6:00 am: TB meds, 3 tabs. 33 tablets left, 11 days.
8:00 am: ARV: zido/lami
List of significant HIV related films:
Philadelphia
Andrew Beckett (Tom Hanks) is a senior associate at the largest corporate law firm in Philadelphia. Although he lives with his partner Miguel Álvarez (Antonio Banderas), Beckett is not open about his homosexuality at the law firm, nor the fact that he is HIV positive. On the day he is assigned the firm's newest and most important case, one of the firm's partners notices a small lesion on Beckett's forehead. Shortly thereafter, Beckett stays home from work for several days to try to find a way to hide his lesions. While at home, he finishes the complaint for the case he has been assigned and then brings it to his office, leaving instructions for his assistants to file the complaint in court on the following day, which marks the end of the statute of limitations for the case. Beckett suffers from bowel spasms at home and is rushed to the hospital. Later that morning, while still at the ER, he receives a frantic call from the firm asking for the complaint, as the paper copy cannot be found and there are no copies on the computer's hard drive. However, the complaint is finally discovered and is filed with the court at the last possible moment. The following day, Beckett is dismissed by the firm's partners, who had previously referred to him as their "buddy", but now question his professional abilities in light of the misplaced document.
Beckett believes that someone deliberately hid his paperwork to give the firm a pretext to fire him, and that the firing is actually as a result of his diagnosis with AIDS. He asks several attorneys to take his case, including personal injury lawyer Joe Miller (Denzel Washington), with whom he had been involved in a previous case. Miller, who is admittedly homophobic and knows little about Beckett's AIDS, initially declines to take the case and immediately visits his doctor to find out if he could have contracted the AIDS through shaking Beckett's hand. The doctor explains the methods of HIV infection. The doctor then offers to take a sample of Miller's blood, suspecting that Miller was asking about AIDS because he suspected he had contracted it and was trying to hide it. Miller dismisses the request by laughing it off, thinking it a joke. Unable to find a lawyer willing to represent him, Beckett is compelled to act as his own attorney. While researching a case at a law library, Miller sees Beckett at a nearby table. After a librarian announces that he has found a book on AIDS discrimination for Beckett, others in the library begin to first stare and then move away, and the librarian suggests Beckett retire to a private room. Disgusted by their behavior, Miller approaches Beckett and reviews the material he has gathered. It is obvious he has decided to take the case. Upon receiving a summons by Miller, the head of the firm, Charles Wheeler (Jason Robards), worries about the damage the lawsuit could do to his business and reputation, although one partner (Ron Vawter) unsuccessfully tries to convince them to settle out of court with Beckett.
As the case goes before the court, Wheeler takes the stand, claiming that Beckett was incompetent and claiming that he had deliberately tried to hide his condition. The defense repeatedly suggests that Beckett had invited his illness through promiscuity and was therefore not a victim. In the course of testimony, it is revealed that the partner who had noticed Beckett's lesion had previously worked with a woman who had contracted AIDS after a blood transfusion and so would have recognized the lesion as relating to AIDS. To prove that the lesions would have been visible, Miller asks Beckett to unbutton his shirt while on the witness stand, revealing that his lesions were indeed visible and recognizable as such.
During cross-examination, Beckett admits that he was originally planning to tell his law colleagues that he was gay, but changed his mind after hearing them make homophobic jokes in the sauna of a health club. When asked about the truth of how he got infected, he confirms that he engaged in anonymous sex with another man at a pornographic movie theater. However, he and Miller gain an advantage when the partner who advised settling out of court confesses he long suspected Beckett had AIDS but never said anything, and how he regrets his inaction.
Beckett collapses during Wheeler's testimony. During his hospitalization, the jury votes in his favor, awarding him back pay, damages for pain and suffering, and punitive damages totaling nearly $4.5M. Miller visits Beckett in the hospital after the verdict and overcomes his fear enough to touch Beckett's face. After Beckett's family leaves the room, he tells Miguel that he is ready to die. A short scene immediately afterward shows Miller getting the word that Beckett has died. The movie ends with a reception at Beckett's home following the funeral, where many mourners, including the Millers, view home movies of Beckett as a healthy child.
Angels In America
It is 1985: Ronald Reagan is in the White House, and Death swings the quiet scythe of AIDS across the nation. In Manhattan, Prior Walter tells Lou, his lover of four years, that he has AIDS; Lou, unable to handle it, leaves him. As disease and loneliness ravage Prior, guilt invades Lou. Joe Pitt, an attorney who is Mormon and Republican, is pushed by right-wing fixer Roy Cohn toward a job at the United States Department of Justice. Both Pitt and Cohn are in the closet: Pitt out of shame and religious turmoil, Cohn to preserve his power and image. Pitt's wife Harper is strung out on Valium, causing her to hallucinate constantly (sometimes jointly with Prior during his fever dreams), and she longs to escape from her sexless marriage. An angel with ulterior motives commands Prior to become a prophet. Pitt's mother and Belize, a close friend, help Prior choose. Joe leaves his wife and goes to live with Lou, but the relationship doesn't work out due to ideological differences. Roy is diagnosed with AIDS early on, and as his life comes to a close he is haunted by the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg.
As the film continues, these lost souls come together to create bonds of love, loss, and loneliness and, in the end, discover forgiveness and overcome abandonment
Longtime Companion
Longtime Companion chronicles the first years of the AIDS epidemic as seen through its impact on several gay men and the straight female sister of one of them. The film is split into several sections identified by dates.
