The New York Post ran a blind item last week detailing an actor on the brink: "Which actor is on hiatus due to a drug relapse? He claimed he needed time off because of the heartbreak of his public split, but he's actually headed to rehab."

A blog called Spielster put two and two together before Variety's announcement, as rumors had been floating around for a few days that the actor's involvement in Cartel and the gloomy-sounding Three Stooges was tenuous at best.

If he his having problems with his wife (and, really, when isn't he?) or doing too many drugs, now is a perfect time to lay low for a while. He's so awash in the Milky glow of the industry's respect that he really doesn't need to do anything right away to capitalize on a moment. No, people will wait around for him, as they have since Fast Times. Plus, the Three Stooges thing will likely be a disaster, so walking away could prove a wise decision.

Image via Getty

The Farrellys have been trying to get this thing off the ground for about ten years, hopping between Warner Bros. and Columbia before finally landing on MGM. Penn and Del Toro were always part of the dream cast, but Carrey is a late edition. Funny that the one confirmed comedian is the last, and most surprising, addition to the crew.

Variety remembers that Del Toro displayed 'comic chops' in that movie Snatch, but Guy Ritchie gangster zingers aren't exactly the same thing as heavily-orchestrated socko ballets of physical comedy. Nor are witty, homo-positive Oscar acceptance speeches. Let's hope their rehearsal process is long and fruitful.

Well, specifically the movie was Crossing Over, that Wayne Kramer-directed muddle of a Traffic wannabe about immigration, for which the greasy Comrade Penn shot a few scenes as an 'enforcement agent.' The Post claims that Penn had his bits cut from the film because he objected to a scene that depicted an honor killing—an Iranian woman is killed by her brother because of some social faux pas. The claim, I guess, is that he didn't want Iranians shown in an unpleasant light?

What this has to do with the ayatollahs isn't entirely unclear, other than that Penn went to Iran in 2005 and did some 'reporting' for the San Francisco Chronicle, a known butt-pirate paper that Sean now hates. So, because Penn had the appalling audacity to try to use his position of prominence to explore a complicated issue, he's obviously an ayatollah-pirate Iranian spy.

For his part, Penn's people say that it was an artistic decision to cut him from the terrible movie, because his parts had a "mystical" quality that didn't really jibe with the rest of the picture's docu-feel. OK. So it was magic that kept him away. Muslim magic???

The delightful Post then goes on to accuse Sean of cheating on his wife with Natalie Portman.

Meanwhile, eyebrows were raised the other night when Penn dined with gorgeous (and single) Natalie Portman, "Milk" writer Dustin Lance Black, and two others at Tower Bar at the Sunset Tower Hotel in LA.

"Sean and Natalie were talking quietly," our spy says. Penn is usually circumspect regarding his behavior around hot young actresses, as he's married to long-suffering Robin Wright Penn.

Bless 'em.

Also: Don't you just love Andrea Peyser?

Begrizzled homo-loving son of a gun Sean Penn will be starring in a film about drugs. It's a Brian Grazer-produced film called Cartel and is a sorta revengey, child protect-y kinda movie. [Variety] David Ayer, who's previously dazzled us with such fare like the baroque LA crime flick Harsh Times and the broke-ass LA crime Keanu Reeves movie Street Kings, has received a seven figure deal from Regency to write and direct a film called Last Man, about American soldiers in space dukin' it out with frakking aliens. [Variety]

Fox has picked up the screen rights to the book Mr. Popper's Penguins. They plan to turn the 1938 publication into a thriller about what happens when the air conditioning is on too high at the Abbey. [Variety]

Begrizzled immigrant-loving wielder of a gun Melissa Leo, of Frozen River Oscar nodding, has signed on to a new HBO pilot. She'll be playing a lawyer in Treme, David Simon's New Orleans-set followup to The Wire. [Variety] Meanwhile at a project of completely equal prestige, former Ugly Betty transsexual Rebecca Romijn has signed on to play the lead in the Witches of Eastwick pilot for ABC. [Variety]

