Song of a Reformed Headhunter

I was probably too tired Friday night to give Gus Van Sant's Mala Noche, his first feature-length film, a fair viewing, but the desultory plot and lacklustre acting did not help. I remember vaguely, however, some beautifully shot street scenes. Based on the autobiographical novel by Walt Curtis, the movie tells the story of a young manager of a liquor store who falls in love with a Mexican lad, an illegal immigrant who cannot speak English. Inception directed by Christopher Nolan was far more gripping. The whole dream-versus-reality setup is familiar, but within the genre's confines Nolan builds like his architect-thieves level after level of action and connection. The final action sequence, when Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) finally wakes up from a dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream-within-a dream, is a rush. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays another thief Arthur. Ellen Page was yet another, the aptly named Ariadne. Tom Hardy is heart-stoppingly good-looking as Eames. It does not hurt...

Milk is Harvey Milk, California's first openly gay elected official who was assassinated in 1978 by fellow San Francisco supervisor, Dan White. A well-made biopic, the film does not try to go beyond the conventions of the genre. At 128 minutes, it also feels on the long side.  Part of the problem is that the Harvey Milk character is not fully fleshed out, and so he appears in the film something of a saint. There are allusions to shadows--he has not come out to his own parents, he likes to help vulnerable young men--but they remain oblique to the main action. The struggle between social activism and personal losses--one lover leaves him, another lover hangs himself--is depicted, but in dramatically predictable manner.  The real conflict in the film takes place between the Castro Street activists and the bigoted Christian campaigners, Anita Bryant and State Senator John Briggs (Denis O'Hare), over Prop 6 that sought to fire gay teachers and their supporters. But since the homopho...