DVDpedia : TV Series : Title : A

Theatrical: 1996

Studio: Warner Home Video

Genre: TV Series

Duration: 30

Summary: "Inside of me there's a thin woman trying to get out," complains the ever-suffering Edina. "Are you sure it's just the one, dear?" asks her mother.
When anyone raves about "Sex and the City", you need only to remind her that the Brits did it first--and better--with the creation of the brave say-anything show about sex, drugs, and the battle of the bulge. "Absolutely Fabulous" is a groundbreaking, off-the-wall comedy from the early 1990s, which began with a skit from "The French and Saunders Show", about a moral, uptight daughter and her extremely loose mother. "Ab Fab" has taken this to the extreme. Edina (Jennifer Saunders) is the queen of excess. Her clothes are outrageous, her attempts at weight loss comical, and her efforts at motherhood (her daughter, Saffron--played to perfection by Julia Sawalha--is a practical-minded, reliable teenager) are uneven at best. Eddy's best friend is Patsy, a promiscuous Ivana Trump look-alike who always has a cigarette between her lips, a drink in her hand, and a fine-looking man (or boy) in her bed. The entire show lasted for three seasons, and all are included in this set. From organizing an orgy to a brush with poverty to the death of Eddy's father, nothing--and we mean nothing--is sacred in this show. Without a doubt, "Ab Fab" is one of the greatest television satires created, although keep in mind that it's strictly for adults. "--Jenny Brown"

Theatrical: 2003

Studio: Warner Home Video

Genre: TV Series / Drama

Duration: 352

Summary: Tony Kushner's prize-winning play Angels in America became the defining theatrical event of the 1990s, an astonishing mix of philosophy, politics, and vibrant gay soap opera that summed up the Reagan era for an entire generation of theater-goers. Post-9/11 would seem to be too late for a film version--philosophy and politics don't always age well--but this 2003 HBO adaptation, ably directed by Mike Nichols (The Graduate), provides a time capsule of the '80s and reveals the deep emotional subcurrents that will give the play lasting power. The story centers around Prior Walter (Justin Kirk) and Louis Ironson (Ben Shenkman), a gay couple that falls apart when Prior grows ill as a result of AIDS. But cancer is not the only thing invading Prior's life: He begins to have religious visions of an angel (Emma Thompson, Sense and Sensibility) announcing that he is a prophet. Louis, who doesn't cope well with disease and suggestions of mortality, leaves and starts a relationship with Joe Pitt (Patrick Wilson), a closeted Mormon who works for Roy Cohn (Al Pacino, Dog Day Afternoon)--the real-life right-wing lawyer, notorious for his ruthless behind-the-scenes machinations. Add in Joe's depressed and hallucinating wife Harper (Mary Louise Parker, Fried Green Tomatoes), his determined but open-minded mother Hannah (Meryl Streep, Adaptation), a fierce drag queen/nurse named Belize (Jeffrey Wright, Basquiat, reprising his celebrated performance from the Broadway production), and you've still only begun to discover the wealth of characters and storylines in Kushner's ambitious work. The powerhouse cast (also featuring James Cromwell, Michael Gambon, and Simon Callow) is uniformly superb. The script has its weaknesses--some of the fantastic elements, including Prior's journey to Heaven towards the end, fall flat--but even what doesn't work is bristling with ideas and a ferocious desire to capture human existence in this time and place. --Bret Fetzer