Michael J. Fox is returning to television, in a reality show called Michael J. Fox: Adventures of an Incurable Optimist, in which he travels the world spreading good cheer. You just shut yer damn trap right now, Limbaugh. [Variety] Meanwhile a TV star of today makes Bambi steps toward movie stardom. Leighton Meester of Gossip Girl will star in the totally-mid-90's-ish thriller The Roommate, about a college student whose roommate becomes obsessed with her, Single White Female style. In that movie, Jennifer Jason Leigh was Bridget Fonda's, um, roommate. [THR]

Oh awesome. The wonderful Missy Pyle, Chris Parnell, and Deanne Dunagan are set to star in a CBS comedy pilot. Parnell and Pyle have been doing funny work in TV and film for years now, but Chicago actress Dunagan is probably best known for her ferocious, every-award-possible-winning turn in the play August: Osage County. She'll play a Southern mother making things difficult for an East Coast-transplant couple. [THR]

Slumdog Millionaire dominated as expected, an international sweep in a night studded with British, Indian and Australian wins. Not that there was much danger of nationalist unity within Hollywood; host Hugh Jackman managed to work some surprisingly vicious showbiz digs into the show, including lines from Steve Martin and Tina Fey not-so-subtly mocking Scientology and Ben Stiller's unsparing imitation of Joaquin Phoenix.

There were some misfires, like the lengthy nominee tributes involving top stars giving overlong, wedding-toast-style speeches for each contender in top categories like Best Actor and Actress. But there were also more memorable moments than any viewer had a right to expect. The best:

10. Franco and Rogen turn the Reader into stoner comedy

"Their giggling and guffawing at The Reader is somehow more damning (and more exposing of the film's overweening pomposity) than a thousand bad reviews." —Guardian. (OK, sure, but Kate Winslet's little gold man begs to disagree about the Reader.)

9. Angelina Jolie grins big at Jennifer Aniston

You just had to cut to Jolie during Aniston's animation award presentation, didn't you, ABC? OK, so we secretly enjoyed the shot of the Brad Pitt-stealer's wide grin, but that's not the point.

8. Philippe Petit's statuette-balancing magic trick

The star of Best Documentary Man on the Wire was making a naked bid to become the stuntman for all future Academy Award ceremonies. We're all for it, as long as the Frenchman returns each year with his charming white scarf.

7. Host Hugh Jackman: "The Musical Is Back"

Is it? Because some of us felt like we were stuck on the lido deck of a cruise. Including Penelope Cruz, judging by her arched eyebrows at the close of the biggest number.

6. Ben Stiller as Joaquin Phoenix

Oscar presenters don't normally go after their own. Stiller did. His deadpan, unmistakable imitation of Phoenix's notorious performance on David Letternan is as good a sign as any that Phoenix, who has declared himself retired from acting, is now being as much pushed out of the Hollywood community as leaving it.

5. Tina Fey and Steve Martin's Scientology dig

Or maybe they were talking about some other "made up" religion involving an alien king scattering seeds across the Earth to "fuel our positive transfers." But you don't have to be a Clear to know that's unlikely. (Though this is the best bit, Fey and Martin's overall routine was excellent. As was their rapport.)

4. Heath Ledger's family accepts his award

The late Dark Knight actor received a touching tribute from his father, mother and eager sister. But what happened to the mother of his child, Michelle Williams? She wasn't even mentioned.

3. Kate Winslet's whistle

The Englishwoman's Best Actress win was widely expected; her sweet call-and-response with her father was not.

2. Dustin Lance Black on gay rights: "God does love you."

The Mormon-raised Milk screenwriter once found inspiration and emotional sustenance in California. With his heartfelt message to "gay and lesbian kids," Black returned the favor.

1. Sean Penn: "You Commie, homo-loving sons of guns."

Accepting for Best Actor, Penn killed. The tightly-wound actor was charmingly self-deprecating. And his cutting comments on California's gay marriage ban, which came near the end of the Oscar telecast, provided the perfect bookend for Black's statements, near the start.

Life & Style is running with a rumor that Penn is circling Larry while Johnny Depp is eyed for Moe—and while we wouldn't normally put much credence in L&S's crack Hollywood investigatory team, initially skeptical site Filmdrunk received this tip today:

I've got a source who says Billy West (famous voice actor from Futurama and Ren & Stimpy, among other things) is meeting with Sean Penn today and tomorrow to help him prep his Larry impression - so that part of the rumor is at least partially true.

