Miscellaneous Movie Musings

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket

What's that smell? Oh, it's the new Wolverine movie. P freakin U!

I liked it in a mild way. Not a good standalone movie but viewing it more like an old movie serial and just a part of ongoing storytelling I was fine with it.

Though the CGI was surprisingly bad at times.

But I am not a fan of the comics (not that I don't like them, I just never read them) so I don't have much in the way expectations. I thought it was much improved on the truly horrible and much bigger budget X3.

[LSPoorEeyorick]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

... pretty much a bunch of songs connected by a thin thread of 20-something AIDS-related relationship drama ...

You'll have to blame La Boheme for that. The plot is lifted pretty much note for note from the 1896 opera. (Which, in turn, was lifted from a novel called "Scenes de la vie boheme." And that was... surprise surprise... a collection of less-connected vignettes that Puccini adapted to be a singular story, though still episodic in form.)

Though there WAS no relationship between Colline and Schunard in that - it was added for Rent. Without that addition, there would have been no gay relationship at all (male-tranny or male-male or anything.)

[Gemini Cricket]

Originally Posted by Alex

I liked it in a mild way. Not a good standalone movie but viewing it more like an old movie serial and just a part of ongoing storytelling I was fine with it.

Though the CGI was surprisingly bad at times.

But I am not a fan of the comics (not that I don't like them, I just never read them) so I don't have much in the way expectations. I thought it was much improved on the truly horrible and much bigger budget X3.

re: CGI

Spoiler:

In the bathroom scene where he sees his claws in the mirror, his claws looked like they came straight out of Roger Rabbit. They reminded me of Eddie Valiant's gun that shot the cowboy sidekick bullets.
The scene where he chops up the fire escape, total Bugs Bunny action there.

other stuff:

Spoiler:

Gambit wasn't used enough, he was semi-sort of interesting.
The weapon XI finale fight reminded me of the Phantom Menace Darth Maul fight from the two versus one combat to the scene where the body falls and a body part separates. And the whole head still shooting thing... oy vey.
And what's the deal with Wolverine killing off people who are being controlled by someone else? Deathstrike (I think that was her name) in X-Men 2 she's being controlled by a mind altering serum and still Wolverine kills her. Deadpool is being controlled by Stryker and still he's killed by Wolverine. That doesn't make sense to me.

[Gemini Cricket]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

Hey Brad, Netflix finally sent me "Rent." The Broadway version, not the movie.

Hmmm, mixed feelings. I liked it better than the film, that's for sure. It's basically just vignettes to music, and I think that works much better as a stage device. There's really not much 'plot.'

I think you are critiquing "Rent" if it premiered today. When it came out (so to speak) in 1996, it tackled a lot of issues that had only been scratched by a some mainstream films (ie. And the Band Played On, Philadelphia) and plays ("Angels in America" comes to mind) at the time. "Rent" highlighted the following: talking about living with AIDS and being unashamed of being infected with it, out of the closet gay relationships, transgender identity etc. The play also featured a love song between two men and a sort of love song between two women. These things were rare back then. But Larson found a way to incorporate it into one musical and still have it be wildly popular.

I don't see anything wrong with the way the relationship between Angel and Collins was portrayed. It's one example of one gay relationship. Not all gay relationships are "a certain way". Angel was seen without his drag in one scene to show people what someone with AIDS looks like when they are deathly ill.

As for this specific version, besides Gwen Stewart (an original cast member who portrays the "Who the f*ck do you think you are" Bag Lady) and Rodney Hicks (another original cast member who plays Benny in this version but was ensemble in the original version) only Wil Chase gets close to depicting his/her character as well as an original cast member. Everyone else is lacking some aspect or spark that someone had in the original cast. This is why the original cast recording and, yes, the movie are precious to me. Mark's character is not gay despite being played originally by out actor Anthony Rapp. Adam Kantor's Mark played gay to me too but mostly because I think Kantor is gay or fey and this being his first mainstage appearance it showed.

I think "Rent" is a thin AIDS-related story as much as "La Boheme" is a thin Tuberculosis-related story. And remember AIDS back then was more of a death sentence than it is now and still the play was had an extremely hopeful view of the disease (that was also rare back then).

[flippyshark]

The cast of the closing RENT production can't hope to match their strongest predecessors, but they mostly worked their charms on me pretty well - and having such an up close record of the original staging and every single note and word of the show in one place is a joyful thing.

Yeah, the movie is still worth checking out for its cast of veterans, but, jeez, what a wet squib it is.

For what it's worth, I can think of at least half a dozen people, several of them family members, for whom RENT provided a lasting jolt of consciousness-raising that changed them to this very day.

[CoasterMatt]

I got to show Rose "Shaun of the Dead" today.

She loved it

[innerSpaceman]

Well, it's too bad I never saw it in its day. (Rent, that is, not Shaun of the Dead).


I still dig it as a good take on earlyish AIDS. And I do like most of the songs so much I'm thinking of getting the original cast CD.


But, yes of course I know the Tom and Angel relationship is just one of all possible gay relationships ... it just happens to be one where they don't have the horrible inconvenience of images of two men falling and being in love.

Eternal meh on that. It's nice to appreciate art for its effect in its day of debut ... but art that doesn't stand the test of time loses points with me. This was, imo, a dreadful cop-out. If you're going to do a story, thin though it may be, about AIDS ... have the balls to feature a male homosexual couple.

</rant>

[Alex]

I was blown away by Rent the first time I saw it (on stage, that is) and then bored with it the second time. Not entirely sure why that is.

[Gemini Cricket]

Is it too much to ask the universe for a man as handsome, carefree and fun as Albert Finney is in the movie Tom Jones? I think not.

[innerSpaceman]

Ah, but look how he aged. All that fun took its toll.