whew. So I just spent all day (intermittently) reading this whole thread. I finished the series this morning after trying to find time to watch all month and succeeding only by getting sick and skipping work.

I'd seen Millenium Approaches in college, but read both parts soon after. Still, it'd been awhile and it amazed me how something so long (and protracted because of my viewing schedule) kept me sort of breathless the entire time.

I don't really anything to add (liked everyone, loved JW, JK and AP and still loved Louis as a character... he's too real to me not to), but about the opening credits: I loved them too, though has anything ever said "I'm a Mike Nichols film!" as much? I think he might need a copyright on the huge, sweeping zoom-in.

Thanks for all the links and analysis... it was a good day of reading.

I've only yesterday finished watching AiA -- I neither get nor can afford HBO, so a friend kindly taped it for me. The only word I can possibly think of to describe this film is exquisite. So majestic, yet nuanced, and powerful but poignant. It really doesn't get any better than this. My eyes welled up with tears during the very first scene (the line, paraphrased, "Such great journeys don't exist anymore in this world" got me in the written play as well,) and I sat quietly weeping for most of the six hours.

I've read through this entire thread, and there are some things I wanted to bring up and respond to, never mind the fact that some of them were originally posted nearly a month ago.



Those words likely do have symbolic roots in Judaica, although I can't prove anything without talking to Kushner himself -- this is just where my mind immediately goes with it. Candles, most specifically Chanukah candles but I suppose it holds true for all of them, are made up of three parts -- ner (flame,) ptilah (wick,) and shemen (oil.) If you put the first letter of each of these three words together, you get "nefesh," which is Hebrew for "soul." Therefore, the candles that are lit on Chanukah are said to stand for the souls of the people who light them. It's entirely possible that the references to fire and flame by a traditional Judeo-Christian angel are a reference to this bit of symbolism.

(Okay, it's about to become clear that I've been writing as I'm reading, because pianodan posted a more legitimate explanation of this. I'm keeping my statements in though, because while it might not have been Kushner's original idea, I still find it relevant.)



This makes sense, and it answers the same question of many others that I had at the end of the film regarding Joe's future. If human progress is harmful to angels, and stasis is divine yet inhuman, then regression logically should be either desirable or distasteful to all. Kushner uses Joe to make that distinction clear.

Regarding the discussion of the New York Skyline: It most certainly did look different than it does now, but I believe that it was completely and totally accurate for the time period. I say this because I grew up in a small suburb of Manhattan in which you can clearly see the skyline from various points in and around town. My very first memories are from around '86 when the play is set, and on the first scene with a view of the skyline I was struck by a wave of nostalgia like I haven't felt in years. That in itself was pretty majestic, from a personal level.

I despised the epilogue of the film. Not for the content, but for the manner in which it was filmed. I'm not so bothered by actors breaking the proverbial fourth wall on stage, because the audience is literally in front of the performers. But on film, the fourth wall isn't proverbial, it's literal -- there are a camera lens and a television screen that stand between me and the actor, and directing the monologue straight at the audience is disconcerting and completely ruined the mood that the film had been building for three hours.

Normally when I fall in love with a film, I watch it over and over again in order to catch every subtle turn that I may have missed the first time around. AiA, though, completely drained me emotionally, and I don't think I have the strength to watch it again just yet. Perhaps in another month I'll turn it on again in the hope of being completely awed the way I was last night. An artistic masterpiece like this one is rare to come along, and it deserves to be treasured.

Having finally finished Part II, I can only say is this : Dude, living in NYC agreed with Hannah.

No, it was just as wonderful as MA.

I just watched the entire goddamned fucking thing again as I taped it for a dear friend sans HBO who lost a brother to AIDS and really wanted to see it. I hope it serves as a comfort and affirmation of life for her.

Wow. What a devastating work of art.

I'm still mad that Justin Kirk and Emma Thompson weren't nominated for Golden Globe awards but please let all of the other actors who were nominated for this piece win in the name of excellence.

I too rewatched Millennium last night, and was rather humiliated to discover how much I’d missed on the first go-round. It was clear that while Hannah was primarily doing her Christian duty when she first helped Prior (though starting to sort out her thinking) it took the encounter with the angel to achieve the real transformation. (I’m afraid the line “All she needs is a good angelic fuck” occurred to me, but oh, well.)

It’s been suggested that Hannah is a latent lesbian, as demonstrated by a tendency to dislike and derogate men. I rather think not. The lesbians I’ve known – and that’s many – tend to like men in general quite well. Just not in their beds. Yes, an Aileen Wuornos might hate men, but so might any sexually abused child.

