October 13, 2004

• WEDNESDAY FILM

  Angels in America

  For those of us who don’t have HBO, this film is now out on double DVD and is a wonderland of marvelous acting, incredible visual effects, and a powerful intelligent script. Plus it’s almost 6 hours worth of Pacino, Streep, Emma Thompson, Mary Louise Parker, and several superb lesser known actors like Justin Kirk in the lead role, Ben Shenkman, Patrick Wilson, and Jeffrey Wright. Originally, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning play, it is a look at AIDS in America. The basic story is simple – young man diagnosed with HIV is deserted by his young male partner, who later returns to him after having an affair with a young Mormon in-the-closet gay male who is struggling with his homosexuality and causing his wife to turn to valium in her despair. Interwoven with this are the roles of Pacino as Roy Cohn (also dying of AIDS and a closet homosexual) who is the mentor of the young Mormon law clerk, Streep as the Mormon’s mother who flies in from Utah to find out what’s going on with him and finds a new family, and Jeffrey Wright as the black gay nurse who is both friend and caretaker to them all. But much of the story is told in the delerium of its major characters. Prior (Justin Kirk) has visions of a magnificent angel (Emma Thompson) who bursts through the roof of his hospital room and calls upon him to be a prophet. Roy Cohn (Pacino) sees the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg (played also by Streep) whose death he helped to bring about in the electric chair years before, and Harper (Mary-Louise Parker) whose valium overdoses take her to frozen wastelands and pioneer exhibits. What can I say? See it for the joy of extraordinary film-making. You will hear for days the angel shouting “I, I, I…” at the top of her lungs.
  

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  Deep Thought: If you want to sue somebody, just get a little plastic skeleton and lay it in their yard. Then tell them their ants ate your baby.
  Today I am grateful for: Magnifying glasses
  Guess the Movie: “What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. ” Answer: The Matrix, 1999. Winner: swawg.
  Polls Today: Kerry 228/Bush 291. EVP: “Kerry is now ahead in three key states: Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin, with Bush ahead in Iowa. All are close though. On the other hand, Strategic Vision reports Bush leading in Ohio, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin and tied in New Jersey. Tonight’s debate in Arizona could be crucial as it will be the last time the voters see the candidates together. “
  End of Day: 8:39 pm
  + = Got to the dentist just in time.
  - = Another filling pasted back in and another abscess in my gums and jaw.

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