Director Gus Van Sant has kept himself busy making half-hearted, pseudo artsy fartsy movies for the past few years. Hopefully this will be his return to form. The synopsis for Milk , as provided by Apple’s trailer site:

Academy Award nominee Gus Van Sant directs Academy Award winner Sean Penn as gay rights icon Harvey Milk. Mr. Milk (1930-1978) was an activist and politician, and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in America; in 1977, he was voted to the city supervisors’ board of San Francisco. The following year, both he and the city’s mayor George Moscone were shot to death by another city supervisor, Dan White. Mr. Milk was previously the subject of the Academy Award-winning documentary feature “The Times of Harvey Milk,” but “Milk” – filmed on location in San Francisco – is the first non-documentary feature to explore the man’s life and career.

Trailer: http://www.apple.com/trailers/focus_features/milk/

Milk opens November 26, 2008.