Early Frost
Get out your handkerchiefs. ThoughAn Early Frostwas made for  television in 1985--in the first few years of AIDS awareness and research--it's still as potent and wrenching as more sophisticated efforts that came along a short while later (Philadelphia,And the Band Played On,Longtime Companion). Much of the thanks goes to a stellar  cast--Aidan Quinn, Gena Rowlands, and Ben Gazzara--who elevate a familiar, familial  tale of conflict that begins when a successful lawyer son (Quinn) comes home to  make peace with his enabling, compassionate mother (Rowlands) and disgusted,  confused father (Gazzara) who cannot reconcile himself to his son's gay  lifestyle.Director John Erman crafts a stark, wintry movie, its title a  metaphor for a life cut short.An Early Frostwas lauded  for its compassion, and though it seems a little patronizing now after the  many films with similar themes and variations, this was the  first to bring gay life as something normal into the average living room, and it holds up pretty well. After all, the humanistic, family element is what  the film strives to convey, and that theme is always universal.--Paula Nechak