Well I geuss since the film isn't Conservative or Bush Bashing .....
Tuesday October 28 2:45 AM ET
The opening of "Milk," director Gus Van Sant's account of California's first openly gay politician, is four weeks away. Yet you wouldn't know it.
Unlike the hoopla over Focus Features' previous gay-themed awards magnet, "Brokeback Mountain," which was drawing calls of agenda-pushing from right-wingers months before it opened in 2005, there's been hardly a peep in editorial pages or on talk radio. (well Sean Penn is in it isn't he...thats reason enough to scrap the film)
Admittedly, the election is a major distraction. But Focus also is doing something deliberate: It's eschewing publicity for the Sean Penn vehicle, keeping it out of the high-profile fall film festivals and heavily restricting media screenings. (Probably because any divisive endorsments....such as Sean Penn has made in the past...would reflect badly during this election cycle ...on the presss/media/ hollywood choice that THEY WANT TO SHOVE DOWN THE PUBLIC THROAT) Giving up word-of-mouth to avoid hot air is not a typical trade-off -- notice how Lionsgate effectively flogged politically charged movies like Oliver Stone's George W. Bush biopic "W." and the Bill Maher documentary "Religulous" -- but it's one Focus is willing to make. (Well that is because it serves a political agenda...duh....the usual spin and propaganda)
Not that it will last. The political football will be kicked off when the movie premieres Tuesday night in San Francisco and then put in play after the November 4 election. And when that happens, the studio will face a marketing dilemma: how to accommodate the gay-rights angle the core audience expects while appealing to mainstream filmgoers who might not be immediately moved to see a movie about the subject. (Free tickets...or maybe reimbursement for lost time watching the movie?)
One example of those filmgoers: At a recent Vegas test-screening for a middle-class, straight audience, several senior citizens tried to leave after a gay love scene in the early moments but couldn't because they were trapped in the middle of a row (near Focus production chief John Lyons, in fact). The seniors eventually said they were happy that they stayed, but, like independent voters in an election contest, these are the viewers Focus must woo. (That alone is enough for me....women kissing women....eh ...whatever....men sucking face with men....oh hell no)
Like its initial phase of playing keep-away from cable news, the post-election phase will also involve staying above politics. Focus plans on selling "Milk" in part as a story of hope and change (Harvey Milk, a member of San Francisco's Board of Superviors until his assassination in 1978, won equal-rights battles against great odds), just as it sold "Brokeback" as a love story.
The ploy was logical with "Brokeback." It's less so here.
Like "Brokeback," "Milk" features a gay romance. But unlike "Brokeback," "Milk" is made by gay filmmakers, features the polarizing Penn and puts itself squarely in a political context. Milk's fight against California's anti-gay-rights Proposition 6 -- a drama the movie deals with in great detail -- spookily parallels the current California fight over Proposition 8, a measure that would ban gay marriage.
Neil Giuliano, president of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, said that "since this movie is about a beloved politician who was killed, it won't be easy for our adversaries to fight us on it." Focus and its Oscar handlers should get the weaponry ready anyway. (You know.....what ever you shove up your keester behing closed doors is your business......but don't force your veiws and opinions on me then act angry or beligerant, when I don't agree....whicj is typical angry activist motus operendi...be they gay or anti war or rascist, or animal rights or black sepratist, or those jerkwad klansmen, or aryans, or any other left wing coo coo group, or extreme right wing group also....do yo thing and leave me the fuc* alone, if I agree with you I will seek you out, if I don't you wont convince me anyway....and as an after note.....sean penn can kiss my ass...the only thing he has done good was to smack madonna around when they were married....lol...riff)
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
"The best way to help this film win over a mainstream audience is to avoid partisanship, and the best way to avoid partisanship is to let people find out about the film from the film itself," said one person involved with the film. (Gee I should go get tickets now...lol...being strongly hetero, I don't think it will be on my to do list any time soon, besides I had never even heard of this guy, or his story so I really don't give a shit)
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