The Normal Heart and the 2014 Emmys

Since Hannibal got completely snubbed for this year's Emmys, I was cheering on The Normal Heart which is my pick for best movie of 2014 (this is the only movie on the list that I'm certain will not change its rank by the end of the year). I was really hoping Mark Ruffalo would get a win for his outstanding performance as Ned Weeks.

If Ruffalo failed in his role of Ned then the movie wouldn't have had much of an impact as he was the central character and you were meant to connect with him.

So how did the Emmys treat The Normal Heart this year?

Well it won Outstanding Television movie so it wasn't a complete loss. However, the movie should have won so much more. All the talent involved made the movie something truly remarkable. I do like Ryan Murphy's speech and how that was him gracefully accepting that The Normal Heart didn't walk away with all its awards it was nominated for.

What really sucks for me is that neither Mark Ruffalo (for his role of Ned Weeks) and Matt Bomer (for his role of Felix Turner) won awards. It was these two performances that helped hold the movie up. If you didn't care about their relationship so much then the events that happened in the movie wouldn't leave you so heartbroken at the end. The kind of heartbroken where you can't feel anything for a few hours afterwards.

Julia Roberts (in her role of Dr. Emma Brookner) did a great job as the doctor that was fighting to bring attention to the HIV/AIDS outbreak so that the people suffering could be helped.

Everyone in this film (in front and behind the camera) did a great job and the casting people should have gotten something. If not for them then we might have had completely different actors and therefore might not have had such a good movie.

Finally, let's give a great round of applause to the makeup crew (that should have made the movie win Outstanding Makeup for a Miniseries or a Movie (Non-Prosthetic) ) for making the suffering onscreen appear frighteningly real.

The Normal Heart should've done so much better and I'm wondering why it didn't do so well. It was a hard movie to watch, but it's an important part of history. Hopefully one day the ideas in this film (that homosexuality is wrong and that you shouldn't help them unless 'their' diseases affect straight people) will be so foreign that people in the future watching this will have to do major research to understand how people used to be so callus.