Kushner did avoid one stereotype: Joe as the son of a rejecting father but a nurturing mother. Joe speaks of rescuing Harper from a bad family situation, but his own must have been pretty awful. I don’t know if it was intentional on Kushner’s part, but there seem to be no siblings – which is very un-Mormon. Not hard to imagine a little kid in a house of animosity, trying to be good enough to make things right.

In their first scene in Perestroika, he says something like “You bring the desert with you.” Only in their second, and last scene, does she finally show him some tenderness, touching him as she talks about making dinner.

The NYTimes' A.O. Scott writes a pretty interesting review of the series within Slate's Movie Club on Tuesday (the Movie Club is an annual discussion of the year's films by a few critics). You have to scroll down a bit to see it, but he has some interesting points about what filming the play reveals about it. If anything, I agree most with his assertion that some of the dialogue is really best-suited to a theater kind of rhythm (or he says a sitcom too). Of course, I'm glad they didn't change it...

Interview with Justin Kirk. I'm not sure how to take the writers' views of the film.

It's pretty amazing when an actor like Justin Kirk can not only hold his own in scenes with the stellar talents of Meryl Streep and Jeffrey Wright, but match the seasoned pros, measure for measure, scene after astonishing scene. Thanks to my San Francisco BF, I've had the opportunity to watch it , thrice, before most other poor, unfortunate Canadians and I must say to all my country brethren and cistern: See. This. Production.

When, when, WHEN is it available on DVD?

Today I was in a Barnes & Noble and browsing through the Drama section - I noticed they had a copy of the play with the "new" cover (JK on his bed, watching Emma Thompson swoop in). A couple of minutes later as I walked through the store, I heard the AiA music in the store - it was the piece that they used during the opening credits. Weird. It definitely left me with a surreal feeling.

Usually, when a movie blows me away like this one did, it takes me a few repeat viewings to pay attention and appreciate the music. Now that I've watched AiA more than once (well, more than twice...okay, more than ten times) I've really come to love the beautiful, haunting score. The oboe in the opening credits was a perfect choice.

It's interesting to compare the AiA music with the theme for Six Feet Under, also scored by Thomas Newman. The themes both unique and fit perfectly with their subjects, but they have their similarities, too.

Believe it or not, when I was listening to the music in the store today, Six Feet Under came to mind, and I wondered if Thomas Newman had also composed that score. Thanks - now I don't have to check! ;)

One of the most interesting things I ever read about the nature of stardom had to do with the bisexuality of seduction. A star has to seduce the audience, all the men and women together, that is the nature of his or her job. I think I totally understood that the other day when Garbo's entire face filled the screen at the end of Queen Christina--it doesn't matter what you personally desire in your bed, Garbo will make you fall a little bit in love with her. And it's not entirely about beauty, or at least skin deep beauty.





I'm so sad you feel that the technique got in the way of your emotional response to the epilogue. I loved the series, loved all six hours of it. Even though it was a stick and go thing with me. I have to admit, my attention wandered at times and I wasn't riveted all the time, but the epilogue was perhaps the breakthrough moment for me. Justin Kirk kicked the ass off his monologue, and I nearly started crying at the heartfelt and earned emotion of the scene.

And breaking the fourth wall in movies is not really common but it isn't unheard of. A lot of comedies (what comes immediately to mind, Annie Hall) do it. While that bit of staginess didn't distract, the overwhelming verbosity of it did. Plays have so much dialogue, and I'm such a child of the film biz, that I was off-put.

But. Overall reaction was LOVE!

Angels in America won the Broadcast Film Critics Association award for "Best Picture Made for Television."

The show was broadcast live last night on E!

FYI, Patrick Wilson fans. He will be playing Brick in Cat on A Hot Tin Roof this summer at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. The dates are June 11 - July 4 and is part of the Tennesse Williams Explored Festival

I'm with Lady Agnew. While I may have lost control of my tear ducts in several preceding scenes (where "several" == "many"), it was during those final moments when the glands took over completely.

Golly, did no one in Canada watch last weekend?

I'll take my stand with Lady Agnew too. "Breaking the fourth wall" has been done many times in the movies, from Tom Jones to Jeffrey. It can be done well or badly, of course, but it's one of the resources available to filmmakers, and the idea that it's despicable (even if the writer asks for it) puzzles me. Actually I wish that the filmed AiA had used it more -- there are several places earlier when characters speak directly to the audience, and had these been retained the final speeches by Harper and Prior would have seemed less of a stylistic leap.

