movie review: rent
whether my rent-junkie cmu friends knew it or not, i became one of them at the tail end of my pittsburgh years and the beginning of my austin years. i've been itching to see the film for the past week, so tonight i took care of that urge.
i'm anything but a journalist, so i'm just going to throwdown my thoughts blitzkrieg-style, and see what happens.
[spoiler]
- so, did the first 15 minutes seem like they were directed by someone else, or was it just me? i can only imagine that it takes a lot to cram a two-act broadway musical into two hours, and one of the things that suffered was a wickedly rushed character introduction. the title track, light my candle, and today for you seemed a little forced and unnatural. that's too bad because i love all of those songs in the car.
- along the "crammed" theme, angel's death seemed rushed. furthermore, i've always loved the rise-and-collapse feeling that the musical has when the sex scene precedes angel's death ("today for me"). the sex scene was 86'd in the name of cramming and what i can only suspect was an effort to keep the movie PG-13. i'm glad that they could keep it PG-13... i think this is a great movie for teenagers, and the rating makes the movie more accessible to them. i'd love to see how the director would put together the sex scene in a DVD extra, for example, but that's probably wishful thinking.
- maureen's monolouge on the soundtrack seems so serious and thought provoking. the monologue live on stage is wickedly hysterical. the monologue on the big screen is just... wierd. the director's take on the udder-drinking got a chuckle out of me, but everything else seemed a little forced.
allright, enough bitching.
- give it up for the trailers! the producers and memoirs of a geisha both look very promising.
- it was cool to see a couple elements that you don't get exposure to in the musical or soundtrack: roger's life before HIV, joanne and maureen's union celebration.
- LOVED take me out and tango maureen. there's more space to work with on screen than stage, and the director played his cards well with both of these numbers.
- LOVED i'll cover you (sidewalk shopping). in retrospect, i'm thinking "god, how was that not cheesy?" it was just great timing, great chemistry.
- LOVED santa fe (subway).
- both mark and maureen's screen presence was killer.
- the decision to make more flat dialogue out of the lyrics late in the movie was good. seemed to make the transition from song to song easier.
- the movie presented more of maureen's flirting habits, which brought a less-prominent facet of the joanne/mark/maureen relationship into the limelight, which was fun to watch.
- loved the director's theme for without you. you didn't get the perspective presented in the film in either the musical or soundtrack.
all in all, it was fantastic and worth the wait. i enjoyed that a majority (if not all?) of the original broadway cast participated in the making of the film. i'm quite certain that one of the rent CDs has found its way into my car stereo once every one-to-two months for the past 7 years, but i haven't "seen" the musical in over 6 years. viva rent.
i'm anything but a journalist, so i'm just going to throwdown my thoughts blitzkrieg-style, and see what happens.
[spoiler]
- so, did the first 15 minutes seem like they were directed by someone else, or was it just me? i can only imagine that it takes a lot to cram a two-act broadway musical into two hours, and one of the things that suffered was a wickedly rushed character introduction. the title track, light my candle, and today for you seemed a little forced and unnatural. that's too bad because i love all of those songs in the car.
- along the "crammed" theme, angel's death seemed rushed. furthermore, i've always loved the rise-and-collapse feeling that the musical has when the sex scene precedes angel's death ("today for me"). the sex scene was 86'd in the name of cramming and what i can only suspect was an effort to keep the movie PG-13. i'm glad that they could keep it PG-13... i think this is a great movie for teenagers, and the rating makes the movie more accessible to them. i'd love to see how the director would put together the sex scene in a DVD extra, for example, but that's probably wishful thinking.
- maureen's monolouge on the soundtrack seems so serious and thought provoking. the monologue live on stage is wickedly hysterical. the monologue on the big screen is just... wierd. the director's take on the udder-drinking got a chuckle out of me, but everything else seemed a little forced.
allright, enough bitching.
- give it up for the trailers! the producers and memoirs of a geisha both look very promising.
- it was cool to see a couple elements that you don't get exposure to in the musical or soundtrack: roger's life before HIV, joanne and maureen's union celebration.
- LOVED take me out and tango maureen. there's more space to work with on screen than stage, and the director played his cards well with both of these numbers.
- LOVED i'll cover you (sidewalk shopping). in retrospect, i'm thinking "god, how was that not cheesy?" it was just great timing, great chemistry.
- LOVED santa fe (subway).
- both mark and maureen's screen presence was killer.
- the decision to make more flat dialogue out of the lyrics late in the movie was good. seemed to make the transition from song to song easier.
- the movie presented more of maureen's flirting habits, which brought a less-prominent facet of the joanne/mark/maureen relationship into the limelight, which was fun to watch.
- loved the director's theme for without you. you didn't get the perspective presented in the film in either the musical or soundtrack.
all in all, it was fantastic and worth the wait. i enjoyed that a majority (if not all?) of the original broadway cast participated in the making of the film. i'm quite certain that one of the rent CDs has found its way into my car stereo once every one-to-two months for the past 7 years, but i haven't "seen" the musical in over 6 years. viva rent.
posted by OHF at 8:34 PM
1 Comments:
I agree with all of your positive reviews, but I actually enjoyed the quick pace of the beginning, up until today for you - that song definitely felt forced to me.
I remember thinking early on in the movie "I wonder how they're going to handle the sex scene", but later on I got so into the movie that I forgot about it. Probably my tendency to listen to the album on shuffle helped me overlook that change (I no longer anticipate the next song before it starts...)
I enjoyed Maureen's monologue - but that could just be my love for Idina coming through.
Six of the eight cast members were in the original broadway cast. Tracie Toms (Joanne) and Rosario Dawson (Mimi) were not. :-)
Post a Comment
<< Home