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All rights reserved.Rent (2006, UMD)
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Rent (Blu-Ray Edition)Review created: 01/10/08
by: scapp70 -- a member of Epinions
Pros:
Probably my favorite rock musical so far
Probably my favorite rock musical so far
Cons:
Sometimes it's hard to understand why Roger is running from Mimi
Sometimes it's hard to understand why Roger is running from Mimi
Rent is a rock musical written by Jonathan Larson. Its opening was in NYC back in 1996. It is a musical that I have avoided for a long time despite the fact that I love the genre. I figured it must be a waste of time as it couldn t possibly compare to the classics like Tommy, Jesus Christ Superstar, Hair and the like. Plus the subject matter may have repelled me as well. Well, luckily I did finally give it a chance when I watched it on satellite TV. It turns out that I was wrong, very wrong. Rent is now my favorite musical ever. When I try to turn other people on to it, it s like I have to twist their arms. I would buy them the DVD for Christmas and birthdays, but it remains in their collection still new in its original shrink-wrap. I understand why I may have avoided it myself as I watch the people around me shirking away. To take in a movie that s a musical is a different experience than watching any other genre. With a musical, you must become more involved while viewing, it s a tiresome experience if you invest yourself to the 100 minutes of viewing and then you don t even like it. Go and rent Cry Baby with Johnny Depp and Traci Lords and you ll understand what I mean. Rent is probably the best experience I ve had with a rock musical so far, and I hope you ll take my word that you won t be sorry.
The Plot
The film opens with an introduction to the four main characters via song (and main theme) Season of Love. On the stage singing the song are Mark, Roger, Tom, Angel, Mimi, Joanne, Benny and Maureen. As the song and lighting fade the story begins. We see roommates Mark and Roger frustrated that their power was cut off simultaneously with an eviction notice on the front door of the building. The eviction notice is brought on because of the failure to pay rent for the past year all on one Christmas Eve night sometime in the 1980s. Rent was a non issue before because of the fact that their ex-roommate Benny had married into a wealthy family who owns their building as well as others on the street in Alphabet City, NYC.
Benny shows up that night and the three talk about the real reason why Benny issued the eviction notice and cut off everybody s electric. Benny s father-in-law wants to build a futuristic cyber studio, and another one of their ex-roommate s, (Maureen) will be performing a protest against this. Benny wants to make the deal that if they stop Maureen from protesting that they can continue to live rent-free in the apartment. Maureen is not only an ex-roommate, but she is Mark s ex-girlfriend, who had just recently dumped him for an attorney named Joanne.
Roger is a musician who is without a band these days. He is an ex-junkie who has contracted AIDS through his ex-girlfriend April, who got the disease from a dirty needle. April took her own life, and Roger has been in a perpetual state of depression. One of his neighbors, Mimi takes notice of Roger and wants to do the hippity-dippity. Although Roger finds her attractive, he also notices the nuances of a user, and tries to steer clear of that yet her persistence and perhaps her amazing singing voice he eventually gives in.
Another ex-roommate named Tom Collins comes back home after being expelled from his teaching gig at MIT because of his theory of actual reality. Collins is a homosexual living with AIDS, and upon his arrival he hooks up with a drag queen named Angel, who also had contracted the AIDS virus. So although he initially came back to live with his old roommates Roger and Mark, he ended up living with Angel at his (her) apartment.
This film displays a year in the life of eight close friends, mostly living with AIDS and how it affects their friendly and romantic relationships.
Analysis
Rent was originally a rock opera, meaning there was only singing and no spoken dialogue. Director Chris Columbus opted to take some of the songs from the original Broadway show and convert them into spoken word. It also makes a lot more sense to me as well. The songs that he used seem almost pointless and unmelodic anyway. There are a lot of Rent-heads out there who feel the opposite of me, and think that Chris Columbus perverted the film with this action.
As Chris Columbus was looking to cast the movie, he eventually went to the primal ensemble and enlisted Taye Diggs as Benny, his wife Idina Menzel as Maureen, Anthony Rapp as Mark, Jesse L. Martin as Collins, Adam Pascal as Roger, and Wilson Jermaine Heredia as Angel. You would think that including six out of the original Broadway ensemble would please the Rent-heads, but it just wasn t enough.
