Featured Audience Ratings

• Drew S

  
  Amazing movie. Read the play too! It's one of the most important contemporary works of literature ever. It's a shame that shit like Charles Dickens gets thrown around in high school curriculums instead of works like Angels in America.

• Cameron J

  
  "Everywhere around the world (or Heaven, or whatever), angels are coming to America!" I felt that Neil Diamond's "America" fit in a discussion of this series, - seeing as how that song is a better gay - even though this series is much better than that song,… More
  "Everywhere around the world (or Heaven, or whatever), angels are coming to America!" I felt that Neil Diamond's "America" fit in a discussion of this series, - seeing as how that song is a better gay - even though this series is much better than that song, which is good, because if I'm going to have to sit through a six-hour-long, Mike Nichols-directed faithful adaptation of a dialogue-driven play (Wait, Mike Nichols adapting a play? That's unheard of!), then it better be good. Well, it's based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning play, was the most watched major cable production in 2003 and claimed, not only universal acclaim, but five Golden Globes, as well as eleven Emmys, which left it to beat "Roots" as the most decorated miniseries in Emmy history (Stupid thunder-stealing "John Adams"), so, yeah, I hear it's alright. No, but seriously though, this series was quite the hit, which should tell you just how unfortunate Justin Kirk's career is, because nearly ten years after he earned acclaim in a starring role in a star-studded mega-hit miniseries, Kirk's still lucky to get a guest appearance on a bad network TV show, and now has to resort to starring in NBC's "Animal Practice", seeing as how tiny parts in films that no one is gonna see and probably shouldn't see aren't quite paying the bills (and I thought Jeremy Sisto's TV-zone-trapped career was depressing). Of course, in all fairness, Justin Kirk is barely billed reasonably high, even with his being a major player in this series, and is acting up against Emma Thompson, Meryl Streep and Al Pacino. Granted, he outacts them all, as I'll touch upon later, but the point is that, looking at those names, as well as many others, I think it's safe to say that this series is yet another example of the awesome big-name-getting powers of HBO. It's certainly quite the example of HBO's knowing how to make good television, because, let me tell you, this series is not rewarding, or good, it's "fabulous" (Gay exclamation jokes, anyone?), yet still not without its faults, for although this series is very much well worth you're six hours, if you can spare it, it's not about to let you forget about how long it is. The thing about Mike Nichols is that his passion lays just as much in theatre as it does in film, so much so that he tends to attempt marrying the two considerably different types of storytelling formats by keeping faithful to the structure of a play he's adapting, often to the point of quite literally bringing the stage to the screen, and one of the biggest examples on why that doesn't always work is what was Nichols' following project: "Closer", which I'd imagine made for a strong play and certainly could have made for a strong film, yet was ultimately made a mess by Nichols' keeping too faithful to the stage format he should have lifted the story from, to the point of rendering the marriage inorganic and creating a kind of stagey distance in the atmosphere, while leaving dialogue and exposition to stretch on and on, until the final product was left exhausingly overlong and kind of bland. With this series, Nichols does a reasonably decent job of toning down the stagey atmosphere, while being lucky enough to be faced with a story that's not as minimalist as the story of something like "Closer", yet that doesn't stop Nichols from reminding you of this series' whopping six-hour total runtime by leaving dialogue to exhaustingly stretch on and on. Don't get me wrong, as I'll touch upon later, the dialogue dialogue is great and all, but its execessiveness gets to be awkward, and it doesn't help that, after a while, it also gets to be a bit repetitious and even likely to messily stray off into another topic or discussion right in the middle of a conversation. The scope of the story is reasonably broad and layered, and certainly more so than the scope of the stagey-feeling "Closer", yet it's still not quite broad enough for some degree of stagey atmosphere to creep in amidst all of these exhaustingly overlong dialogue sequences, which may be reasonably well-directed and certainly well-written, but slow down the momentum of the worthy story. What further slows down the momentum of the story is the series' uneven focus, as the series has, not too many stories to cover in only so much time, but too much time to cover only so many stories, in that, after a while, it forgets about the other stories and finds itself tossing its focus all over the place, thus making the storytelling even more exhausting to the point of impacting dilution. Of course, if you step back and look at everything that I just said, you'll notice one factor that all of these flaws have in common: too much lengthiness, which, when you come down to it, is indeed the key problem with this series, which is exhaustingly overlong, with a story that may have plenty of layers and much depth, though not quite enough to compensate for the series' losing quite a bit of steam, and just enough to make a lesser series not much more than just good, at best. Of course, this series is better than that, and transcends its missteps with the makings of the truly remarkable saga that it is, for although the final product does outstay its welcome, it's hard to really mind