Rent!

[sophia jane]

I just watched it. What a wonderful movie, so sad and uplifting at the same time. And damn, but the lyrics are brilliant. I wish I could have seen the show.

Anyone else a fan?

 

[Guest]

I just watched it. What a wonderful movie, so sad and uplifting at the same time. And damn, but the lyrics are brilliant. I wish I could have seen the show.

Anyone else a fan?

Yes.

And I have my students singing it.

(They don't have to know it's a remake of La Boheme.)

It's just excellent.

 

[sophia jane]

Yes.

And I have my students singing it.

(They don't have to know it's a remake of La Boheme.)

It's just excellent.

Speaking of La Boheme I just bought the song off itunes to tide me over till I buy the soundtrack.

 

[Guest]

Speaking of La Boheme I just bought the song off itunes to tide me over till I buy the soundtrack.

Can I email you the Rent soundtrack?

Nah, that's probably not possible.

 

[sophia jane]

Can I email you the Rent soundtrack?

Nah, that's probably not possible.

You'd have to do it in a few songs at a time, I bet. I'm not opposed. I have DSL.

 

[Guest]

You'd have to do it in a few songs at a time, I bet. I'm not opposed. I have DSL.

Same here. let's see what I can come up with.



(If I have it at home - it may be in my office - if so I'll do it on Monday.)

 

[she_is_my_addiction]

I just watched it. What a wonderful movie, so sad and uplifting at the same time. And damn, but the lyrics are brilliant. I wish I could have seen the show.

Anyone else a fan?

Baby, I've seen it on stage, saw it in theaters, own the DVD and the soundtrack. Loved it since I first gained knowledge about it when I was 10 years old.



The quote in my siggy is from Rent.

 

[sophia jane]

I'll pm you my email addy.

Some of my favorite lyrics from La Vie Boheme:

To days of inspiration
Playing hookey, making
Something out of nothing
The need to express-
To communicate,
To going against the grain,
Going insane, going mad
To loving tension, no pension
To more than one dimension,
To starving for attention,
Hating convention, hating pretention
Not to mention of course,
Hating dear old Mom and Dad
To riding your bike,
Midday past the three-piece suits
To fruits - to no absolutes-
To Absolut - to choice-
To the Village Voice-
To any passing fad
To being an us for once ... instead of a them!!

(and then a little after that, I'm copy and pasting from a site so the character names are included)

MIMI & ANGEL
To hand-crafted beers
Made in local breweries
To yoga, to yogurt, to rice and beans and cheese
To leather, to dildoes, to curry vindaloo
To huevos rancheros and Maya Angelou

MAUREEN & COLLINS
Emotion, devotion, to causing a commotion
Creation, vacation

MARK
Mucho masturbation

MAUREEN & COLLINS
Compassion, to fashion, to passion when it's new

COLLINS
To Sontag

ANGEL
To Sondheim

FOUR GIRLS
To anything taboo

Bisexuals, trisexuals, homo sapiens,
Carcinogens, hallucinogens, men,
Pee Wee Herman
German wine, turpetine, Gertrude Stein
Antoniotti, Bertolucci, Kurosawa
Carmina Burana

ALL
To apathy, to entropy, to empathy, ecstacy
Vaclav Havel - The Sex Pistols, 8BC
To no shame - never playing the Fame Game

COLLINS
To marijuana

ALL
To sodomy, it's between God and me
To S & M


~ I totally thought of my lit friends with this song.

 

[sophia jane]

Baby, I've seen it on stage, saw it in theaters, own the DVD and the soundtrack. Loved it since I first gained knowledge about it when I was 10 years old.



The quote in my siggy is from Rent.

And it's a good one!

This was my first time. I've been so deprived. How does the movie compare to the show? Do you think they did a good job switching over?

 

[she_is_my_addiction]

And it's a good one!

This was my first time. I've been so deprived. How does the movie compare to the show? Do you think they did a good job switching over?

I think Chris Columbus did a remarkable job. If you've ever seen any musical on Broadway or off, you can see how the acting really doesn't change from stage to screen. What changes is the audience's view. There's more of a 3-D view on screen, if you catch my drift. But the acting doesn't really change. The dialogue is enunciated clearly, and nearly every word in every song is clear.

The only thing I wish they could have done with the film was NOT cut it down. There's A LOT of songs and song refrains from the stage version that were not included in the movie, mainly because of time restraints. The next best thing to do is buy the original Broadway soundtrack, two disc set.

Go buy the DVD. I'm obsessed. It's amazing. It's beyond amazing. It's beyond words.

 

[sophia jane]

Go buy the DVD. I'm obsessed. It's amazing. It's beyond amazing. It's beyond words.

Yes, that's it exactly. When I was watching it, I thought "there are no words" because there truly aren't words to describe the impact of it. I laughed and cried and was truly moved. Not many things can do all of that.

 

[3113]

Sorry, no.

I just watched it. What a wonderful movie, so sad and uplifting at the same time. And damn, but the lyrics are brilliant. I wish I could have seen the show.

Anyone else a fan?

WARNING: If you want to see or read only praise of this musical, then skip this post.

Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I thought the music and lyrics uninspired, the characters dull and predictable (of course the angelic transexual dies. They might as well have put a bullseye on him!). I thought it ridiculous that everyone and their brother had AIDS, and pretty silly that these people, who had been allowed to live in this place rent-free for a year, were angry and nasty to the guy who didn't want to subsidize their slacker lifestyle any longer (what? not one of them can work part-time at McDonalds?). And finally, that we're suppose to cry for and sympathize with a smack addict who get sick because she runs off, for no apparent reason, to live for three months on the street.

