Oct 29, 2008 08:40 PM
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Hollywood, 12:44 PM
Tue Feb 9
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For a movie that the religious right hasn't even gotten around to touching yet, Milk certainly has caused its fair share of controversy this week. First, a questionable THR column on the movie's marketing earned the ire of Focus Features, and now that the film had its first public screenings last night, the reactions range from rapturous to...fight-inducing? Let's take a look!
The initial salvo came from David Poland, who said, "For the first time in my memory, we have a major Oscar movie that actually is a gay agenda movie. But on the making, it is so much more. It is a brilliant, powerfully humane piece of work that reaches well beyond the issue of gay rights or any idea that this is a gay-only film."
Jeffrey Wells chimed in with an "8.5" score and this statement, "I felt a genuine gayness from Sean Penn, who plays the title role of the late San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk, that I didn't think he had in him." Yes, acting — isn't it marvelous?
Then, the wheels came off the Typepad bus, as dissenter Kris Tapley of In Contention spent less time going over the film's flaws and more time picking fights with every other Oscar blog, but most especially Milk partisan Scott Feinberg. Tapley posted a delightfully catty, personal attack on Feinberg ("We as bloggers have to be careful to understand the context of our work...That is a lesson I truly hope Feinberg learns sooner rather than later, for his sake and, certainly, for the sake of the LA Times, who rather hastily threw him an editorial voice after behind-the-scenes plans for the upstart fell through") that prompted a lengthy rebuttal from Feinberg and a "fight, fight" taunt across the blogosphere.
Truly, it is a continuation of Harvey Milk's legacy that he could inspire so many self-publishing Oscar pundits to set aside their petty grievances with a film and turn those attacks on each other. You gotta give 'em hope, kids — and you have! Kudos!
[Photo Credit: Getty Images]
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