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Holistic Guidance - Longtime Companion
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List Price: $14.98
Our Price: $9.99
Your Save: $ 4.99 ( 33% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
Starring: Campbell Scott, Patrick Cassidy, John Dossett, Mary-Louise Parker, Stephen Caffrey
Directed By: Norman René
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
Brand: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
EAN: 9780792848141
Format: Closed-captioned
ISBN: 0792848144
Label: MGM (Video & DVD)
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
Number Of Items: 1
Picture Format: Letterbox
Publisher: MGM (Video & DVD)
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2001-01-23
Running Time: 100
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Theatrical Release Date: 1990
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Editorial Reviews:
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Hailed as the first mainstream film to put a human face on the AIDS epidemic Longtime Companion is a "remarkable" (Newsweek) drama that takes an honest unflinching look at how this devastating disease changes everyone it touches. "Intelligent unflinching and unpatronizing" (Boxoffice) and starring a "terrific ensemble cast" (Time) including Oscar nominee Bruce Davison Campbell Scott Dermont Mulroney and Mary-Louise Parker this heartrendering yet triumphant film "is an illuminating deeply moving experience" (Los Angeles Time).During the summer of 1981 a group of friends in New York are completely unprepared for the onslaught of AIDS. What starts as a rumor about a mysterious "gay cancer" soon turns into a major crisis as one by one some of the friends begin to fall ill leaving the others to panic about who will be next. As death takes its toll the lives of these friends are forever redefined by an unconditional display of love hope and courage.System Requirements:Starring: Campbell Scott Patrick Cassidy John Dossett Mary-Louise Parker Stephen Caffrey Tanya Berezin Welker White and Michael Piontek. Directed By: Norman René Running Time: 100 Min. Color. This film is presented in "Widescreen" format. Copyright 2000 MGM Studios.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: R UPC: 027616857705
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent daring movie
Comment:
This movie really touched me so much.
it makes you want to be more daring in your life by accepting who we are. And ofcourse be proud about it.
I loved the actors, they were amazing in depecting the emotions and hard situation.
I wish this epidemic called AIDS will be wiped from our lives for ever.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Captures the times beautifully
Comment: "Longtime Companion", the first full-length chronicle of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, remains as fresh a look today as when it was made in 1990. Beginning with the discovery of a "gay cancer" in 1981, the film follows a group of loosely-knit friends on a year-to-year basis throughout the decade, and does so with empathy and humor. There are many fine performances, including a moving one by a young Campbell Scott.
"Longtime Companion" seeks to reflect but also to educate, reminding viewers that the deaths of these friends held meaning not only for their intimates but for the larger community as well. AIDS may not make the headlines it once did, but it still warrants a good deal of medical attention through research and human consideration for those who have the disease. It would be fascinating if an updated "Longtime Companion" could ever be made.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Dreary And Not All That Watchable
Comment: I respect the ultra-realism of Longtime Companion, and have no doubt this landmark production accurately conveys the horror that is HIV/AIDS, and tells how this plague arrived unforeseen in the 1980's, ending what had been a golden age of American gay existence, taking so much life and causing so much misery in that community and beyond, yet not only does a portrayal of that tragedy make for a dreary viewing experience, but Longtime Companion isn't a movie with much more to it than its central message. Longtime Companion (which derives its title from the term that showed up in so many obituaries at the height of AIDS--"...survived by his longtime companion...") lacks a plot that runs deeper than a showcase of deaths and ruined lives, and its characters are basic stereotypes: the hot young guy, the co-habiting couple, the rich, older type, etc. Overall, it doesn't have a lot to it except a single message, and single message films normally don't work that well, especially when there is as little depth as there is here.
Customer Rating:
Summary: you're gonna cry...
Comment: I thought that *Longtime Companion* was an endearing tearjerker of a movie. This films is about a cluster of friends, dying one by one from AIDS during the 80's.
The movie opens in 1980, with this particular circle of friends. Everyone is healthy and dandy. One man meets a hairy guy and they've maintained a relationship throughout the film. This movie immediately opens with all of them reading about this mysterious virus that seems to be attacking gay men. At first, it seemed to be associated with gay men who do poppers. This virus has earned a nickname, "gay cancer". It wasn't until a couple of years later that this virus was finally termed AIDS.
