HBO’s LGBT History: The Normal Heart (2014)

Last week we swooned over Dane DeHaan’s pitch perfect portrayal of a self-serious gay NYC teen in In Treatment and this week we’re returning to what continues to be HBO’s most cherished LGBT theme: the AIDS crisis. We’ve talked about it here, there, and here, here, and yep, here again… Much of this project has been about discovery, but The Normal Heart is still relatively recent and so below find some words I’d dispatched when I first saw it close to two years ago.

“And every gay man who refuses to come forward now and fight to save his own life is truly helping to kill the rest of us.” — Ned Weeks

Anger fuels much of The Normal Heart and the play/film’s ability to showcase such raw and seemingly useless feeling is one of the more extraordinary things to come out of Kramer’s life and work. Curmudgeoney as Kramer and Ned Weeks may come off, their anger is not only justified but necessary. It makes for a tacit and probably unintentional meta-nod to have the Hulk himself play him. [More...]

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The Normal Heart of True Blood Seasons

Sarah or "Noomi"?Here's Adam continuing the march to True Blood's "true death" in just a few weeks...

Alright, so first thing first, does anybody remember last week’s episode? I was racking my brain trying to remember just what the hell happened, and all I can come up with is Sarah Newlin is the new Jesus and Bill went all Red Eye and stabbed a lawyer through in the throat when he didn’t get his way. So…there’s last week’s recap.

Now, on to this weekend's episode "May Be The Last Time"

True Blood was doing soooo well for a few episodes. Plot lines were moving forward, and when they weren’t, characters were growing and deepening, a real rarity in the True Blood universe. Even if this weeks episode wasn’t terrible lets just say that while watching the episode I became increasingly more entranced by the homemade ice cream I made (just two frozen bananas & almond milk blended in a Magic Bullet! Who knew?) than by what was actually happening on the screen.

In between mouthfuls of my glorified frozen banana puree, these thoughts pop in my head...

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TV 'Critics Choice' Winners

Allison Janney wins twiceThe TV critics really rolled out the red carpet for Ryan Murphy who took the non-competitive "Genius" award while two of his shows (American Horror Story: Coven and The Normal Heart) won prizes. Alison Janney also got the deluxe treatment winning supporting actress for "Mom" and guest actress for "Masters of Sex," both first season series, at this still fairly green awards show.

The new organization, an off shoot of the BFCA, mostly stuck with their favorites from last year repeating several wins like Tatiana Maslany from Orphan Black and almost everything Breaking Bad. Bryan Cranston had to step aside for Matthew McConaughey in True Detective, though. We knew that was coming and the Emmys will (probably) follow suit. Everybody in Hollywood loves a winner (a phenom we've previously discussed) so when you're winning no one wants to break your streak.

I suppose I should really watch Orphan Black. I've seen the first 4 episodes and found Maslany technically scarily gifted but the the show and supporting characters I enjoyed much much much less so. Does it improve?

The complete list of winners is after the jump....

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Review: The Normal Heart

This review was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad

Mark Ruffalo as Ned Weeks (aka Larry Kramer) recreating a famous televised interview in "The Normal Heart"It's time for that other most-famous AIDS play to have its moment in the television sun. Larry Kramer's "THE NORMAL HEART," arrived Off Broadway in 1985, a half decade or so before Tony Kushner's long since canonized "Angels in America," but it's taken a longer and more circuitous route to mainstream fame. It's HBO to the rescue again with a television adaptation, which, as with the fate of Angels, came on the heels of a long gestating but never-meant-to-be movie version. (Barbra Streisand tried for years to mount a film version of The Normal Heart giving herself the plum role of Emma Brookner a.k.a. 'Doctor Death')

Though it rarely does Kramer's 'Heart' any favors to compare it to the later masterwork, it's hard not to. They're linked in time structure, setting, historical record, and now in HBO incarnations. Think of The Normal Heart as Angels in America's angrier cruder earth-bound cousin. It doesn't bother with symbolism, poetry or spirituality - whether that's through lack of ability, desire, or bilious rejection of the escapist side of the fantastical who can say? Instead, it finds its power in fragile bodies and righteous rage in the face of mundane defeats and every day humiliations.

Which is why it's a little surprising at first to begin with the elemental: the open air, the sun and a glide over the water (supertitle: "1981") as we head to Fire Island...

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The Linkae

After Ellen "Return of the Lesbian Villain"
/Film Sharon Stone does Mrs Robinson at The Graduate live-read
KCRW Tilda Swinton guest DJ special. She's a fan of Marilyn Manson, Björk & Bowie. We could have guessed as much!
Vanity Fair Daniel Radcliffe does the Proust Questionnaire 

What is your greatest regret? I’m 24! I think it’s a little early for all that

Pajiba Cameron Diaz vs Kiki Dunst in the battle of the vapid remarks
AV Club Tony Kushner working on another Steven Spielberg project The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara. Sounds intriguing but anything that keeps Tony away from writing that Viola Davis as a politician movie is a problem for me
Judgmental Maps NYC by stereotype
Variety a new memoir on Ethel Merman. When is she getting a biopic for chrissakes?
i09 Why were there so many giant insect movies in the 1950s? 
/Film on potential superhero crossover movies. Only when the mega-corporations are out of ideas/money 

Today's Watch
The Normal Heart trailer. Will this be yet another TV movie that we have to wonder how it would have fared at the Oscars had it been released theatrically? At the very least the doctor role would've resulted in a nomination no matter who played it. That's the part once slated for Barbra Streisand decades ago with Julia Roberts taking over for Ellen Barkin who won the Tony on Broadway (why wasn't she asked to reprise it given her connections to Ryan Murphy?) so expect Julia at least to be up for the Emmy.

Exit Question: Is it just me or does the type here inadvertently imply or perhaps subliminally predict that Matt Bomer and Taylor Kitsch will one day be Oscar nominated actors?