That Spicoli's Come A Great Distance

This weekend I was watching Milk, you know the one that Sean Penn got his Oscar for, and I got to thinking. He sure has come a long way. Don't get me wrong I loved him when he was ordering pizza in his class and sporting the long greasy surfer dude hair, but still. Look at him now. He went from movies like Taps and Bad Boys to such heart wrenching films as Mystic River, Dead Man Walking and The Thin Red Line.

I know people were torn down the middle about Mickey Rourke and Sean Penn duking it out for the Best Actor award this year at the Oscars and here's the thing.

Yes, Mickey Rourke was amazing playing a washed up wrestler, but to be honest he had been a washed up actor for so long that it wasn't too much of a stretch for him to play this part. I loved the movie and I thought he did an amazing job (i also though Marisa Tomi had a hot little body for someone her age but that's a different blog altogether.)

But Sean Penn isn't gay. And he had to do something that many actors had reservations about and that was going full gay. And he did it with finesse. Just like Robert DeNeiro said, "How did Sean Penn ever get a role as a straight guy?"

That's how well he did it.

The role was complex, and though I, and the rest of the nation, would cross coals to kiss James Franco, Sean Penn did it with enough passion that you questioned whether their wasn't something else behind that kiss.

Nick Miller said 'If I had to kiss a guy I would kiss James Franco' and that just sums it all up.

So in the end Sean Penn has come a long way, you can't help but love his gentle ways with Hollywood and he played a gay man extremely well.

The movie had a point to make, and I'm glad he won. Everyone deserves equal rights, the gays, the straights and the washed up wrestlers.