all that much, because what this series does get right it gets so right that you'd be more than a little bit hard pressed to not walk alway more than a little bit impressed. Detailed, slick and strikingly well-lit, with a kind of broad yet still intimate scope to it, Stephen Goldblatt's photography is remarkable, not really having a consistent radiance or total distinctiveness to it, yet still being lush, lovely and definitive to this series' artistic depths, much like many pieces of the production value - from nifty designs to lovely art direction - and other pieces of technical value, - from the reasonably impressive visual effects to cleverly snappy editing - which are well-funded and dazzlingly lively, as well as just as supplementary to the tones, themes and overall substance of the series as the style of the series. Thomas Newman's score does just the same, if not more (Ha-ha, I rhymed score and more), having a surprisingly unique livliness to it that reflects the series' artistry, as well as Newman's trademark tender poignancy, married with a degree of grandness, that both supplements the effectiveness of the series' depths and makes for some pretty tunes. The artistry put into this series subtly but surely sparks a lot of life into the final product, though not quite as much as Tony Kushner's script for the series, or rather, Tony Kushner's script for the play, for although I'm not too familiar with the play upon which this series is based, it's not hard to tell that this series is extremely faithful to its source material, often to a fault, as the staginess of the script sometimes comes off a bit too, largely because the dialogue pieces are overwhelmingly overlong and a touch over-expository, though hardly all that hard to sit through, as Kushner generally compensates for a bit of the writing effectiveness' going lost in translation by making the dialogue - excessive though, it may be - ceaselessly clever, often downright snappy and overall thoroughly great enough to keep the overlong dialogue pieces from getting too bland. Of course, with all of this great dialogue and artistry bringing a lot of style to the series, when you get down to it, it's the substance that truly counts, and while this story finds its bite restrained a bit by a couple of steam-diluting missteps, it remains remarkable, with profound themes and depth that Kushner firmly establishes through the intelligent and inspired fleshing out of this story and its characters as memorably colorful, layered and all around compelling. I'm betting that this was one awesome play, because Kushner's story and writing sure does make for a really good series, though one that owes much of its being as enjoyable as it ultimately is to the inspiration behind the execution of such as worthy story, for although director Mike Nichols makes his share of mistakes with his overambition, his palpable inspiration behind this project carries the final product a long way, giving it striking charm and cleverness to compliment the thorough engagement value - nay - compellingness, which goes broken up by moments of emotional resonance that range from gripping, to penetrating. There is a major scene of development in which we cut back and forth between a sequence in which Patrick Wilson's Joe Pitt character confronts and comes out as gay to wife, and a sequence in which Justin Kirk's Prior Walter character visits the hospital to tell his AIDs-stricken lover that he is uncertainty of whether or not he can handle a relationship with a dying man, and the way that scene is directed by Nichols and written by Kushner creates a moment that is nothing short of magical, being drenched in overwhelming emotional resonance that truly takes your breath away and crafts a depth-defining, inspiration-reflecting golden sequence, which isn't to say that it's the only one found within this series. If Nichols succeeds in doing nothing else, then he succeeds at creating thorough entertainment value, for although this series loses a bit of steam on more than a few occasions, it's never disengaging, but is instead consistently enjoyable, and grows more so as it progresses, until by the end, the final product is left standing as something truly worthwhile, and it's all thanks to inspiration behind the efforts of Nichols, Kushner and, of course, the cast. The people behind the scenes breathe a lot of life into this series, yet the saga wouldn't be as thoroughly engrossing as it is if it didn't know how to put its star cast to good use, being one of those acting pieces where not a single performance is less than outstanding, with even Jeffrey Wright - one of the few performers with only so much emotional material to work with - being nothing short of remarkable, failing only to let you forget that he's reprising his multiple roles from the original play, as he clearly knows this material like the back of his hand, transforming into each one of his distinct roles - from Mary-Louise Parker's Harper Pitt character's delightfully smooth imaginary companion Mr. Lies, to the delightfully flamboyan Norman "Belize" Ariaga - seamlessly, yet not at the expense of at least one consistency: explosive, show-stealing charisma. Much of the same can be said about the here-and-there Emma Thompson and the reasonably major Meryl Streep, both of whom have little in the way of emotional material to work with, but compensate with sparkling charisma and seamless transformations into their distinct various roles, all of which are memorable and colorful, largely because of the acting skills by Streep and Thompson behind them. Another person whose not given quite as much material as you would expect, yet delivers all the same, is Mary-Louise Parker, whose Harper Pitt character is a disturbed, unstable and altogether unnaturally