Matt Damon, Sean Penn Attached to Harvey Milk Biopic

BuzzSugar — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 10:22:01 -0700

Ever since I watched the mesmerizing and heartbreaking documentary The Mayor of Castro Street - which won the Best Documentary Oscar in 1985 - I've kept an eye out for news about the film version of this story. Today, Hollywood Reporter announced that Matt Damon and Sean Penn are attached to star in the biopic about Harvey Milk, the first gay councilman in the U.S. who was viciously killed by his fellow councilman Dan White in 1978. Here's more:

Penn is attached to play [Harvey] Milk and Damon is attached to play Milk's killer, Dan White, in [Gus Van Sant]'s long-gestating Milk biopic. The filmmakers are now in talks with a leading specialty division to launch the project. Once a deal is finalized, the team behind the as-yet-untitled feature hopes to begin production in San Francisco as early as December.

It's the latest chapter in a long-running race to film the biopic of the first openly gay prominent elected official, which has pitted Van Sant's project against another from fellow openly gay director Bryan Singer.

Last I'd heard, Bryan Singer was directing this project, though apparently Van Sant has had a long-standing connection with this story, and even wrote a screenplay for it once. I think both of these directors would have an interesting take on Milk's story, so all I care about is that whoever directs does it justice.

Penn and Damon photos source

What to Netflix: The Times of Harvey Milk

BuzzSugar — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 11:24:46 -0700

Okay, all you documentary fans, have I got a recommendation for you. The Times of Harvey Milk, winner of the 1985 Academy Award for Best Documentary, left me speechless and filled with mixed emotions. In the 1970s in San Francisco, good-natured camera store owner Harvey Milk was elected onto the board of city supervisors, becoming the first gay city official in the U.S.

At a time when civil rights were still at the forefront of peoples' minds, Milk, along with his colleagues and friends, worked hard for tolerance. Among other things, Milk fought to make it illegal to fire teachers based on their sexual orientation. This was a huge win for Milk and his supporters, and his career at city hall was picking up speed.

At the apex of this success, however, Milk was shockingly assassinated, along with the mayor at the time, the highly respected George Moscone. The murderer was a fellow board member whose defense claimed, among other preposterous things, that he was rendered insane from eating too much junk food. That's not nearly the end, however, so read more

This story is so intriguing and sad that it made me wonder how I'd never heard about it, and here's why: Milk's murder occurred almost immediately after the story broke about the Jonestown massacre, another San Francisco-related tragedy in which approximately 900 people died (which became fodder for another jarring documentary). Thus, Milk's story garnered very little press.

The whole thing seems too crazy to be true, and sure enough, there is a Hollywood movie in the works, The Mayor of Castro Street, helmed by Superman Returns director Bryan Singer and scheduled to come out in 2009. Before then, though, check out The Times of Harvey Milk.