{"id":10391,"date":"2010-01-16T14:20:07","date_gmt":"2010-01-16T21:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=10391"},"modified":"2020-11-24T20:03:00","modified_gmt":"2020-11-25T03:03:00","slug":"buddies-1985","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=10391","title":{"rendered":"Buddies (1985)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>&#8220;AIDS is not a gay disease &#8212; it hurts everybody.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/Buddies-Poster.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/Buddies-Poster-199x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-54572\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/Buddies-Poster-199x300.png 199w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/Buddies-Poster-679x1024.png 679w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/Buddies-Poster-85x128.png 85w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/Buddies-Poster-179x270.png 179w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/Buddies-Poster.png 735w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis:<\/strong><br \/>\nA young gay man (David Schachter) in New York City volunteers as a hospice &#8220;buddy&#8221; for a man (Geoff Edholm) dying of AIDS.\n<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\n<strong>Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Death and Dying<\/li>\n<li>Homosexuality<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Review: <\/strong><br \/>\nGay filmmaker <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Arthur_Bressan\">Arthur J. Bressan<\/a> died of an AIDS-related illness in 1987, two years after this quietly incendiary indie film was released. Bressan, eager to alert Americans to the increasingly dire spread of AIDS across the gay community and beyond, <a href=\"http:\/\/allmovie.com\/work\/buddies-158518\">apparently wrote the film in a week and filmed it in two<\/a> &#8212; but, despite its obvious low-budget and (at times) overly didactic script, it remains a surprisingly sincere and heartfelt two-character drama. In essence, it shows us Schachter&#8217;s growing political consciousness about homosexuality and AIDS, along with Edholm&#8217;s gradual acceptance of his impending death; perhaps predictably, hints of a (mostly one-sided) infatuation between the two emerges as well. But Bressan&#8217;s primarily goal with his film was to infuriate audiences about the American government&#8217;s apathy over the AIDS crisis &#8212; as Edholm&#8217;s character notes, there wasn&#8217;t even a single AIDS clinic in New York City at the time. To that end, Bressan&#8217;s decision to begin and end the movie by scrolling the names of people dying each day from AIDS in America: <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/buddies-poster.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/buddies-poster.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-10392\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8230; is a particularly potent cinematic device, one that packs a punch almost as powerful as the rest of the film. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Note: <\/strong>Bressan&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=65\"><em>Abuse<\/em> (1983)<\/a> &#8212; about a filmmaker initiating an affair with an abused gay teen &#8212; is also listed in Peary&#8217;s book, and is another noteworthy (albeit highly controversial) film to seek out. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Redeeming Qualities and Moments: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A touching portrait of friendship and caring in the face of death<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/buddies-friendship.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/buddies-friendship.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"381\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-10393\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Must See? <\/strong><br \/>\nYes, as the first American feature film about the AIDS pandemic. Listed as a film with Historical Importance in the back of Peary&#8217;s book.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Categories<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?page_id=1784#historical\">Historically Relevant<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Links: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0088864\/\">IMDb entry<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/movies.nytimes.com\/movie\/review?_r=1&#038;res=9906E3DA1338F936A25752C1A963948260\">NY Times Original Review<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/allmovie.com\/work\/buddies-158518\">All Movie Guide Review<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.timeout.com\/film\/reviews\/68562\/buddies.html\">Time Out Capsule Review<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;AIDS is not a gay disease &#8212; it hurts everybody.&#8221; Synopsis: A young gay man (David Schachter) in New York City volunteers as a hospice &#8220;buddy&#8221; for a man (Geoff Edholm) dying of AIDS. Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors: Death and Dying Homosexuality Review: Gay filmmaker Arthur J. Bressan died of an AIDS-related illness in 1987, two years after this quietly incendiary indie film was released. Bressan, eager to alert Americans to the increasingly dire spread of AIDS across the&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=10391\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10391"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54576,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10391\/revisions\/54576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}