West based his Stimpy voice on the Stooges' Larry and used to impersonate him on Howard Stern's show, so he's certainly a plausible coach for Penn to hire. But Larry? Really? Like, we're aware that it was Curly, not Larry, who squawked, "Nyuk-Nyuk," but we couldn't even conceive of a good Larry quote to make this post's headline.

Still, maybe it was this Peter Farrelly quote (from a 2004 New Yorker article) that wooed Penn: "Growing up, first you watched Curly, then Moe, and then your eyes got to Larry. He's the reactor, the most vulnerable. Five to fourteen, Curly; fourteen to twenty-one, Moe. Anyone out of college, if you're not looking at Larry, you don't have a good brain." All right, Peter—if you say so. Get Mickey Rourke to open up an old rivalry as Curly, and we'll take your word for it.

• WELL THIS SEEMS UNLIKELY [Filmdrunk]

Making peace with Sean Penn:

MICKEY Rourke and Sean Penn seem to have smoked a peace pipe. Penn was said to be furious after Rourke - in line for an Oscar for his turn in "The Wrestler" - called Penn a "homophobe" and an "average" actor following Penn's performance in "Milk." But the two were at the Sunset Tower hotel pool Monday afternoon having drinks together. A spy said, "Mickey had his little Chihuahua with him for moral support - he looked a little nervous around Sean. Everyone knows Sean can hold a grudge. It was weird, though - some guy they both knew came over with a video camera and started recording them."

Defamer has obtained the footage. What follows is a transcript of the last minutes of the exchange:
Sean: So what's the dog's name?
Mickey: Jaws. I call him Jaws because when I rescued him, I went to give him a kiss and he gave me two stitches in the face. But I took him anyway. You gotta give 'em hope.
Sean: I see what you did there...He was a broken down peace of carne asada.
[They laugh. Long pause]
Mickey: Yeah, so, that stuff...about you being a homophone.
Sean: A homophobe.
Mickey: Yeah. That was just trash talk, you know. Keep the fight interestin'. I was just thinking about that all-night poker game at Pat Hingle's house. When you called Timothy Hutton a flouncy ballsucker.
Sean: I said that?
Mickey: I'm pretty sure you did. I was pretty coked up at the time.
[Jaws starts whimpering.]
Mickey: And the stuff about you being a mediocre actor. I didn't really mean that. Except I Am Sam. That was just embarrassing to watch. I mean, c'mon, have you actually sat down and wa—
[Jaws urinates in Mickey's lap.]
Mickey: JAWS! Not again, Jaws. Jesus Christ. Sean, could you be a pal and put some ice cubes in a napkin and pass it over here?
[Sean makes a check-signing gesture at a passing server.]

[Photo: AP]

• NO HARD FEELINGS [NY Post]

1. Is this Kate Winslet's year, like, for real this time? To the extent we all love to hate the Globes and downplay their implications in the awards-season sweepstakes, the Best Actress winners are reliable-enough indicators of the competition in that Oscar category. Without a Helen Mirren or Reese Witherspoon tear-assing ahead of the pack, we get home-stretch sprints like last year's Julie Christie/Marion Cotillard race — revived this year as Winslet vs. Happy-Go-Lucky's Sally Hawkins. The latter actress has a Globe, Miramax and virtually the entire critical establishment at her back; Winslet has her own Globe, Scott Rudin, and gales of sentimental support at hers — not an unfavorable scenario, except she's only 33, and her movie is deplorable. Despite seven previous losses, the Academy doesn't owe her anything, and it will require a little more convincing than last night's showing to honor Winslet before it's ready. For now, it's still Hawkins's Oscar to lose.

2. Was Sunday night the beginning of the end for Sean Penn? Some observers have noted the HFPA's general distaste for Penn, a 2003 no-show when he won for Mystic River and an absentee loser last night to Mickey Rourke. But narcolepsy-inducing Globes politics aside, it's worth returning to the pre-Milk days, when Rourke was literally everywhere that mattered — Venice, Toronto, New York — stockpiling buzz, and Focus Features, for whatever reason, trickled Penn out with unusual deliberation. Milk's showing at last week's Critics Choice Awards implied Rourke may have peaked too soon, but Rourke's Globe allowed him a riveting onstage moment that the Academy will likely want to one-up.

