THE cast of Gus Van Sant’s Milk are positively surgical in recreating persons and events associated with the first openly gay man elected to serious public office in the United States. How Sean Penn manifests government aspirations of his own into Harvey Milk’s politically strategic energies and at the same time loses all association of his patriarchal notions of masculinity is as inspiring as the movie itself. Van Sant charts the rise of the gay rights leader from hippy days and his battle against Proposition 6, a 1978 California state ballot initiative to outlaw homosexual teachers and school workers, to his demise at the hands of colleague Dan White’s revolver (Josh Brolin) in San Francisco City Hall later that year.
Archive for February, 2009
By Tribune Web Editor /Monday, February 2nd, 2009
HOW diplomatic of the European Parliamentary Labour Party, which got its campaign for the Euro-elections off to a swinging start at a bash attended by Gordon Brown in Westminster last Monday. With a couple of dozen wine-producing countries to choose from among the membership of the European Union the organisers decided to avert the risk [...]
VISUAL ARTS: How very civilised – substance, style in high esteem
By Tribune Web Editor /Monday, February 2nd, 2009China: Journey to the East
Bristol City Art Gallery and Museum
PARTLY to coincide with the Chinese New Year and partly as a policy of making its collections more widely known, the British Museum has lent a large group of objects from its extensive Chinese collection for a tour of the country. With more than 100 objects selected from the museum’s holdings, in China: Journey to the East visitors are offered the opportunity to experience one of world’s longest and most influential civilisations.
How a failing county is the blueprint for Cameron country
By Tribune Web Editor /Monday, February 2nd, 2009Murray Rowlands suggests that a study of the Tories’ abysmal management of Surrey is a pointer to how they would govern Britain
By Tribune Web Editor /Sunday, February 1st, 2009
A SMOULDERING row is underway between the Palace of Westminster authorities and the jobsmiths at Westminster council. A smoking row, actually, following the campaign by sputum-covered MPs to have erected their own dirty little smoking den. Not behind the bike sheds but on the prized Terrace. The council has objected on planning grounds. Palace officials [...]
Paul Routledge: It’s grim everywhere and getting more so every day
By Tribune Web Editor /Sunday, February 1st, 2009THE “r” word is on everyone’s lips as Britain formally moves into the recession that we all knew about but didn’t quite admit until the figures were too blatant to ignore. However, until last week I hadn’t heard the “s” word – slump – since my father, the greatest Jeremiah on Railway Terrace, and perhaps of the whole of Normanton, used it during the 1950s.
Jeremy Dear: BBC hits the DEC appeal and shoots itself in the foot
By Tribune Web Editor /Sunday, February 1st, 2009IT’S like there’s some kind of competition to see who can do the most damage to the BBC. It looked for a while that Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand were building an unassailable lead – but then came the decision not to broadcast the Disasters Emergency Committee’s appeal for aid in Gaza and Director-General Mark Thompson made a late bid to steal the pranksters’ crown.
Bryan Rostron: South Africa’s joy of fools and a hallelujah of dupes
By Tribune Web Editor /Sunday, February 1st, 2009“THE change of rulers”, goes an old Balkan saying, “is the joy of fools.” Will the inauguration of Barack Obama also prove, in the end, an illusory thrill? Somehow I think not. But here in South Africa, with a general election only months away, I fear that we may be about to witness a mighty hallelujah of dupes.