Philadelphia (1993)

seemed special at the time, now feels well, a part of history. the apartment building where they live is around the corner from me, by the way.

The movie that gives the impression that AIDS is transmitted through osmosis. It's rather meh!

A "special friend"? Does your mother read datalounge?

I agree with you, OP. I remember watching this movie with my mother in a packed theater in a predominantly gay neighborhood and feeling a sense of sadness, but also hope. Actors like Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington were necessary to influence the mainstream. It's a tad dated now, but I think it made an impact in the 90s.

I was young but I seem to remember the gays hating th film on initial release and I never got why.

R2 Please be nice.

R3 We keep it very quiet. I think I like him more than he likes me but we have a special bond that is hard to explain. He is on the downlow, too.

R4 Yes. A gay man and a black man fighting against rich white old men. Definitely a testament to AIDS and the 1992 election.

R5 I was born a little after the movie came out, but it still got me. Granted, I grew up in a very very small town in Texas.

Painful. Boring. Hilarious ( the opera scene). Of all the Hollywood AIDS films this is the must not see.

[quote] the apartment building where they live is around the corner from me, by the way.

What city do you live in?

I appreciate Demme as a filmmaker. But, I feel his whole career led up to Silence of the Lambs. He gave everything he had (to amazing effect), but didn't seem to have much left over. Every feature he has done since has been to diminishing returns. He has this campy sensibility I love throughout his work, which I'm sure he tried to understandably temper for Philadelphia, but it still managed to unconsciously find its way in, to inappropriate effect.

And, the film gets too maudlin for me at times. I know that for some gays who are older than myself, this film holds a special place in their hearts for good reason. But, even at that young age I was in the 90s, I had a ton of admiration rather for Longtime Companion. I just think Philadelphia wasn't my bag, and Demme wasn't the best choice for the material.

I believe he did the movie in part because he felt guilty for some of the characters infuriating people at the time. There were LGBT protests (for another classic, Basic Instinct, as well). I never really got them. I understand people were angry about "representation" of queer people in movies and there weren't enough "strong" and "admirable" examples at the time. But, I honestly don't think people walked out of Lambs thinking gays were evil people, and if they did (they were fucked up themselves). Technically, Hannibal was straight (perhaps bi), but his primary interests were in Clarice for reasons that may or may not have extended to underlining sexual desires (he suggested there weren't, but I never believed that). And Buffalo Bill was a gay man. I don't believe he was trans, as it's LITERALLY explained in the movie that he wasn't. Between Hannibal and Buffalo Bill, I really didn't see a problem. They kind of "balanced" each other out. And FFS, Clarice was a low-key lesbian hero (even though it isn't explicit). But Demme caught a lot of flack for that, which is part of why I think he did Philadelphia and directed it in such an earnest manner (ironically, as mentioned, void of any sexuality; although I will say Hanks looked hot, lol).

Or maybe I couldn't relate to Beckett like OP. When I was younger, I still related to straight characters more like the junkies in Trainspotting (not their drug habits, just their attitude and ironic views on life, unfortunately) or Veronica in Heathers (lol). Or H.I. McDonough in Raising Arizona--a guy for some reason who couldn't get out of his own way as he tries to imitate the more traditional paths in life and failing miserably.

As far as gay movies, A Beautiful Thing came out around the time that I would have bene part of the target demographic, but it never really stuck with me. I guess I would go back to Longtime Companion. One of the reasons why I loved it was because Dermot Mulroney is unapologetically femme in that film (but not way on the extreme end of the flame scale--not that there's anything wrong with that). I hadn't seen that before. I suppose I saw myself in him in that way.

TL;DR

[quote] What city do you live in?

Phnom Penh, Rose.

R9 you bring up some really good points. I have not seen either of the "LGBTQ movies" you bring up.

I do Silence of the Lambs was ridiculed by gays after it came out. Not so much for Lecter, but over Buffalo Bill.

