Mountain of Snakes: Sean Penn interviews Hugo Chávez and Raúl Castro. (Part ii of the interview, and an excerpt, for those of you pressed for time.)
posted by louigi on Dec 1, 2008 - 32 comments

Thirty years ago yesterday (November 27, 1978) San Francisco Board of Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by Dan White, another city supervisor. Milk was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in the U.S. Prior to his death he championed a movement against a California proposition (Proposition 6, dubbed the Briggs Initiative) which sought to ban gays and lesbians, and anyone who supported gay rights, from working in California's public schools. In the midst of a national right-wing, conservative, religious movement heralded by folks like Anita Bryant the proposition was soundly defeated. Fast forward to today. A new film "Milk" [trailer] (starring Sean Penn in the title role) is garnering critical acclaim and is relevant to current events. "Harvey came up against a lot of obstacles, which I think is the case for any gay man now," says Brolin, who plays Dan White [in the film]. "The irony is that Prop 8 is now what Prop 6 was then."
posted by ericb on Nov 28, 2008 - 60 comments

In the evening, gunfire emanates with the relentlessness of frog "ribbits'' around a summer pond, sometimes sporadic and at other times overwhelming. But in the daytime, it's intermittent at most -- a few pops here and there. Five times a day, the Islamic call to prayer is broadcast through loudspeakers from each mosque in the city. The chant echoes and ricochets through Baghdad's declining alleys and architecture. One experiences a palpably hypnotic engagement with Middle Eastern spiritual life, like living in a movie with this chant as its score. Sean Penn returns to Iraq... and writes about it.
posted by squirrel on Jan 14, 2004 - 30 comments

Danny Glover is a no good communist according to MSNBC's right-wing pundit Joe Scarborough. Scarborough is taking credit for forcing MCI to drop Glover as a spokesman because Glvoer's views are "too far to the left." Add this to the Bull Durham fiasco, and Sean Penn's claims of a new blacklist start to look pretty real. Do we only have freedom of speech if we agree with the neo-conservatives?
posted by hipnerd on May 19, 2003 - 78 comments

Sean Penn totally disses President Bush in the Washington Post but because he did it in a full page ad and not an op/ed column it is totally unlinkable to those of use on the web, and therefore dies on the vine. Two questions: How can one find the full transcript to Penn's advertisment, and why is it that only Republican movie stars are allowed have their voices heard in political discussions?
posted by tsarfan on Oct 19, 2002 - 64 comments