The whole AIDS was not still not clear to people, including gay men. In this film, you'll see how some gay men are uncomfortable with AIDS and especially those afflicted. You'll see men afraid to have sex. Afraid to kiss. Heck, you'll even see one washing his hands and face vigorously after greeting his friend who is dying from AIDS.
The time frame between the death of one friend to another friend having AIDS is quick. The movie jumps one year to another that surrounds an afflicted friends. You'll think that the movie doesn't build up enough for you to get emotional. Not true. You'll cry! So, have a box of Kleenex ready.
I love this movie and I cannot believe that I haven't seen it earlier. I often hear about older gay men retelling stories of the 70's and 80's on how gay life use to be as well as witnessing the deaths of their close friends to AIDS. Today, those affliced with HIV/AIDS are living longer, thanks to modern medicine. However, I cannot imagine what it was like, living in fear of a virus that seemed to be targeting gay men and the doctors could not seem to treat it.
Overall, it's a good movie that's worth your time. Check it out with a box of tissues.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Celebration
Comment: "LONGTIME COMPANION"
A Celebration
Amos Lassen and Cinema Pride
"Longtime Companion" was the first major movie to deal with the AIDS epidemic and that was in 1990. The movie follows the lives of a small group of friends from the time that AIDS was first mentioned and referred to as the gay cancer (in "The New York Times" in 1981). When we knew nothing about AIDS it was called GRID (gay related immune disorder). "Longtime Companion" deals with the way if effects the lives of the friends as they look at it with the "it can't happen to me" mentality until we see fewer and fewer friends live as the movie progresses.
The term longtime companion is the way "The New York Times" referred to the surviving partner in the obituaries of the times. During the movie, the viewer also feels as if he has become a longtime companion. We share the lives of the men in the movie from the discos, to the bathhouses, to Fire Island, and we feel their grief as they watch their friends die. In this stunning film, written with taste and compassion, the characters are realistic and the actors who portray them are excellent. The emotion is riveting and it is rare to see homosexual love portrayed so beautifully in a production made by a Hollywood studio. We see that gay men are indeed equal to straight men and that loving is a human emotion. As AIDS became the central event in our lives, it became matter if fact that death was coming at the prime of life. As an awareness of AIDS and giving the disease a human face, the movie is splendid.
It is about an era of gay life that shocked us and yet was applauded by others. In a frank and direct manner, "Longtime Companion" showed the awful aspects of the disease and the effect that death had on our heroes in the film. AIDS made no apologies as it devastated us. It took our brothers and sisters, our partners, our friends.
What really makes this movie so special, aside from being the first film to deal with AIDS, is the way it depicts gay men and their friends. There are no stereotypes, no caricatures. The men we see here are depicted honestly in their struggle with death and illness. It is a wonderful portrayal of the events of the times. It shows the sense of confusion we harbored about the disease that was robbing us of life and love, the misinformation, the lost feeling and the angst of not knowing what to do for those suffering and for their friends and their companions.
Every performance in the movie is stellar. As we are introduced to the group of friends, we spend time with them. We vacation on Fire Island, the most famous of gay resorts and we are in the hospital visiting with them as they or their friends and lovers are struck with AIDS. Obviously it was not easy to make a film of this kind when it was made but the delicate and honest script and excellent acting make this is a landmark film about the disease that had, by the time the movie was made, taken the lives of many young men--both straight and gay.
This is a brave, no a heroic, film It does not paint a beautiful picture of those dying from AIDS. Instead it shows the reality of the horrible death that many suffered and the devastation of those that loved them and cared for them. It captures the honesty about AIDS and its effects and does so through very touchy vignettes of the lives of a group of friends. Your heart will ache as you watch the film--for the loss of a character and for the love you see.
The ending of the film is one off the most amazing and heart wrenching experiences of my life. Moving and celebratory, it is a surreal episode that brings everyone together--the dead and the living--at a big party o the beach. It appears to say to me that, with hope and activism, with attention to and financial aid, we may find a solution to the plague that has taken so much from us.
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