Rent
Rent (Director: Chris Columbus)
Columbus broke in with Adventures in Babysitting, but it was Home Alone and its sequel that became his trademarks in his early career. Then he did Mrs. Doubtfire, another huge hit. After that, he's got a spotty record with Nine Months (a movie I actually found pretty funny), Stepmom (didn't see it), and Bicentennial Man (sucked). Then he did the first two Harry Potters, he stayed on as producer of the third, and now he's in direct competition with the fourth. This is based on Jonathan Larson's 1996 blockbuster musical (the year in which he died from Marfan's syndrome), and 6 of the original 8 main cast members return (Rosario Dawson and Tracie Thoms are newcomers). This is an updating of La Boheme, and relative newcomer Steve Chbosky adapted the screenplay.
Two musicals in one night? I must be gay! I've also seen these musicals on stage in the past year. I saw Rent earlier this year, off-Broadway. Well, guys, this is the musical Team America referred to as "Lease" and had the song "Everyone Has AIDS." Anyway, the play was involving and moving, so I was curious (not in the bi way) to see this.
Hopeful filmmaker Mark Cohen (Anthony Rapp) and struggling musician Roger Davis (Adam Pascal) live in an apartment rent-free, but their old sellout buddy Benny (Taye Diggs) owns the building and is threatening to crack down on them if their friend Maureen (Idina Menzel) protests the development of the property, a place where all the bohemians can go do their non-sellout art and appear way more important than they actually are. And, love complicates a lot of things. Mark used to date Maureen, who left him for another woman, Joanne (Thoms). Roger is a guy who's been burned by love, and oh yeah, the AIDS virus, so his encounters with the alluring Mimi (Dawson) are always cut short by the fact that he holds back his life's troubles, even though she has baggage herself. Joining the gang is friend Tom Collins (Jesse L. Martin, who may be the best performer out of this group), who meets fab-u-lous! drag queen Angel (Wilson Jermaine Heredia), who are united in their love of life and...oh yeah, the AIDS virus. I guess you can't catch what you already have.
I could go on a huge essay about this movie, its characters and themes, class clashes--some people won't like this movie for the very reason that the principal characters are gay, bi, bums, drug users, whatever. As Paul commented the other day, "Stop whining and get a job you hippie." I'm inclined to agree with the spirit of that statement, but the movie is damn good. The songs are powerhouse, diaphragm-melting ballads, performed by the old pros who were there from the beginning. Chris Columbus looks completely at ease, in his element, directing this with pizzazz--the movie simply outperforms the other musical I saw alongside it. Where there is imagination in the staging in the film realm here, there wasn't really any in The Producers.
So, I'm just saying, if you haven't seen this in some form, at the very least it's worth watching for the songs and the great performances. You can say whatever you want about the lifestyles, or the attitudes, it doesn't prevent the movie from being good. And oh yeah...Rosario Dawson is one of the hottest women in the world. If she were here right now, I'd ask her to come see a movie with me and snuggle.
posted by Chris @ 11/22/2005 07:00:00 AM
7 comments
7 Comments:
Hmm. No offense, but not your usual in-depth review. Then again, I guess there's only so much you can say about RENT without giving away major plot pieces.
Anyway, I was looking forward to this site covering RENT so thanks. I bought tickets in advance to drag my fiancee to see it tomorrow night. I'm very excited.
In high school I feel in love with the soundtrack because we did some of the songs in a school concert. Later I fell in love with the play when a friend bought tickets and took me as a surprise. And now I'm hoping I'm going to love the movie just as much.
I don't even agree with the lifestyles (I'm not afraid to say) or some of the content, but the story and the music are so great. I'm really excited to go see it.
Thanks for the review!!
I can appreciate a movie (or play) even if the overall message bugs me, and my guess is that Chris's review is probably dead on. It's undeniable that the tunes in rent are very well done, and the cast here, at least to me, seems top notch. So I'm sure that it's an entertaining flick.
I don't care about their lifestyles in the conventional sense. That the characters are made up of gay/transexual/stripper/prostitutes with AIDs, I really don't care about. I guess I just object to Bohemianism in general. There are a lot of poor people in the world that are poor through no fault of their own. The idea that I should feel something for these talented people who remain poor by choice is anathema to me.
That said, I would even be OK with the romanticization of pure art if they didn't complain so much.
"We have no heat!"
"Our landlord wants to charge us! To live in this NY apartment! How unreasonable."
