Milk

Writing a blog often causes a Napoleonic complex. Or rather - a Moulitsas Complex - no, I take that back, Napoleon was significant. Ducky is not.

At any rate, I try to avoid cocksuredness with words like "seems" and try only to go ultra definitive with the obvious like "Obama was sold to us by a compliant media" or "Shakespeare is a genius" - or when I'm really pissed - which is too much of the time.

That said, let me also say this: Ignore whatever reservations you may have about Sean Penn and go see Milk. His performance is masterful. The film itself may well end up being Gus Van Sant's masterpiece.

Sometimes the exact right director, gets the exact right material, the exact right cast, at the exact right time to make a perfect or near perfect film. It rarely happens. Coppola and first 2 Godfather films come to mind ( and the third is underrated in my book.). Sam Mendes and American Beauty as well. And, of course, Network.

I won't say if this film will end up being considered a masterpiece. Only the passage of time can create a masterpiece. Still, everything that Van Sant does with this material - all his quirks - that have kept him an interesting director but not a great one - come together in Milk and vibrate perfectly with his cast, and the subject.

And Sean Penn...The friend I went with said "That was not a performance. It was a possession."

Excepting Meryl Streep doing anything - it is as precisely lived and nuanced as anything I've seen an actor do in a decade.

So go. Learn something.

Below the trailer and the moment that made Diane Feinstien a national political figure: