My cousin opened up to our family about having HIV after this film came out. There was a shift in attitudes after Magic Johnson and tv shows/movies like this. It really humanized the disease. Sadly my cousin died from AIDS in 2006 after years of fighting and pain. This movie really did open my eyes on what he went through and I can't watch without thinking about him and crying. Great reaction.. love your honesty. ♥
I'm so sorry for your loss. There are a lot of children that were born with HIV because their mothers had it during birth. I always think of those kids, now grown, and what they went through their entire lives.
@@jbc_8110🤣 one day you're gonna have something happen. And nobody's gone have sympathy. That's the irony of life. You don't have to get mad about it. It's gonna happen cause you're cold
This movie hits me so hard because my dad, Dr. Charles Craig MD, was at the forefront when HIV/AIDS came out to the public perception. He was an infectious disease specialist so he was one of the doctors studying and treating this goddamn disease. To the day he died he would always accept and help treat patients who had it whether they had insurance or not and I like to think in another universe he was there to help Andy, especially since he lived in Philadelphia for a long time. This movie just reinforces how important my father's work was and still is. Also, the fact you released this reaction so close to Fathers' Day makes it so much more special. Thank you. RIP Dad, you were the greatest man I ever knew.
Your father sounds like a wonderful and compassionate man. The world is definitely better off with him being a part of it, and especially those whose worlds crossed paths with him directly.
The Lawyer joke is an Anti-Lawyer joke. Meaning they should ALL be down there, but a thousand of them was a good start. It also works with Car Salesmen lol
Shanelle, big huggs to you from Scotland in UK, I have seen this film over 25 times, and makes me cry everytime, and I was crying at it along with you, if you don'y cry at this, you don't have a heart. Tom Hanks deserves his Oscar for this, and Denzel was brilliant in this too.
I would say that this movie, the HBO special about a kid who got AIDS, and Magic J coming out about having AIDS (which all seems to my memory to have come out around the same time) really did a lot to turn the public tide. But The Quilt did so much for visibility and humanization (which was the point).
This movie wasn’t meant for a gay audience, it was meant for a straight audience who at the time was still having trouble seeing gay men as people. So the complaints about missed opportunities doesn’t work for me, as a gay person, because the point was to make people who identified with Denzel’s character take that journey of “don’t like/it’s gross” to “these people are human and are deserving of rights”
People always talk about the Springsteen song but the Neil Young song also makes me cry every time I hear it. This film gives all the feels, thank you.
This movie was so important to our community. As hard as this movie is to watch because of how it shows the epidemic at that time, it was worse when it was first starting in the 80’s. No one knew anything except people were dying. Doctors, nurses and hospital staff wouldn’t enter patients rooms. People died alone in pain and neglected out of fear. Our lesbian sisters eventually stepped in to help care for the sick and dying. This film from 1993 shows how things were once the virus was identified and some treatments, usually only for the wealthy were available. It brought more awareness to the suffering of our community. Glad you watched it.
The way Hanks’ character continues to diminish in health and stature. His physical body is so brutally sculpted down to barely above its essence. Love your insights, Shanelle - they add so much to my love for this movie 🙏🏼
The opera scene is absolutely heartbreaking. To see this man who has had so much to live for holding on so tightly to something he loves, and yet at the back of his mind knowing he’s dying - I just find it staggeringly emotional. I’ve never read or heard a review that comes even close to capturing the power of that scene. Only a poet could do it.
I was a junior in high school when this came out. This film had a profound impact on my life, it helped me change a lot and become accepting of people who just want to love who they love. Another good film in this same genre is It's My Party, easily the best performance Eric Roberts has ever given.
Philadelphia is the "City of Brotherly Love." There are so many levels of that theme throughout this movie. From the law firm's profound lack of the spirit of brotherly love, to all of the examples of those showing different expressions of brotherly love. Profoundly moving, and incredible acting.
I would comment but I honestly dont even know where to begin with this one. Its a tough watch, especially when you lived through those times as an adult. But it is needed and through tears, enjoyed. Everyone in this movie did an outstanding job from the lighting to the actors. And you gave it the justice it deserved through every emotion you showed Shan.
I was a kid, but I remember watching my aunt lose so many of her close friends. She was the first adult in my family I came out to when I was in high school.
It’s a rough movie to get through, and yes, in the early 90s, there was still a lot of confusion and misinformation about AIDS. And the fear was amplified around the time this movie was filmed because we had the deaths of Freddie Mercury and the dad from “The Brady Bunch” along with Magic Johnson announcing he had HIV all within a few months.
It's amazing about the ferocity of different strains of AIDS. Magic Johnson is not only alive, he still looks as healthy as a horse. But Freddie and Robert Reed and Rock Hudson were all completely ravaged. I lost a cat to feline AIDS, and he had the same sores in his mouth you see on Hanks in the movie.
@Isolde Jane Holland that's because the right cocktail of drugs was found around 6 months after Freddie died. He wouldve been too far advanced to benefit since he had full blown aids. Magic only had hiv virus. It never developed into aids so the cocktail of drugs worked. Freddie was on experimental drugs to prolong his life. He consented to it to help others with the disease. I'm a huge Freddie fan and am very familiar with his fight with this horrible disease. He was making music up until a few weeks before he died. He faced it headon and with incredible dignity. Rip Freddie.
@@isoldejaneholland8370 Magic also found out he had HIV very early on, dropped everything (he retired from basketball just a couple of days after he was diagnosed), was otherwise very healthy, and had the resources to seek out the most advanced medical treatments in the world.
Fun Fact, Tom Hanks had quite the trifecta of Films 3 years in a row. Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, and Apollo 13, he was the first actor since Spencer Tracy to be nominated and win the Best Actor at the academy awards back to back, let alone be nominated 3 years in a Row.
"The night has fallen, I'm lying awake I can feel myself fading away So receive me brother with your faithless kiss Or will we leave each other alone like this On the streets of Philadelphia..."
Jonathan Demme is a really interesting director. He started out in the 80s working mostly with the cool kids. He was like a new wave John Hughes. He did the Talking Heads concert film "Stop Making Sense" and some kind of road comedy with Melanie Griffith in her underwear a lot. His massive breakthrough was "Silence of the Lambs" but he caught a lot of flak because of the scene where Buffalo Bill is mincing in front of a mirror. That drove him insane, because if anyone was going to be considered transphobic or homophobic, it would not be him. He just hadn't considered the way his images would strike the trans community. So he intentionally made Philadelphia as both a follow-up to his big break and an apology to the LGBT community. Which went about as well as you would imagine. He was actually getting criticized for doing an LGBT movie, not because it sent the wrong message, but because he had the wrong motivation! I don't know that he quit after that, but that was my impression at the time. But he was such a big deal director at the time that he was able to get Bruce Springsteen to do the title song.
He actually started in the 70s working for Roger Corman. He cut his teeth on exploitation films before he started making his own style of films: "Handle with Care", "Melvin and Howard" etc...
The scene when the brother tries to say goodbye to Andy in the hospital and burst into tears, destroys me every single time, that's the point when I start to cry and can't stop until the movie ends.
I saw this movie with a friend of mine in Manhattan when we both were living in Astoria, NY. We met after work and dinner to see this movie. It was a challenging watch. Usually after seeing a movie or a show in Manhattan, we'd just get on the subway and head back to our apartments in Queens. After seeing this movie, we walked quietly out of the theater, in our own thoughts, then both said that we couldn't just go home. We had to talk about what we had just seen. It was a transformative experience.
On a lighter note, the Kevin Kline comedy In & Out is inspired by Tom Hanks ‘s Philadelphia Oscar speech where he “outed” a former teacher and a high school friend. It’s dated and a little cheesy, but it’s got an excellent comedic cast and some great lines.
I love this film. When I first saw this movie in 1999 as a 16 year old it blew my mind. Being from the mid-west our AIDS education was extremely lacking. AIDS education was usually a 5 minute lecture in health/gym class saying "You can only get AIDS from the exchange of bodily fluids and having sex. So don't touch a person who has it, abstain from sex, and condoms are not always effective against transmission.". That was the extent of what we got, 5 minutes of a 90 minute class, that met a total of 45 days. So upon watching this movie and seeing the physical symptoms, the effects of treatments, and then the realization that AIDS also socially destroys a person was devastating. I understand the criticism from the gay community about not going far enough and the incorrect medical information, but even in 1998 the proper information about AIDS was still not being taught. I don't think this movie was meant to accurately depict the gay community, but to show people the true extent of what AIDS does to a person. And also to show the deep felt prejudices surrounding both AIDS and the gay community.
1:08 - Oh, Jonathan Demme was one HELL of a director! Silence Of The Lambs, Melvin And Howard, Swimming To Cambodia, this movie...chef's kiss of a filmography!
It was indeed Bruce Springsteen and he won an Oscar for that song, "Streets of Philadelphia," as well as Grammy awards and VMA's :) The movie is such a powerful one!! The acting is impeccable. Mary Steenburgen did her job well, since you think she's slime in her role ;) also 25:45 is when Steenburgen's character says she hates the case, I'm glad you included it since it was ad-libbed (as you said in the trivia, it was because she hated her own character!!!). Watch Springsteen's music video to the song, he sings it while walking through the literal streets of Philadelphia while singing live with the backing track. It's so good!!!
38:29 ❤ This movie makes me cry and for all the reasons you already said. Just how many people we lost due to ignorance and inaction…unbelievable. The home movie at the end always leaves me a mess…and I even cried watching your reaction (still trying to get it together so I can go back to my office job from lunch lol). I think this is a movie everyone should see at least once.
Love the library scene and I come to RU-vid to watch it every once in a while. Denzel sees Andy by himself and decides to friend him and represent him.
This is a beautiful film, amazing performances and presentation of a very difficult topic & very representative of the time it took place in... the fears and misinformation prevalent throughout the culture. I saw it a while back and it blew me away... but I had a lot of trouble going back and re-watching it because it was so heartbreaking to watch this vibrant man deteriorate and pass. But I still love it and have owned several versions on VHS and DVD ... I just have trouble re-watching it. I'm glad to have watched it again with you. Thank You
i saw this in a theater when it was released in 1993. This was a tough one to get through. Hope you brought the Kleenex. Not many people tackle this subject matter. Kudos to you.
This is in my top 20 films ever. While Tom dabbled in drama before this... in 'dramedies' like Nothing In Common in 1986 or Big in 1988 - this is when he went full on 100% drama and really shined. Amazing actor.
Whats interesting about these actors is that many of them were also in Silence of the Lambs AND The Manchurian Candidate. I know you've done the Silence of the lambs, but I haven't seen many review The Manchurian Candidate.
Seeing this in the theater was such an emotional experience. You could FEEL the emotion with everyone. There was a point where I swear that everyone was crying. Probably from when Hanks is on the stand to the end credits.
3:58 - You should binge Moonlighting. It's a TV show from the '80s with Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepard. This actress, Allyce Beasly is in it quite a bit, though not a main protagonist.
In an old South Park episode when Cartman found out he got AIDS from a blood transfusion he started dressing like Tom Hanks character from this movie lol
Maria Callas is unquestionably my all-time favorite operatic Soprano. She was an absolute legend, an otherworldly force. A genuine artist, who personified every role she ever portrayed. You hear and feel the raw emotions in her rendition of "La Mamma morta", in the movie scene. As Leonard Bernstein once famously said of Callas: "She is the Bible of Opera."
Bless your heart Shanelle. Great movie and very hard to sit through without feeling emotions. That is human nature. Very well written, acted and filmed. Love your reaction. Hope you are feeling better by the time you read this , if you read this. 💔
the best part of the official theme song of the movie is that springsteen made the song in a single day you know your a legend if this is what phoning it in sounds like lol
I was glad to fall apart one more time to this film, and knew it was coming and knew it was coming for you, too. One thing the trivia may not have mentioned was Banderas making his English Language film debut in this... which, given the time and nature of things, was a pretty fearless move on his part. I so appreciate your frank and unambiguous invitation to those who might come into this discussion with hate to eff off. I feel like there is a new license to be awful to each other in the past few years. Fantastic, as always, despite the wracked with sobs bit there at the end. The end credit sequence is just devastating in its construction. Demme was an Honorary Doctorate recipient at my university graduation (1990, Wesleyan) BEFORE he made this or Lambs. It was largely because of his involvement with the Artists United Against Apartheid effort (Desmond Tutu was also a recipient and keynote at the same Commencement), including being the director of the 'Ain't Gonna Play Sun City' video. At the time, he was also known for directing Spalding Grey's spoken word narrative film "Swimming to Cambodia," as well as the Talking Heads concert film "Stop Making Sense" and "Something Wild" both of which were content in courses at the school. (Rock Music and Rock Film & The Language of Film).
When my cousin died of AIDS, family members refused the truth and told everyone he died of a heart attack so even in death, reality was denied plus his humanity was ignored. Beautiful reaction to this film; I made my two teenagers watch the movie with me. ❤
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12:20 Shanelle, this whole sequence is in reality on the specific context of that time about the strong stigma on touching people with AIDS. Basically people hugging Tom Hanks, and Tom Hanks holding the baby, just put the audience on the theater very nervous and on edge.
Mary Steenburgen’s character wasn’t a “bad guy”, she was a lawyer doing her job. And even so, what does it matter that they made the character a woman? I don’t understand that rationale.
And The Band Played On is an HBO movie from '93 that showed the progression of the epidemic . Based on a book written by a reporter . I believe it is mostly biographical . Great movie and heart braking too . I always like your reviews .You remind me of myself on how I watch and analyze things . Loved your messages to Haters . My thoughts exactly .
I watched this movie 2 or 3 times when it was new, then again a few months ago, shortly After my mom died (on 10/14/22) it certainly hit differently. I cried a lot harder at the end of the film After mom was gone, I don't really know why.😢
From 1992 -2000, from A League of their Own to Cast Away, Hanks gave nothing but stellar performances. Crazy to think when this movie was released Hanks was already working on the movie he will be forever known for.
@@angelomaurizio1668 I’m sorry, I must be missing something here. I thought you were referring to only a certain time period where he made great movies. Was that not what you meant?
I have to give Roger Corman, the witness at 14:25, some credit for his acting in this movie. He is not known as a actor, more as a producer and director. The fact he gave a decent performence and held his own is a credit to him.
This was such a huge role for Hanks. Very serious and controversial subject matter at the time. There's a world where if this doesn't work, Tom doesn't expand his acting repertoire beyond comedies.
Yes, it was incredible seeing him go from comedian in the 80s to a good serious actor in the 90s. He was completely done with comedy movies when the 80s were over
Thank you, Shanelle. Nothing slipped pastya. Demme should be on your radar for more reactions-his directorial style is on par with your keen eye of productions. Philadelphia is worth every tear shed, every moment of introspection it offers. ❤✌️🎬
I remember.being stationed in Germany ( 1985 - 1988 ) and at one point they marched us all into a large gymnasium.for mandatory testing for HIV. There was so much unknown and so much misinformation back then. I remember how it changed the dating scene for some friends of mine who were used to casual one night stands. Gave me one more reason to be thankful that I was a married man and not part of the bar scene. My wife and I watched this movie when it first came out and both cried like babies. Great reaction as always. (( hugs))
You held it together well. Imagine trying to keep it together in a theater full of other people who could not. That is what happened to me when I first saw it. A very powerful movie at the time and it still holds up.
Such a brilliant and important film. If you can find it, I'd also highly recommend "And The Band Played On" (1993). You rock, Shanelle. 🤘✌ I'm sure it's been mentioned, but the theme is "Streets Of Philadelphia" by Bruce Springsteen, a hauntingly beautiful song. Side Note: I'll echo some other comments here; if you don't cry at this movie, you either hate movies or have no soul. 😢
I never knew Leguizamo had been offered the part of Miguel. Earliest thing I ever saw him in was Moulin Rouge. This is the first Philadelphia reaction I've ever seen; it's such a powerful film. I've never really seen any other "AIDS drama," unless you count Bohemian Rhapsody, and I wouldn't. (I loved it, though.)
