i finally got around to watching milk the other night (for those who haven't seen the film, spoilers may be ahead), starring sean penn as gay rights pioneer harvey milk. to be honest, going in, i was watching it partly for the story but mostly because it's a gus van sant film & i've absolutely loved his last four films, even more than his earlier, pre-good will hunting stuff. they've made me more excited about the possibilities of film making than most films have recently. i was most interested in seeing how he handled a straight biopic, as he has a history of making films loosely based on actual events, films like to die for (the pamela smart murder), elephant (columbine) & last days (kurt cobain's suicide).
it definitely has the feel of a gus vant sant film. the titles play over black & white archival footage of gay bars being broken up & the title of the film is barely noticeable during its three seconds on the screen. early on, harvey meets scott smith (james franco) in nyc & van sant chooses to show them kissing in extremely extreme close ups. he shows them moving cross country to san fran in 72 via what looks like home video footage.
throughout, he works in actual news reports by walter cronkite (chi phi alum!) & actual clips of anita bryant, a powerful anti-gay rights advocate & all around evil bitch who was basically milk's antithesis. near the end of the film, there's a scene at harvey's 48th bday party with him & the desperate & drunk dan white (milk's assassin, played by josh brolin), where van sant initially frames them as these tiny figures in a large room...oh & there's the emotional pain of the characters. van sant loves pain.
i was discussing the film with a co-worker (sweet head shot!) yesterday & it turns out he actually worked on to die for in some capacity, so he's familiar with van sant & was curious as to my thoughts on the film. to be more specific, he asked me if there was redemption for the characters, as van sant doesn't often offer that up for his characters. in the end, milk's boyfriend has hung himself & harvey is assassinated, but he's been elected to office, created a protege in cleve jones (emile hirsch), defeated prop 6 & even heard from a boy in MN, who had years earlier called harvey out of the blue, saying he was going to kill himself over his parents' reaction to him being gay. it felt like redemption to me.
& just over 30 years later, here we are. after the shit storm that CA created with prop 8 last year, 2009 has been a busy year thus far for gay rights. NJ & NH recognized civil unions as of this year & after iowa made gay marriage legal two weeks ago, this week, ME voted to make gay marriage legal come september, the same month where it becomes legal in VT. D.C. voted to recognize gay marriages this week (subject to congress approval) & NH sent a same-sex marriage bill to governor lynch. his signature awaits & if he does sign, gay marriage will be legal in five of the six new england states & is recognized in RI. harvey's actions are starting to lead to something...perhaps eventually they will lead to the secession of new england from the u.s.? i would totally move back there if that happened.
#90 - got milk?
snack: lindt kirsch m&ms with almonds
drink: rice dream supreme chocolate chai rice milk
the other day at the local polish grocery store, as i was walking in, i spied the lindt kirsch bar (pictured above) on the counter & figured i'd give it a shot. while watching the film, i finally broke it out. as the packaging depicts, you're basically getting a flat piece of chocolate with a little bubble on top that's filled with what you might assume is some sort of cherry liquid.
i didn't do my research beforehand to find out what exactly kirsch is & when i bit into the first piece, i was greeted with a flavor akin to taking the cheapest, hoboiest vodka you can find & soaking a couple of cherries in a glass of it overnight, before drinking the whole damn thing, cherries & all. then there was the crunch. oh the crunch. apparently, kirsch is a fruit brandy distilled from sour cherries & when placed in chocolate, they also put in a layer of hard sugar to compensate for its lack of sweetness...wasn't expecting that either. at first, i'd thought it had gone bad & crystallized. the approximate sound i made was mlaaaaaahhhhhchhhhh...followed by a series of panicked, rapid tongue movements.
the thought of eating a second piece never even crossed my mind, but i was having a serious chocolate craving, so i paused the film, ran out to the bodega & grabbed an old standby, a bag of m&ms with almonds. since i'm a slave to almonds, whenever i'm in a candy/double consonant/ampersand mood, i always go back to the almond m&ms. other than the obvious candy shell & chocolate awesomeness, there's just something about the size of them that makes them so damn appealing...much better than those wussy sized regular, non-nut flavored ones.
my beverage of choice for the evening was a tall glass of rice dream supreme chocolate chai rice milk, with a couple of ice cubes tossed in for good measure. i originally picked it up a few days back for #88 - (rice dream), but ditched it in favor of the rice beer, which i felt was much more appropriate to have with chips. since then, i've been using it in my morning coffee, instantly making it infinitely better. coffee + mocha + chai = my secret to getting to work this week. it's not only helped me in that regard, but along with the m&ms, it helped immensely as far as casting the demons of the kirsch taste away from my mouth.
i could definitely get down with rice milk on a regular basis, especially if it's all flavored & junk. over the past week, i've actually drank milk outside of my coffee & cereal, so having it around, with all its vitamins & nutrients, is definitely having a positive effect...& you know what they say about milk & bodies. it totally does them good. if i keep this up, i'm going to be so awesomely buff.