3. Moreover, will Rourke dress any better to collect his Best Actor statuette next month? We're just saying, if only because that ridiculous wallet chain won't make it through the metal detector.

4. Does Paramount have any 11th-hour tricks up its sleeve for Benjamin Button? Slumdog Millionaire's Globes sweep doesn't portend Oscar supremacy, especially not in the continuing sting of 2007's indie-friendly awardscast backlash. Danny Boyle is all but assured Best Director, but Paramount has a suitcase full of campaign cash holding the Best Picture window open. But how much? Button slipped at the box office this week, but it's still a probable $120 million-grosser by Oscars night, and alongside The Dark Knight, it's the Academy's only hope of studio bone-throwing in a year when someone, anyone is needed to counteract the minimajors. Let the fourth-quarter comeback begin.

5. Wasn't it great to see Harvey Weinstein smile? A Best Picture for Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Winslet's supporting prize for The Reader took us back to the good old pre-suicide-threat/million-dollar-bet-losing days. He'll be at the Oscars with at least Winslet and Penelope Cruz and maybe a couple screenplay nods for their respective films. Baby steps, Harvey, baby steps. 2009 is all yours — we can feel it.

Brolin was at the Palm Springs Film Festival last night, where he attended yet another fete honoring Sean Penn's performance in Milk. Sadly not invited to encore the tipsy range of fraternal sensitivity — with Penn on the "amazing" end and Crowe on the "asshole" extreme — reporters instead cornered Brolin offstage for a clarification:

Realizing he shouldn't have joked like that about a respected actor, Brolin later blamed it on the booze. He admitted to the film critics audience that he'd been drinking earlier that night. [...] Brolin was on his best behavior last night. When asked about the Crowe comment, Brolin told reporters, "It was the ambiance of the room. I love him. I think he’s amazing. He’s a friend. I was bummed out when I saw that today."

Maybe it was ambiance, maybe it was six or seven glasses of ambiance, we'll never know. But to the uncanny extent Brolin could channel that ambiance for his aggrieved character in Milk ("I'm Dan White! I have issues! *burp*"), we'll take his word for it. This man is a professional.

• Josh Brolin Regrets Russell Crowe Comments [Hollyscoop]

Penn and Brolin presented each other's prizes for Best Actor and Supporting Actor for Milk, with one attendee noting that the latter star "perhaps unnecessarily mentioned he'd been drinking." We're not sure if that admission came before or after his broadside against NYT theater critic Ben Brantley ("Honestly, I hate that motherfucker. ... And I don't think he's a good writer"), but its awareness nicely underscored his Penn introduction that followed:

"Quite an actor, Sean Penn, quite an actor. [Pause] Amazing. [Pause] And now I'm an asshole. Like Russell Crowe. Because I'm not as smart as Sean. [Pause] Quite an actor. [Pause] Amazing actor. I've loved you in Milk, I thought what you did with that role was incredible. We've known you as an actor who doesn't smile very much. And the fact that you smiled as much as you did in this film is amazing. Truly incredible. You are an amazing actor. You are going to get the Oscar. Because you smiled so much."

As expected, Penn's own ball-busting praise for Brolin — "I always wrote him off as a handsome square-jawed actor...There's no one who's as big a nightmare as him. ... No one has much endurance at night and as little during the day" — had the venue security guards' hands on their tasers. But! Crisis averted, at least until Sunday's open-bar Golden Globe Awards. We're pulling for you, Josh!

• At New York Film Critics Circle, Brolin being Brolin [Risky Biz Blog]

Ari Folman's autobiographical exploration of his role in Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon — literally painted from repressed memories corroborated by his Army mates — had settled into about a thousand Top 10 lists since its release on Christmas, but had managed only also-ran awards status since failing to win the top prize in May at Cannes. Its Oscar chances were equally endangered, facing WALL-E in the Animated Feature category and French sensation The Class in the Foreign-Language running. (It wasn't released in time to qualify for Best Documentary.)

