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Angels in America

10 comments on Angels in America

Angels in America
: I just saw the first half of Angels in America; I hope you did, too. It is brilliant and beautiful and wrenching and painful.

By now, we have all been touched by this horrid disease; we measure degrees of separation from the virus and its toll.

What Angels does so well is confess to the ugliness of death. Death is not proud. It is not glorious. Death is death.

Early in this epidemic, I watched my closest friend die this death. Angels brought back all the terrifying mystery, all the anger, all the mistakes, all the regrets, all the pain, honestly, brilliantly.

Thank goodness that HBO will rerun it a hundred times. No excuses. Watch.

10 responses to “Angels in America”

  1. Unemployed Jerk Avatar
    Unemployed Jerk

    I don’t get cable, that’s my excuse. Why don’t they make this sort of stuff for network television?

  2. Greg Avatar
    Greg

    I was just curious, how political does it get, if at all? I don’t want to be fed tripe about how Reagen killed millions by himself, or the movie blaming it on any one person. I might watch it if it has more to do with life with AIDS/ friends with AIDS/ etc.

  3. Ross Mayfield Avatar
    Ross Mayfield

    Coincidentally, I am about the see the second half.

  4. Sam Avatar
    Sam

    Greg: Tony Kushner, Angels in America… I would be shocked if it didn’t have anti-Reagan themes in it. But I haven’t seen it so I simply don’t know.

  5. Greg Avatar
    Greg

    I was reading Andrew Sullivan, and he made some pretty strong comments about the people behind it. I wasn’t sure exactly though, but I don’t have cable on hand. I would have to go out of my way to record it.

  6. Yehudit Avatar
    Yehudit

    I saw the play when I lived in Austin. The local acting was so-so (except for Jason Phelps) but the play itself is wonderful. Forcing art to conform to political party lines is pretty Stalinist – AinA is much larger than its politics.

  7. KMK Avatar
    KMK

    http://www.stephenpollard.net/001332.html
    ‘Aids victims pay a terrible price for these protests (The Times)’ from Stephen Pollard.
    I enjoy Pollards blog. He had this to say about the protests on World AIDS day.

  8. Anon. Avatar
    Anon.

    If the right wing is so het up about anti-Reagan plays and other art, why don’t they make some of their own?
    Oh yeah, right: Evil liberal Hollywood would surely sabotage it.
    Never mind. Carry on.

  9. ronnie Avatar
    ronnie

    Maybe HBO will produce another movie, dramatizing the sad plight of people with congestive heart failure brought on by years of smoking and drinking.
    It was propaganda from the likes of Mr. Kushner that promoted the idea that “everyone is at risk” so they could get more funding for their pet disease. Sadly, this meant that people who were truly had elevated risk levels (Blacks, Hispanics, partners of men who had sex with other men, IV drug users) did not get the information that would have helped curb the spread of the virus.
    Everything that Michael Fumento predicted in The Myth Of Heterosexual Aids has come to pass.

  10. Cridland Avatar
    Cridland

    Sincerest condolences… Some of my best friends… etc.
    But when someone says we *must* watch this-or-that piece of entertainment, I always pass. We do not need to be excused. Same with Schindler’s List. Am I insensitive to suffering or history because I don’t want to watch automated entertainment?