We're reviewing 'Milk' whether Focus wants us to or not

Normally it wouldn't be such a big deal to see an early review of "Milk" posted today on Variety's website, since the trade paper often weighs in early with reviews of big movies. But it's another nail in the coffin for the old-fashioned, top-down studio practice of trying to enforce embargo dates for reviews of movies. In this case, Focus Features had told anyone coming to an early press screening of the film that it had an embargo for "all" reviews: Nov. 19 for weeklies, Nov. 25 for online publications and Nov. 26 for print dailies (and their dwindling band of critics).

Needless to say, in today's Web-centric world, embargoes are a joke, since as soon as anyone appears to break the embargo, the competitive juices start overflowing for every other journalist or critic, who immediately feels the burning desire to post a review of their own. Focus' PR reps say that the trades are allowed to run reviews earlier because their review dates are triggered by a public screening of the film, like the one Focus had last week in San Francisco. The Focus reps say the embargo still holds for everyone else, even though several online writers have posted opinionated reactions to the movie that sure look to me like, well, reviews.

How else to describe MovieCityNews' David Poland's post, which called the film "a brilliant, powerfully humane piece of work," adding that "Sean Penn gives an Oscar lock performance of power and subtlety that ranks with the best of his career." Looks like a review, smells like a review. So why didn't Focus come down on Poland like a house of bricks? Duh! Because it was a glowingly positive, blurb-ready review. If it had been negative, the reaction would have been very different indeed.

So why shouldn't newspapers like my own L.A. Times, which are suffering huge losses in staff and circulation because, in part, we lack the freewheeling immediacy of Web-based publications, run our reviews earlier instead of waiting until the day a film is released in theaters? Trust me, if I were king, we'd be jumping into the conversation a lot sooner. I think it would be healthy, not to mention tantalizing, to read a first glimpse of our critic's reaction to a movie right after a screening--still allowing for a lengthier, more considered reaction when the film actually arrives in the marketplace. But more often than not, my editors prefer to wait.

But since everyone else in Web-land has weighed in on "Milk," I think it's time to have my say too. Want to know what I think? Keep reading:

My first reaction is that it came as a surprise to see Gus Van Sant telling the Harvey Milk story in such a familiar biopic format. Compared to most of Van Sant's work, the film is very conventional, offering a largely public-oriented view of Milk's political career, with his private loves reduced to subplots, which largely exist to show how much the demands of an all-consuming political career derail a politician's personal relationships. The film sticks closely to the historical record, which allows it to portray Milk as a passionate but pragmatic politician, even forging an alliance with the Teamsters along the way as he slowly builds a new kind of San Francisco political machine.

To me, the movie isn't just a portrait of the early days of the gay rights movement, but an intriguing glimpse of the strange contradictions of California politics that still exist today. As has been much remarked on, Milk's big victory--the 1978 defeat of a proposition that would have banned gay men and women from teaching in the public schools--is all too unsettlingly timely, since we're going to the polls Tuesday to vote on a proposition that would ban gay marriage. But the tragic conflict between Milk and fellow San Francisco supervisor Dan White is a reflection of the ever-present tension in California between liberals and conservatives, between the state's regard for individual rights vs. conformity, between an embrace of the new and a nostalgia for the past. In California, we ping back and forth, producing prickly visionaries like Jerry Brown as well as genial throwbacks like Ronald Reagan.

I thought the movie fell a little flat when it tried to reproduce the public demonstrations and surging energy of the gay rights movement, but it came alive whenever we saw Sean Penn as Milk, Penn understanding that it's often the little moments that define a character. He doesn't really look like Milk on the outside, but on the inside, where it counts, he captures the soul of a brash young activist, part zealot, part pragmatist, trying to transform a new cultural awakening into a politically viable mass movement. Like Martin Luther King Jr., who was Milk's almost exact contemporary--born barely a year earlier--Milk was killed before he got to the mountain top. But this movie, with all its flaws, is a great slice of history, a history that really has never been told until now.

RELATED:

'Milk' and California politics: It's deja vu all over again

Comments

[Christian Toto]

I once wrote a very short, very positive review of a film three years ago, and it ran a week before the movie opened. I heard holy heck about it from the pr folks all the same.

That said, I consider it a privilege to be able to screen movies, and as a result I don't mind adhering to the embargoes.

It is unfair, though, that so many online critics file their pieces early while those who respect embargoes wait 'til opening day.

If the studios want to give Variety and THR a pass, I understand. But other outlets?

[Stephanie Barko]

To derive how a movie like Milk becomes mainstream,
check out a new book on early Hollywood sexuality entitled

Hollywood Bohemians:
Transgressive Sexuality & the Selling of the Movieland Dream
by Brett Abrams.

www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-3929-4

The author shows how '20s and '30s Hollywood sets us up for the
movies and sexual attitudes we have today.

[Atwater Village Newbie]

"...As soon as anyone appears to break the embargo, the competitive juices start overflowing for every other journalist or critic, who immediately feels the burning desire to post a review of their own."

Think the studios and the flacks don't know this? It totally works in their favor, see, because publishers bump up the prominence and placement of a review when they think it's going to be a "scoop."

