Enough of these 'Rent Critics'

[DefyingEDCT]

Posted: 1/5/06 at 9:52pm

So I finnaly got to my last straw with the many critics reviews of Rent. Too me many of them just have it set in there mind that they dont want this movie to suceed. They are nit picking it apart and trying to find the littlest details to complain and whine about. Such as the "Thelma and Louise" remark. One would never really blink an eye to that because for you to really know that was a mistake you would have to do some research. Another thing that really irked me. Was the fact that many critics were calling this sort of unrealistic. Well, for the most part, movies are stories, they arent ripped from reality. How often do you see a knight in shining armour gallop over to you and sweep you off your feet. How many talking cats do we see. And for that matter, when do you ever see huge dance numbers just break out in the middle of no where with music mysteriously coming from thin air. Not a hell of a lot. Critics who also reviewed this I think have come in with a very closed mind. Either not liking the concept of a musical or for that matter the story line, therefore wanting to hate it and never giving it a fair chance to actually understand whats going. Which causes in accurate reivews on the storyline itself. Such as, many critics are complaining that they are a bunch of stoopers complaining about paying rent, when they dont have jobs etc, are a bunch of bums. If they probobly even followed the story line and opened there mind and ears they would realize, that they were told they didnt have to pay rent, thus complaining why in the end they will have too. Its little things like this are the reasons that are bugging me about these rent reviews. One in particular I read in Feature magazine, which was pretty much a whole article trying to knock Rent done one remark by one remark. Why did they place her on the table instead of the couch? Mimi dies and is somehow woken up and brought back to life by song? Who needs hospitals when we can just sing Bonjovi Balads to revive everyone.
Its these close minded comments that just piss me right off because you know these people who are writing them have either little or no understanding of what a musical is, or will ever fully understand what the concept of Rent really is.
Updated On: 1/5/06 at 09:52 PM

[Marquise]

Posted: 1/5/06 at 10:11pm

i have a news flash for you:

this is OLD. the movie has COME and GONE. whether that has anything to do with the less-than-stellar reviews the film received or the lack of public reception is moot at this point.
the fact is the movie failed it will soon be out on DVD by the end of next month (according to many sources on the 'net, no official word as of yet), so why are you crying about this now.

this is so LAST YEAR. get over it. move on and have a nice 2006!

[greeneyed_one]

Posted: 1/5/06 at 10:33pm

The review that really made me mad was Ebert's. Not a direct quote but he said something along the lines of "the songs put regular sentences into words- Can you imagine someone singing my t-cells are low?" This mad me soooooooo made becuase this line is not even sung in the movie. Columbus made a change that Ebert should agree with for the movie! Also he said something like" i got so annoyed with Maureen begging Joanne to take her for what she is, I wanted Joanne to turn around and tell Maureen to accept her!" This was the final straw for me! Did he just decide to stop listen half way through the song!?! I kow the movie has come and gone but I have a right to be bitter!

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 1/5/06 at 10:40pm

*headeeeeeesk*

While I'm on it, though, Ebert said that Rent wasn't really a movie you can love because it wasn't happy, or something, and because it dealt with heavy issues. I don't remember how he woreded it, but I was really pissed off. You can only love happy, dumb stuff? I know he likes serious things, so I'm assuming it was just a cop-out for disliking the movie.

[Kringas]

Posted: 1/5/06 at 10:44pm

Grease is still the word, man.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 1/5/06 at 10:45pm

[DefyingEDCT]

Posted: 1/6/06 at 2:17am

"i have a news flash for you: "

your point is? reviews are still being published about the movie, and forever will be. so I really dont understand what your post was getting at or trying to prove in any way?

[RENTingFAME]

Posted: 1/6/06 at 2:24am

I have essentially given up reading what the critics say about RENT. I get enough feedback from people around here and in the theatre. I liked the movie, and while I would like critics to like the movie, I am going to like the movie no matter how many people don't like it. Of course I wish it had done well, AMAZINGLY well, but I love it for the success it has had.

