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Movies / On DVD / 3 Needles
3 Needles

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3 Needles (2006)

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Reviews Counted: 37

Fresh: 13

Rotten:24

Average Rating: 4.9/10

Consensus: In getting its message about the AIDS epidemic across, the film unfortunately sacrifices story and character.

Rated: Not Rated

Runtime: 2 hrs 7 mins

Genre: Dramas

Theatrical Release:Dec 1, 2006 Limited

Synopsis: Canadian writer-director Thom Fitzgerald's sweeping 3 NEEDLES journeys across several continents to show just how widespread HIV/AIDS has become in our modern world. Three distinct stories are... Canadian writer-director Thom Fitzgerald's sweeping 3 NEEDLES journeys across several continents to show just how widespread HIV/AIDS has become in our modern world. Three distinct stories are loosely linked by the narration of Olympia Dukakis, whose character appears in the film's final sequence. In the first, Lucy Liu is a pregnant Chinese woman who makes her living as a blood smuggler. Things turn sour when several donors begin to get sick and die. The second story, set in Montreal, follows a porn actor (Shawn Ashmore) who fakes his blood tests in order to keep working in the industry. But when his scheme is exposed, he is shamed and humiliated. His heartbroken mother (Stockard Channing) takes out an insurance policy and embarks on a darkly comic mission to contract the HIV virus as well. South Africa is the setting for the final tale, where three nuns (Chloe Sevigny, Sandra Oh, and Dukakis) have arrived to help out in the community. But in order to get a local plantation owner to assist one of her patients, Sevigny's character must make the most shameful sacrifice of all. 3 NEEDLES is an ambitious drama featuring beautiful cinematography by Tom Harting. Fitzgerald boldly eschews a more traditional tonal approach by combining seemingly disparate elements of black comedy, graphic content, and straight drama. The result is a broad, expansive commentary on a genuinely tragic situation that has no end in sight. [More]

Starring: Shawn Ashmore, Lucy Liu, Stockard Channing, Olympia Dukakis

Starring: Shawn Ashmore, Lucy Liu, Stockard Channing, Olympia Dukakis, Chloe Sevigny, Sandra Oh, Ian Roberts, Gary Farmer, Sook-Yin Lee

Director: Thom Fitzgerald

Director: Thom Fitzgerald
Producer: Thom Fitzgerald
Composer: Christophe Beck, Trevor Morris

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Release:

Apr 3, 2007

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Reviews for 3 Needles

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1 - 20 (sorted by date)
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N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Boston Phoenix | comment Comment
04/23/09
Tom Meek
Boston Phoenix

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: New York Post | comment Comment
08/22/07
V.A. Musetto
New York Post
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

As a movie with an important message, 3 Needles is an idiotic waste of time.

Full Review Source: DVDTalk.com | comment Comment
05/27/07
David Cornelius
DVDTalk.com

great performances and the heartbreaking dilemmas

Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com | comment Comment
04/17/07
Don Willmott
Filmcritic.com

A marginally involving dramatization of how peopledeal with AIDS in 3 separate cultures

Full Review Source: Compuserve | comment Comment
12/22/06
Harvey S. Karten
Compuserve

Making serious points about serious issues, the film underscores repeatedly the need for personal and official vigilance concerning "the virus,"

Full Review Source: PopMatters | comment Comment
12/21/06
Cynthia Fuchs
PopMatters

3 Needles is a case of diminishing returns with the first story of blood running in China the best and the last, set in Africa, the least compelling.

Full Review Source: Reeling Reviews | comment Comment
12/03/06
Robin Clifford
Reeling Reviews

Three riveting dramas about the AIDS crisis set in South Africa, China, and Canada that open our eyes and our hearts to victims of this dread disease.

Full Review Source: Spirituality and Practice | comment Comment
12/03/06
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Spirituality and Practice

The situations are contrived, the ironies are cheap, and the dialogue is overly blunt.

Full Review Source: AV Club | comment Comment
12/02/06
Noel Murray
AV Club

Demonstrates that the transmission of HIV has become an uncontrollable global pandemic that feeds on poverty and recognizes no sexual, national or religious borders.

Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide | comment 1 Comment
12/01/06
Ken Fox
TV Guide's Movie Guide

If nothing else, [director Thom] Fitzgerald has demonstrated how huge a challenge the AIDS epidemic is on a worldwide scale, and how it will take a concerted, intelligent effort to solve it. It'll take a lot more than throwing money around.

Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
12/01/06
G. Allen Johnson
San Francisco Chronicle
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

3 Needles is difficult to take at times, but it ultimately rewards those viewers willing to meet its challenges.

Full Review Source: Reel.com | comment Comment
12/01/06
Jim Hemphill
Reel.com

Only the African story feels complete, while the Chinese story is gloomily hopeless and the Montreal story is just a bad idea. 3 Needles is not about AIDS; it's about the exploitation of it.

Full Review Source: New York Daily News | comment Comment
12/01/06
Jack Mathews
New York Daily News
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

3 Needles, Thom Fitzgerald's globe-spanning investigation of the effects of AIDS, may ultimately be a call to unity, but there's an extreme amount of despair and misery before we get to hear that trumpet blare.

Full Review Source: Los Angeles Daily News | comment Comment
12/01/06
Evan Henerson
Los Angeles Daily News

Broad in scope and at times visually stunning, [director Thom] Fitzgerald's project is ambitious but lacks cohesion.

Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times | comment Comment
12/01/06
Teresa Budasi
Chicago Sun-Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

It's hard to know what exactly the movie means with a lot of the choices it makes, even if, ultimately, it means well.

Full Review Source: Boston Globe | comment Comment
12/01/06
Wesley Morris
Boston Globe
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Nothing is as irritating as watching a film which is little more than an exercise of ego; worse is watching one that is about as discrete in its purpose as a missionary in Africa.

Full Review Source: Film Journal International | comment Comment
12/01/06
Maria Garcia
Film Journal International

It's gorgeously filmed, but its character logic very rarely makes any sense.

Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | comment Comment
11/30/06
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid

I'd love a peek at the keyboard Fitzgerald uses to conjure his screeds: I've never seen one sledgehammered into dust and splinters before.

Full Review Source: Film Freak Central | comment Comment
11/30/06
Walter Chaw
Film Freak Central

Though not as coherent as it might be, 3 Needles, with its stunning cinematography by Thomas M. Harting, is never less than engaging and suggests powerfully the myriad reasons why AIDS, after a quarter of a century, remains so difficult to combat.

Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | comment Comment
11/30/06
Kevin Thomas
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by date)
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