Ask George Lucas.

[David Poland]

I, David Poland didn't have Focus come down like a house of bricks on me because Focus' very specific instructions were followed to the letter.

I, too, am not thrilled by the Variety break today because it, as you state, goes against my understanding of the structure to which I was agreeing. If the comments were negative, the response would have been exactly the same... except for private e-mails of agreement from some of those involved.

And in your case, Patrick, the studio doesn’t (I don’t think) see you as a film critic in any real way, so even though you are now blogging, those rules are different too… which creates a whole additional set of problems for both the studios and the rest of the press. Variety, via non-critics, have become regular embargo breakers without any regard to the rules everyone else is laboring under. And just this last weekend, a Los Angeles Times blog broke an embargo that was carefully negotiated by the film’s publicist, but was gotten around because the journo came to the screening with a ticket that didn’t come through the publicists… so he could claim he wasn’t informed.

It’s complicated, but it’s time to seriously address these situations.

Let me be 100% clear. I have argued - and did, just this morning - that studios have a right to decide what they want to do. But that said, as we are all in a business that involves trust, they should have some real transparency on the issue of embargoes. Variety is now primarily read on the web... so they should have no competitive advantage on review release dates... they are not the two-headed semi-private purveyor of industry info now... they are a consumer targeted website.

If the studios want to keep changing their review embargo policies – and I have been negotiating review dates on almost every awards movie and most high-profile mainstream releases for a few years now – they should at least be clear about what the structure is. And frankly, if they are determined to continue to offer an unfair advantage to the trades – or to me, if you feel the advantages I am sometimes offered to be unfair – I would suggest that a boycott of that film or that studio is in order. But for most, this is cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.

What is really the most fair is for studios to have no more than three review release dates. The distinction between what a “review” is and what a “write about it” is must be thrown out. If they want early web buzz, let everyone who is seeing the film write something… perhaps with a word limit of 250 or 350 words. If they want to let the trades and others write well before release, set a date and let everyone try to get into that group as they will. And certainly, the idea of the release date being sacrosanct for reviews is now unworkable… unless the studio holds everyone to no reviews until then… strictly.

The hard part of this, for me, is that when I argue about these issues with studios, it is assumed that I can be placated by being given privilege. But that is not what I seek. I seek an honest, uncomplicated, relatively fair system.

And studios have worked with all kinds of agreements with all different kinds of writers for a very long time. We are now in a place where Variety, in Anne Thompson’s blog, is running e-mails from “friends” about their opinions of long-lead screenings that are no accessible by Variety’s critics or most of their writers. Pure Ain’t It Cool News. Full circle.

Time to think it out… like adults.

[Craig]

What's the purpose of reviewing a movie so early that any potential audience for the movie will have forgotten the review by the time of the movie's release?

[Joe]

I haven't seen this movie yet, but one minor quibble with your review: this story has been told, and beautifully so, by the documentary The Times of Harvey Milk. It's a classic and worth revisiting. I'll be interested to see how much Van Sant borrows from it and I hope reviewers--meeting the deadline or not--will consider the earlier film when reviewing the later one. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088275/

[jerry pritikin]

The tag line for the movie... based on a true story, but there is a major historical mistake. Can you imagine if Director Clint Eastwood, in his movie "Flags of Our Fathers", would of changed the location of the raising of the American Flag ( based on A.P. photographer's Joe Rosenthal's famous image) from Iwo Jima to Guadalcanal! In a way, Gus Van Sant, in his recreation of an impromptu march led by Harvey Milk on 6/7/77 did just that when the movie location on that day was changed from Dade County,Florida to Wichita, Kansas. Historically, Wichita came 11 months later. The reason I know is that I took the photo of Harvey, and introduced him nationally on that day, via the Associated Press. I'm disapponted, because it erases my footnote to gay history.
However, the making of the movie is important... because
younger people today, usually have no idea who Harvey was.
I knew Harvey, (and Mayor Moscone who was also assassinated as friends)... and their contibution to the gay rights movement helped open the doors and minds, at a time it was not yet fashionable to be openly gay, even in San Francisco!

[Randy Dunbar]

The vintage films shown in the beginning of the film are amazing. What this film does is remind us just how far we have come from police raids on gay bars, and how secretive it was to be homosexual in the 50s.
Sean Penn is stunning as Harvey Milk.
Diego Luna's Jack Lira is a caricature. And herein lies the real problem with Milk: there is little emotional connection other than the historical events. This true of the film as a whole, in the end, you are quite shocked by the murder but it lacks huge, 5 hanky emotion. Had this film's focus been a love story, especially the relationship between Milk and Scott Smith, the ending would have been devastating. The same could be said of Jack Lira-shocking but not particularly emotional.
The street riot scenes are too long. We get it. Had Van Sant exchanged fifteen minutes of street for the emotional side of Harvey Milk, the movie would have far greater impact. And finally, with the exception of the ending of this film, it really lacks directorial style. It is so straight-forward, so without nuance cinematically, that I had ask, “what is Gus Van Sant known for?”
Van Sant did a good job, I wish it had been great.