Penn Embraced Gay Love Scene

Holiday would honor activist's birthday

(NEWSER) - Sean Penn today joined the push to recognize Harvey Milk's birthday in California, Variety reports. State senator Mark Leno is re-introducing a bill seeking a statewide “day of significance” on May 22, the birthday of the gay activist Penn won an Oscar for portraying. Schools would be encouraged to mark the day, but the bill won’t cost the state anything, Leno said. 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»

The latest from Woody Allen, Gus Van Sant, Pedro Almodóvar, and more

(NEWSER) - Cannes kicks off on Wednesday, and the Daily Beast rounds up 10 of the most buzzed-about movies featured at the 64th annual film festival:

• The Tree of Life: From filmmaker Terrence Malick, the story of a Texas boy (played in adulthood by Sean Penn) torn between the worldviews of his father, played by Brad Pitt, and his mother, played by newcomer Jessica Chastain.
• Melancholia: Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier's version of an Armageddon story, which centers around two sisters (played by Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg) who are drifting apart.

Heath Ledger receives posthumous award

(NEWSER) - Slumdog Millionaire was the big winner at the Critics' Choice Awards last night, taking home five trophies, including best film and best director (Danny Boyle), MTV News reports. Heath Ledger, meanwhile, continued his posthumous honors, picking up best supporting actor (and a standing ovation) for his turn as the Joker in The Dark Knight. 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»