But with Israel now embarking on another bloody military foray and WALL-E safely recognized in second place, the NSFC went topical in Bashir's favor. The rest of the list offered yet another boost to Happy-Go-Lucky, which tied WALL-E as Best Picture runner-up and claimed four prizes for Best Actress (Sally Hawkins), Best Supporting Actor (Eddie Marsan) and Best Director and Screenplay for Mike Leigh. All will go to the Oscars, where Hollywood will commence vanquishing them in favor of Kate Winslet or Heath Ledger or Christopher Nolan and/or whomever else the Academy is more comfortable putting in front of a worldwide viewing audience. The run was fun while it lasted.

Elsewhere, Sean Penn claimed Best Actor, and German actress Hanna Schygulla came out of nowhere to score Supporting Actress for the Turkish film The Edge of Heaven. Best Documentary went to Man on Wire, which is having its own Oscar engraved as we speak. Congrats to all, and may other international current events conspire less violently to prod Academy voters to their recognition in February.

• National Society of Film Critics Awards 2008 [DaveKehr.com]

The Daily Beast reports that Rourke has been talking down Penn's Milk performance all month—a crusade that has culminated in an accusatory text written wholly in Courtney Love-ian hierogylphics.

After his December 23 appearance on David Letterman, Rourke told someone backstage that he was surprised that so many people seemed to think that Penn was his Oscar competition since “I’m not even sure he’ll get a nomination.”

On December 28, a Los Angeles entertainment honcho shared a text message that Rourke had sent him: “Look seans an old friend of mine and i didnt buy his performance at all—thought he did an average pretend acting like he was gay besides hes one of the most homophobic people i kno" [sic]

“It’s a shame,” says one veteran Hollywood lawyer. “Mickey should be looking at this as a once in a career chance for a fresh start. But dumping on Penn is not going to win him any friends. It’s not the way to get Oscar votes.”

Perhaps, but it does dovetail nicely with the recent criticism Penn faced for palling around with anti-gay world leaders. Can Rourke withstand the accusations to open a new front against Penn, or will the combined might of aggrieved Daily Beast readers and a terribly miffed Raul Castro thwart his attempted Ram Jam?

[Photo Credit: AP]

• Rourke Trashes Penn [The Daily Beast]

Conservative writer James Kirchick started the fire in The Advocate, where he excerpted a Nation article Penn wrote and took him to task for being buddy-buddy with Hugo Chávez and Raul Castro:

Chávez and Castro are guilty of flagrant human-rights abuses, Kirchick writes: "Gay rights are human rights, as Milk said, and Penn discredits both when he rationalizes illiberal ideologies as 'anti-imperialist' and rushes to the defense of thugs who posture as victims of the West." [...]

Kirchick's story includes a quote from Human Rights Foundation President Thor Halvorssen, who says: "That Sean Penn would be honored by anyone, let alone the gay community, for having stood by a dictator who put gays into concentration camps is mind-boggling."

Penn's publicist Mara Buxbaum freaked out to Page Six, and Milk subject Cleve Jones added a rebuttal in The Advocate that more fully excerpted Penn's original article, where he includes an anecdote about his 14-year-old daughter complaining about homophobia in a face-to-face meeting with Fidel Castro:

At just the appropriate moment, still without a word from her, he asked what it is that's bothering her. She answered, "Why do you not offer the same human rights to homosexuals in Cuba as to heterosexuals? Why have you persecuted them?" She was ready for a fight. But no fight was forthcoming. Not even a hint of defensiveness. Castro seemed nothing but impressed with the question, patiently explaining that while homophobia had not been invented in Cuba, it had deep cultural roots, and that he and the revolution had made many mistakes as a result. But that there is an evolution involved in the process of change. And while they still made mistakes, there had been tremendous growth. (In 1979, Cuba abolished anti-sodomy laws. Today in Cuba, affirmation of same sex unions is scheduled for 2009, surpassing the pace of U.S. social reforms, and sexual re-assignment surgeries come compliments of the public health service) My daughter was disarmed and it was my turn.

While all this was going on abroad, Robin Wright Penn drove an SUV over to a friend's house to watch The O'Reilly Factor, for kicks.

• PENN'S TWO-FACED WITH GAYS [Page Six]

4. Go 180 degrees in the opposite direction. That years-old tradition continued today (with slight variation) when the NYFCC anointed Milk as its Best Picture for 2008.

