Well, it's been fun. The trailers, the megawatt celebrity sightings, the lights, the cameras, the not being invited to cast/crew parties -- SFist will miss it all. As most of you know, Gus Van Sant's biopic Milk -- the story of assassinated San Francisco Supervisor and gay rights advocate, Harvey Milk -- started shooting in January. This past Sunday, the production came to an end. Alas. For those of you who weren't able to......

This was the scene tonight in the Castro with hundreds of extras helping to make movie magic....

Happening on Castro and State streets over the weekend, where Gus Van Sant's Milk is currently shooting, it started out with the words "Harvey + George" (with a hearts!), "The Penn is lying" (Leigh Wolf, say it ain't so!), and the oddly and for no reason URL-y "Dan White.com, faggotkiller." Then, it turned into the bathroom wall at the Lexington, but not nearly as amusing, collapsing in on itself with to much text and......

Remember the bedlam over at that local homo political clique last year? You know, that time when Carole Migden (D-San Francisco) "stole" the vote from Mark Leno? And then gay-on-gay hair-pulling violence erupted? Well, it looks like the vote for Carole is going to stick. Now that Rafael Mandelman has been elected president of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, the lcoal group, according to the B.A.R., "is Carole Migden's club." And that, it......

Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, Emile Hirsch as activist Cleve Jones Although the reportedly very considerate Milk production crew requests that you not take pictures, our awesome readers know when to disobey. Harvey would've been so proud. Sniff. Image credit: GayCities Photos......

Seeing as how castroshopper's Ray F. has some choice shots of the Castro's conversion to 1978, we thought we'd thrill you with a few more recent images of the world's most flowery neighborhood. Also, it seems to have gone through a big transformation -- bigger than we thought, in fact -- but many of the stores that are there today seem faithful to the stores' genres of yesteryear, at least according to Van Sant's......

Given / Harvey Milk's old camera store (Rob Cox) Shot in the Castro this week, the neighborhood is made to appear as its halcyon, pre-Staph era days for Gus Van Sant's Milk.......

Gus Van Sant isn't the only one who might make you a shiny, coke-addled star here in San Francisco. Take, for example, MTV and NBC who want to use you for their up-and-coming reality programming....

Starting this week, as we all know by now, Palme d'Or-winning writer/directer Gus Van Sant starts filming Milk on our pretty yet smelly streets. But Gustave needs your help, folks. On Monday night, Feb. 4, and Friday night, Feb. 8, he will require you use your thespionic skills during several march reenactments. If you go here and register, you will be used. All ages, races and genders are just dandy; however, you must be......

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......

Yeah, we plan on running this bit into the ground. And then some. Well, well, well. Well. Huh. It looks like Mr. Van Sant is having yet another open casting call for his Harvey Milk biopic, Milk. Seeing as how are the Gena Rowlands of bit-part/background acting, we're going to attend the casting call. Again. Clearly, our picture taken at the last audition was either destroyed by a envious auditioners, or it was lost......

Well, he does not care for our image, but still: same thing. Well, we went to this last Saturday's open casting call for Gus Van Sant's latest project, Milk. (Based off of the life of former San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, etc. etc...you know the story -- well, at least you should.) It was our first-ever open casting call, in fact. We were nervous. And totally unprepared. When we arrived on the scene, all......

Oh my, this sounds like fun. Men of San Francisco, this Saturday there will be an open casting call for Gus Van Sant's film project, tentatively titled "Untitled Harvey Milk Project" as of now. We've already mentioned our enthusiasm for this project before. (With thoughts of who will play DiFi bordering on obsession.) But who knew that we might have a slim-to-none chance of being in the film?! Sure, we can't act, probably weigh......

Local movie star, sometimes activist, and Tosca regular Sean Penn will play gay for pay in the long-incubated version of Randy Shilts' 1982 "The Mayor of Castro Street". (An amazing book for those of you who have yet to read it.) He'll play murdered San Francisco Supervisor and gay rights activist Harvey Milk, who was shot and killed along with Mayor George Moscone by Supervisor Dan White. Perma-boy Matt Damon gets to play the......

Speaking of cleaning up the streets, people on Polk Street are trying to have a major rehaul done in an attempt to make it less grimy. Twenty-nine commercial spaces are either vacant or under construction along the Lower Polk corridor and all the businesses and developers are looking to help clean the area up in order to increase their business. For whatever reason, they think that having to climb over transvestite heroin junkies nodding out isn't the kind of thing people want to do if they come to a neighborhood. And also, lots of vacancies equals more crime and the more crime the more vacancies and so on and so forth. ...

Last week's winner, the "locally owned and operated since 1966" Bay Guardian. The Guardian buys out a full-page ad in its own newspaper about the SF Weekly! We love the CLEAR CHANNEL = BUSH, CLEAR CHANNEL = SF WEEKLY thing. The transitive property rules. Everyone's favorite topic, community-choice aggregation of public power. Cover article: A dude who pretended to be a bank. More toilet humor by Dan Leone, and veggie banh mi reviews. SF Jewish Film Fest and an interview with Gus Van Sant (not online). Next up, the SF Weekly -- oh, sorry, we meant to say: the "Clear Channel Spawn of Satan not-authentically-SF" Weekly, our bad. Dog Bites makes fun of the first version of the previously-mentioned ad Bruce Brugman emailed to them, about the Bay "Guard-AIN." Also, a frighteningly-well-designed response (.pdf). Duelling cover articles: fake social security cards and local band the Herms. Also, their club columnist gets into Otis, using nothing more than SF Weekly (sorry, we meant to say "running-dog imperialistic not-authentically-SF Weekly") business cards. We totally need to print out our SFist business cards. The evil scum-sucking not-authentically-SF New Times affiliate East Bay Express and the much-missed voice of reason through all of this alterna-media on alterna-media violence, the SJ Metro, after the jump. Plus, the pick of the week! ...

We've heard a lot of buzz about Gus Van Sant's Last Days, a meditative account of a suicidal musician's final hours, inspired by the life and death of Kurt Cobain. You could read more about the film here, or you could cut to the chase and see it at 7:30 tonight at the Embarcadero for free! All you need to do is fill out the form below, and the first 50 folks to respond......