Angels in America

Published on June 10, 2004 By trina_p In Movies & TV & Books

For the last three night's I've been forgoing all my usual tv programs and watching a tele-movie on the ABC. I watched the Oscar's earlier this year so I heard a little bit about Angels in America (hereafter referred to as AiA or Angels depending on what I type

try to keep up) when they were talking about the nominations it received.

I knew it would be a quality movie looking at the cast - Meryl Streep, Al Pacino, Emma Thompson, Mary Louise Parker - the list goes on but I had no idea the impact it woiuld have.

I knew it had something to do with Aids, that it was based on a play and some of the people existed.

So I turned it on on Tuesday night - not fully prepared for the total weirdness of the storyline and for the graphicness of the sexuality.
I'm going to assume everyone's seen it and therefore I'm not going to ruin the storyline by expressing any opinion I have (though I hope I don't offend)

Firstly -- it was weird -- Mary Louise Parker played a woman named Harper Pitt who was a Mormon and married to a closet homosexual Joe -- that in itself is weird enough but the really weird subplot is that Harper is kinda nuts -- she's addicted to Valium and "escaping" - she went to "Antartica" because she wanted to see the Ozone and there she met an eskimo and chewed a pine tree with her teeth like a beaver.
Oh and at one stage she and Prior were hallucinating at the same time and dreamed each other -- which is how she found out her husband is gay.

Okay - I'm probably going to go all over the place with this - it's kinda late at night I still have to go wake the baby but Nick's downstairs doing an assignment so I'm taking this opportunity to write about the movie while it's still in my mind (brb)

I don't know why I did that - maybe I'm assuming I'm on msn or something -- or maybe I'm just nuts

I loved how a couple of the key actors played more then one role (like in a real play)
Example Meryl Streep played the Angel of Australia (gee she looked weird) the ghost of Ethel Rosenburg, the Rabbi in the first part and Hanna (the mormon moher)
Emma Thompson was the Angel of America, Prior's nurse and the homeless lady
Jeffrey Wright was the Angel of Europia, Belize (ray's nurse and prior's best friend) and the made up travel agent friend of Harper.
and the guy who played Louis was Louis and the Angel of Oceania

I don't think I really got Al Pacino's part - Ray Cohn - he was a lawyer who knew the President and was responsible for Ethel Rosenburgs death and he had "Liver Cancer" (it's 11pm and Elana just decided it was time to play - uh-uh go back to sleep little girl)
okay - btw - Liver Cancer is in "" quotation marks because it's short for Aids - sorta
But he was MEAN -- and loud

I liked Belize and I liked Prior -- I didn't get Harper -- plus I kept wondering where she was and if she'd ever meet anyone because everyone else knew everyone.

I was kinda uncomfortable with all the sex - because I'm straight and because especially the stuff in the park was just...weird

this is a crap review of a really interesting and thought provocing mini-series

I blame my tiredness.

I really wish I could corolate my thoughts (please excuse all grammatical and spelling errors)

oh yeah -- I really liked the last scene with Prior, Hanna, Lou and Belize at the Angel statue -- I wish I could quote that whole 10minutes

Rent the movie!! - I'm going to bed

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