LAFCA's own favorite, WALL-E, did make an appearance among today's awards, earning Best Animated Film, and the groups' choices for Best Actress (Sally Hawkins), Best Actor (Sean Penn) and Best Supporting Actress (Penelope Cruz) overlapped as well. From there, however, all the Dark Knight and Slumdog Millionaire love dissipated into sloppy kisses for Josh Brolin, Mike Leigh and Rachel Getting Married, among others. And yes, for the record: Revolutionary Road still has yet to win anything after more than a week of awards season.

The full list of winners:

Best Picture: Milk

Best Director: Mike Leigh, Happy-Go-Lucky

Best Actor: Sean Penn, Milk

Best Actress: Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky

Best Supporting Actor: Josh Brolin, Milk

Best Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Best Screenplay: Jenny Lumet, Rachel Getting Married

Best Foreign Film: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days

Best Documentary: Man on Wire

Best Animated Film: Wall-E

Best Cinematography: Anthony Dod Mantle, Slumdog Millionaire

Best First Film: Courtney Hunt, Frozen River

WHAT'S NEW: Speaking of recipes, Four Christmases sure has a fresh one! Mix Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn. Add two cups of diced ensemble players including Robrt Duvall, Jon Favreau, Kristin Chenoweth and Sissy Spacek. Flavor with ball-kicking, pratfall and baby-vomit jokes. Bake for two hours. Serve lukewarm. It's good for about $40 million over five days. Transporter 2 is a little simpler hors d'oeurve for the guys out there, with Jason Statham liberally seasoned with bullets, quick cuts and decibels, turning out $18 million before the main course on DVD.

But if you're allergic to the multiplex, you may be best best suited to skip ahead to this week's new home video releases; the art-house kitchen appears to be closed to deliveries for the holiday weekend.

THE BIG LOSER: Australia is almost three hours' worth of the expansive (and expensive, at $130 million) hisorical epic no one makes anymore. And despite Oprah Winfrey's lavish endorsement, there's a reason for that: It's one in a generation that actually finds any traction in the two female quadrants whose repeat viewings push it toward box-office longevity and, almost necessarily, Oscar luster. Fox needs half a Titanic here (thus its Hugh Jackman heartthrob push at non-starter Nicole Kidman's expense) to make this work, and for the sake of the studio and director Baz Luhrmann and all involved, we hope they get it. But the middling, $26 million reality — especially on Twilight's likely second week at No. 1 — is what it is.

THE UNDERDOG: Instant-message quibbles aside, Milk is far and away the best thing opening this weekend; expect sell-outs and a per-screen average of at least $39,000 in 17 markets. (It opens wide Dec. 12.)

FOR SHUT-INS: This week's new DVD's include Will Smith's brooding hero Hancock, the summer champs Meet Dave and Space Chimps, more Vaughn holiday frolic in Fred Claus, the TV knockoffs A Colbert Christmas and 24: Redemption, and just in time for the holidays/white-elephant gift exchange, Beverly Hills 90210: The Complete Sixth Season.

So will your Turkey Day food coma overlap into moviegoing? Is it more of a football-and-shopping weekend, or will the budgie-smuggling pull of Australia be just too challenging to withstand? In any event, have a fantastic holiday, and should you brave Space Chimps, please let us know what we're missing.

