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One of my all time favorites.

A lot of fun.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

How To Survive A Plague beautifully captures the story of young gay women and men as they fight against AIDS. The movie follows two groups, ACT-UP (Aids Coalition To Unleash Power) and TAG (Treatment Action Group) as they fight to bring awareness and find a cure for AIDS. Through interviews, home movies and footage of the protests, you meet multiple gay men and women who have contracted AIDS and are fighting for their lives. They organize and attend multiple protests to bring awareness to the AIDS epidemic while also trying to find a cure.Without any scientific training or experience, they educate themselves on the dangers of AIDS, how the disease works and their treatment options. Many begin to sell, buy and use drugs not approved by the FDA in an effort to save their lives. While at the same time pushing the FDA and pharmaceutical industry to test and approve new drugs at record time. Throughout the time this film covers, you get a true insight to the discrimination they faced, the fear they felt, and their struggle to stay alive. Many of those featured in the movie end up dying after contracting the disease, very accurately capturing what those in the homosexual community were facing. You can truly see the passion and effort these men and women put into finding treatment for AIDS. However, the footage of the protests begins to become repetitive and boring. I also would have preferred if there was more of an explanation of how the medications work. The explanation you get is very brief and seems out of place in respect to the rest of the movie.Overall, this movie does a wonderful job highlighting the work done by ACT-UP and TAG to advocate and find treatment for AIDS. It's a must see for anyone looking to educate themselves on the AIDS epidemic in America.

David France's documentary following a small group of gay activists relies heavily on archived videography to capture the essence of what we know today to be the most efficient drugs in the halting of the HIV virus.Starting in 1986, a group of homosexual men (including Peter Staley and Mark Harrington) are recently diagnosed with the HIV virus, along with many of their peers, and actively protest the government – and specifically the FDA – to come up with a drug. Or better still, a cure. The group becomes known as "Act Up!" and quickly – some may say even like a virus – spawns a lot of active participants as they lose their jobs (health insurance), mortgages (ironic, considering the first four letters of that word) and future (i.e. none), rustle up enough cash and embark on the biggest battle against the oncoming zombie-like apocalypse.This plays like a movie, with its requisite three acts. The final plot point is staggering – and too late for many of our journeymen who die along the way. The mostly historical footage comprises to make this seem as if we're in a time machine; digging out old VHS tapes and revisiting the past. We suspect many of these youngsters won't make it, but will go down with a fight. George Bush Snr, Jessie Helms, all try their best to don the antagonist's shoes. It's like a Michael Moore propaganda piece, but this time, Mr. Moore's affected. And not central stage.That final twist (occurring as it does around 1995) is gobsmacking, but exemplified into the curiously hitherto-unseen narrators of the movie. After absorbing death, illness, frailty – a future promised to our visual on screen protagonists – France wisely saves his best trick for the last twelve minutes. It's a triumph of storytelling through the documentary medium.The postscript here is bittersweet. Once you've won the fight, and fought for your future – where do you stand, now? And yes, there's the old "but the Catholics don't advocate contraception" but wisely this is kept to a minimum. How to Survive a Plague wisely circumvents the religious debate – a tactic employed by Act Up, and then by its sister offset TAG, and actually garnered results for many. But for some, not soon enough.

Seeing this title I was expecting something of an apocalyptic, end-of- the-world zombie type film. In fact, this documentary was far truer, exploring a disease which has cost many lives. One might say I have an interest in LGBT causes and maybe this is why I decided to see this documentary, but AIDS is not exclusive to any community.This documentary starts in the early 80's in New York where young men and women are dying of AIDS. There is no treatment and they are even refused in the hospitals. Each with their individual pain couldn't do much so they organized and created "ACT UP" whose main focus was to be an activist group, which through civil disobedience would bring attention, awareness, and most importantly a cure to AIDS. The documentary retraces some of their fights and quarrels mostly through archives but also with some more recent interviews. It covers some of the darkest hours before the discovery of the lucky combination that would prolong the lives of many, but would come too late to save those of many more.I think the topic is one of the most important there is. It feels so distant but I can actually remember hearing about a treatment to AIDS back then. It meant very little to me at the time. I can't say that I really loved the way the documentary was going about things but I liked the substance very much. It is very scary to think back and imagine those people taking whatever medication that was on trial simply because at that point it couldn't have done more harm.While I think activism is double-edged blade and can sometimes backfire, it seems that this very activism has saved many lives and the alerted politicians who at first refused to talk about how many lives AIDS had taken. There are some very emotional personal stories here, and if my rating was based solely on the people in this documentary, I'd give them all a 10 for their courage and perseverance through this tremendous pain.I liked: The topic. Historically important.I disliked: The shaky archive footage, the constant shouting and confrontations. It had only one sequence to explain the actual biological/chemical aspects, which I felt were important and deserved more screen time. 74/100 A little over 20 years ago, there were presidents who would go on television and say that AIDS has behavioral causes that should be looked at. This documentary could definitely teach them a thing or two.

After having been very surprised and impressed with the AIDS documentary We Were Here, I thought I'd check out this one too. Unfortunately I found myself very disappointed.The documentary follows the political activism of ACT UP and TAG, and doesn't stray very far from that main track. The filmmakers took a clear political stance on the side of the activists, and much of the documentary smacks of "preaching to the choir." Serious issues are not always taken seriously, and public figures such as George Bush Sr. and Jesse Helms are openly mocked by both the people in the documentary and also the filmmakers themselves.My main disappointment involved the documentary's focus, which fixed unwaveringly upon the activists. To be fair, this might be a good thing if you happen to be interested in ACT UP and TAG. But some websites (e.g. wikipedia) misleadingly suggest that the documentary also discusses more generally the early period of the AIDS epidemic in the United States. In fact, rarely do the filmmakers show us anything beyond the activism itself. It does not delve into any serious scientific issues, nor does it help us understand the early development of attitudes and expectations people had regarding HIV and AIDS. Also note that it only covers the years from 1987 onward. So we don't get to see anything at all about the beginning of the epidemic in 1981-1986.Maybe others would appreciate this film, but I did not enjoy it at all. Even for those who are interested in the subject matter, it's hard to imagine this being a compelling documentary. But for those of us who aren't already interested in this particular thread in the history of AIDS, it falls even flatter. It's not as bad as some documentaries, but I certainly don't recommend it either. Sorry to be so negative, but that's just how I see it.