The Normal Heart

This is such a well told story. Mark Ruffalo has always been an amazing actor, however here he really takes center stage.He has not had such an impacting role since his breakthrough performance in you can count on me. Julia Roberts and Matt Bomer are also excellent. It is great to see so many great actors coming together to tell such an important story. A scene towards the end of the movie between Mark Ruffalo and Matt Bomer has particularly stayed with me and really pulled at the heart strings. It is a story that needed to be told and the way the gay community were ignored during this period of time is a disgrace. This is a better movie that the much lauded Dallas Buyers Club and needs to find a wide audience.

I'm a pretty huge fan of American Horror Story, but even I can recognize that it's just a very entertaining, corny trash-fest. Having seen nothing else from Ryan Murphy, I had no idea he had this in him, to direct a film with this much grace and eloquence. Compared to last year's Dallas Buyers Club, this is much better. If it had gotten a theatrical release, it very well could have gotten a lot of Oscar nominations. Although much of the cast is great, Matt Bommer really sails high and above everyone else. Incredible performance, very much an Oscar-winning one if there ever was, and so I hope he gets to win the Emmy at least. This is highly recommended.

The Normal Heart is powerful emotional film about the early days of the AIDS crisis. While the characters are fictionalized, the events and the struggles are all too real. The film provides a valuable history lesson for those too young to remember the politics and emotions of the early days of the AIDS epidemic. The film dramatizes the criminal neglect of both the Reagan administration and Ed Koch's administration in New York City. It shows the complexity of the struggles within the gay community as they tried to come to grips with an epidemic while still trying to challenge a culture that barely acknowledged their existence. In many ways, the film dramatizes just how far we have come and still suggests that we have a long way to go. Some scenes are simply heart-breaking. The film is well-acted particularly by Mark Ruffalo, Matt Bomer, Alfred Molina and Julia Roberts. HBO has shown again that it is in the forefront of bringing socially conscious drama to the screen and for that they should be commended. I recommend the film to all who are willing to watch with an open heart.

Just watched the HBO original movie the "Normal Heart" which is based on a Tony award winning play from real life AIDS activist Larry Kramer, and I must say that director Ryan Murphy took this film to life's edge showing that love and life ends in the tragic and sad deaths of gay men. Set in New York city during the early to mid 80's at the very early stages of HIV/AIDS in fact the film shows the first deaths and early cases of gay men getting an unknown disease some called even a gay men's cancer plague. In these very early years the disease was still searching for a name and it was known only as a gay disease. After death after death a newspaper reporter Ned Weeks(in a super performance from Mark Ruffalo)starts to become an activist and fight for the rights of gay men and he faces a big climb from the political and medical community who both seem in denial of gay men's rights and they have no clue on how to treat the disease. Ned sees the pain and toll that it takes as his lover Felix(Matt Bomer)falls to defeat in the end from this new mysterious killer of gay men. In an outstanding performance veteran Julia Roberts is high strong and determined as a polio stricken doctor Brookner who was one of the first in the country to treat gay men for this disease. She has hope and fights for change. Overall this film is a painful watch about life, love, and in the end death still it's message is it's okay to fight for life and equal justice even if your different and love one of your own gender. Overall a must watch film that shows the early harsh days of the AIDS birth.

I saw the film Saturday night, it's still in my head and as I sit here writing this review. I feel a great sense of sadness for all those lost over all of these years, but what is most on my mind is Mark Ruffalo's tour De force performance as Ned Weeks.

Although a fictionalized character based on Larry Kramer, Mark made this part his own, while still keeping the aspects of Kramer's real persona. You could feel his performance, every mood of it (and believe me it runs through all of them). Mark's ability to transform into a gay man (at a time in gay history that was so scary and unimaginable) with such believability was amazing. I forgot I was watching Mark Ruffalo, his performance completely erased his own being.

There are many aspects of the film that critics are tearing into. Critics who were not even alive at the time opinion's on the subject are worthless in my view, but for those critics who have long ago left their pacifiers at home I can agree with some of the negatives.

The film showed only a segment of the gay population living in NYC at that time, primarily the rich A listers who were never political before AIDS and only became so when their own lives were in danger. The majority of gay men did not spend sex filled weekends on Fire island in expensive beach houses. They were working men of all races and incomes who because of their financial circumstances, lack of insurance etc died quickly and with little notice outside their friends and family, if they were lucky enough to have a family that accepted them (remember this was 1981 not 2014).

This film brought back a lot of sadness and regrets for me, I wanted to hug Ned Weeks and tell him that things do get better in the future. It's not often that a performance affects me, but Ruffalo's did, not because he was playing a fictionalized version of a real person, but because he was playing a little bit of a lot of different men, who at the time thought the promised land had finally arrived for gay men and only to see it turn into a Holocast right before their eyes.

I hope that Mark is nominated and wins an Emmy for his performance, because he deserves it.