I suspect that AIDS is for Broadway what the Holocaust is for Hollywood; any show that contains it is praised and no one is allowed to say that the emperor is wearing no clothes. Which is how I feel about RENT. The emperor has no clothes.

The slow, tearful death of our drag queen, for example, was to me rather like running over a cute puppy. Just because the death of the cute puppy makes you cry doesn't make it a good movie. Put that scene in any movie and you'll cry. It's a cheat.

Maybe I'm just not young enough or never was that young, but "HAIR" like musicals celebrating the family unity of presumed bohemians (it would help if they seemed to have talent), work better if the music is memorable, and if the characters don't whine and complain. Otherwise, I tend to think that they're insulting real bohemians, some of whom I've known, who worked their asses off at low-paying part-time jobs so they COULD pay the rent (because no one would let them stay rent-free) and still struggle at their art--which means more to them than anything else...a point that this movie fails to make.

End of rent...er, rant.

 

[Guest]

This isn't a new story.

In La Boheme it was consumption (tuberculosis).

And the same puppy character dies.

So maybe I'm just viewing it differently?

And I like the music - it's singable, enjoyable, fun.

But to each their own.

 

[she_is_my_addiction]

WARNING: If you want to see or read only praise of this musical, then skip this post.

Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I thought the music and lyrics uninspired, the characters dull and predictable (of course the angelic transexual dies. They might as well have put a bullseye on him!). I thought it ridiculous that everyone and their brother had AIDS, and pretty silly that these people, who had been allowed to live in this place rent-free for a year, were angry and nasty to the guy who didn't want to subsidize their slacker lifestyle any longer (what? not one of them can work part-time at McDonalds?). And finally, that we're suppose to cry for and sympathize with a smack addict who get sick because she runs off, for no apparent reason, to live for three months on the street.

I suspect that AIDS is for Broadway what the Holocaust is for Hollywood; any show that contains it is praised and no one is allowed to say that the emperor is wearing no clothes. Which is how I feel about RENT. The emperor has no clothes.

The slow, tearful death of our drag queen, for example, was to me rather like running over a cute puppy. Just because the death of the cute puppy makes you cry doesn't make it a good movie. Put that scene in any movie and you'll cry. It's a cheat.

Maybe I'm just not young enough or never was that young, but "HAIR" like musicals celebrating the family unity of presumed bohemians (it would help if they seemed to have talent), work better if the music is memorable, and if the characters don't whine and complain. Otherwise, I tend to think that they're insulting real bohemians, some of whom I've known, who worked their asses off at low-paying part-time jobs so they COULD pay the rent (because no one would let them stay rent-free) and still struggle at their art--which means more to them than anything else...a point that this movie fails to make.

End of rent...er, rant.

Just thought you should know...the people in the play were based on people in Jonathon Larson's own life...

Oh well...if you didn't like it, at least you gave it a shot.

 

[3113]

Just thought you should know...the people in the play were based on people in Jonathon Larson's own life...

I've no doubt that Larson based his characters on real people. I base my characters on real people. But you have to be careful of a few things in character creation:

1) You have to remember that truth is stranger than fiction: you may know a real guy who, at age 28, is a doctor, father of 4 adopted handi-capped kids, teaches mountain climbing to troubled teens on the weekends, and has written two best selling novels. All true! But put him into fiction, and no one is going to believe it. Likewise, you might know a prostitute with a heart of gold, true! But that isn't going to make her any less a cliché if you fictionalize her. This was the problem with the angelic drag queen. He might have been based on a real person who really was like that in every particular, down to his AIDS death and tear-jerker funeral...it doesn't make him any less cliché in fiction.

2) That you pick the right people for the story you're telling. Not everyone you know makes for a good character in a story--and/or may not make for a good character in THIS particular story, though they may be right for some other story.

3) That when you create a character you SHOW us what you want us to believe about them...you don't just TELL us what you want us to believe about them. For example, the black teacher was, I believe, into physics. Yet we saw nothing of his interest or knowledge in ths subject. This is rather like telling us someone is a great chef in a 4-Star Restaurant, and yet he never even talks about food or cooking, let alone displays his ability to mince an onion in 15 seconds.

The viewer is given no reason to believe that the character is what he says he is. This goes for the musician who barely seem to be performing music as well as the teacher. The drag queen drums at the beginning, but never again. Thus, an important part of the character, what they are passionate about, becomes a sign they might wear about their necks ("Teacher," "musician," "Drummer"), rather than a true part of their personality, integral to who they are and what they want.

Mind you, I don't feel that all the characters were failures in this story--the lesbian couple's relationship rings true as did their personalities. I totally believed both those characters.

And I'm well aware, come to that, that I'm one of those hyper-critical types, so I realize that I'm probably harsher on movies and such than they may deserve. But I do feel that RENT got off a little lightly--a lot of heady praise and rewards for something that really could have used an editor and a few re-writes.

 

[Liar]

I saw it on stage a while ago. I remember that I thought the story was pretty ok, AIDS theme, dying puppies and all, I bought it.

But...the music...bleah. Bland and forgettable. I can't rememver a single line. And that's not ok for a musical.

 

[Xelebes]

I sand "Seasons of Love" in High School Choir.

I hated the fact there were no bass parts. Singing tenor for me was painful.

 

[3113]

I hated the fact there were no bass parts. Singing tenor for me was painful.

Oooo. Deep bass singing voice, eh? How do we get to hear a little of that? Done any audio stories yet?