Fire Up Your Oscars: Here Come Da ‘Milk’!

Here it is: The trailer for Milk, Gus Van Sant’s retelling of the swift rise and violent and untimely fall of America’s first openly gay elected official, set against a backdrop of the swinging San Francisco of the late ’70s. Everything here seems note-perfect, from Sean Penn’s Horshackian (with base notes of I Am Sam) vocal inflections, to the meticulously executed period gayfros, to the Anita Bryant file footage (here’s some more of Bryant getting a banana cream pie in the face; ah—that never gets old), to the portentous-but-not-too-portentous tagline: “His life changed history. His courage changed lives.” You thought a pair of lovelorn cowboys shot in silhouette were enough to nudge the Oscar envelope? Just wait until Sean Penn’s Best Actor clip—featuring the actor entwined in James Franco’s naked folds and delivering a stirring monologue on answering one’s higher calling—shows the Academy how one really gays their way to the gold.

• Milk [Apple Trailers]