Overhead in the opera scene you are in his head but in a different way than when you're behind his eyes. You're in his imagination experiencing the music.
That's quite an interesting take. I love hearing different peoples point of view of scenes like this 'cause it gives me food for thought and makes watching it again a whole new experience. 😃
@@TheJamieRamone I wanted to say more but I haven't seen the full scene in awhile. If I recall, when Denzel leaves with music still playing, the red colors from the opera-vision kind of follow him out into the hall. Red flowers or the like? With the music still there. Like a bit of Hank's character, of his spirit has planted itself in him, that he.takes that connection with him when he goes. Amazing scene.
I saw it in the theater when it came out. I had been a Tom Hanks fan since the Bosom Buddies days, and of course this was an utter breakthrough for him. Just astonishing to see after his years of comedies.
If you liked this one, you should watch "And the Band Played On", also from 1993. It was a TV docuseries, but it was an excellent depiction of the very beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
This movie had 2 songs up for an Oscar, quite unique. Springsteen and Neil Young. First song and last song! Now some irony...this movie and the time it came out, could have literally been a blueprint of what happened to my brother. Also, Hanks...he goes from one of the most raucous and sophomoric tv shows ever-bosom nuddies, then the most rediculousness sophomoric movie ever-Bachelor Party, to.less than 10 years later making this, maybe a top ten dramatic movie of all time!
Stunning performance from Hanks & Washington. I was there in theatres in 1993 and it really did open the eyes of many about a world so many knew nothing about - but never talked about. Would be good to see you react to The Dallas Buyers Club (2013) to see another take on this era with more magical performances from McConaughey & Leto.
Denzel serves the summons at one of the loges in the Spectrum, where the Philadelphia 76ers used to play. The gentleman he's tallking to was actually 76ers legend Julius Erving.
This film really was groundbreaking in humanizing the people who succumbed to this horrible disease. I am certain that it helped raise awareness and funding for research that would lead to less people dying from it. Thank you for your reaction video because the awareness is still very necessary. Happy Pride Month Shanelle!
Tom Hanks’ physical appearance is more jarring when you remember he played a paunchy over the hill baseball manager in A League of Their Own just a year earlier.
Baby Andy in the home videos during his memorial service looks so much like my nephew who passed away at the age of four, watching that scene very nearly wrecked my sister when we watched it.
It’s hard to explain the era when this movie was made. As important as it was, Tom Hanks did not want to kiss Antonio Banderas. I know…who wouldn’t want to kiss Antonio Banderas!! Jonathan Demme was reluctant to have two men kissing in the movie, as well. But Antonio Banderas fought hard to get them to include the single peck in the hospital. He said that anyone rushing to see their partner in the emergency room was going to kiss them. And that the it would be ridiculous not to show that.
Yeah this one got me. I’m older and I saw this one in a theater. It was sad. Only seen it all the way thru once. Cuz of the sadness. Awesome acting. Love your reactions. ❤
Tom Banks won the first of his two Oscars for Philadelphia. He also the following year for Forrest Gump. Philadelphia also won for best original song Streets Of Philadelphia written and sung by Bruce Springsteen
Silence Of The Lambs has tons of actor close-ups looking directly at the camera, you know it's a Demme movie when you see the scene of Hannibal doing the "I ate him with a side of fava beans and a nice Chianti" followed by that sucking noise staring straight at the camera. He also directed 2004's The Manchurian Candidate starring Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep, lots of close-ups in that too, it's a remake of the 1962 movie starring Frank Sinatra.
This was a real eyeopener to most on Tom Hanks range. Up until now he had been mostly known for comedies... and while parts of many of those movies had very dramatic scenes... Hanks in no way was considered the heavy weight he is today.
My mother-in-law was an aids epidemiologist. She started when they knew so very little about this disease and a lot of her job was educating people in the public sector... even nurses and and other medical staff... that's how cutting edge their information was at the time. I'm so thankful this movie got made because it faithfully documents the reality of public opinion and the uphill battle people had to just get heard and seen.