AiA received several SAG Award nominations today, including Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, Jeffrey Wright, Emma Thompson & last, but definitely not least, Justin Kirk! Whoo + Hoo!

I was thrilled to see Justin's nomination. I haven't seen him attached to any new projects yet, but I hope he's getting some great offers.

I too was very pleased to see Justin Kirk's nomination for AiA.

On a side [and non AiA note], I was also delighted to see Peter Dinklage nominated for Station Agent. Seems like the SAG nominators look for quality performances.

Ahhh jeeze, I just typed this long drawn out thing, and it freaking disappears. Oy!
Ok, let's see if I can remember what all I wrote.
I liked Angels for the most part but I am now surprised to learn that was not one gay actor in one of the main roles. What's up with that, this is a program about AIDS and gay men and their relationships, yet in all of show biz, they couldn't find any gay actors to be in it? Go figure.

I am also one of those who wonders what happened to Joe. Does he continue to stay out and develop relationships with men, or did he return back to the closet? Open ended questions like these, drive me up the wall.
I did not find Joe to be a bad or evil person, I think he was just a person who did the best he could while dealing with his own demons. Yes he wrote decisions that did not help gay and lesbian causes, but I think he did those out of what he thought was the letter of the law along side with some internalized homophobia.
It felt like a relief when he was finally able to come out of the closet and experience all the things he had been longing for. Sadly he had to meet someone like Louis who couldn't really handle someone loving him. I was glad to see Joe beat the crap out of him, because honestly, he had it coming, what with how he treated Prior and Joe.
Anyway, I enjoyed Angels for the most part, although some of it I found quite heavy handed.
Wonder if Tony Kushner has any thoughts of writing another chapter.

When the play was new, Kushner said in more than one interview that he might someday return to the characters and write a play about how they were doing at a later date. By 2003, though, I suspect that the time for that has passed (in Kushner's own life, I mean). But you never know.

I've never doubted that Joe continued to explore his sexuality, after all he'd been through (including Harper's advice to "get lost" -- i.e., not continue on the path he was all too familiar with). But that's just me; I agree that the open-endedness allows us to think whatever we want.

At the time the movie was broadcast, it did occur to me that whereas the Broadway production had 3 openly gay actors, plus director George Wolfe, the movie has none. But... it's all about acting, right? If the actor convinces us, their real life is irrelevant to the result. So I have to figure that Nichols went after the best actors he could find for each role, and in this case they all happened to be straight (well, except Simon Callow :) ). It's just as valid as Dan Butler playing a relentless womanizer on Frasier.

SAG Nominations came out today. "Angels in America" got six noms:

Best Actor in a TV Movie/Miniseries:
Justin Kirk
Al Pacino
Jeffrey Wright

Best Actress in a TV Movie/Miniseries:
Mary-Louise Parker
Meryl Streep
Emma Thompson

That's always been one of HBO's weak strategies--get the best possible talent, no expense spared. And I kinda thought it was mostly about America, faith, commitment, love, honour, politics, power, clout, humanity...

Now, Showtime, on the other hand? Man, their production of Angels in America would be freakin' awesome: Robert Gant as Joe Pitt, Jennifer Beals as Harper, Peter Paige as Belize, Sharon Gless as Hanna Pitt and... Gale Harold as Prior Walter. Pure, dramatic gold. And the Bethesda Angel scene would be filmed on Toronto Island.

Joe was rightfully omitted from the fourth-wall-broken epilogue. When you come out and seek to reap the benefits of membership in a particular corner of the human race, ya gotta behave like a human being and a warrior for that particular corner. Joe did neither and, in fact, actively participated as an enemy to that corner. He never sought to rectify his crimes, but merely--and pathetically--justified them. Fuck him. His kind make me sick to my stomach, and one can only hope he lived out the rest of his miserable existence shunned by the clever, committed and fabulous.

Hey, bstewart, that's tongue-in-cheek (yeah, yeah), right?

And actually, most of us blunder through our lives not exactly being the toast of "the clever, committed and fabulous. " I imagine the interest in Joe isn't so much the usual fangirl/fanboy thing, as it is the desire to see some resolution to his story, because he's an ordinary man brought up in an insulated and judgmental society, a very specialized "lifestyle." LDS families are often warm, clean, affectionate, and nice, but the theology is rigid. It hasn't been many years since blacks were resoundingly unwelcome into that society; gays are about as welcome even now as they are to Southern Baptists.

