Milk by Gus Van Sant

Milk is the new feature film of acclaimed american director, Gus Van Sant. It tells the story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected to the public office in the state of California, concretely to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Sean Penn portrays Milk as one of the best performances of his career (he has been nominated to the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild Awards). Also starring are Josh Brolin as Dan White, Emile Hirsch as Cleve Jones, James Franco as Scott Smith and Diego Luna as Jack Lira.

Van Sant is a great director visually and this movie proves it once again. The storytelling is creative and innovative by mixing it with real footage from the 70's, unconventional camera shots or simply by not telling the story in a lineal boring way. Also Penn's performance gives a very emotional picture of the gay struggle in the 70's against the conservative right wing. Even if you are not a gay yourself, you can identify with what that group of men and women made in favor of the concept of tolerance. Franco's performance was good after his hilarious portrait of a pothead in "Pineapple Express", Brolin, as a great actor himself, makes the perfect anti-thesis of Milk, youngster Hirsch (previously directed by Penn in 07's classic "Into the Wild") makes the job as the young gay activist and Luna's performance was not that good because he was type-casted as the token latino guy who dies, not having that much speaking time. Anyhow, the movie is great and my highlights are Penn's performance who was marvelous, Van Sant never goes wrong directing because he is one of the great american storytellers and the theme is well-developed in a entertaining, visually atractive and moving way. 9 out of 10 stars.

Paranoid Park

La última entrega del director estadounidense Gus Van Sant se titula Paranoid Park. La historia, basada en la novela de Blake Nelson, es acerca de un grupo de skateboarders que frecuentan el skatepark mas famoso de Portland, Oregon (ciudad donde vive el director). El personaje principal, Mike (Gabe Nevins), se vé envuelto en un incidente en el que muere un guardia de seguridad. Luego de esto, la vida de este joven va decayendo al igual que el matrimonio de sus padres y la relación con su novia. No tiene a nadie en quien confiar ni contarle lo sucedido. Van Sant escribe y dirige una de sus mejores películas con este filme; la filmación de escenas largas, los constantes flashbacks dentro de la historia, el uso de jóvenes no-actores y el estilo no convencional de unir los nudos de la trama encajan perfectamente en Paranoid Park. Dicho filme fue ganador del premio 60 aniversario del prestigioso festival de Cannes en el 2007. Si te gustaron sus anteriores filmes del denominado "Death Trilogy" como Elephant (Palme D'ore en Cannes 2003) y Last Days esta te terminará de convencer que tan buen director es Van Sant.