This film (in six chapters) is six hours long, and is the focus of the Cinematic Forum. Rating: 4 bones/4 [compared to 1 bone/4 for The Passion of the Christ]. A short review will follow each screening, with a longer discussion on the third night. The six chapters are screened over three consecutive nights. A Community Screening & Open Discussion with no experts!

ANGELS IN AMERICA
(2004) US.
Director: Mike Nichols; Writer: Tony Kushner based on his Pulitzer Prize-winning play. (6 hr. 00 min.) 4 bones/4.
The story, set in New York City, runs from 1985 to 1990 and takes in a broad sweep of characters, but not nearly as many as other writers would have packed in, simply to give a broader demographic sampling. The most complex and intriguing character in this play is Roy Cohn, a real-life anti-Communist zealot whose proudest achievement was ensuring that Ethel Rosenberg was executed for treason, instead of a life sentence. However, he was also a gay man who loathed his own kind. There are many “Big Issues” being thrown around in the mini-series like confetti -- AIDS, the Reagan years, the Rosenberg case, Mormonism, the fate and promise of US-America, acceptance of homosexuals in society, religious prophecy -- it comes as no surprise that although one begins to expect a grand unification theory to be presented, a clear-cut one never seems to be proffered. Rather, it is content with a number of small conclusions via short scenarios, that don’t seem to be more than ten minutes before the topics change. For a long series, this seems to work in that it has something for everyone, at least if one is knowledgeable about McCarthyism, the Rosenberg episode, the Reagan-era AIDS, and gays being used as scapegoats for the religious right!

(#1 of 3):
ANGELS IN AMERICA--PART I: Millennium Approaches, Chapter One: Bad News, and Chapter Two: In Vitro, of Six Chapters.
(2003) US.
Director: Mike Nichols; Screenplay: Tony Kushner, based on his Pulitzer Prize-winning play. (1 hr. 00 min. + 1 hr. 00 min.) 4 bones/4.
All the principal actors were nominated for every acting award, and the director was honored likewise. Won eleven 2004 Emmy Awards, and nominated for another ten. Won five 2004 Golden Globes, and nominated for another two. This HBO mini-series dominated this year’s Emmys, and rightfully so! From its source material to its scope, its cast, its length, and its structure, the mini-series boldly announces itself as one for the ages. Thanks to a phenomenal cast, Mike Nichols’ sensitive direction, and Tony Kushner’s script, it generally achieves its generation-defining ambitions. Of course, it helps that the generation it aspires to define has already passed, which lends Kushner’s work an elegiac quality fitting its delicately wrought portrayal of gay US-America wrestling with a plague of biblical proportions. The story runs from 1985 to 1990 and takes in a broad sweep of characters, but not nearly as many as other writers would have packed in, simply to give a broader demographic sampling. Central to the film is Prior Walter (Justin Kirk), a 30-year-old AIDS sufferer whose boyfriend Louis (Ben Shenkman) leaves him in an astonishingly heartless manner, only to take up soon after with recently uncloseted U.S. attorney Joe Pitt (Patrick Wilson). Left mostly to his own devices, with only his friend Belize (Jeffery Wright) to help, as Walter gets sicker, he begins to have visions of an angel (Emma Thompson, odd, arrogant and completely captivating), determined to make him a prophet, claiming that God has deserted the world and that humans are at fault.

(#2 of 3):
ANGELS IN AMERICA--PART I: Millennium Approaches, Chapter Three: The Messenger, and PART II: Perestroika, Chapter Four: Stop Moving!, of Six Chapters.
(2003) US.
Director: Mike Nichols; Screenplay: Tony Kushner, based on his Pulitzer Prize-winning play. (1 hr. 00 min. + 1 hr. 00 min.) 4 bones/4.
Part I (consisting of the first three chapters) is titled Millennium Approaches, and Part II (consisting of the last three chapters) is titled Perestroika. Kushner adapts the series from his two-part Pulitzer-winning play. It charts the nation’s unsteady struggle through the onset of the ’80s AIDS crisis, through the interlocking stories of a Mormon couple torn asunder by the husband’s closeted homosexuality, a guilt-stricken legal flunky who leaves his AIDS-stricken partner, and the last days of arch-conservative Roy Cohn (played with gusto by Al Pacino). The infamous lawyer never let his status as a gay Jew keep him from working tirelessly against the interests of both groups. Haunted by the sly, taunting ghost of executed spy Ethel Rosenberg (Meryl Streep), Cohn isn’t about to go gently into that good night, especially when played by a ham as well-seasoned as Pacino. Kushner’s ironic and sincere, ambitious and unafraid words soar over a plague-ravaged but hopeful country, achieving the grace and sublime transcendence at the heart of Nichols’ beautifully realized socio-political fable.

(#3 of 3):
ANGELS IN AMERICA--PART II: Perestroika, Chapter Five: Beyond Nelly, and Chapter Six: Heaven, I’m In Heaven, of Six Chapters.
(2003) US.
Director: Mike Nichols; Screenplay: Tony Kushner, based on his Pulitzer Prize-winning play. (1 hr. 00 min. + 1 hr. 00 min.) 4 bones/4.
The most complex and intriguing character in this play is Roy Cohn, a real-life anti-Communist zealot whose proudest achievement was ensuring that Ethel Rosenberg was executed for treason, instead of a life sentence. However, he was also a gay man who loathed his own kind. In one scene riveting in its cold-blooded logic and near-insane denial, Cohn explains to his doctor, “I am not a homosexual, I am a man who has sex with men, because a homosexual could not get the president on the phone (or, “Better, the president’s wife”), but Roy Cohn can. Therefore, Roy Cohn is not a homosexual.” Then he bullies the doctor into diagnosing him with liver cancer instead of what he actually has, AIDS. There are many “Big Issues” being thrown around in the mini-series like confetti -- AIDS, the Reagan years, the Rosenberg case, Mormonism, the fate and promise of US-America, acceptance of homosexuals in society, religious prophecy -- it comes as no surprise that although one begins to expect a grand unification theory to be presented, a clear-cut one never seems to be proffered. Rather, it is content with a number of small conclusions via short scenarios, that don’t seem to be more than ten minutes before the topics change. For a long series, this seems to work in that it has something for everyone, at least if one is knowledgeable about McCarthyism, the Rosenberg episode, the Reagan-era AIDS, and gays being used as scapegoats for the religious right! The series is also littered throughout with scraps of genius and joy, especially the lyrical interludes featuring Harper Pitt. A Mormon already teetering on the verge of nervous collapse before finding out that her husband Joe is gay, but who escapes for a time afterward into a full-fledged fantasy world, complete with an imaginary angelic travel agent who can take her anywhere she wants. Her performance is pitch-perfect and makes her every scene count, regardless of how little she ultimately fits in to the big picture of the film.

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