Gus Van Sant’s new film Milk tells the story of Harvey Milk, who in 1977 became the first openly gay man to be elected to a major public office in the United States, only to be assassinated within his first year of serving on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. At turns tragic and exhilarating, the film chronicles the last eight years of Milk’s life (played by Sean Penn), when he worked on campaigns for public office and the protection of gay employees. more ›

ART: "Drawing Art and Politics" seems like a fitting event to have on the calendar today. "Spend an evening with New York’s renowned graphic artists Jules Feiffer, David Levine, Stan Mack, and Edward Sorel, as they examine the ways in which complex social and political issues are depicted by artists in today’s media. Jules Feiffer will moderate a discussion that explores the roots of political art and social realism in the context of John Sloan’s early 20th-century illustrations of New Yorkers engaging in routine pastimes and pleasures. Presented in conjunction with John Sloan’s New York." More info here. more ›

Walter Reade Theater, Lincoln Center more ›

will surely make even the most jaded Manhattanite want to pack their beret for a Parisian getaway tout de suite. more ›

Tonight, be sure to catch a sneak peak at this summer’s upcoming movies: MoMA’s Department of Film and Media presents Gus Van Sant’s Last Days, inspired and "loosely" based on Kurt Cobain’s last days before his suicide (with Michael Pitt as the struggling, Seattle-based grungy musician), at 9:00 PM, as well as Van Sant’s Elephant at 7:00 PM. $10 more ›

which was playing on Friday night as part of the Village Voice Best of 2003 series* running @ BAM from June 1 to 30. more ›

BAM's Rose Cinema will be showing the films of Wong Kar-Wai starting this weekend, in their program, Living in Dreams: Films of Wong Kar-Wai. Wong's work is romantic, and moves between being hilarious to unbelievably sad. The first film, on Friday, is Happy Together, with the late Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung as lovers in Buenos Aires, and on Saturday, Chungking Express will be shown. Chungking Express is one of Gothamist's favorite films, with two stories in one film, both of which jump out with more life than a month of Hollywood release. And In the Mood for Love, which screens next Saturday, on the 22nd, is one of the best films in the past five years, period. Even less acclaimed films like Days of Being Wild, Ashes of Time and Fallen Angels are great to get more of an idea of Wong's stylization. more ›

If it's fall, it must be time for the New York Film Festival. This year, the opening night film is Mystic River, the ensemble drama directed by Clint Eastwood. The cast is ridiculously loaded with great actors: Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, Tim Robbins, Laura Linney, Marcia Gay Harden, and Laurence Fishburne. The story is dark, eliciting comparisons to Eastwood's tour de force western, Unforgiven, but its present day setting makes it more wrenching. Sean Penn also stands a good chance of being nominated come Oscar time, based on the buzz of his performance as a father whose daughter is murdered. more ›