KB: So, Stu, you and I have both seen one of the year's most anticipated movies, Milk. I'm curious about our reactions, because we both came to from a different place. I saw it before the election, and you saw it after. Also, I'm a gay man, and you're not (aside from that one time at summer camp).
STV: True, true.
KB: So what did you think of it?
STV: I liked it! Well-made prestige Oscar bait.
KB: On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate its Van Santyness? Or perhaps, on a scale of Finding Forrester to Gerry?
STV: 1 being Finding Forrester, Milk is right around a 3.
KB: It's pretty straightforward, except for the occasional fun pop touch. I liked the film too, although I felt it ends better than it begins. The beginning is verrry biopic-y, every introduction is portentous and expositional.
STV: It's a problem throughout, though.
KB: People say things like, "Let me tell you something, CLEVE JONES..." I am pretty sure I never use people's last names when talking to them. Though maybe I would if I knew they'd be famous one day!
STV: Try it with me some time, let's see what happens.
KB: Do you think we'll see a single review of this film that won't mention Milk's parallel to Obama, or Prop 8?
STV: This one won't be it, I guess. I hope so, though.
KB: The Prop 8 stuff is pretty hard to ignore, considering Milk is trying to overturn the anti-gay Prop 6 in the movie. He even makes some remarks, like that the anti-Prop 6 ad campaign was "closeted," that I heard about the "No on 8" campaign.
STV: So we need 100 critics saying it's relevant?
KB: Well, this is a case where I think its relevance will help. Unlike Obama's election lifting The Dark Knight, lazy Academy voters may look at Milk and say, "I will check this box off for activism!" I can see the cocktail party chatter: "Isn't that Prop 8 terrible?" "It sure is. I voted for Sean Penn, by the way."
STV: That doesn't make it a better film, though, is what I'm saying. Which critics will confuse it with.
KB: Sean Penn is great, but what did we think of everyone else?
STV: Waitaminute. Sean Penn is the movie.
KB: I love that the Variety review basically boiled down to, "Sean Penn deserves credit for appearing likable on screen!"
STV: It's a role where so, so much could go wrong, and he hurdles over all of it. The period trappings, the physicality, the presence, the godawful hair...
KB: It's hard to imagine how Robin Williams or Steve Carell could have done it better. What did you think of Josh Brolin? That role could have been even trickier.
STV: I think he's great, but the part of Dan White is underwritten. The guy has no real inner life.
KB: I think all the supporting roles have a lot less to them than you would think going in. Emile Hirsch didn't have much to do besides a dorky dance in group party scenes.
STV: James Franco's character is bizarre. Now you see him, now you don't.
KB: Also, where were these stunt cocks Franco had promised us while doing talk shows? I felt gypped.
STV: Saving it for the DVD, I guess. Is Diego Luna annoying?
KB: Yes, but intentionally? My friend couldn't stand him. I thought that was kind of the point, he's like that guy your friend dates who you can't stand.
STV: It was like with Brolin's character, where he didn't earn the attention our hero devoted to him.
KB: I appreciate all the internecine politics we saw with Dan White and Milk, though. That was, I think, its most notable expansion over The Times of Harvey Milk.
STV: Gosh, now that you say it, I have all kinds of quibbles with this movie. I've already vented some of them, but the politics...I mean we KNOW they fought. So maybe part of my disappointment with Brolin's character is the surface-level whininess that never ever ends. He plays a great drunk, though. Imagine!
KB: He was high on twinkies, Stu. Clearly.
STV: It's true. Forgive me. Give readers one reason to see Milk unrelated to Sean Penn or the political relevance.
KB: [Director of photography] Harris Savides.
STV: DITTO!
KB: It's a very pretty, warm movie. It makes you want to be there, suffering prejudice and getting assassinated.
STV: He's a brilliant cinematographer. Will straights in the red states buy tickets to this? Gays! Sean Penn! San Francisco!
KB: The ones who want to meet their "one daring thing a year" quota might. With the Oscar help, I could see it hitting $40 million. I don't think it's a Brokeback, though. So have you soured on Milk since we began this discussion? "Sour milk." I didn't even intend that.
STV: Honk. I don't think so, I never thought it was extraordinary. But I guess the thing that really is most striking is that for the first time in 25 years, Sean Penn is a revelation.
KB: True, and he deserves everything he gets for it, STU VANAIRSDALE.
STV: I feel famous already.

After the jump: Could an earlier Milk release have made the difference?

L.A. county has already suspended the issuance of marriage licenses and civil marriage ceremonies for gay couples, saying in a statement "based on the Secretary of State's Semi-Official canvass results from Election Night and the California State Constitutional provision that states '(a) proposed amendment or revision shall be submitted to the electors and if approved by a majority of votes thereon takes effect the day after the election.'" The war, however, has already begun. Multiple legal challenges have been filed to subvert the measure—including one from high-volume feminist firebrand Gloria Allred on behalf of Couple Zero, Robin Tyler and Diane Olsen—arguing that this vote amounts to nothing more than an illegal constitutional revision.

