Miscellaneous Movie Musings

[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.

[innerSpaceman]

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

[Snowflake]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

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

Well, that did not happen to Alan Bates, Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole, Richard Harris, Robert Newton, right?

Now, Cary Grant, he looked great at 30 and great at 80.

[Tref]

Originally Posted by Snowflake

Now, Cary Grant, he looked great at 30 and great at 80.

At 83 -- not so much.

[Alex]

I need to watch Tom Jones again. I absolutely hated it and consider it the worst movie (I've seen) that won Best Picture.

But maybe I was in a bad mood because a lot of people seem to like it. But then a lot of people like Chicago and Forrest Gump and they're all obviously wrong.

As for Albert Finney's declining looks I cut him slack for being 70+ years old. Not everybody gets to age like Paul Newman.

[innerSpaceman]

Oh, I'm not saying it happens to everybody. And I'm not saying Albert Finney did not and does not remain a fine actor.


His particular path to age has not been graceful in the looks department. And I was just kidding about its relation to the hard-partying life of his early famous characterization of Tom Jones.

I don't follow celebrity who-ha, and have zero idea about Albert Finney's private life.


I admire his professional life quite a bit. My personal favorite performance (not indicative of his best, by my fave) is as Ebenezer Scrooge in the bizarre, fantastic 1970 Brit musical "Scrooge."