Gus Van Sant’s Milk, a skillful and impassioned argument for gay rights, may have come out too late. As proponents of equal marriage rights are still reeling from the passage of Prop 8 in California, the film finds itself the subject of bitter irony, rather than the center of a political victory parade that could have been. Milk is saturated with politics, both on screen and off. It’s not too hard to imagine Sean Penn’s speech should he win an Oscar, and Van Sant has done a fair bit of political maneuvering in an effort to give him that opportunity.

Tom Cruise has done some politicking to get audiences to warm up to his Hitler assassination plot thriller, Valkyrie. Can he bury bury the couch-jumping and psychology-bashing hatchets quick enough to enjoy a successful holiday at the box office?

(Subscribe to FilmCouch–Spout’s weekly movie podcast–in the iTunes store or to our RSS feed and an episode will download each Friday)

0:00 - Intro

1:32 - Milk

25:06 - Valkyrie

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