Dallas Buyers Club

When I heard Matthew McConaughey won a Golden Globe I became very curious in the Dallas Buyers Club. I wasn't familiar at all with the story and was surprised to see it was about the AIDS break out in Dallas. Ron Woodroof found himself one of the HIV+ victims after an electrical accident on a job site lands him in the hospital The electrician, part-time rodeo rider and good old Texas boy wasn't happy about being lumped in with a "bunch of faggots" in an AZT control test and sought his own cure, which led him into a seedy relationship with a former doctor down Mexico way.

McConaughey went through an amazing transformation to capture the gaunt frame of Woodroof, shedding close to 40 lbs. and I assume donning some make-up to look like someone who has gone through hell and back and lived to tell about. The writers take a few liberties with Woodroof's story but for the most part stick close to the source.

Craig Borten had been trying to bring the story to the screen for 20 years and finally succeeded in an independent film made by Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallee that creates a sense of earthiness to the events that transpired in the mid 80s. All the scenes are shot close with a handheld cameras, often in tight spaces like the adjacent motel rooms that serve as the office and home for Woodroof and his transvestite "associate" Rayon, played by Jared Leto. He also went through a major transformation and captures his role beautifully. They traffic a variety of contraband AIDS "medicines," largely in the form of vitamins, minerals and protein supplements, which had not been granted FDA approval.

The film is as much an indictment of the early use of AZT as it as a poignant tale of how two persons struggle to come to terms with the rapidly debilitating disease. I was really impressed by their performances and how the story unfolded. The film never loses its gripping power, yet at the same time doesn't try to sentimentalize the issue as other AIDS movies have done.

Woodroof was an unrepentant homophobe, but in time came to accept Rayon (a fictionalized character) and the gay community, as these were his principal clients. By setting up a buyers club, and charging $400/month for membership, they were able to skirt FDA regulations. This was being done throughout the country at the time as AZT was prohibitively expensive and had horrible side effects.

Woodroof became a major advocate for the use of alternative medicines, which the FDA refused to endorse despite their proven effectiveness in other countries. He established an elaborate network to supply his operations. There is a brief mention of the Japanese-produced Interferon, but it is mostly vitamin and simpler protein supplements that helped AIDS victims stretch their lives beyond the months most doctors gave them. Woodroof himself lived 7 years after being initially diagnosed as HIV positive at a very late stage of development. He had been given 30 days.

I feel a bit like Roger Ebert with my recent movie reviews, but it's very refreshing to see movies from last year that deal with controversial subjects in an honest way. This film certainly deserves a thumb's up.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Welcome to this month's reading group selection. David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908. At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades. Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society. I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran. Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, not...

Team of Rivals Reading Group

''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005

The Searchers

You are invited to join us in a discussion of The Searchers , a new book on John Ford's boldest Western, which cast John Wayne against type as the vengeful Ethan Edwards who spends eight years tracking down a notorious Comanche warrior, who had killed his cousins and abducted a 9 year old girl. The film has had its fair share of detractors as well as fans over the years, but is consistently ranked in most critics' Top Ten Greatest Films . Glenn Frankel examines the origins of the story as well as the film itself, breaking his book down into four parts. The first two parts deal with Cynthia Ann Parker and her son Quanah, perhaps the most famous of the 19th century abduction stories. The short third part focuses on the author of the novel, Alan Le May, and how he came to write The Searchers. The final part is about Pappy and the Duke and the making of the film. Frankel noted that Le May researched 60+ abduction stories, fusing them together into a nar...

Dispatches from Vilnius

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