...In which our heroine reviews "Milk," talks more film stuff.

I saw Milk Thursday night, as it was student night at the AMC in Chicago. With such a strong cast, Gus Van Sant at the helm, and an exploration of issues I'm interested in, I had to go.

The film is very good, very well made, especially in terms of sound and editing. Sean Penn is fantastic as Milk, the first gay man ever elected to public office, and well supported by James Franco, Diego Luna, Emile Hirsch, and Alison Pill. Milk is an interesting character, and one I'd like to know more about. Still though, as well done as the film is, it just didn't strike the emotional chord that others this year have. The plot was structured in a very typical rise, success, and fall of one man way, something I won't blame on the screenwriter, whose first script is Milk. I just thought it was almost too typical in terms of plot. However, it still rates as a must-see for awards time, if for nothing else than the performances within.


Speaking of awards season, and since I'm a total and utter geek, here are what I've got so far as to the best films I've seen so far this year: The Dark Knight, The Wrestler, Milk, Slumdog Millionaire, Iron Man, Wall-E, Pineapple Express, Tropic Thunder, and Burn After Reading.

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My first semester of film school is over, so I'm going to try and take an inventory of all the new films I've seen so far, since living in Chicago. It's nice to not really watch TV anymore, and just watch films instead. I'll vaguely put them in order of how much I liked them:

Citizen Kane

The Graduate

Ratcatcher

It Happened One Night

In the Mood for Love

28 Weeks Later

Punch-Drunk Love

Magnolia

Salaam Bombay

Scorpio Rising

The Wrestler

Slumdog Millionaire

Milk

Zack and Miri Make a Porno

Burn After Reading

Choke

Burden of Dreams

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

The Limey

The Bicycle Thieves

All That Heaven Allows

Glengarry Glen Ross

The Battle of Algiers

2001: A Space Odyssey

Stay

The Last Laugh

Nothing But a Man

Ashes and Diamonds

A Man Escaped

Four Little Girls

The Kid

Un Chien Andalou

The Birth of a Nation

Rashomon

Halloween (the remake)

The Crime of Monsieur Lange

Battleship Potemkin

Silent Hill

Salo: 120 Days of Sodom--this is the most extreme film I've ever watched. I thought things like Crash (the Cronenberg one, not the shitty Best Picture) and Audition were bad but good lord. I didn't watch an entire portion of the film, it was just too much. And it is from the 1970s, so the shock should have lessened. It didn't.

These are the films I can remember, plus countless other clips and short films. It was a good semester.