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All rights reserved.Rent (2006, DVD)
| Movie Description Director Christopher Columbus (MRS. DOUBTFIRE, HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE) adapts the hit Broadway musical of the same name to the big screen in RENT. A modern spin on the opera LA BOHEME, RENT tells the story of eight friends dealing with life and love in Manhattan's Alphabet City in 1989. Wannabe filmmaker Mark (Anthony Rapp) and singer/songwriter Roger (Adam Pascal) are facing eviction at the hands of their former roommate and current landlord, Benny (Taye Diggs). Benny has married rich, moved out of the neighborhood, and wants to build a state-of-the-art studio where the local tent city stands. Their downstairs neighbor, vivacious Mimi (Rosario Dawson), who strips at a local club to feed her heroin habit, takes a shine to Roger, a self-imposed recluse and former junkie whose last girlfriend died of AIDS. Their friend, Collins (Jesse L. Martin), returns to town and quickly falls for Angel (Wilson Jermaine Heredia), a glamorous, gracious, HIV positive transvestite. Finally, there is Maureen (Idina Menzel), a spitfire and performance artist who is planning a protest against Benny's plans and has dumped Mark for cerebral Joanne (Tracie Thoms), a lawyer. Over the course of a year, the friends face poverty, drug addiction, break-ups, reconciliations, eviction, and AIDS. Despite these challenges, they find support, hope, and acceptance in each other, all the while embracing the bohemian lifestyle that was so much a part of the Lower East Side. Newcomers Dawson and Thoms mix seamlessly with the original cast members, and Columbus introduces some interesting staging locations. With a concept, music, and lyrics by the late Jonathan Larson, RENT is an exuberant rock-&-roll musical with the underlying message that love can prevail despite all odds and that, ultimately, there really is no day but today.
Editorial Reviews Entertainment Weekly - Owen Gleiberman (12/02/2005) New York Times - A. O. Scott (11/23/2005) Rolling Stone - Barry Walters (03/09/2006) Sight and Sound - Kevin Maher (04/01/2006) | Find errors in the product description? Submit a catalog update request now. | ||||||||||
Top Reviews  Wonderful Movie!!Review created: 03/01/06(updated 02/21/08) by:  13 of 18 people found this review helpful. I loved this movie! The music and cast was wonderful! I had never seen the broadway production but the story line was easy to follow and kept you interested in the movie. 5 of 7 main actors did play in the broadway production and did a great job on this movie. Though they are in their 30's now, they played 20 year olds perfectly (I should know since I am in my 20's). This movie has something for everyone and I would suggest to anyone to watch it. A++++!!! Review ID: 10000000000775756 Was this review helpful? Report this review RENT (WIDESCREEN)Review created: 02/12/06 by: 10 of 17 people found this review helpful. I saw the movie in a beautiful theater in downtown San Francisco on the Saturday after Thanksgiving and was surprised to find so few people in the movie theater--maybe 75 of us, and the theater could have fit 500. I wonder if some of the lukewarm reviews haven't influenced people's decisions to go to RENT. Hope not, for I'm here to tell you, this movie is dynamite and IMHO much, much better than the play. For one thing, in the movie you can hear every word, even with the increased rock instrumentation, for hundreds of sound experts have worked their magic and made sure that even people underwater could hear every single syllable; whereas on stage, it depended from night to night what percentage of the lyrics were going to be coming across the temperamental sound system of the Nederlander (NYC). I did miss Daphne Rubin-Vega who was incomparably sexy and chilling as Mimi, but I never believed her being in love, and Rosario Dawson looked like she was just 'playing' at being bad and underneath she was ready to fall in love as soon as she saw Roger through the window. Her scenes of addiction are captured in the movie effectively, in a rpaid montage that might disconcert some rentheads but will, I think, be easily understood by those new to the show. Yes, some of the actors looked older than 20 somethings. But we forget that most of those who died of AIDS in the 1989-90 period were actually in their 30s. What's the big deal? To me, Angel's fate is all the more sad because he seemed to be healthy for so long and then, all of a sudden, well, any more would bring me into spoiler territory. Idina Menzel is not as over the top as she is on stage, but there's still plenty of fire power there, and she's bigger than anything in the movies since the heyday of Betty Hutton! She looks remarkably beautiful and she doesn't miss a trick; and just when you think she'll overshadow Tracie Thoms as her attorney girlfriend, Joanne, the latter pulls off some memorable comic business and signals her disappointment and regret with her expressive brown eyes. Anthony Rapp is charming as Mark Cohen, he comes off as a tiny terror, I wonder how tall he is, the constant scenes of him snarking down the streets with his fists clenched in anger at his sides, but no one else around to reveal his true proportions--the old Alan Ladd trick. And Adam Pascal is suave and tormented in equal measures as Roger. His eyelashes are so long I expected them to have a special spotlights in the credits, but no. These sentiments are vapid and, in the daylight, seem a little silly, but the beauty and power of the movie is to convince you of their truth. Good work all around. I hope the movie's an enormous success. Review ID: 10000000000741114 Was this review helpful? Report this review  Rent - Dont waste your life watching this movieReview created: 02/24/06 by: 9 of 20 people found this review helpful. My wife is a HUGE fan of musicals. She recently went to New York and basically just watched shows the whole time she was there. When she heard RENT was coming out on DVD she was giddy with excitement. So last night we rented it and started watching over dinner. 20 minutes later we were back and the rental store picking up new movies. This was one of the most AWFUL movies we have ever rented. I have no idea why it did well on Broadway ... I can only assume its much better live than watching it on DVD. The music is terrible ... its like someone sat down and picked three topics out of a hat and decided to put it to music. We turned it off after a song about a "transvestite killing a dog by playing drums for an hour". Save your time and money ... dont bother renting this ... you will only regret it and you can never ever get that time back. Review ID: 10000000000763466 Was this review helpful? Report this review Aids, Aids, AidsReview created: 03/17/06 by: 5 of 9 people found this review helpful. This is a brilliant Musical about a group of friends trying to make it in New York, They have to overcome Problems Like Paying the Rent, Aids, and Death! Review ID: 10000000000798933 Was this review helpful? Report this review  RENTalReview created: 02/23/06 by: 4 of 8 people found this review helpful. I have the sneaky suspicion that those individuals who rave about the qualities of this particular movie are part of the stage production fan club... Rightly so, because this movie was made for them!! The storyline jumps around too much. Attempts at cutting the show down resulted in a loss of character depth and story flow. I absolutely love the music and have seen the show in NYC, and I felt that the movie was shockingly lackluster. Thank goodness it was a rental, because I had to keep explaining the storyline and characters to my friend (a girl who was unfamiliar with the story). The actors were far too old to be reassuming their 20-something roles... the penniless bohemian lifestyle appears far more pathetic when applied to grown men and women pushing 40. The MOST IMPRESSIVE Angel character didn't get the attention s/he deserved. The movie jumped around so much that the audience has a hard time sincerely caring about any of them. The creators managed to take a show that is amazingly touching only to water-down every character. They turned the plot into something that is remarkably average and fails to capture the power of the original. On a happier note, the music is still amazing!! It deals with very real and controversial issues (AIDs, homosexuality, homelessness, urban development). I recommend this for music fans. The movie isn't bad; it just average. The disappointing part is watching it knowing how much potential it had. Review ID: 10000000000762449 Was this review helpful? Report this review |
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