Milk

To Birmingham's tiny Electric Cinema to see the excellent new film Milk.

This political bio-pic (teensy clue as to why it didn't get into the multiplexes?) tells the story of the final eight years of the life of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay person to be elected to a major US political office.

Milk, an unassuming San Francisco camera shop owner, finds himself entering local politics almost by accident. But his experience of three pluckily unsuccessful campaigns opens his eyes, ears and heart to fundamental inequalities affecting a whole variety of minority communities: blacks, seniors and, of course, gay people.

His dogged determination to mobilize a city to his equal-rights campaigning gives the film its dramatic momentum.

And much is at stake. Following Milk's election in 1977, 'pro family' campaigners sponsor the notorious Proposition 6 statewide referendum.

Were it to succeed, legislation would lead not only to the dismissal of all homosexual teachers in California, but also to the sacking of any school-system employee who supports a gay teacher facing dismissal. In the event the referendum is a close-run contest.

As often happens, extraordinary circumstances draw extraordinary courage from ordinary people.

Director Gus van Sant brilliantly charts Milk's growth into a leader of remarkable grace, charisma and dignity.

Sadly, the film is also a tragedy, ending with Milk's murder, in San Francisco's City Hall, by a political rival.

'My name is Harvey Milk - and I'm here to recruit you' is his signature opening to every campaign speech. Indifference, not oppostion, is his greatest enemy.

Consequently, as well as being funny, charming and moving, this is a very uncomfortable film.

Milk couldn't stand by and let ordinary fellow-citizens go without a voice, simply because of a perceived, yet utterly irrelevant, 'difference'.

Plenty to think about as another Lent begins....

Mr Gnome's must-see movies - La Belle et la Bête

Naturally enough, 'less is more' is one of Mr Gnome's most deeply held beliefs. Few films could give greater proof of this maxim than Jean Cocteau's 1946 masterpiece.

Working with a minuscule budget, Jean Cocteau was obliged to make a virtue of necessity. No cash for elaborate sets? No problem. He poured what little he had into exquisite costumes, props and, of course, the amazing make-up that transformed actor Jean Marais into the eponymous monster.

Frequently shooting against backgrounds of inky blackness, Cocteau creates an atmosphere that is by turns enchanting and terrifying: I saw the film first as a child and have never forgotten the impression created by scene after scene - the living statues, Beauty's extraordinary floating progress down an endless corridor, the disturbing sensuality of the Beast lapping water from Beauty's cupped hands.

Above all, there's the charge created by the relationship between the exquisite heroine and the strange, ambivalent, tortured Beast. Extraordinary.

This amazing, magical, utterly bizarre film got under my skin almost fifty years ago, And it's still there.

Don't whale, Laura....

The HB doesn't think he's alone in relishing the atmospheric qualities of railway stations on winter evenings.

Echoes of Brief Encounter, perhaps?

At Birmingham's Moor Street Station one wouldn't be surprised to find Laura and Alec gazing tensely at one another, paralysed with Cowardian anguish.

Mind you, with the new Selfridges store looming over the scrupulously restored Victorian railway architecture, you'd be forgiven for thinking you'd stumbled into a sci-fi version of Moby Dick.

Brief Encounter meets Moby Dick?

That'd be a challenge for Mr Spielberg.

Gnome movies

The gifts continue to arrive - and Mr G is very thrilled with this charming volume.

His respect for copyright prevents him from reproducing any more of the spreads.

'Go buy,' he says, teasingly....