Description
Academy Award-winners Al Pacino, Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson lead an all-star cast in a 6-hour HBO Films Event. Directed by Mike Nichols and written by Tony Kushner based on his Pulitzer Prize-winning play: Angels in America.

Amazon.com
Tony Kushner's prize-winning play Angels in America became the defining theatrical event of the 1990s, an astonishing mix of philosophy, politics, and vibrant gay soap opera that summed up the Reagan era for an entire generation of theater-goers. Post-9/11 would seem to be too late for a film version--philosophy and politics don't always age well--but this 2003 HBO adaptation, ably directed by Mike Nichols (The Graduate), provides a time capsule of the '80s and reveals the deep emotional subcurrents that will give the play lasting power.

The story centers around Prior Walter (Justin Kirk) and Louis Ironson (Ben Shenkman), a gay couple that falls apart when Prior grows ill as a result of AIDS. But cancer is not the only thing invading Prior's life: He begins to have religious visions of an angel (Emma Thompson, Sense and Sensibility) announcing that he is a prophet. Louis, who doesn't cope well with disease and suggestions of mortality, leaves and starts a relationship with Joe Pitt (Patrick Wilson), a closeted Mormon who works for Roy Cohn (Al Pacino, Dog Day Afternoon)--the real-life right-wing lawyer, notorious for his ruthless behind-the-scenes machinations. Add in Joe's depressed and hallucinating wife Harper (Mary Louise Parker, Fried Green Tomatoes), his determined but open-minded mother Hannah (Meryl Streep, Adaptation), a fierce drag queen/nurse named Belize (Jeffrey Wright, Basquiat, reprising his celebrated performance from the Broadway production), and you've still only begun to discover the wealth of characters and storylines in Kushner's ambitious work.

The powerhouse cast (also featuring James Cromwell, Michael Gambon, and Simon Callow) is uniformly superb. The script has its weaknesses--some of the fantastic elements, including Prior's journey to Heaven towards the end, fall flat--but even what doesn't work is bristling with ideas and a ferocious desire to capture human existence in this time and place. --Bret Fetzer

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 203 reviews)

ANGELS (AND MORMONS) IN AMERICA

If you are an adult Mormon in America, you will relate to ANGELS IN AMERICA. Tony Kushner has absorbed and filtered back more Mormon concepts and theology within the 6-hour boundaries of this film than any other Jewish American playwright. He is to be commended for the effort. He has done his homework. His personal interpretations of God (and/or the lack thereof) are not mine, nor need they be yours. But as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for the past 50 years, I pronounce this film to be "virtuous, lovely and of good report". Do not get bogged down with the sex or language. See them for what they are: incidentals. Focus instead on the human (and spiritual) interaction in the face of AIDS, and by extension all disease. Add the kaleidoscopic variables of human interactions. After viewing this serendipitous masterpiece, thoughtfully witness, thoughtfully ponder, and thoughtfully ACT. Follow up with meaningful help to make the world a better place for us all.
October 13, 2008

What a waste

It is a shame that such great actors would lower themselves and play in a movie that was so bad. Don't waste your money.
October 09, 2008

What More Can I Say?

This is a very artistic, moving, funny, sad and whimsical adaptation of the play that will be a welcome addition to your DVD collection. Now just waiting for it to come out in Blu-Ray!
September 09, 2008

Hopelessly intriguing, but confusing

This film completely engrossed me, even though I couldn't for the life of me tell you what it was really, truly about. I mean, of course the film is about being gay in New York in the 1980s as a new and deadly disease swirls all around. Perhaps it was the fantasy sequences that got me.

The acting was fabulous, especially those actors (already mentioned many times by other reviewers) who took multiple roles. Justin Kirk and Jeffrey Wright were a wonder. I had only seen Wright in one other movie (Basquiat, that was him, wasn't it?) and I liked him then...

I still cannot figure out why Joe Pitt is shunned at the end, even as his mother becomes central to the in-group. Or, does Joe - the model of right-wing Republicanism who perhaps grows/changes least during the film - do the shunning?

Don't expect any easy answers or - perhaps - even likable characters in this one (I did like Prior and Harper Pitt, though). Do expect to be challenged to your core by this lengthy, entertaining, thought-provoking piece.

August 20, 2008

Monumental

I'm not a gay person, and I have not had many gay friends, but I watched this series and found it to be tremendously moving and compelling. It's something that should be seen by everyone.
The acting by all concerned is incredible, and not just the powerhouse names like Al Pacino and Meryl Streep. Mary-Louise Parker is brilliant, as is Justin Kirk as Prior Walter, the main character (now doing great work in Weeds, along with Mary-Louise again). Emma Thompson's nurse is amazing. Tony Kushner's dialogue is endlessly funny, sad, provocative, blistering, heart-rending.
This movie goes way beyond mere sexual orientation. It will forever change--for the better--the way you view your fellow human beings.
August 18, 2008

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

Wit
by Emma Thompson, Mike Nichols, Cary Brokaw, Charles F. Ryan, Julie Lynn, Michael Haley, Margaret Edson
Directed by Mike Nichols
Starring Emma Thompson, Christopher Lloyd, Eileen Atkins, Audra McDonald, Jonathan M. Woodward
Hbo Home Video

Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes : Perestroika (Angels in America)
by Tony Kushner

And the Band Played On
by Aaron Spelling, Albert M. Shapiro, Arnold Schulman, Arnold Schulman, E. Duke Vincent, Edward Teets, Randy Shilts
Directed by Roger Spottiswoode
Starring Matthew Modine, Alan Alda, Patrick Bauchau, Nathalie Baye, Christian Clemenson
Hbo Home Video

The Laramie Project
by Andy Paris, Kelli Simpkins, Amanda Gronich, Barbara Pitts, Greg Pierotti, Jeffrey LaHoste, John McAdams
Directed by Moisés Kaufman
Starring Christina Ricci, Steve Buscemi, Kathleen Chalfant, Laura Linney, Peter Fonda
Hbo Home Video

Shortbus (Unrated Edition)
Directed by John Cameron Mitchell
Starring Sook-Yin Lee, Paul Dawson, Lindsay Beamish, PJ DeBoy, Raphael Barker
Velocity / Thinkfilm