[armchairdictator]

Posted: 1/7/06 at 4:34pm

Enjoy the movie. It's your right. Many times "the critics" are blinded by numerous factors other than whether a movie itself, standing by itself, was good.

I haven't seen Rent and heard mixed reviews of the show, mostly being personal issues of like or dislike and not that the show itself was bad, per se. Same with movies and Ebert is one of the worst critics of them all, being very full of himself (mentally and physically.)

I personally thought Chicago was very well done as a movie, although I didn't think Rene Zellweger was the best choice for the leading role. The critics raved. I thought Zeta Jones gave a great performance and am not someone who generally likes her. Well, the critics gave it overall a pretty good grade but nothing special. They missed the point... they never will get the point... Enjoy the movie and free and clear your concerns.

[Pinguin]

Posted: 1/7/06 at 4:45pm

It's the critic's job to spout off their opinion, biased or not. If you can see transparently through the critics to see that what they didn't like was the concept itself, then others probably do too. But their criticism of the movie is completely valid. If they think musicals are ridiculous, then the basically say so and you can evaluate a review from there.

I don't think it's a matter of "it's not realistic" in the sense that there are faeries prancing around -it's more of an issue of whether or not the characters are acting with realistic motivations, or within a reality that we as the audience can understand. That's not a ridiculous thing to ask from a movie.




And in any case, if you don't see problems with the movie, you're kidding yourself.

[ACTOR jes]

Posted: 1/7/06 at 4:51pm

i'm sick of them too but you have to realize that its their job to tear movies apart.

i've come to the conclusion that if you dont like hearing what they have to say, then dont read it. i've had to do this many times before.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 1/7/06 at 4:53pm

its their job to tear movies apart.

Wow, what a blanket statement. It is a critic's job to critique, not necessarily to "tear apart." Not every critic is the devil incarnate! Negativity does not good writing make.

Updated On: 1/7/06 at 04:53 PM

[armchairdictator]

Posted: 1/7/06 at 4:56pm

I agree with Pinguin. You can see whether the reviewer has bias or has some valid points. There are movies I really like that contain flaws, like it or not. I LOVE the movie "Dark City." As incredible as it is, it is told in a manner that makes it require a second viewing to really appreciate the film since the first viewing can lead to be confusing for several reasons. As opposed to a 10 I'd give it a solid 8 for viewing numero uno. Thems just the facts...

[ACTOR jes]

Posted: 1/7/06 at 5:00pm

true, it is a harsh way to say it but essentially its true. tearing apart in the sense that they tear it apart to analyze it, not literally bashing it left and right, but looking deeper into something. (often times looking further into things than they should)

bad choice of words i guess.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 1/7/06 at 5:06pm

I think I know what you're saying; my university's paper published a really scathing review of Rent, written by an angry Renthead who didn't like the movie because it wasn't exactly the same as the show. Turns out this is a girl who thinks that writing a review means she has to hate and bash everything, and that to look like she knows what she's talking about, she has to write only nasty reviews. I don't agree with the fact that you have to be entirely negative to produce a thought-out, well-written review. I guess maybe we need less critics who think like the angry Renthead at my school.

[ACTOR jes]

Posted: 1/7/06 at 5:13pm

I would rather hear a review from your average joe shmoe than an angry renthead any day!

The angry rentheads are the worst! my friend(who is also an angry renthead) wanted to write a review of rent for our school paper, luckily I beat her to the punch because the day after she saw it all she was did was bash it. You can never expect anything to be exactly like the show, and if you want that then find a bootleg recording of the show.

[ACTOR jes]

Posted: 1/7/06 at 5:13pm

EDIT: Sorry, duplicate message. Updated On: 1/7/06 at 05:13 PM

[armchairdictator]

Posted: 1/7/06 at 5:22pm

Well what were the main points of her crticisms? Were they valid? Were they just angry rhetoric about the film not tracking the movie?

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 1/7/06 at 5:27pm

For starters, she was frightfully misinformed, and made a lot of assumptions that if she had spent five minutes on Google, she would've realized were untrue. I find it disgustingly unprofessional not to be informed.