This movie STOLE the life story of an actual gay man, Geoffrey Bowers, who was fired from a New York law firm in 1986 because of KS lesions on his face/neck. He sued for discrimination and won, but the verdict came after he died. Rather than admit that, sleazy Scott Rudin and Ron Nyswaner changed the movie's setting (gee, a movie about discrimination set in the cradle of American democracy, not heavy-handed or obvious at all!) and added a few details. Bowers' family sued TriStar and won in 1996.

Beyond that, as Larry Kramer noted in the LA Times in 1994, this movie was "legally, medically, and politically inaccurate...Although Tom [Hanks] wears a wedding ring, he might as well be married to a woman for all you see of his lover, their life as a couple, their interactions, their affection. Some actor I didn’t recognize from scene to scene but who had dark hair and spoke with a Hispanic accent hovers around Tom now and then, and Tom winks at him now and then in the courtroom, but for all the script tells you they either could be trying to pick each other up or the guy is a volunteer from some Philadelphia AIDS organization who helps him get around. I take that back. The dark-haired guy couldn’t work for an AIDS organization. He doesn’t know anything about AIDS. He talks about a colonoscopy as if it were brain surgery. Who was the medical adviser on this movie?"

r7 Why do you think Philadelphia is boring? I am looking at the screen the entire time!

Mary Steenburgen is great as the defense attorney. She hates the case but damn she's good.

I agree Steenburgen was great. I think Steenburgen and Washington were the standouts in the film because I thought they were the most realistic characters in the movie. I felt like I knew people like them. Hanks' character was too saintly and seemed to serve the plot more than be a fully developed character. Banderas' character was not developed at all.

R13 Eh, I love Kramer, may he RIP but the hate for Philadelphia from gays (and straights too) seemed a tad persnickety, especially considering the times. Yes things had to be semi sanitized and hollywoodized like every real to reel story but the ultimate message was strong and important, especially then.. And I don't think anyone had any doubts as to the nature of Miguel and his relationship. Also, it was meant to be more of a courtroom drama than solely a portrayal of a gay man's life and death of HIV, Honestly to bitch about some of that stuff while gay men were still falling like flies was a perfect case of not seeing the forest for the trees,

[quote]Not so much for Lecter, but over Buffalo Bill.

I am aware. The "straight" Hannibal balanced out the "gay" Buffalo Bill, ergo I didn't see the issue with representation, as there was both a straight and gay psychopath in the film.

But, what kind of circles do you travel in?

You grew up in a tiny Texas town, but managed to make a success of yourself professionally. You wanted to become a dentist, but, for some reason, you had the choice and chose law instead. Not only that, but you became an attorney at 25 - 27 years old. AND, you've done it in NYC of all places. WOW!

However, it's 2021. You're in your mid-20s living in NYC as an attorney. And, you're on the down-low? It certainly can't just be because of family back in Texas, because family is only a fraction of our lives. It sounds like you you're making your money running in some very conservative circles?

Maybe you should have seen yourself in Little Shop of Horrors? That could have impacted your life so you wouldn't be on the down-low. In 2021. In NYC. As a twenty-something.

R14 It was schmaltz. Hanks was chewing everything but the iv lines. Don't get me started on Denzel. I saw it with a friend who was to shortly die from HIV and the tears were rolling down his cheeks. Tears of laughter.

Larry Kramer somehow didn't recognize Antonio Banderas??

R20 To be fair AS had only really been in 9Spanish movies before Philadelphia, Other than being ooogled and harassed by Madge in Truth or Dare he was mostly an unknown in the states.

Meant to say, AB6

It was sad, but, if I'm objective, Jonathan Demme lost his magic for me after "Something Wild", and "Philadelphia" is a formulaic. Hollywood tearjerker.

R18 I'm in Houston, not New York....

As mainstream a project as it was, when I saw the movie opening weekend, nearly everyone in the audience was gay - and again I was very surprised given the mainstream nature of the movie, which just goes to show that a LESS mainstream movie wouldn’t have had any effect in terms of moving the needle of acceptance.

