Who did not like RENT?

Hello All,

I have just gotten back from the MIDNIGHT screening of RENT, here in SF. I loved almost everything about the stage play, the music, the lyrics and everything about it. But for some reason the movie did not do it for me. The cinematography was AMAZING, the visuals were great, but there was just times where I felt that it was breakout into song time and not enough reason to do so. I also felt that everything was tight. Not open enough. For example: "Glory" you had Roger on the roof the whole time, but not enough movement to work with. There were times during that scene, I was thinking it was on rewind, since I saw the pose or movement before. Also, there were a couple of songs where I felt that we were waiting for nothing, but for them to sing.

And the end, OMG I did not beleive that she came back to life and saw ANGEL, I know this is HOLLYWOOD and all, but Rasario had the perfect make-up and hair and voice, to be singing something, after she just woke from the dead. I also beleive that I was not the only one who felt that way (especially in the theatre). Many people were laughing at some of the same things that I thought just seemed very cheezzy, especially when Roger was singing "What you Own" in the middle of New Mexico...that got a huge laugh.

But what got one of the BIGGEST applause, which was funny was not the movie itlself, but the Trailer for THE PRODUCERS.

I wish the movie RENT well, I will see it again, since I worked on the film (a bit) and recommend it to friend and stuff, but I still think there was something missing!!!


What does anyone else think?

Drtheatre

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Yes we were at the Same Screening. Did you like it, for the THIRD time???


Drtheatre

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Maybe I'm getting your acronyms mixed up, but did they really cut "Halloween" and "Goodbye Love"? Both songs are on the soundtrack.

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the whole laughter over WYO is driving me nuts. It was not laugh-out-loud funny! HOW else would you like that scene to have been filmed? I don't get why southwestern landscape automatically envokes laughter.

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I'm not sure exactly what it was.

It was the hair! Seriously, if his hair hadn't been blowing in the wind I wouldn't have found it nearly as bizarre. As it was, the wind blowing just made me think of the large fans they use in photo shoots to give the model a windswept look. To go from the Roger who won't let himself leave his apartment to standing free as a bird with the wind blowing through his air just took too much of an adjustment!

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but the shots just ended up looking really funny.

I think because everything else is so filthy and depressing that seeing the actual Santa Fe has the opposite affect from its intended purpose. I don't know if that makes any sense though.

When Collins is singing about Santa Fe in the subway car and your mind automatically goes to that place of imagining it along with him, what it would be like to escape a living hell, it becomes so much more expansive in your imagination. When they drop us in the middle of the actual Santa Fe, which is very pretty, like a postcard, it takes away from the characters who dream of better but never quite achieve it. Santa Fe is just something we're supposed to be left to imagine, some utopia no one ever quite reaches. Having Roger singing off a cliff just disturbs the imagination on that level. Because then it's real and it's not at all what we'd imagined it to be, neither freeing nor uplifting, just very large and fake and out of place with the rest of the dirt and grime everyone else is surrounded in.

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Updated On: 11/23/05 at 12:36 PM

It looked like a shot they got very quickly because they were losing their light that day and having some footage was better than having none. Or like he was standing still but the cliffs seemed to be moving somehow.

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Unrelated- Emcee I LOVE your avatar.

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Marguerite Chauvelin - I agree - Emcee your avatar is wonderful ^_^

Oh Lord. Don't even get me started on Sarah...

Thank you, re: the avatar. I found it and HAD to use it!

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I saw it today, and thought it was pretty good.

I felt the first half of the movie was slow - and the whole thing seemed a bit long.

No one really laughed during WYO, But that and other things DID seem cheezy/corny.

Overall the performances were great, and it was ejoyable. Couldn't say I "did not like it."

Updated On: 11/23/05 at 05:04 PM

Goodbye Love ends at "I can't believe this is goodbye..."

There's a scene which I won't give away, though, very near to the end where an instrumental version of the cut segment of Goodbye Love is used as underscoring. I noticed that the second time I saw the movie, and it made me really happy.

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