eccentric one that you would think would provide consistent emotional material, yet all but surprisingly ends up being more bizarrely eccentric than considerably unstable, which doesn't stop Parker from becoming her character through a charmingly assured yet still rather uneasy and unstable presence, and when emotional material does rise, Parker delivers movingly and defines Pitt as not just eccentric comic relief, but a struggling soul trapped by her overwhelming problems, however somewhat relatively light they may seem on the outside. As for Al Pacino, regardless of what all the Best Actor wins and, certainly, top billings on the cast list will have you believe, his Roy Cohn character is more of a supporting role, which doesn't make Pacino's performance any less impressive, because, come on, this Al Pacino we're talking about here, and regardless of his hit-or-miss role-picking track record in recent years, he was still one of the great actors of his time and remains a powerhouse to this day, particularly in this series, where he portrays the initial dark depths of the Roy Cohn character with a ceaselessly charismatic and effectively intimidating presence, before portraying the encroaching vulnerability within Cohn - once he finds himself on his death bed, looking into the faces of his sins, regrets and fears - with seamless layers and powerful emotion that make everyone's making the mistake that Pacino is this series' lead kind of understandable, seeing as how Pacino steals the show. Getting back to the actual leads, Ben Shenkman's performance is indeed also something to behold, as Shenkman is compellingly human in his portrayal of the Louis Ironson character as a man of reasonable confidence, though not enough for him to truly battle back the vulnerability, uncertainty and emotion that come with the struggles he will face and are conveyed flawlessly through Shenkman's profoundly human layers, complimented by moving emotional range. The series is a near-ceaseless showcase of powerhouse acting, with every person in this star cast delivering on charisma, emotion and inspiration that leaves him or her to bond with his or her character, or rather, characters, so you know that it really is saying quite a bit to proclaim that, with all of these upstanding performances, the most upstanding performance is by that of the criminally underappreciated (Sixth billing on Wikipedia and no take-off after this series; are you kidding?) Justin Kirk, whose brilliantly audacious and sensationally layered performance makes for quite the viewing experience, as he delivers on potent charm that never abates, yet is perhaps at its most potent early on, in which Justin Kirk portrays the denial found in the beginning of the end for the AIDs-stricken Prior Walter character with authentic livliness, yet still with an atmosphere tainted by some degree of uneasiness, which grows more and more intense as Walter's condition grows more and more intense, and Walter's other personal struggles and revelations with it, thus presenting Kirk with acting opportunities that he most definately does not squander, delivering on the uncertainty and anguish that ultimately defines Prior Walter with a confident and heavily layered presence and heartbreaking - nay - breathtaking emotional range. Kirk's effortlessly enthralling and revelatory performance stands up above all other others in this series, though by not much more than a couple of hairs, as everyone delivers on spectacularly inspired performances that defines the characters this series would be nothing without, and adds quite a bit to this series, which, thanks to the aforementioned inspired performances found both onscreen and offscreen, stands as a truly rewarding production that may find itself, to one degree or another, restrained by a bit of overambition, as well as a few other faults, but ultimately engrosses, ameliorates progressively and finally leaves you with much to remember and with much satisfaction. Bottom line, Mike Nichols keeps perhaps too faithful to this series' source material's stage sensibilites, to where dialogue runs on and on and creates a moderate stagey feel, thus slowing down steam, which further takes a blow from sometimes uneven story focus and series' ultimately being much too overlong, though not to where the final product falls short of achieving its potential, as the series delivers on the lovely style and sharp score work by Thomas Newman that livens things up, though not as much as Tony Kushner's writing, which provides exceptional dialogue, fascinating themes, intelligence and colorful flesh-out to make livlier the powerful story, brought to life by both Mike Nichols' emotionally inspired, ceaselessly entertaining and altogether engrossing storytelling, and across-the-board sensationally charismatic, layered and emotionally-charged performances - the strongest of which being by the criminally underappreciated Justin Kirk - from every member of this colorful star cast, thus leaving "Angels in America" to transcend its faults and ultimately stand as a stirring saga that hits much more often than not, and just enough to stand as a truly excellent watch. 3.5/5 - Solid

• Daniel P

  
  Could this be *more* perfect? No it could not. I'm watching it for the third time - all six hours of it. Even the friggin opening sequence is faultless [side note, the bit at the end of the titles where the statue moves and the music suddenly goes weird and the darkness creeps in… More
  Could this be *more* perfect? No it could not. I'm watching it for the third time - all six hours of it. Even the friggin opening sequence is faultless [side note, the bit at the end of the titles where the statue moves and the music suddenly goes weird and the darkness creeps in gave me nightmares for at least a week].