I agree that Hanks basically functioned to move the plot along and not much else. Denzel was excellent and deserved a nomination. The movie itself isn’t great but probably needed to be made.

Even at the time I found it a schmaltzy mess.

It's worse now.

[quote] I understand people were angry about "representation" of queer people in movies...

No, they were were angry about "representation" of gay people in movies.

If a movie comes about about gay people, the gay community automatically HATES it. What else is new.

JONATHAN DEMME EDITED OUT A BEDROOM SCENE BETWEEN HANKS AND ANTONIO BANDERAS.

In a controversial deleted scene, Antonio Banderas—who played Beckett’s partner, Miguel—and Hanks are lying in bed together before going to sleep. Demme told Rolling Stone that the scene was meant to show “they’re a lot like you me,” but he cut it because the film was too long, and “the film was edited, finally, to tell its strongest story in the best possible way. And that was the story about the fight for vindication,” Demme said.

[quote]I'm in Houston, not New York....

My bad. Sorry, I misread. Go on with your bad down-low self, I guess.

[quote]No, they were were angry about "representation" of gay people in movies.

Because I was alive at the time, had two ears, and the ability to hear and process information, I have to disagree. Gays were up in arms. So were trans people, specifically in terms of their misunderstanding of the character of Buffalo Bill. They criticised Lambs for its "portrayal of trans people," because they assumed Buffalo Bill was trans, when in fact, he wasn't. So, even though they were wrong, trans people still spoke up at the time (and they still do today). I used the term "queer" (i.e. gays and trans) for simplicity, Clarice.

[quote] [R7] Why do you think Philadelphia is boring? I am looking at the screen the entire time!

No action, no special effects, no comedy, no sex, no nudity.

[quote] To be fair AS had only really been in 9Spanish movies before Philadelphia, Other than being ooogled and harassed by Madge in Truth or Dare he was mostly an unknown in the states.

Well, first of all, that's not true: he had been in The Mambo Kings, which had premiered a year before, and he had received a lot of publicity for that. (I remember the multiple newspaper and magazine articles about that from the time quite vividly.)

But what adult gay man living in NYC-- especially one who worked in theater and film-- did not know him even before that from the Almodovar films and from Truth or Dare?

Kramer probably missed Mambo Kings and Truth or Dare while indulging in his little side project of trying to get his friends to stop dying all around him.

This movie didn’t have Mary-Louise Parker exposing her saggy tit in front of a window for NO REASON.

Advantage Philadelphia.

When I walked out of Philadelphia, I remember thinking it was okay, but LA Law had done a similar story a year before that was much better.

Really bad movie. Badly acted by Hanks, badly scripted...they were barely a couple at all.

Then...death and sadness.

Cliche reigned, substance lacked.

Has the Longtime Companion troll appeared… yes, he has.

Longtime Companion was a terrible movie populated by unwatchable twinks.

Philadelphia was a better directed movie with a screenplay that fell apart in the second half. Jonathan Demme is, simply put, a serious director who knows how to use a camera. The scene when Hanks visits Washington’s law office and the one where Washington sneaks a sandwich in the library while coming across Hanks are masterfully edited. But when the screenplay fizzles off, does it matter? When the ending fails, the movie failsz

I love the opening credits even though I hated the song on release.

[quote] Beyond that, as Larry Kramer noted in the LA Times in 1994, this movie was "legally, medically, and politically inaccurate...Although Tom [Hanks] wears a wedding ring, he might as well be married to a woman for all you see of his lover, their life as a couple, their interactions, their affection.

You’re underestimating how homophobic - yes, they had a genuine FEAR of gay men, as if every mouth-breathing bubba had a gay acquaintance just longing to give him a poke - the straight male viewing public and their moms were.

