Penn Fights for 'Harvey Milk Day'

Co-star surprised by scene

(NEWSER) - As he got into the character of Harvey Milk, Sean Penn pushed for a more explicit sex scene in Milk, surprising his co-star, the New York Post reports. James Franco tells Elle magazine the one kissing scene he read in the original movie script turned into “a full-on love scene.” Franco says he asked Gus Van Sant what was going on, and the director explained, “'Well, it was Sean's idea.'” More»

Calif. gay-marriage ban puts biopic in broader, cause-defining light

(NEWSER) - If Milk, the film on San Francisco’s first openly gay city supervisor, had opened earlier, might it have swung the Proposition 8 vote? Maybe, writes Dennis Lim in Slate—but in light of the passage of the California gay-marriage ban, Milk becomes both a poignant “look-how-far-we-haven’t-come” tale and a roadmap for the gay-rights battle ahead. More»

Critics lap up gay-rights drama

(NEWSER) - If Milk were a ballot proposition, critics would pass it in a landslide. Part docu-drama, part biopic, the film spins the tale of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay American elected to public office, into an “incisive and stirring” drama, Owen Gleiberman writes in Entertainment Weekly. It’s “the rare liberal message-movie manifesto that lingers in the mind as well as the heart.” More»

(NEWSER) - What do President-elect Barack Obama and a 1970s gay activist have in common? Grassroots backing and a yes-we-can ethos, Rachel Abramowitz writes in the Los Angeles Times. “I know that you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living,” said Harvey Milk, a San Francisco supervisor and gay-rights activist played by Sean Penn in Gus Van Sant’s upcoming movie, Milk. More»

Would be first state to launch mandate

(NEWSER) - California could be the first state to require that schools teach gay history. Lessons on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people would be added to social studies classes under a landmark bill passed yesterday by the state Senate, the AP reports. The state Assembly and Gov. Jerry Brown must approve the bill—which would also ban the use of textbooks that paint gay people in a negative light and would add disabled people to the curriculum—before it becomes law. More»