July 3, 1981
Willy (Campbell Scott) a personal trainer, and his friend John (Dermot Mulroney) are spending time with affluent gay couple David (Bruce Davison) and Sean (Mark Lamos) at their beach house on Fire Island for the 4th of July. Sean is a screenwriter for the popular daytime soap opera Other People and David comes from a blue blood background and has a large trust fund. Back in the city, Howard (Patrick Cassidy) is preparing to audition for Sean's soap. His boyfriend is Paul (John Dossett) a business executive and their next-door neighbor is Lisa (Parker), whose friend Fuzzy (Stephen Caffrey), is a lawyer who represents Howard.
That morning, The New York Times publishes its first article about the rise of a new "gay cancer." The news spreads as friends call each other. Some are immediately concerned, others dismissive. Willy meets Fuzzy at a tea dance later in the afternoon and they begin a relationship. Howard lands the role.
April 30, 1982
John is the first among the group to be diagnosed with the new disease, contracting pneumonia. Howard is given script pages in which his character is slated to become the first openly gay character on daytime television. He's very concerned about typecasting, fearing that by playing gay he won't be offered other sorts of parts. Willy and Fuzzy move in together.
John dies shortly after his admission to the hospital.
June 17, 1983
Willy, Fuzzy, Lisa, David and Sean gather back on Fire Island with friends Michael and Bob to watch Howard's character come out on the soap opera. The group also discuss a sick neighbor who has become a pariah on the island. That evening, Sean and David argue over Sean's fears that he might be getting sick.
September 7, 1984
Paul is hospitalized with toxoplasmosis. Sean is also hospitalized. Willy visits Sean and is so terrified of becoming infected that he dons a surgical mask and protective gown and, when Sean kisses him on the neck, excuses himself to the bathroom to scrub the spot. Michael is also visiting Sean, bringing with him homeopathic preparations and a book by Louise Hay. Howard visits Paul and breaks down sobbing. Paul tries to reassure and comfort him.
March 22, 1985
Sean has deteriorated to the point of dementia. David is helping with his writing and deceiving the studio into thinking that Sean is still able to work. Fuzzy tries to get Howard a movie role but the producer refuses to cast him because of the rumor that he has AIDS. Paul is back in the hospital following a seizure. David takes Sean for a walk but has to take him home when Sean urinates in a fountain. That night Willy catches Fuzzy checking himself for swollen glands and they talk about their fear of dying. "What do you think happens when we die?" Fuzzy asks. "We get to have sex again" is Willy's reply.
January 4, 1986
Sean has deteriorated to the point of near-catatonia and is in constant pain. He has to be strapped into his bed and has lost control of his bowels and bladder and has to wear adult diapers as a result. After sending Sean's nurse on an errand, David sits with Sean and tells him that it's all right to let go, to stop fighting to stay alive. Sean dies. Willy and Lisa come by to help David and they pick out a suit for Sean to wear to be cremated. Fuzzy calls Gay Men's Health Crisis to find a funeral home. In a rare moment of levity, Lisa and Willy stumble across a slinky red dress in Sean's closet and consider giving it to the undertaker. "What could they say", asks Willy, "if we said we knew him and we knew that's the way he wanted to be remembered?" Ultimately they decide against it, since "it needs a hat. A big Bea Lillie thing!"
The four go to a Chinese restaurant to write Sean's obituary and include David as his "longtime companion."
May 16, 1987
David has died and this is the day of his memorial service. Bob and Willy eulogize him.
September 10, 1988
Fuzzy and Lisa are volunteering answering phones at GMHC. Willy is a "buddy" to a GMHC client, Alberto.
Howard has been diagnosed as being HIV positive. Although it's not mentioned, the presumption is that Paul has died. Howard exploits his remaining fame as a former soap opera star to raise money for AIDS causes by hosting a benefit which includes a performance by Finger Lakes Trio of the Village People song "YMCA" performed in a pastiche of chamber music style.
July 19, 1989
Willy, Fuzzy and Lisa walk along the beach. While it is again unstated, the presumption is that Howard has died. They talk about an upcoming ACT UP demonstration. They talk about remembering a time before AIDS and wonder about finding a cure. The film ends with a momentary fantasy sequence, with the friends and others lost to AIDS appearing with them on the beach, before they vanish again and the three are left to walk off the deserted beach while the song "Post-Mortem Bar", by Zane Campbell, plays on the soundtrack.
A Mother's Prayer
Rosemary Holmstrom is struggling to bring up her son following the death of her husband. When she is diagnosed with AIDS, at first she refuses to believe it, but soon turns her attentions to the problem of what will happen to her son when she dies.
And the Band Played On
An engrossing adaptation of Randy Shilts' landmark prize-winning document on the onset of AIDS and the fevered manhunt to find the cause and cure of the HIV virus. Compelling storytelling and a remarkable performance by Modine as the head for the Centers for Disease Control facing impossible odds and heartbreaking frustrations. Hallmark for cameo appearances and political correctness it may be but stirring and revelatory nonetheless. Dare not to be moved during Elton John's "The Last Song" as images and names of the disease's victims roll during the closing credits. Directed by Roger Spottiswoode for HBO.
Life and Death on the A-list
A heart-wrenching documentary about Tom McBride's (who some people will remember as the wheelchair bound jock in Friday The 13th: Part 2) life, his fight with AIDS and his death.
Rent
A modern spin on the opera LA BOHEME, RENT tells the story of eight friends dealing with life and love in Manhattan's Alphabet City in 1989. Over the course of a year, the friends face poverty, drug addiction, break-ups, reconciliations, eviction, and AIDS. Despite these challenges, they find support, hope, and acceptance in each other, all the while embracing the bohemian lifestyle that was so much a part of the Lower East Side.
8:00 pm: arv: zido/lami, efav. prophylaxis: Cotrimoxazole