In the Hairspray movie years later, Walken and Travolta give each other a peck on the lips OFFSCREEN. In the West End production, the two actors playing those characters joked and corpsed through it for the sole reason of putting the homophobic audience at ease. These audiences enjoy a gay talk show host or sitcom character or laugh at a drag performer, but given actual sexuality and genuine romance between same sex couples, they become noisily repulsed.

So yeah. The movie would have sank without a trace. It wasn’t made for Sundance, for sophisticated New Yorkers, for latte sippers. It was made for the multiplex, for Middle America, for people who loved Tom Hanks, for micro-aggressively homophobic, religious black people, for poorly-educated people scared of AIDs. And it worked. Similarly, Spielberg desexualised the lesbian love in The Color Purple. He doesn’t film sex - or women, for that matter- well at the best of times. But - as Paul Schrader said - who else wanted to, or could, make The Color Purple?

As it stands, men specifically playing gay sex and romance straight (for want of a better word) without it becoming a “thing” didn’t happen until the youngest Gen X and the oldest Millennials were able to play adults, a more open-minded audience came of age and a closed-minded one aged out of being of interest to advertisers

Longtime Companion has a higher MetaCritic and RottenTomato score, even though it's close. But okay R37, I'm a "troll" because I side with the critics and prefer Longtime Companion over the maudlin and unintentionally campy Philadelphia. Sure Jan, you failsz.

R38, it was still a bad movie, even if made for idiots.

Are you defending bad movies made for idiots?

R39 you sure are triggered 👀

R40 and you have limited reading comprehension. No one was “defending” anything (from whom? An admitted Trainspotting fan?!), but discussing why a studio movies are sexually anodyne.

R41 it sure sounds like a defense...

Why are you discussing it?

Because this is a conversation, my love.

It’s probably being discussed because every single fucking time Philadelphia is mentioned the Longtime Companion fan has to pipe up and repeat the same thing he does in every single Philadelphia thread I have every seen, because according to him there could be only one early 90s movie about AIDS.

And it’s the movie featuring Mary Louise Parker’s tit for no reason whatsoever.

R43 yet you asked the question.

What question?

Movie but especially book Hannibal always seemed kinda gay or at least not completely straight to me ( his love for opera, all his known victims before the nurse at the Baltimore state hospital were male, him reading Vogue, Mason Verger trying to lure him into some S/M scenario, him watching Mason perform autoerotic asphyxiation before disfiguring him, him quoting Truman Capote to Clarice), also Thomas Harris based the character on a gay mexican surgeon. I think he was originally intended to be a non straight character, but after the success of Silence of the lambs Harris backtracked and made him straight. R9

Also the movie An Early Frost is better than both Philadelphia and Longtime Companion imo.

I liked the sassy black woman at the office who said her earrings were American. African American.

You aren't kidding about homophobia being rampant in middle America YET. I will never forget when seeing it in the theater in the ending scene when Andy was about to die and Miguel kissed his hands some dude let out an audible groan. I will never forget it, the man's life partner and love is dying and eww he kisses his hands. Jfc.

I think Andie and Miguel could have kissed at least but they were shown very intimate and touchy with each other in several scenes, especially during the dance scene. This idea that they basically acted like roomates is revisionist bs.

Was the film a shmalzy and sentimental and sanitized? Of course. And it was meant to be. It did what it needed to do and that alone is a merit when nothing had been done yet.

Then again shitting and nitpicking on any gay themed movie is something that we love to do, apparently. Look how the gay community of the 70s/80s/90s excommunicated The Boys in the band, the first actually gay sympathizing, exclusively gay focused, gay written, studio film because reasons.

I HATE this movie.

I did not realize this movie has so much hate on here. I started watching it last night and brought back all sorts of emotions so I thought I would open up to you guys.

Regardless, Mary Steenburgen was a beautiful goddess in this movie. Interesting note that she is the only woman who is not a secretary or a wife.

R51, there is so much hate on here because it is DataLounge. Were you expecting praise? The perfect gay-themed film could be made and yet ther haters would come flaming out in vibrant colors.

I didnt particularly like Philadephia when it came out, found it depressing.

