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Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Audience Rating: Unrated Binding: DVD Brand: Warner Brothers EAN: 9780783129501 Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC ISBN: 0783129505 Label: HBO Home Video Manufacturer: HBO Home Video Number Of Items: 2 Publisher: HBO Home Video Region Code: 1 Release Date: September 14, 2004 Running Time: 352 minutes Studio: HBO Home Video Theatrical Release Date: December 07, 2003 Sales Rank: 4555 MPN: 92299
Product 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.Running Time: 352 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 026359229923 Manufacturer No: 92299
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 Rating:
Rating: - 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.
Rating: - 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!
Rating: - 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 ... Read More
Rating: - 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 ... Read More
Rating: - Overlong, dramatically crippled and full of unecessary elements.
It was with a lot of anticipation that watched ANGELS IN AMERICA - the adaptation of a Pulitzer Prize winning play about the HIV outbreak during the Reagan years.
- What a waste
- What More Can I Say?
- Overlong, dramatically crippled and full of unecessary elements.