As a stroke of luck, the original Joanne (Fredi Walker) and Mimi (Daphne Rubin-Vega) were unavailable to reprise their roles and were replaced by the amazing Tracie Thomas (as Joanne) and the perfect upgrade Rosario Dawson (as Mimi). Daphne s vocals are only for those with an acquired taste for ultra nasal and raspy, and Fredi just doesn t hold a candle to Tracie. In my opinion, Tracie and Rosario are the best vocalists in the movie, possible with the exception of Jesse L. Martin who had improved leaps and bounds from the days he was cast in 1996.
As with all musicals, the main focus is on the music. It amazes me to no end that one man, Jonathan Larson had created a rock musical with such a high grade of quality songs by himself. When you think of rock musicals you immediately think of the team of Weber and Rice, Ragni and Rado, Pete Townsend and The Who, Waters and Gilmour, etc. Sadly, Larson died the night before Rent was to open, so we may never know the adventures of his musical mind would have taken us on.
The music of Rent leaves us with not a single clunker. Yes there are some songs that are better than others, and everyone has their favorites, but it is one of the few rock musicals with not a single track worthy of skipping. The best songs are usually left to the main characters, yet in Rent, all of the characters get the opportunity to sing top grade numbers.
The characters are all likeable, some more than others. Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp make for a great duo as Mark and Roger. Although Tom Collins and Angel are in a homosexual relationship, as well as Maureen and Joanne, it never gets preachy or acts as a PSA ad. Chris Columbus went with the approach that it just is what it is, and that s OK with me; I didn t feel anything go against my grain.
The Blu-Ray Difference
Although I am proud to support the Blu-Ray format, I suppose that there are going to be discs that let me down. The extra features were outstanding on the 2-disc DVD version, but for Sony to come along and just forward all of those features to the Blu-Ray disc is exceedingly disappointing. To make matters worse, they were left in their original format of 480i/MPEG-2 and Dolby 2.0 audio. The DVD version is only two years old, and for there to be no Blu-Ray exclusive excuses for upgrading, it s like a slap in the face to the consumer.
The most important supplemental feature is the Documentary: No Day But Today which serves as a Jonathan Larson documentary more than anything. It s pretty engrossing at that despite the fact that it s a lengthy 75 minutes. It chronicles the life of Jonathan Larson s struggling artist days up to his tragic death the night before opening. It has interviews with the entire cast past and present.
What I was really hoping for was a sort of director s cut version of Rent which would include the option to watch the theatrical release or a newly edited version which would include some of the deleted scenes. Two of these five scenes are musical numbers, and one of them, Goodbye, is one of the best songs on the album. It would have been nice to see Halloween and Goodbye attached to the film, but alas Sony had indeed gone cheap with this Blu-Ray. For the record I just want to say that Chris Columbus had gotten this wrong by cutting these two musical numbers. He claims it would have given the movie a double climax, and therefore unworkable. I advise him to throw away the text book and work it out. Perhaps because the ending is kind of weak, he thought that by including Goodbye, it may overshadow the finale.
The music is five stars, yet because of the weak ending and rough edits, a star is automatically nicked off. I'm not sure that this sort of musical is for everybody, despite the universal appeal I feel that the music embodies.
Viewing Format Blu-Ray
The Plot
The film opens with an introduction to the four main characters via song (and main theme) Season of Love. On the stage singing the song are Mark, Roger, Tom, Angel, Mimi, Joanne, Benny and Maureen. As the song and lighting fade the story begins. We see roommates Mark and Roger frustrated that their power was cut off simultaneously with an eviction notice on the front door of the building. The eviction notice is brought on because of the failure to pay rent for the past year all on one Christmas Eve night sometime in the 1980s. Rent was a non issue before because of the fact that their ex-roommate Benny had married into a wealthy family who owns their building as well as others on the street in Alphabet City, NYC.
Benny shows up that night and the three talk about the real reason why Benny issued the eviction notice and cut off everybody s electric. Benny s father-in-law wants to build a futuristic cyber studio, and another one of their ex-roommate s, (Maureen) will be performing a protest against this. Benny wants to make the deal that if they stop Maureen from protesting that they can continue to live rent-free in the apartment. Maureen is not only an ex-roommate, but she is Mark s ex-girlfriend, who had just recently dumped him for an attorney named Joanne.
Roger is a musician who is without a band these days. He is an ex-junkie who has contracted AIDS through his ex-girlfriend April, who got the disease from a dirty needle. April took her own life, and Roger has been in a perpetual state of depression. One of his neighbors, Mimi takes notice of Roger and wants to do the hippity-dippity. Although Roger finds her attractive, he also notices the nuances of a user, and tries to steer clear of that yet her persistence and perhaps her amazing singing voice he eventually gives in.