Far prefer Maurice and Beautiful Thing, and Latter Days

All I will add to this thread is that Neil Young's "Philadelphia" should have won the awards over Springsteen's "Streets of Philadelphia."

I love the chick that says "Adam & Eve, not Adam & Steve" outside the courthouse.

Still moves me. I love Tom Hanks but Denzel deserved the Oscar for this movie.

R54 completely agree. Neil Young's piano in that song is one of the most moving music passages I have heard. Shmalzy or not, the song and the ending of little Andy fucking chokes me up every single time.

Neil Young's Philadelphia and Annie Lennox's The Saddest Song I've Got are two of the most depressing songs I've ever heard.

R57, FYI, and I just found this out recently, that's really little Tom Hanks in those videos in the end. I had assumed it was just another actor.

I cry for hours every time I see this movie. IA OP that I don't think I ever feel as much for any other character as I did for Beckett in this movie.

[quote]Far prefer Maurice and Beautiful Thing, and Latter Days

What the fuck does Maurice have to do with Philadelphia?

[quote]Still moves me. I love Tom Hanks but Denzel deserved the Oscar for this movie.

Agreed.

I loved Mary Steamtrain in this. She was kind of cunty but then redeemable with her "I hate this case" line.

Ooops. Meant Steenburgen.

R61 Absolutely nothing except it has a gay theme. Which is why I prefer it

.,.,

An important movie in the progress of gay rights. Many civil rights movies like “In the Heat of the Night”, “To Kill a Mockingbird” may seem heavy handed and overdone now - but were important milestones. Agree not artistically memorable, but personally it was encouraging at the time as a young gayling to see major gay representation by major actors and studios. The 90s was about increasing representation which allowed for the major advancements since 2000 in actual rights,

Some of you folks seem to confuse "representation" with being targeted by advertisers, which is not an achievement or evidence of progress. What did "Philadelphia" do except make some rich people even richer? Do we have it to thank for Greg Kinnear in "As Good as It Gets" or "Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss"? Did all the overweight families in flyover country see it and suddenly stop hating gays or PWAs? It's to be expected that studio executives would distort a compelling story for profit, but that any gay man today would look upon such distortion with nostalgia or emotion is truly bizarre.

The entire plot of this movie makes no sense; no white-shoe firm in a large city would have been dumb enough to run afoul of the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) and Hanks' character could have easily found any number of lawyers to represent him. TV had done a much better job of humanizing gay people and the AIDS epidemic than Hollywood. By 1993 this movie was a museum piece, which squares with Demme's distanced and antiseptic approach to the material--he made Ordinary People look like an ethnic emotion-fest.

Detested it. Loathe stereotypes.

"Do you like opera?"

Joanne Woodward should have had a bigger role.

“Ah deent raze mah keeds tew sit at thuh bayak uv thuh buhs.”

Every fucking line of dialogue was either stolen from a throw pillow or lifted from the website clichés R us.

Oh and don’t forget the tiny displays of Faith In Andy, such as him being allowed to hold the fragile newborn.

Never saw it.

Lived it, lost far too many irreplaceable friends.

What else did you do in a "movie" theater?

The opera scene is still about the cringiest thing ever put on film.

' What did "Philadelphia" do except make some rich people even richer? "

Sweety, this is Hollywood...what did you think it would ever be about? That being said, yes the film did help with representation and especially with regards to sympathy for Aids victims, regardless sof the motives.99

I'm surprised at all the love for Denzel. Or have we all forgotten his advice to Will Smith?

R77 what the fuck all that have to do with his actng performance?

R74 I was always surprised they allowed that to be in the film. Not victim blaming whatsoever but I think you can definitely say that having unprotected sex in a porn movie theater in 1985 when Aids had already more than exploded onto the scene was irresponsible at best and considering that otherwise in the film they made Andy a quasi Saint I was surprised they allowed that detail which would have made Andy more responsible for his outcome in many eyes.