I honestly don't remember the specifics of it all, but a lot of things she said were BASED upon the assumptions, and she just went on bashing things that if she had known the truth, could've been addressed differently. I don't care if she didn't like the movie, and I'm sorry that as a Rent fan, she didn't, but at least be professional, you know? Her tone read that perhaps she thought it clever just to slap around brash, nasty criticisms, but most of them were based solely on specifics as to what made it from the show to the movie. She complained for like a paragraph about Christmas Bells. She was whiny.

[armchairdictator]

Posted: 1/7/06 at 5:52pm

Respectfully, it sounds like your criticism of the criticism was also a personal distaste rather than pointing out facts. I'm not sure what you mean about a "truth" and if you can't even point out one glaring example, how poor were her assumptions? Criticisms like "the column was whiny" doesn't mean that the substance of the column was inaccurate. People may not agree with me but I try at least to link my opinion with fact in order to be persuasive. Perhaps I'll check out the movie and provide my own critique here (meaning a "critical review" and not necessarily a "criticism filled review"!!!!)

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 1/7/06 at 6:04pm

No, not really. There's a difference between my taking issue with her OPINION (which you seem to think is the only thing at hand here) and my taking issue with the fact that she was simply, blatantly wrong. I'm not so blindly in love with this film not to recnogize its imperfections, or to think that nobody is "allowed" to dislike it. But she complained about cuts, but also wrote her assumptions as fact, about why things were cut, or not filmed, or not in the script, etc. Frankly, if she had done her research, she would've known that things she CLAIMS were filmed were not, or were not even set to be filmed, and that the filmed scenes that did not appear in the movie were NOT removed for ratings reasons. She whined about the cliff, which is fine, but then said that it was the Grand Canyon. Is the Grand Canyon in Santa Fe? No. She disliked the choices, and then blamed them on non-factual information. That simply has nothing to do with my personal opposition to her opinion. Fact is fact, and she couldn't be bothered to find them. She backed her opinion up with nonfactual information. I disagree with her opinion, but that's the way it goes. If the opinion had been backed up with proper information, I would've regarded it with a hell of a lot more respect.

In terms of the opinion, since it's obviously an issue here, most of her qualms were not with what might or might not have made it a good movie -- cinematography, how imaginitive it was, acting, direction. They were about things that made it different from the show. Like I said, that's her right.

The bottom line was that she published a lot of incorrect information. Disliking the movie is her prerogative, of course, but I don't think it right to use blatantly incorrect information to support your opinion.

The other bottom line is that at the end of the day, you're arguing with me about my assesment of a review in a university newspaper. I was just using it as an example.

Updated On: 1/7/06 at 06:04 PM

[iheartcheyenne123]

Posted: 1/7/06 at 6:12pm

i am sick of these bad reviews on rent! In my opinion it was an excellent movie! What was wrong with it? [besides all the little details some of the rentheads picked out..like how they cut Goodbye love..etc.(that doesn't bother me)] I think it was a very good movie overall. YES! Ebert's review PISSED ME OFF! What, you can't love a depressing movie? You can only love happy stupid movies? what was with that?

[DefyingEDCT]

Posted: 1/7/06 at 6:15pm

You have all totally missed the point of my post.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 1/7/06 at 6:20pm

Or it just sparked other, sort-of related discussion.

Posted: 1/7/06 at 6:56pm

I agree with the first poster. To me, it seems that many critics didn't really watch the movie. Some one decided it was cool to dislike RENT, and then everyone jumped on board, looking for reason to hate it. Which is probably why I shouldn't read reviews, then I go into a film or play with a preconceived notion.

Like with TABOO. I thought it would suck. I went because I had thought it would be so bad I'd have a good laugh. I was proven quite wrong. Whatever your preconceived notion, I hope you can still try to watch RENT with an open mind. And any film, for that matter. I am going to try. Maybe that'll be my New Year's resolution. (Thank God Chitty Chitty Bang Bang closed, or I would have to see it now to prove my new resolution to myself)