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List Price: $19.98 | | Label: HBO Home Video
Salesrank: 1792
Released: September 14, 2004 |
| Our Price: $4.28 |
| Used Price: $2.52 |
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MPAA Rating: Unrated
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Academy Award-winners Al Pacino, Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson lead an all-star cast in a 6-hour HBO Films Event. Directed by Mike Nichols and written by Tony Kushner based on his Pulitzer Prize-winning play: Angels in America.
Description of Angels in America:
Tony Kushner's prize-winning play Angels in America became the defining theatrical event of the 1990s, an astonishing mix of philosophy, politics, and vibrant gay soap opera that summed up the Reagan era for an entire generation of theater-goers. Post-9/11 would seem to be too late for a film version--philosophy and politics don't always age well--but this 2003 HBO adaptation, ably directed by Mike Nichols (The Graduate), provides a time capsule of the '80s and reveals the deep emotional subcurrents that will give the play lasting power.
The story centers around Prior Walter (Justin Kirk) and Louis Ironson (Ben Shenkman), a gay couple that falls apart when Prior grows ill as a result of AIDS. But cancer is not the only thing invading Prior's life: He begins to have religious visions of an angel (Emma Thompson, Sense and Sensibility) announcing that he is a prophet. Louis, who doesn't cope well with disease and suggestions of mortality, leaves and starts a relationship with Joe Pitt (Patrick Wilson), a closeted Mormon who works for Roy Cohn (Al Pacino, Dog Day Afternoon)--the real-life right-wing lawyer, notorious for his ruthless behind-the-scenes machinations. Add in Joe's depressed and hallucinating wife Harper (Mary Louise Parker, Fried Green Tomatoes), his determined but open-minded mother Hannah (Meryl Streep, Adaptation), a fierce drag queen/nurse named Belize (Jeffrey Wright, Basquiat, reprising his celebrated performance from the Broadway production), and you've still only begun to discover the wealth of characters and storylines in Kushner's ambitious work.
The powerhouse cast (also featuring James Cromwell, Michael Gambon, and Simon Callow) is uniformly superb. The script has its weaknesses--some of the fantastic elements, including Prior's journey to Heaven towards the end, fall flat--but even what doesn't work is bristling with ideas and a ferocious desire to capture human existence in this time and place. --Bret Fetzer
Angels in America Reviews:
simply a terrific piece of writing, acting, and directing 
2009-10-30 - Amazing as it might seem, I had seen neither the play (it premiered in Seattle) nor the movie, which I'd bought, then put aside unviewed (like so many other things). It was only Wednesday night when I popped it into the player and was knocked for a loop. (I can't think of a less-trite expression.)
It is, first and formost, a brutal, testicle-kicking attack on post-Reagan "conservatism". It's fortunate that Roy Cohn -- one of the most-vicious American politicians of the last century, and a homosexual who died of AIDS -- actually existed, so that Tony Kushner did not have to invent him. He is a convenient personification of everything the author (and I) detest in American society.
I am at a loss to say anything "intelligent" (or even original) about a movie in which every character is deeply flawed, a film that is sufficiently complex (and ambiguous, where appropriate) that it cannot reveal everything in a single viewing. "Angels in America" is worth seeing simply for the quality of writing, acting, and direction. (The special effects ain't bad, either.)
If I have any complaints, it's that theatrical metaphor -- which is acceptable within a stage work's lack of literal reality -- can seem a bit heavy-handed in a film, which appears to be literally real.
It's a mistake to view "Angels in America" solely as a chronicle of how AIDS devastated the gay community. Yes, it's also a polemic, but Kushner gets away with it by remembering that you cannot tell a story about ideas, you can only tell a story about people.
Like any Great Work Of Art (and it is one), it is, fundamentally, about how human beings cope with life. It's one of the best motion pictures I've ever seen, and I cannot recommend it too highly.
The acting alone is reason enough to watch Angels In America
2009-08-25 - Politics and religion aside, the acting alone is reason enough to watch this film. Jefferey Wright and Justin Kirk's performances stand out amongst an entire cast of great performances. Not a sour note in the bunch.
Angel's in the "Out" Field 
2009-07-29 - Angels in America: 6/10: The play Angels in America must have had a much greater impact in the nineties then the miniseries has today. It also probably worked better as a play. That said; this is one of the more creative adaptations of theater one is likely to see on the small screen.
Mike Nichols deserves great praise for making the stage bound fly. He over reaches occasionally but the effect is memorizing. Al Pacino, Meryl Streep and Justin Kirk all shine. While the brilliant Jeffery Wright simply steals every scene he is in. Mary Louise Parker and relative newcomer Patrick Wilson are unfortunately saddled with a disposable story that does not really fit in with the rest of the play. In fact, poor Mr. Wilson simply disappears for the last third or so of the miniseries while his characters mother played by Meryl Streep takes center stage.
Pacino's Roy Cohn is hammy and not played as evil as he was in the original play. While Cohn has been more forgotten than redeemed since the play first came out; his nemesis Ethel Rosenbergs (Streep again) reputation has suffered greatly since the mid-nineties. While Pacino is very good, Streep is simply brilliant in the very well written role of a Mormon mother lost in New York. Her character simply surprises both the other characters and the audience by not sticking to our preconceived notions.
Two actors however do drop the ball. Emma Thompson simply does not make a good angel. She is not helped by the fact that the angel moves around like Peter Pan in a junior high school production. As a result many of the angel scenes simply do not work.
The other problematic performance is Ben Shenkman as Louis. One quickly has sympathy for every character that suffers with an encounter with Shenkman. Unfortunately the audience suffers the most screen time with this horrible persona. The character is simply evil. That self centered, banal evil one finds in real life. This is of course fine in a film, but Shenkman the actor doesn't seem to realize how repellent his characters actions are. Instead of developing the evil he simply pulls out Jewish stereotypes. Compare this to Pacino's entertaining vision of evil in the persona of Mr. Cohn.
Creative and surprisingly fun Angels in America does run a little long (as a miniseries is wont to do) but is worth a look.
love this amazon
2009-06-09 - I appreciated this "movie" some time ago and was pleased to find it on Amazon for a very reasonable price. And, as always, the service from you and your vendors was excellent. Donna B.
Angels ? 
2009-05-22 - Both my wife and I had to watch this mini series a couple of times to make any sense of it. The acting in most cases was good and at other times just plain stupid.Meryl Streep can do anything, from the Rabi to the windowed Morman wife who turned in to the best friend of the lead actors with or without AIDS.Emma Thompson on the other hand should have stayed away from the roll of the Angel.Al Pacino is another actor that can do anything. Playing a gay person proves it.