And, of course "We all have AIDS, if only there would have been some way to prevent such a thing from happening."
(Note: Don't read that as a moral condemnation of people with AIDS. It is very possible for one person to get AIDs accidentally. Maybe even two people. But when the majority of a group of friends all have AIDs, as the South Park guys noted, at that point you have stupid friends. This was made in 1996, when everyone was on notice. This is not, "And The Band Played On.")
All of these hardships are sort of the point of being a bohemian, right?
Anyway, all of that, in a nutshell, is why I'm bugged by Rent. I'm sure it's an entertaining flick and if any of the characters in Rent were capable of producing something as good as Rent, maybe I'd feel more sympathy. But to me they seem like a bunch of intentionally poor hypocrites.
The "message" of Rent is to "measure your life in love." If this is what a life looks like when measured in love, than Rent has succeeded in staging one of the most devastating critiques on the concept of love ever produced.
I'm sorry I didn't go more in depth, MJ, but I think I would possibly ruin a lot of the movie by talking it to death. I try to toe the line of telling what I think without giving away much--I saw RENT in New York with no knowledge of any songs, storyline, or anything, and I think I was better for it.
The other thing that dictates a review, possibly sadly, is that it's usually been work from 6 PM to 1 AM with one or two movies to watch that push the time to around 5 or 6 AM, and then I get home and start writing about it--it's usually around 7 or 8 AM when I'm done. I always have these debates on whether I should wait until the afternoon, after sleeping awhile, or go ahead and write "while the iron's hot." I'm usually on a new wind by the time I get home, and I spend it writing these.
And Paul, I agree with your annoyances, believe me--that's one thing that for me is hard to separate when people are "whining" (as the characters in RENT often do) and the situations they are in are their own fault and yes, how bad has it been to live rent-free in NY all this time only to be told you need to pay now? One of my annoyances is the "sellout" mentality. All these artists want to be noticed, and loved, but hey man, I'm not doing it for adulation man, I just want to do my ART, man. And not get hassled by THE MAN...man. And then complain when they don't have money. Or have to pay money.
That's why I said that you can't say too much without giving it away. I get it. :)
About the opening story of RENT - wasn't it not that they were mad they were going to have to pay rent in general, but rather that their landlord/ex friend was asking for the entire "past year's" rent, which obviously the characters do not have?
Having listened to the soundtrack for about six or seven years now I can safely say I believe he is asking for an entire year's rent in just a few day's time.... That doesn't seem so much like slackers to me but rather people who don't have a year's worth of NY rent saved up....
I worked at a five screen theater when the original Rent stage show was taking the world by storm. My boss, the GM, was a HUGE Rent fan, and he used the soundtrack as our background music for the lobby and auditoriums. I can say with some authority that the music in Rent is amazing.
That said, I've never seen the show on stage or in this new film version. I never really had an interest to...I guess I've always sort of thought about it the way Paul seems to. I'll probably check out the film sometime, and maybe I'll kick myself for not having seen the stage show.
But the music is undeniably catchy and heart-felt. The music makes this show. I remember the acclaim the show received was almost as much about the infusion of rock into modern stage musicals as it was about the show creating awareness of the AIDS problem.
He wants to charge them with back rent, this is true. It also doesn't matter, because from the looks of things they don't have any money, and (Warning: Lawyer speak about to commence) if they lived there rent free before he can't just start charging them back rent. They had his express permission, and they lived there. That is a gift, and you can't charge a person for a gift ex post facto.
Anyway, even if he did just start charging them at that moment, the results would be the same.
I am looking forward to seeing this film. I am familiar with the story but I have not seen the play so I will be going into this with very little to compare to it. I am more left leaning, so the AIDS/alt lifestyles storyline is what drew me to this. Doing it for the "art man" is very important to some and I can understand the not wanting to sell out thought. I actually had classmates that moved to NYC after high school and college to try their luck on the boards, some did and others had to find another path. In fact, one ended up moving to LA to help start a production company (he was their NYC connection) to come up with original entertainment. I stumbled across the website a few years ago and it seems to be doing well. So. . .it takes all kinds of people to make this world turn and I like the idea of love being the key to life. Unfortunately, I need some money to support my life as well. What can you do?! Thanks for the info, I am glad to see that it is being embraced and the Chris Columbus did a good job directing this film. I think The Producers maybe flat since this is Susan Stroman's first pass at directing a film. If my memory serves me correctly, she choreographed the broadway show.
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