Undergoing a procedure to erase 30 years from its face, the Castro neighborhood is going retro, circa 1978, for the filming of Gus Van Sant's Harvey Milk biopic, Milk, which starts shooting this week. Already the Castro Theatre, right, and boutique shop Given, formerly Milk's camera store / campaign headquarters, are being renovated to get that '70s vibe. Rumor has it that Castro Street between 18th and 19th streets (i.e., the staphicenter) will be closed on Thursday. We'll update with more info as it comes in.

For those of you who don't know the story, San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk was "the first openly gay man elected to any substantial political office in the history of the planet," according to Time. In 1978, SF Supervisor Dan White, while under the duress of creaming filling, shot and killed Milk and Mayor George Moscone. Then, thirty years later, your editor was deemed too morbidly obese and/or ugly to appear as an extra in his biopic.

The movie will star Sean Penn (as Milk), Matt Damon Josh Brolin (as Dan White), and our very own Tom Ammiano (as Tommy Ammiano). No word yet as to whether or not Dianne Feinstein will even be written into the film as a character, but...it doesn't look good for the former supe. Or so says IMDB and Wikipedia. Crestfallen doesn't begin to describe how we feel about this slight.