In Contention, meanwhile, asks a very good—if difficult to hear—question regarding Milk. The movie itself is about the legendary SF board supervisor's crusade against 1978's Prop 6, which would have banned gays from teaching positions. The parallels are impossible to ignore. Couldn't an earlier release of Gus Van Sant's film have pushed public opinion in this incredibly narrow vote onto the No side?

I can’t help but wonder what “Milk” might have meant for today’s cause, if anything, had it landed in the marketplace last month...Consistently, Harvey Milk (Sean Penn’s career-best portrayal) makes the point, to paraphrase, “We have to make them understand that they know us.” That message, I think, might have carried a lot of heft if voters had made it to the polls four weeks later.

But I’m not a studio head and I don’t make these decisions. A studio’s priority is, of course, to shareholders, and “Milk” is likely to make more money in its current release plan than something earlier in the season. But you can’t help but wonder what might have been. And you can’t “give ‘em hope” after the fact.

Focus president James Schamus has already defended his efforts in his angry rebuttal of THR's slam-piece on the Milk marketing campaign. But the question remains: Could this have been pushed back to October? From a business standpoint, it was a month overstuffed with other releases, and a November bow would have given Penn some nice breathing room from his Oscar competition. In any case, there's no point in looking backwards now, and the movie will do a lot more for the cause in the long run than Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa ever will.

• Could an earlier ‘Milk’ release have killed Prop 8? [In Contention]

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]

The contretemps started yesterday morning when THR reporter Steven Zeitchik — who mostly sounded ticked off he wasn't invited to the first press screening — wrote about "the Milk marketing conundrum," suggesting that Focus had "eschewed publicity" while pushing director Gus Van Sant and star Sean Penn's biopic about Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in the country, who was assassinated in 1978. The main point of comparison was Focus's Brokeback Mountain, which THR noted was a lightning rod for conservatives months before it was released in 2005.

Citing no festival appearances, limited press exposure and, bafflingly, a Las Vegas test screening in which two senior citizens reportedly sought to leave during a love scene between Penn and co-star James Franco, THR's big picture showcased a movie that Focus depoliticized on purpose, lest the early backlash hinder its box-office and awards chances. "With all the politicking going on (not just the election but, here in California, with Proposition 8, a subject that mirrors eerily one of Harvey Milk's battles)," Zeitchik wrote in a blog follow-up, "the company was eager to avoid talk-radio defining the movie for it."

Not a terrible theory, we guess — except it was wrong, Schamus (right) wrote in a letter sent THR's way last night:

That's a pretty serious charge, especially made by a reporter who did not call us to get his facts, so to speak, straight.

First of all, to the charge of "hiding" the film (for which, given its post-production schedule, we have only had finished prints at hand for a couple of weeks - a fact conveniently missed by your reporter), I can only say that I happen to be writing this while on my way to the airport for a flight to San Francisco, where we shall world-premiere the film tonight at the Castro Theatre, across the street from the storefront where Harvey began his political career. [...] The after-screening gathering will be held at San Francisco's City Hall, and today has been proclaimed "Focus Features Day" by the Mayor – who clearly didn't get The Hollywood Reporter in time to understand our underhanded, apolitical approach to marketing the film. [...]

Following the debut of that trailer way back on September 12, our marketing campaign mobilized an early online media push timed to all four presidential race debates –- the mornings after, we had specially commissioned Milk ad buys on the political pages of the websites of The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio, The Huffington Post, and many more. [...] I expect that more thorough journalism on our Milk campaign will be published in THR soon.

By the time Schamus had dashed off his signature, though, the damage was done. The new-and-improved Radar had distilled the story (without attribution) to "Milk will seem a bit too politcal and preachy," while our cousins at Gawker surmised that "Milk just isn't very good. [...] [W]hen a studio declares it must be very, very quiet in promoting a film, it pushes us toward another conclusion: Milk is going to be so bad Sean Penn won't have a chance at Oscar time no matter how many full page ads Focus runs."

Classy, guys. Of course, Focus didn't declare that, and the author hadn't viewed Milk either. David Poland did last night, however, filing afterward that it's "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." We don't necessarily think all of America might see it that way, but we'd expect professionals with access to have the good sense not to make it worse. Alas. Next time, THR!

• Schamus defends 'Milk' plan [eugonline]

• The 'Milk' Marketing Conundrum [THR]