This incredibly moving, entertaining, and important film is getting raves across the board: Sean Penn’s performance is Oscar-worthy! The direction is beautiful! The script is brilliant!

But CGG wants to point out the not-so-obvious: Milk is a celebration of modern grassroots activism and a primer for anyone who’s thinking about Doing Something to make a positive difference in this world -- for the disenfranchised or for whatever cause inspires you to take action.

Those of you who are regular visitors to DoSomething.org and our blog, CelebsGoneGood, are already familiar with the power that each person has to start a movement. Perhaps you are one of the 6,000 young people who have posted your social change project on our site. Or maybe you won a $500 grant to help change your community in some way, or have headed up or have contributed to your school’s Feed the Need program. Then Milk is the movie for you.

Harvey Milk was a regular guy – not a rich, powerful politician. Before him, no gay man or woman had ever even been elected to a major public office in the U.S. But that didn’t stop him from trying. In fact, he lost several elections in San Francisco before he finally was sworn in as a member of the city’s board of supervisors in 1978. With each loss, he was brokenhearted, but he kept going, amassing more and more votes with each run, until he finally succeeded.

Then, just months after taking office, he led a country-wide gay rights movement that resulted in several major victories, including one in his own state where voters declined to pass Proposition 6, which would have banned gay teachers from being employed in public schools.

Harvey was a change-maker who didn’t believe that you needed massive corporate backing to organize people and solve major problems. He started out as the unofficial “mayor” of his street in San Francisco, gathering the support of young people like Cleve Jones (played by the mesmerizing Emile Hirsch). The gay rights movement grew out of Harvey’s camera store, where his friends and boyfriend (James Franco) hung out and planned for a better world for the gay community by making phone calls, talking with their neighbors, and, most important, never giving up hope. Milk is proof that whether you are a leader like Harvey or an inspired learner like Cleve, YOU can make a difference. (FYI, Cleve later founded the AIDS Memorial Quilt and last year was an organizer of Penn’s Dirty Hands Caravan, along with members of Do Something.)

This holiday season go see Milk as a reminder of why all you Do-ers do what you do -- and be inspired to do it even better. Affect more people. Create more change. And, as Harvey said: Never take no for an answer!

P.S. After you see the film, CGG wants YOUR opinion -- comment below!