Add to this, Joe is written as having been rejected by his mother as well as his father. An angelic orgasm may have transformed Hannah, but surely it would take a longer than a couple of weeks with Louis for a Joe to get free of his first thirty-or-so years.

Poor Joe. Unlike the rest of us fags who spend the first thirty years of our lives closeted and not doing great harm to our brethren (and cistern), Joe actively created legal precedent to deny us basic protection under the Bill of Rights (or whatever you Yanks call that piece of paper).Who doesn't love a gay-bashing? Joe bashes queers in court and in a squalid East Village walk-up. No foot-to-groin by Joe could ever hurt Louis as much as his own self-torture did. Louis was a coward, a cad, a creep, but he knew he was. And he sought redemption for his sins.

Joe was oblivious to the evil he perpetrated, even tried to justify it through legalese. It's one thing to be closeted and nonparticipatory, quite another to actually do harm to your kind by actively working against them. Please, for the love of god, don't make me invoke Godwin's Law!

Gee BS, sure have missed your particular spin on issues.

I don't think I consider Louis getting beat up by Joe a gay bashing. Louis provoked Joe by shoving him and taunting. So I don't think that really counts as bashing, last time I checked self defense was still allowed.
Yes he was oblivious to what he had done, he was a closeted gay man with a lot of self hatred, what was he supposed to do? Embrace the "gay agenda"? And since we're left with the open ended question of what happpened to Joe, who's to say that he didn't go back and try to rectify all the bad he had done.
And as far as the HBO talent thing? Are you implying there is no good gay talent out there BS? I'm sure Ian McKellan might take offense to that.

Tony Kushner's to say. Unless there's some edition of the play that I haven't read. Who's to say that he didn't grab an Uzi and mow down hundreds of people at the NYSE? Tony Kushner.And Ian McKellen would play... the short, weaselly, Jewish Roy Cohn? McKellan's a great actor, but even that would be a stretch. I'm pretty sure that Serena would be the first to suggest that the best actor for a role should be chosen, with no consideration whatsoever given to their sexual orientation. Was Gandalf queer? Should the roles in Lord of the Rings have all gone to hobbit, dwarf and elf actors? Wizards?What "gay agenda"??? Are you suggesting that the logical response of closeted gay men with a lot of self-hatred is to create legislation codifying legal descrimination against millions of Americans? That's gay-bashing on a monumental level.

And, for the record? My screen name is bstewart.

It's always good to see BStewart's droll humor on these boards, but he forgot one major or minor (differing POVS) actor. Randy Harrison would have to be included in the production. Randy and Gale, according to some of their fans are constantly attached to their groins.

Oh, my. Now I'm left to wonder, bstewart , if your remarks concerning Joe were further examples of "droll humor." They did seem a tad over the top, but I just plodded along taking them seriously.

In any case, I agree that it's more important to cast for quality than for sexual orientation. Then too, there's the major problem that we don't know who's gay and who isn't and who is still waffling (because - especially in some of the "artier" environments - there may be less pressure to give yourself a label). Moreover, some people are comfortable being known as gay in their field without choosing to wear the designation for the general audience.

I'll be happier when The Advocate can feature homosexuals on most of its covers instead of the reverse - but it can take a while to change a social regime.

My remarks about Joe were unencumbered by sarcasm. Gay men like Joe are the moral equivalent of... dang! I was this close to Godwin's Law again!

I completely agree with your latter two paragraphs. Actually, I'd go so far as to say that I'll be happiest when magazines like The Advocate become quaint footnotes to the history of sexual equality, and are unnecessary.

Justin Kirk will be presenting at the Golden Globes next Sunday.

Now I have to watch those ridiculous awards just to see him in a tux. At least he's not bitter he wasn't nominated.

I was reading a review of a movie he did a few years back called The Outpatient where the reviewer suggested his psychiatrist should have done him because he looks like Jude Law after he's missed a few days of sleep. Kind of a backhanded compliment I'd say.

Regardless of what some people think, I still feel that Joe was a sympathetic character. Yes, he did some things that were hurtful to others, and consequently, himself. But he did them following the law, and it's precedents.
I can't imagine how hard it would be to be a Mormon and a gay man, that has to be a very slippery slope to handle. I know it would be interesting to talk to someone like that, perhaps get a better grasp on the mentality that goes along with the duality of that situation. It can't be easy.
And I found Louis to be a bit sanctimonious for someone who would walk out on his dying lover.
And for the record, you'll always be BS to me.

