  Sheen’s approach is clearly to try to capture the essence of the man he’s portraying, whereas Langella’s performance more strictly mimics his subject, without ever becoming silly.  For my money, Langella’s performance was the stronger of the two, but perhaps I was just more impressed with the accuracy of the portrayal.

I’m not sure the portrayal of Frost is all that historically accurate, and I also think that Nixon was painted as being far more doddery and forgetful than was actually the case (perhaps a touch of revisionism to soften the criticisms of Nixon contained within the movie?).

Brief reviews perhaps, but time is somewhat limited today, and I just wanted to recommend all three movies mentioned above to anyone fancying a night out involving popcorn instead of beer!