I was very impressed that they created an honest account of how men post-1984 still got HIV. That was me as a horny, repressed kid who knew that sex could equal death but could not control my behavior and regularly went to bathhouses, porn houses and back rooms and had unsafe, illogical, unsafe sex.

[quote] Sweety, this is Hollywood...what did you think it would ever be about? That being said, yes the film did help with representation and especially with regards to sympathy for Aids victims, regardless sof the motives.99

Exactly. At that point in time doing something as simple as touching your male partner in public is an act that would fill 75% of the general population with utter disgust outside of certain parts of certain major cities.

Add the AIDS epidemic to that and yeah, having the modern Jimmy Stewart dancing cheek to cheek with the modern Rudolph Valentino while the modern Sidney Poitier looks on approvingly having moved on from his homophobia shows why populist art is necessary on a social level. It’s not Maurice (??) but it is no less important and if you don’t know that, you have no damn clue about the function of and importance of art in mirroring different reflections of human experience to audiences.

When I watched The Boy From Oz, when Peter Allen kisses his partner, about 6 people groaned audibly. This was on fucking BROADWAY.

The biggest franchise in the world is Marvel. Look at them congratulating themselves for having a gay guy in grief therapy.

PARTING GLANCES (1986) beats PHILADELPHIA and LONGTIME COMPANION . It was a movie made about HIV/Gays for Gays, the others were made for straight movie-goers. Sadly no one remembers it. Watch it if you can find it.

The deleted scene.

wow that was sweet. Antonio was such a cutey back then. They should have kept it.

R69 EDIT: Misspelled "loath"--I thought I was paying attention to what I typed

As a gay man, I remember seeing it when it was first released and as the credits rolled I thought, "Now I know how women and black people feel."

R53. Gee, sorry they didn’t make a light-hearted Ladd-fest Tom-com about .... AIDS! (Yes, I saw “Jeffrey,” but there’s not room for many of those.)

Laff fest rom-com

I remember this movie and, for some strange reason, maybe the passage of time, and my own life events, it seems like it was very long ago. Then it seemed like a big deal, and a good thing. Now, it's all so hazy. Wh. is odd, because around 1993 so many men I was friends with and was acquaintances of, died.

I attended a pot luck at this fellow's house in the Spring of 1993. I thought he was pretty hot. I asked him out and we met at a cafe, We had a good talk. I didn't think anything more would happen after that. But I'm adamant that if you're interested in somebody, ask them the fuck out. Don't be shy about it. If they're polite, they'll accept if they have the time. If they blow you off with their attitude, you've rec'd the answer you need as to whether or not they're even worth your time.

The thing I wanted to say about this particular meeting was the fellow I met at the cafe looked healthy, he was coherent, funny and present. Two weeks later he died from complications due to AIDS. That's the weird thing about AIDS. You'd think somebody that close to death would look like it.

That's what is was like then, before this miraculous advent of meds that render the virus undetectable. You'd be out at a restaurant or bar and see men looking like scarecrows, some of them in tears, knowing the end was very near.

Of course we now know that condoms are such a bother to use. So, it naturally follows that taking your meds interferes with your online social media time. And yes, that sentence is exactly what it appears to be.

Couldn't sit all the way through it. I saw a cast of straight men getting a chance to "come to an understanding with mutual respect" and found it creepily inauthentic.

I've witnessed HIV from the start, working in public health.

How nice that heterosexual men made money thanks to AIDs. Certainly gay men have made money off straight people for centuries. Just not quite the same way.

Steenburgen should've have been nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar.

Saw that movie when it came out - I was 21 and fucking hated it - so cloying and condescending. One of the few movies I ever walked out of (around the time the Denzel character went off on the one guy who hit on him at the store.) Glad it was important to you, OP. I detested it.

Condescending to who R92? Genuinely curious.

Even though it had that awful Julia Roberts and was quite shouty, A Normal Heart was far better.

I loved it at the time, and listened to the soundtrack CD incessantly. Truly to a point of being a bit wacko.

