If you've never seen the Oscar-winning documentary The Times of Harvey Milk, you should lend it your attention. Aside from being a great film, about a homosexual politician in 1970s San Francisco who was assassinated by a co-worker, it needs to be seen before Milk's image is tainted by Sean Penn. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Penn is set to play Milk in a biopic to be directed by Gus Van Sant (My Own Private Idaho). Now, I admit Penn is a great actor, but he just doesn't have that nice-guy charm that Milk had. Instead, Penn is good for serious, brooding characters. Milk was all smiles, and Penn's smile is not nearly as pleasing. Also attached to the film is Matt Damon, who will play Milk's assassin and fellow SF City Supervisor, Dan White (hopefully Damon will wear a dimple-chin prosthetic).

For those wondering, no, this isn't the Milk biopic that we've been hearing about for awhile being made at Warner Bros. That long-planned project, being scripted by Christopher McQuarrie and to be directed by Bryan Singer, is waiting on the production of the duo's Valkyrie -- and maybe even on The Man of Steel. But we did learn of this rival production back in April. Now, if Van Sant can fast track his version, it will take the lead and the advantage. Plans are to begin filming in December with a script penned by Dustin Lance Black (TV's Big Love), though apparently if the untitled film doesn't finalize a shoot date soon, Damon may not stay on board (too bad; he's perfectly cast). The project is being produced by American Beauty's Oscar-winners Bruce Cohen and Dan Jinks with financing coming from producer Michael London (Sideways) and his Groundswell Productions. They are currently in talks with one of the major specialty divisions about distribution.

I'm really, really trying to remain positive about this little bit of news. Now, I know that Gus Van Sant was responsible for Drugstore Cowboy and To Die For -- both solidly interesting book adaptations, but he really singed a sore spot into me with Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. I had missed the movie originally, but was determined to see it after reading the book; it wasn't at my local video store, so I ended up over-paying for a copy and regretting it ever since -- and I even like Uma Thurman! Between that experience and James Rocchi's questionable review of Van Sant's Paranoid Park, I just don't know what to think about his next adapted feature -- Tom Wolfe's classic The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

At the very least, this will get him out of the kid rut James spoke of, but does Van Sant still have the chops to pull it off? Could this be anywhere near as good as the adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (which came out a few years after Acid)? Dustin Lance Black (Big Love writer ) is going to pen the script, and the pic will be produced by Richard Gladstein. If you're not familiar with the book, it's Wolfe's attempt to capture, on paper, the drug-addled minds of Ken Kesey (writer of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and his Merry Pranksters. It follows the group as they drive across country, from California to the World's Fair in New York, in a DayGlo-painted bus while on psychedelic drugs like LSD.

A little background: the rights to Acid Test were bought by Alfred Roven years ago. While filmmakers met with him to try and get the text on-screen, the attempts failed. After his death, Gladstein was introduced to Roven's children and the rights were finally opened to a producer. Why, oh why Mr. Gladstein, isn't Terry Gilliam behind this, especially after Fear and Loathing? Sigh -- what's done is done. Are you excited about this latest adaptation? Or, does it make you want to cower between the pages of Wolfe's writing or hunt wildly for psychedelics to wipe the memory away?