Contentar Best movie of this year hands down!

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Lee Eisenberg I had never heard of Tony Kushner's AIDS-themed play before Mike Nichols's TV adaptation aired. I didn't manage to see it when it aired, but I finally got around to seeing it. "Angels in America" is a masterpiece. It's basically a hyperlink story about several individuals who have connections to the spread of AIDS. I found the most fascinating part of the story to be the focus on Roy Cohn (Al Pacino). The erstwhile aide to Joe McCarthy lies dying and is haunted by the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg (Meryl Streep), whom Cohn helped execute. One can see a definitive link between the reactionary views of the McCarthyites and those of the Reaganites, especially in their views of LGBT people.This is a miniseries that everyone should see. The part about Cohn and Rosenberg, along with the relationship between a Jewish man and his AIDS-afflicted WASP partner, the angel, the closeted Mormon and his Valium-addicted wife (plus his mother), and the friend who links the different groups together amount to one of the most powerful stories ever put on stage and screen. It deserved every award that it won.PS: As it turns out, Cohn also worked with a young Donald Trump. Trump's upcoming presidency means that we're likely to see more of the sorts of things that "Angels in America" depicts.

sashank_kini-1 There is much multiplicity in Angels in America, all of which may be difficult to decipher in the worthiness and wordiness of Tony Kushner's Pulitzer winning script. There are political, theological and cultural allusions that are expressed in lengthy dialogs, sermons, monologues etc that you may find hard to allocate to the purpose of the play. What is simpler to understand is the questions about morality, musings about death, isolation and betrayal, problems of identity crisis and the universal feelings of love, compassion, empathy, responsibility, unity and impermanence. You constantly witness characters questioning their beliefs, breaking down, losing their sanity, finding a revelation and then living with hope that they find their true place and purpose in the ever-evolving life. Prior Walter is an openly gay man who's the first in the film to be inflicted by the disease. His Jewish gay partner Louis, who already has a track record of abnegating responsibility, slowly distances himself from his lover despite loving him dearly. Prior accuses Louis of not believing truly in what he preaches, and finds support in his best friend and ex-lover Belize and the hospital nurse. He also begins to experience startlingly realistic hallucinations where he encounters unknown people, ghosts and angels, who proclaim that he is a Prophet who can cure the world's miseries if he wishes. Another man Joe, a Conservative Mormon lawyer begins discovering his second skin when he realizes that his coldness towards his wife stems from his repressed homosexuality, which he had always ignored as it went against his religious beliefs. His wife Harper, as a result of emotional isolation and fears, lives in comfort and friendship of imaginary friends who, akin Prior's hallucinatory encounters, give answers to the questions that remain vague or unanswered in reality. Joe's mother,aptly referred to as 'Mother Pitt' is an ordinary Mormon wife who, although is upset by her son's revelation, finds that her womanhood innately shows the qualities of empathy and compassion to be more flexible towards changes around her. Joe's mentor is Roy Cohn, the famous Conservative Jewish lawyer who strongly shows anti-communist and racist attitudes and ignores moral and ethical issues in doing what he believes is right for US. The contemptible, churlish, unconscionable brute is another victim of AIDS, which he contracted through sexual relations with men; yet Roy does not believe he is a homosexual, terming the tag only for those 'whom nobody knows and who know nobody'. His confrontation with his past sins materializes in the form of the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg, a Jewish woman whom Roy had convicted using undue power for espionage.Distance, death, desertion and isolation are recurring themes in Angels in America. The opening monologue of the rabbi itself is an example of distance: we see Louis and Prior sitting together a few rows behind the other members of their family as the rabbi is sermonizing at Louis' grandmother's funeral about the brave woman's voyage to America. The two gay men are separated from the rest for their homosexuality while the Rabbi expresses his conservative view on religion. There is a haunting image about death some scenes later when Louis broaches the subject of desertion to the rabbi: after the conversation, we see an extremely long shot/view of the almost unending graveyard, with numberless black gravestones. Mike Nichols, the TV movie's director makes his camera float into and away from the subjects, and poetically captures the magic realism of the story. The colors in the film also capture the character's emotion or essence, and sometimes you may see the whole image going startlingly red or brilliantly blue or find a major color dominating the background, like a dull yellow background around Mother Pitt when she arrives home and gets a call about her daughter--law or shades of green on Mother Pitt and Prior during their conversation at the hospital. There is, in short, a lot we get to see, and I haven't come to burning ghosts of Prior's ancestors and his shared dream with Harper yet! Despite the complexities and the multitudinous implications in the play, you are always connected to the humanness of the characters and excellent. Highly engaging performances.Angels in America runs for six hours, but I have no problem seeing it again. There are things I know I've missed, meanings still not fully understood, questions still running in my mind, characters whose brilliance I haven't fully relished. It's really a play written which seems to have be written when the playwright himself was exploring USA, and all his ideas explode into Angels in America. It's well worth your time.Read the unabridged 'Angels In America' sized review at http://sashankkini.wordpress.com/

Movie Guy Were do I start... To keep things generic, the story and screenplay adaptation is excellent, great directing, editing and music with an artistic feel all the way through. This would have almost been worthless if it had a bad cast, but it wasn't - it's actually one of the best casts I've ever seen in a movie/mini series and a lot of them play more than one role.I remember I actually knew nothing about this and it was 2010 I watched it, it's because I came across it whilst looking through some of the casts film(s) and didn't even know what it was about. As I started watching it the "subject matter" was a little much for me at first, because I am a straight guy but not homophobic, but I thought I would be mature about it and give it a chance and I am damn glad I did because I couldn't stop watching, I remember I stuck it on late at night and watched it all the way through until early hours in the morning.In short this is overall incredibly well done definitely watch it. Very well done 10/10

aciolino Yes, in these days of immature observations, stereotypes, a populace suffering from severe A.D.D., you, too, can write a hit Broadway show and/or TV series! All you need to do is have your own inflated sense of self pompously attack a major religion that had, quite simply, helped create Western Civilization for 2,000 years, lecture while talking down to your audience, and give us pretentiously conceived characters hooting and hollering, spitting and cursing their way through life, and you've done it.And remember, you ain't nothing, if you're not a victim! It's bad enough that the film and it's author exploits and tragic disease to his own, barely discernible end, (propaganda) and that it is done with such unabashed childishness, but must I be insult me as well, with such inane and unrealistic plots and dialogue, most of which would be rejected by a Junior High School theater class?? Stay away from this self-righteous, hypocritical mess, but if you do decide to watch it, ask yourself: why do I care about any of these people?