Alright everyone, let's not make this personal please.

Finally saw it in its entirety. I know, very late to the game.

For me, Jeffrey Wright was the standout performance(s) - the man conveys astonishing potency and nuance with the slightest look or motion, and that he must have tailored it down from a knockout theatre performance is… well, wow. I could not take my eyes off him. Justin Kirk and Meryl Streep do me in as well. Truly stellar. Everyone’s really good. But my girl (and righteous angel) Emma Thompson needs to work on her damn American accent already. She skated by with that crap in a few other movies and gets no pass from me this time. Even the wretched Joe is cast well with the blank-handsome Wilson: a BDSM Ken doll dreamboat to fuel the daffy fantasies of fatuous fag hags everywhere. Kushner aims to please.

The mind boggles that Joe’s beat-down of Louis could be seen as anything other than a (multi-layered) gay-bashing, as bstewart points out. (And this is the stuff that puts to shame the sophomoric, ham-handed treatment of the homophobe-cum-closet-case storyline in that p.o.s. American Beauty, and others of its ilk.)

BTW, in response to the question p/ages ago, that was indeed Oskar Eustis in the heaven scene – not sitting at the council of angels table, but the beefy, bearded guy ushering Prior in. He could be seen throughout that scene in background, standing silently and overseeing, in a kinda nifty metaphor for his original role as director.

It's the layers, theelder, that captured me, too. Roy Cohn's malicious prosecution of the Rosenbergs, superficially justified on a macro level by his hatred for "communists and traitors", translates as his vicious self-hatred of his own Jewishness. Joe's monstrously discriminatory and inhumane legal precedents, simplistically justified on a macro level as law, translates as his vicious self-hatred for his own homosexuality.

Though never explicitly stated (uh-oh, Godwin's Law, again, but dammit, it can't be avoided), the unspoken suggestion is that Repuplican gays are no better than Nazi-colluding Jews. Louis calling Joe "Roy Cohn's butt-boy" may, on the surface, suggest that Joe and Roy are physiologically joined at the hips, but of course he means that they're idealogically welded together, too.

I'm satisfied that no more is known of Joe in the epilogue. Roy Cohn's dead and Joe, like some character from a Greek tragedy, roams the Earth, miserable and shunned, unable to connect his crimes to his punishment. I figure AiA fan-fiction will arrange a commuted sentence, anyway.

It's funny, I watched parts of AiA again last night and, indeed, when Jeffrey Wright is on-screen I was dumbstruck by how perfectly he scales his Tony-winning stage work down for the the intimacy of the movie camera. Staggering. But then... Meryl Streep is on-screen and she's utterly... perfect. And then Justin Kirk, whose work in this film will make him a star, or should.. And even Al Pacino, whose histrionics I regularly avoid. And Mary-Louise Parker was so moving during her moments on-screen that I actually forgot about Marcia Gay Harden's Broadway performance {/blasphemy}. A stunning, stunning cast, and I'm loathe to pick just one standout. (Let's just say that I liked Emma Thompson. As The Angel.)

Thanks for the tip on Eustis. While watching, I was wondering "who is that guy and why is he lurking in this most critical scene?" Clever. Ignoring the sole, glaring misstep of Prior wearing a red robe in the monochromatic entrance into heaven, in which Nichols traffics in American Beauty-style (or, worse, Spielberg-style) obviousness, this is a production of finesse and grace and thundering achievement.

[QUOTEa BDSM Ken doll dreamboat to fuel the daffy fantasies of fatuous fag hags everywhere. Kushner aims to please.[/QUOTE]

Let me make this perfectly clear, my sympathy for the character of Joe has nothing to do with the way he looks. It really doesn't matter as it's not the primary thing that compels me about this character. I like seeing the struggle that the character goes thru, battling everything he believes against everything he so desperately wants. Something I could totally relate to. Maybe that's why I was drawn to his character, because I could actually relate things in my own life to his own. The other characters, I really didn't feel a connection to. And as I've said before, I don't approve of the things he did as a lawyer, but I can understand why he did them.
I've never had a terminal illness, I've never bailed on a loved one, I've never been a distant parent, and no I've never been a gay man, so I can't relate to those things. I have been a person struggling with my sexuality, trying to figure out how to deal with it and the effect it would have on those in my life. A problem, I'm sure, no one else has had to deal with.