It hasn't aged so well. But it was really important for its time.

I like Springsteen but Neil Young should have won the oscar.

I am also partial to "Love Town" by Peter Gabriel from that soundtrack.

R90--well, Nyswaner (screenwriter) is gay and made $$ out of it. I don't think he's done much else that is memorable since then.

But I agree, the film is one cliche after another, very trite and as you say, "inauthentic."

I saw this for the first time somewhere around 2008. Like all movies it was not perfect but like R67 pointed out it was a step in the progression of gay rights that seemed to start in the '90s with heightened awareness. It was a time when people actually started acknowledging things and talking about them.

The closing song left me in tears for a while. I think I looked it up on Youtube afterwards because I remember listening to it over and over. Sometimes allowing yourself to feel the pain or sadness of a moment and letting yourself dwell in it for a bit helps with moving forward. The '80s-early '90s was a rough time and I think a lot of "survivors" never finished working through the emotional trauma until years later.

Jason Robards is really good as the head of the law firm. He has good character development of loving Andy, hating Andy, and then developing remorse for everything once he sees Andy on the stand.

The other partners, Robert Ridgley, Charles Glenn, and especially Ron Vawter, also show remorse and empathy towards the end of the film. If you notice at the end Vawters character and his wife show up to the memorial service.

Trivia- TriStar wanted to fire Ron Vawter because he had AIDS. Demme brought up the hypocritical irony and they backed off.

"Andy, before we begin, I'd just like to say, that everyone in this room is your friend."

Words that could have come out of the How To Run a Big Law Firm Handbook.

It's a "crossover" film---the first big budget AIDS film. Crossovers usually are heavy on earnestness, likeable stars, noble protagonists, etc. Hanks was aware of this and mentioned it in interviews. It went overboard with the overly supportive family. The law firm actually seemed more realistic than everyone else even though they were a bit cartoonish.

"Parting Glances" was the low budget version of the "crossover" film that is saved by Buscemi and Kathy Kinney. The soap opera actor stars were hopelessly unrealistic characters and terrible actors. "Longtime Companion" was more polished and better acted than "Parting Glances". It is a better representation of the era than "Philadelphia".

R100 I got a gay subtext from Vawter's character.

Me too R103!

Nyswaner wrote a memoir about a downward spiral in his life. It was a kind of crazy and sad story, worth reading.

Love Springsteen’s Oscar-winning song; the lyric is heartbreaking even without knowing the plot of the film.

He ripped off Justify My Love's drums.

Agree Longtime Companion is the best of the lot. Real, accurate and well acted. Philadelphia was the big budget, blockbuster, “appeal to straight audiences in a time of homophobia” AIDS film.

It was propaganda. It wasn't illegal to fire gay people or people with AIDS in 99% of America until it got included in the ADA but it made straights feel it was, ratcheting up their fear level about employing gays 500%! Most people diagnosed with AIDS in those days were unemployed because employers had canned them well before they got a diagnosis.

Philadelphia was the Guess Who's Coming To Dinner of AIDS films.

Felt fake and straining for nobility and import despite all the good intentions.

The best AIDS fiction film of all was Parting Glances, because it wasn't trying for gravatis. And it had John Bolger's eyes, which were more gorgeous than Liz Taylors.

There probably weren't a dozen companies in the nation known to give equal rights to gays when that movie came out.

OP, I agree it was beautiful and very moving. It deserved its accolades, and it moved a lot of minds and hearts.

On another note, sorry you're in the closet in 2021. I came out in 1977. I had a fantastic and lucrative career in telecommunications where it intersected with my legal background. I'm so thankful being out was never an issue.

I feel sorry for you.

I vomit every time the mom says "I didn't raise my kids to sit in the back of the bus." I've been watching this three times a week since June to shed the Covid pounds.

Agree w/ R110 - the whole thing was tepid, forced.

The best thing about it was the appearance of The Flirtations! They should have given them more to do-