gus van sant
Big Screen
Gus Van Sant’s New Movie Sounds The Same As All His Old Movies
5:05AM Brian Moylan | When Columbia announced their upcoming project with the director, they tried to keep the plot secret. Why bother? The treatment leaked and the movie is full of emo teens, just like everything else he’s done (except Milk). More »
Big Screen
Gun Van Sant’s Got Milk Follow-Up
3:16PM Andrew Belonsky | Gun van Sant will direct a “distinctive take on young love” entitled Restless, which was penned by an NYU grad named Jason Lew, who’s friends with Bryce Howard, who’s producing with papa Ron and Brian Grazer. Again, movie magic! [THR]
Dustin Lance Black Now Most Shirtless Oscar Screenwriting Nominee Since Diablo Cody
6:41AM Kyle Buchanan | Oscar politicking can be an arduous task that overwhelms many would-be winners, and thus, Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black has been forced to deploy his final trump card: beefcake shots. More »
Defamer Spills ‘Milk’: An Instant Review
3:30AM Kyle Buchanan | The year-end demolition derby that is Oscar season is ramping up, and among the next big films to face the gauntlet is Gus Van Sant’s Harvey Milk biopic, Milk. Already the recipient of oodles of pre-release buzz (so there, says Focus Features), its US release Wednesday will cap a period of real-world gay activism that has unmistakable parallels to the events in the film. Senior editor S.T. VanAirsdale and associate editor Kyle Buchanan have already seen the movie and are ready to share their thoughts; so which editor wanted to see more James Franco, and which wanted to see more of James Franco’s stunt phallus? Read on to find out! More »
In Time For ‘Milk,’ Has Queen Homophobe Anita Bryant Renounced Her Crown?
7:11AM STV | Supporters of Proposition 8 have something of a homophobic patron saint in Anita Bryant, the former beauty queen/orange juice-spokeswoman whose spunky brand of hatred is revived for a new generation in the upcoming Milk. Archival footage features some of her more winning moments (”If gays are granted rights, next we’ll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nailbiters” is in there somewhere) from the campaign for Proposition 6, which in 1978 would have allowed for the firing of openly gay public school teachers. But that was then, we’re hearing — Anita Bryant is saved! (Sort of.) More »
‘Milk’ Marketing Meltdown Pits Studio Boss Against Press
1:55AM STV | An angry Focus Features is doing a bit of air-clearing this morning, the day after it premiered its Oscar-chasing biopic Milk to an adoring hometown crowd in San Francisco and offered its first screenings to press in L.A. and New York. But there’s a few people who haven’t seen the film who are of particular interest to Focus president James Schamus, who all but firebombed Hollywood Reporter headquarters Tuesday in a letter to the editor denouncing its coverage of his film — a screed conveniently CC’d to the rest of the Internet as well. More »
The User’s Guide To ‘Milk’ Writer Dustin Lance Black
7:54AM Seth | With Gus Van Sant’s Milk set to world premiere tonight at San Francisco’s famous Castro Theater—an event that has the locals so excited, the biopic is practically bubbling up and dribbling down their nostrils—we thought we’d take a moment to introduce you to its breakout star. No, not him—you know him already. And not him, or him, or him, or even him. We speak, of course, of screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, whose name you might have noticed standing approximately 30-feet tall at the last moments of the Milk trailer. More »
Fire Up Your Oscars: Here Come Da ‘Milk’!
7:45AM Seth | 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. More »
Hey–What’s Sean Penn Doing On The Coachella Bill?
5:25AM Seth | As you attend to last-minute arrangements and packing for this weekend’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival (Off! brand Andy Dick Repellent? Check…Sarah Jessica Parker inflatable love doll? Check…), we guide you to these handy timetables of set times, paying particular attention to an artist scheduled to appear shortly after 2 p.m. Sunday. More »