That was probably the point, copying other directors' styles, I mean. In his first dream state, Prior dreamt in the style of Cocteau. Maybe Nichols wanted people to compare this scene with the little red jacket in Schindler's list. It probably would have made more sense to rip off other directors' styles had the scene with Harper in heaven been kept in. Keeping continuity and all.

D'oh! Makes perfect sense. Also continues the resonance with the unstated Nazi-Republican angle. Good point. D'oh!

ETA: Even better point, below, IseutLaBrune.

The Schindler's List red coat connection might have even been more obvious had Prior's "This is very Spielberg" line been included earlier in the movie's angel scene.

Word, word, a million times word! Joe's not only a sell-out, in some ways, he's *worse* than Louis. For all Louis' faults, which were many, to put it mildly, at least he had the guts to be true to himself, for better and for worse. While one could say the same for Roy Cohn, Louis changed because he wanted to, not because he had to. As for Joe's attacking Louis, it *was* a gay-bashing, IMO. Giving Louis a black eye & kneeing him in the balls was bad enough, but Joe's literally kicking Louis while he was down was uncalled for. Maybe Louis shouldn't have thrown those papers in Joe's face, but Joe shouldn't have beaten him for it. Louis would've had every right to press charges against Joe, if he felt like it. Louis may have overreacted slightly, but Joe's response was way outta line, as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask or even if I'm allowed to, but does anyone have part 2 of AiA on tape? I missed it and I don't have HBO where I'm at right now. If anyone has it and is willing to send me a copy (i'll pay for the shipping and cost of tape, etc. of course), I'd appreciate an e-mail. Thanks.

I've read the whole thread and don't remember seeing these, so apologies if this is repeat information:

Patrick Wilson will star as Brick in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the Kennedy Center.

Also, Tony Kushner has been commissioned to write a new play (The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to the Scriptures) for the Mark Taper Forum in LA, to premiere in 2005. He's writing it for the original Prior, Stephen Spinella.

New pictures of Justin Kirk here, from last night's AFI awards. I'm looking for bigger ones.

Am I the only Canadian who watched AiA last weekend? It has taken me this long to read all the posts on this forum...whew!

I'm glad I got to see it before the Golden Globes. I hope it wins many more much deserved accolades.

I had heard the buzz about it, but really had no idea what to expect, what it was about, nothing. I'd never heard of Roy Cohn before, and only watched it because it was done by HBO - beloved for Oz, The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, etc. - there was a serious buzz around it, and I still have a crush on Emma Thompson.

I (mis)heard that it was going to be more supernatural/science fiction-ish than it actually was, but it was a spectacular and strangely unmoving event for me. High quality in terms of writing and acting, decent production values, clever and important and yet while I'm very glad that I saw it, it didn't affect me emotionally at all.

I too wondered what happened to Joe, but I'm ok with the way it was left. Louis (actually, I thought it would be "Lewis", until I read this forum) wasn't very likeable, but his scene with Joe at Louis' apartment was quite hot at the start of the second part.

Thanks to everyone for sharing your histories with this work, it has been fascinating to hear about your experiences seeing the play, acting in the play, reading the play, deleted scenes, different casts over time, etc.

Congratulations to Meryl Streep, Jeffrey Wright, and Mike Nichols et al for winning Golden Globes! Al P's category is still to go, so he may win, too. But so far, so good! It was really great to hear the music again, I have to say. And JEFFREY wins! What a delight!

and what a delight to see Justin Kirk present. yummy-yum.

sorry, double-post, didnt mean to...and it looks like AiA won in every category it was nominated. cool.

But why is Justin Kirk not sitting with the others from Angels? And why is no one mentioning him in their speeches? (I have a feeling the answer to (b) is (a) -- that they looked over the table and mentioned all of them they could see or something. Did Meryl mention him? She had everyone in alphabetical order, so I feel sure she must've...)

Anyway, it was classy of Pacino to mention Ron Leibman and F. Murr. I enjoyed all three of them (and Jonathan Hadary) but I have to say, I think Leibman was probably the best of the bunch. Or maybe it's just that I saw him first! I also loved that they used the Balenciaga scene for Al's reel. LOVED that scene.

And they did. Yeah!

They probably stuck him at a table with other non-nominees and guests. Meryl mentioned him in her speech and MLP gave him a hug when she got to the stage. JW probably just forgot in his nervousness and AP seems nuts. Presenters got a gift bag worth $25,000 so he didn't make out too shabbily. On an even shallower not, he looked hotter than hot.