David France‘s forthcoming documentary How to Survive a Plague has a title that promises important information for anyone living in the Middle Ages, but its message is entirely modern. It’s that last word, hanging like an antique from too many centuries ago. It’s hard to think of a plague still hanging around, but that’s exactly what AIDS is. It was a misunderstood disease that saw some lawmakers fighting back against finding a cure with any relative speed, but this doc chronicles a group of men and women literally fighting for their lives. Check it out for yourself:

Twenty-five years after its initial release, David Cronenberg’s The Fly is thought to be a modern classic, a highly effective mixture of science, romance, and terror that pulled in a much greater audience than the horror fans looking for a cheap thrill. Cronenberg has always been a director poised on horror as a higher art, a filmmaker who understands the grotesque and how much it is apparent in real life. Some, myself included, call The Fly his master work, and Cronenberg, a very intelligent speaker about all things, not just his own work, has much to offer the viewers of his film and the listeners of the commentary he provides that film. So here, without any further ado or buzz or flitting around your head or what have you, the things we learned from David Cronenberg’s commentary on The Fly.

The Dallas Buyer’s Club was at one time set to star Ryan Gosling. At another point there was word the project was going forward with Brad Pitt in the lead. I know what you’re probably asking yourself right now, “Who are those guys?” Doesn’t matter. Put those nobodies out of your head. The important information is that the upcoming biopic of Dallas electrician Ron Woodroof now has the good fortune of having the greatest living actor, Mathew McConaughey, leading it into the theaters. Back in it’s old incarnations Buyer’s Club was at one time going to be directed by Marc Forster, and another by Craig Gillespie. Now it will be helmed by The Young Victoria director Jean Marc Vallee. It was formerly going to be funded by Universal, but now it is proceeding as an independent. As McConaughey put it, “It’s not exactly the movie that studios are throwing money at these days.” Why is that? Probably because it is a dark, maybe controversial story about a man who contracted the AIDS virus in the late 80s and spent the rest of his life smuggling illegal alternative treatments into the US in an attempt to prolong not only his life, but the lives of other people who suffered from the disease. Due to his efforts Woodroof reportedly lived six years longer than his doctor’s diagnosis said he would, and he also managed to successfully prolong the lives of many others as well. The Dallas Buyer’s Club sounds like the Schindler’s List

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