Saturday, April 4, 2009

And the Band Played On

If you think this movie “starring” Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin is a sequel to All of Me, be prepared for disappointment. Instead it is kind of a downer what with being about AIDS and all, formerly called GRIDS which sounds cooler but cast aspersions on the gay community.
Directed by the guy who did Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot and Turner and Hooch, this tv docudrama turns its lens on the serious debut of the AIDS epidemic and the red tape which inevitably strung it along.
It is not a phenomenal movie but I tried to ask myself the question: what is the message to me? What can I get out of this movie? Because in the end, it’s really all about me. And I think basically what I came away with is thankfulness. I’m thankful I’m not a gay man in the 80’s. I’m thankful I’ve never needed a blood transfusion. I’m thankful I don't work in politics or medical research. I’m thankful I’ve never had a mustache for any length of time.
The title is a reference to the Titanic and how supposedly there were musicians who continued playing ragtime music as the ship sunk, an apt metaphor for making bad jokes about a disease which is estimated to have taken the lives of 2 million people as of 2007.

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