Sunday, September 5, 2010

HOUSE OF NUMBERS is now on DVD: check it out for some alternative ideas about AIDS

Brent Leung's HOUSE OF NUMBERS, one of the more important documentaries of the last couple of years, is at last available on DVD. This means that audiences now have the opportunity to sit down with the film and really study it: Watch, listen, repeat any portions for clarity or disagreement -- and then decide for themselves whether or not there is something here. Trust Movies thinks there definitely is. His original review, after he'd having had a number of conversations with both Leung (shown below, left, in South Africa) and science writer Anthony Liversidge, appeared on this site last January.

For anyone who has questioned the very erratic and often uninformed history of AIDS -- what it is, whether and how co-factors are involved, why its "diagnosis" can change so drastically from country to country, and the do's and don'ts of drug-taking to alleviate symptoms -- the film is a must-see, if only to better understand how the our medical establishment, drug companies and government, together with the gay establishment (understandably frightened of backlash against its reputation for promiscuity and drug use) have united to block further understanding and honest research.

The DVD is available in two different versions. One offers only the 89-minute film itself. The other includes two extras discs with enormous amounts of footage that did not make the film itself but that throw light on many of the issues raised, while giving updated information and further interviews with those most concerned with the plague, such as Nobel Prize-winner Luc Montagnier (below).

Both versions are available for sale but not yet (unfortunately) for rental, where -- in an economy in which many people cannot afford proper food, housing or health care -- they would surely reach a wider audience and do the most good.

Late breaking news:! Director Brent Leung has just informed me that his movie is indeed available for rental: via Amazon or iTunes.  So get to it, readers!  (You can also save it to your Netflix queue, but so far, no rental is available.)

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