Another ex-roommate named Tom Collins comes back home after being expelled from his teaching gig at MIT because of his theory of actual reality. Collins is a homosexual living with AIDS, and upon his arrival he hooks up with a drag queen named Angel, who also had contracted the AIDS virus. So although he initially came back to live with his old roommates Roger and Mark, he ended up living with Angel at his (her) apartment.
This film displays a year in the life of eight close friends, mostly living with AIDS and how it affects their friendly and romantic relationships.
Analysis
Rent was originally a rock opera, meaning there was only singing and no spoken dialogue. Director Chris Columbus opted to take some of the songs from the original Broadway show and convert them into spoken word. It also makes a lot more sense to me as well. The songs that he used seem almost pointless and unmelodic anyway. There are a lot of Rent-heads out there who feel the opposite of me, and think that Chris Columbus perverted the film with this action.
As Chris Columbus was looking to cast the movie, he eventually went to the primal ensemble and enlisted Taye Diggs as Benny, his wife Idina Menzel as Maureen, Anthony Rapp as Mark, Jesse L. Martin as Collins, Adam Pascal as Roger, and Wilson Jermaine Heredia as Angel. You would think that including six out of the original Broadway ensemble would please the Rent-heads, but it just wasn t enough.
As a stroke of luck, the original Joanne (Fredi Walker) and Mimi (Daphne Rubin-Vega) were unavailable to reprise their roles and were replaced by the amazing Tracie Thomas (as Joanne) and the perfect upgrade Rosario Dawson (as Mimi). Daphne s vocals are only for those with an acquired taste for ultra nasal and raspy, and Fredi just doesn t hold a candle to Tracie. In my opinion, Tracie and Rosario are the best vocalists in the movie, possible with the exception of Jesse L. Martin who had improved leaps and bounds from the days he was cast in 1996.
As with all musicals, the main focus is on the music. It amazes me to no end that one man, Jonathan Larson had created a rock musical with such a high grade of quality songs by himself. When you think of rock musicals you immediately think of the team of Weber and Rice, Ragni and Rado, Pete Townsend and The Who, Waters and Gilmour, etc. Sadly, Larson died the night before Rent was to open, so we may never know the adventures of his musical mind would have taken us on.
The music of Rent leaves us with not a single clunker. Yes there are some songs that are better than others, and everyone has their favorites, but it is one of the few rock musicals with not a single track worthy of skipping. The best songs are usually left to the main characters, yet in Rent, all of the characters get the opportunity to sing top grade numbers.
The characters are all likeable, some more than others. Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp make for a great duo as Mark and Roger. Although Tom Collins and Angel are in a homosexual relationship, as well as Maureen and Joanne, it never gets preachy or acts as a PSA ad. Chris Columbus went with the approach that it just is what it is, and that s OK with me; I didn t feel anything go against my grain.
The Blu-Ray Difference
Although I am proud to support the Blu-Ray format, I suppose that there are going to be discs that let me down. The extra features were outstanding on the 2-disc DVD version, but for Sony to come along and just forward all of those features to the Blu-Ray disc is exceedingly disappointing. To make matters worse, they were left in their original format of 480i/MPEG-2 and Dolby 2.0 audio. The DVD version is only two years old, and for there to be no Blu-Ray exclusive excuses for upgrading, it s like a slap in the face to the consumer.
The most important supplemental feature is the Documentary: No Day But Today which serves as a Jonathan Larson documentary more than anything. It s pretty engrossing at that despite the fact that it s a lengthy 75 minutes. It chronicles the life of Jonathan Larson s struggling artist days up to his tragic death the night before opening. It has interviews with the entire cast past and present.
What I was really hoping for was a sort of director s cut version of Rent which would include the option to watch the theatrical release or a newly edited version which would include some of the deleted scenes. Two of these five scenes are musical numbers, and one of them, Goodbye, is one of the best songs on the album. It would have been nice to see Halloween and Goodbye attached to the film, but alas Sony had indeed gone cheap with this Blu-Ray. For the record I just want to say that Chris Columbus had gotten this wrong by cutting these two musical numbers. He claims it would have given the movie a double climax, and therefore unworkable. I advise him to throw away the text book and work it out. Perhaps because the ending is kind of weak, he thought that by including Goodbye, it may overshadow the finale.
The music is five stars, yet because of the weak ending and rough edits, a star is automatically nicked off. I'm not sure that this sort of musical is for everybody, despite the universal appeal I feel that the music embodies.
Viewing Format Blu-Ray
Review ID: 10000000006863604
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