3 Needles (2005)

The greatest movie ever made..!

Excellent, a Must See

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

In China, the unscrupulous pregnant smuggler of blood Jin Ping (Lucy Liu) infects an entire rural village in a province exploring the poor and ignorant people. The poverty associated to the ignorance and greed doom the whole population to the tragic disease for US$ 5.00 per liter of blood.In Canada, the second rate porn actor Denys (Shawn Ashmore) hides from his director and colleagues that he is HIV positive using the blood of his sick father for the tests required by the production. When his father dies, his mother Olive (Stockard Channing) discovers his former profession and that her son has AIDS. She hires a US$ 2,000,000.00 life insurance; then she infects herself and sells and cashes part of her insurance in advance to have a comfortable life with her son.In Africa, the nuns Sister Clara (Chloë Sevigny), Sister Hilde Francis (Olympia Dukakis) and Sister Mary John (Sandra Oh) come to a small mission to convert the villagers in the Catholicism. Sister Clara believes their mission is also to help the locals and she self-sacrifices her dignity to get financial support for the community."3 Needles" is a well-intentioned movie that discloses three different views of dissemination of AIDS in three panels. In the first one, poverty associated to the ignorance and greed sentences the dwellers of a village; in the second, selfishness and need of money infects at least eight actors and actresses of the porn industry; in the last one, ignorance and lack of resources doom the poor people to the disease. The screenplay is a little confused and flawed, and some of the questions in the Message Board prove it. The first story is tragic and with an ironic conclusion when the dweller questions that he sold his blood for US$ 5.00 and he paid US$ 10.00 for the test. The second one is of a tremendous dark humor, and I do not know whether the intention of the director / writer Thom Fitzgerald is to criticize the earlier cash of life insurance. The last one has an unnecessary tragedy in the end. Nevertheless "3 Needles" is a good, honest and powerful movie about an unpleasant theme with top-notch acting of the cast. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Unidos Pelo Sangue" ("Tied by the Blood")

This film is about 3 groups of people in three different continents having to do different things in reaction to the spread of the HIV virus.This film shows excellent cinematography throughout. It shows a lot of beautiful scenery, such as breathtaking waterfalls, beautiful sunsets, new moons etc. The film is already worth watching just for the natural scenery! The 3 stories are spliced into one another, making it difficult to follow at times. It does show many disturbing images, both visually and metaphorically. It examines moral dilemmas and the evil side of humanity, especially in the latter half of the movie.In summary, the film is enjoyable, but it sometimes feels too long.

The beginning of the film looked promising and the cinematography was very well done but it all got a bit complicated and meaningless. Sorry, lost interest and couldn't watch the end..I didn't quite get the message as it was so mixed in with nothingness. Unfortunately the plot was lost on me. I only watched the movie after reading someone else's comments which were really good so I guess were all different and the film may appeal to some viewers but certainly did nothing for me. Perhaps if I had suffered this to the end there may have been a connection with all three areas but I didn't feel compelled to continue with my viewing.

I just saw this film at the Calgary Film Festival and I loved it. I love the work of Thom Fitzgerald (Hanging Garden). AIDS is well known as a global epidemic, but it is not getting the media attention that it once did in the 80s and 90s. It is left to filmmakers to put a human face to the daily toll caused by this epidemic.3 Needles puts a very human face on the fears and insecurities that cause people to risk their humanity, morality and their lives, to get past the lies that they have to deal with. This film shows very different cases and reactions by people from the first world and third world, facing an unjust world and trying to do their best to get by.I'm somewhat in awe of how gentle the film is, given the death, despair and horrible acts that are occurring all around the central characters. I love the balance of life affirmation--there are 2 births paralleling 2 deaths. There are charitable acts and kindness from unexpected places. There is clear love for family and friends.Stockard Channing is brilliant in this role, Cloe Sevigny and Shawn Ashmore are very good, Lucy Liu's character is so real that you feel like you're really in remote parts of China with her and that most people in her place would do the same things.Please go see this film. You'll be glad you did, and perhaps you'll come away with an understanding of the complexities of the AIDS epidemic and why existing support methods are failing to stem the tide of this situation.