What constantly pops off the screen as cinema gold in the new film Milk is the film’s star Sean Penn. It is completely save to say that Sean Penn is Milk. Penn seems boundless in his depiction of Harvey Milk, who was an affable, magnetic guy, capable of picking up a longtime boyfriend with a proposition on the subway platform and attracting a cabal of young energetic men when he opened up a camera shop in San Francisco’s Castro Street. As you can imagine, the neighborhood was turning to the gay side of life at the time.

Gus Van Sant directs in a very stylized manner that puts a nostalgic haze over the film that Dustin Lance Black has scripted out. The film touches on being a run of the mill biopic but the driving force that moves us is Sean Penn with a little help from Emile Hirsh who leads an energetic cross section of supporters injecting youth into the cause.

As with any biopic, the circumstances and those around it feel deeply about it. It would be easy for the movie to be ordinary. These characters come forward with new zeal and total commitment for these characters. That combined with Penn’s over the top channelling of Harvey Milk is exactly what this film needed and got. Fascinating movie! ***/****.

• The posters are again very head shot oriented. Someone needs to take a chance besides the Indie films.

An often overlooked movie from the 2007 season is Zodiac. Directed by David Fincher, he directed Se7en, right off the bat we know that we are gonna have the creeps. Fincher had to be careful with this subject matter. He didn’t have to finesse the treatment of violence or ratings board but rather the fact that there are so many Zodiac experts and fanatics. There are tons of books and loads of information in the marketplace about the real life 1970s killer in San Francisco. The movie examines a series of murders that started in July 1969 and letters to local newspapers in San Francisco that followed. The letter writer included a separate cryptic cipher to each of the three newspapers and told them to print the letters or he would go on a killing spree. Director David Fincher also focuses on the lives of San Francisco Chronicle crime columnist Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.), political cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), and police inspectors David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and Bill Armstrong (Anthony Edwards). Based on the book by Robert Graysmith himself, the film focuses primarily on Graysmith, but also involves the others who became too involved for their own good: Avery, Toschi, and even Graysmith himself. I liked Zodiac a lot but I understand why it did not make too many best of the year lists. The film is a little tedious and runs long. Now if you’re a Zodiac nut the film may not be long enough and if you’re just a peripheral nut, like me, then it’s just right. • As for the poster, there are two good versions of maybe the 4 offered. The one with the taxi and the one with the fog covered Golden Gate Bridge are both creepy enough to capture just the right feeling for the film.

Take a former criminal prosecutor who cleans up the messes made by colleagues and customers of a prestigious New York law firm.One day a renowned trial-lawyer partner (Tom Wilkinson) goes off his meds, makes a spectacle of himself, and throws in with the enemy, the unfortunates involved in a class-action suit against a mega-corporation. Michael Clayton is sent in to sweep up and save the day, but somehow gets himself on the wrong side of everyone involved, with disastrous consequences. It is hard to believe this is a directorial debut of anyone. However the fact that it is the work of Tony Gilroy starts to make sense. Gilroy is responsible for adapting the Jason Bourne novels. The film is amazingly polished and well made. There are some issues that are inherent in the story itself and I don’t think could have been overcome by Gilroy without a few more rewrites. The film saw some success but not enough to break too many top ten lists. A great topsy turvy movie that will have you wondering where it is going next. • None of the posters are very creative and most simply rely on George Clooney as a headshot.

The Bourne Ultimatum and National Treasure: Book of Secrets rank numbers 7 and 8 on the top ten box office earners of 2007. That means that of the top ten 6 of the movies are sequels. Some 60% of the list are sequels. Can I say that any stronger another way; I don’t think so. Bourne pulled in $227 million while Treasure found some $219 million. Both of these movies are action flicks and really just a case of the same old story. In one movie we follow a single main character as he puts together a series of clues to discover some sort of mystery. I’m not sure which movie that I just described but I can tell you that one was good and one was not. I would try to explain why I think that National Treasure II is not very good but who am I to argue with $219 million. Number 9 on the money list is Alvin and the Chipmunks which comes in at $217 million and rounding out the top ten at number 10 was 300 that brought in $210 million at the box office.