RENT (the musical)

#1

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6/2/05 at 11:29am

PatrickL
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OK, I have to admit that, except for the few months when Spike Lee was attached to direct, I wasn't keen on seeing "RENT" adapted for the big screen. The trailer has me hoping that maybe it will work as a movie after all.

RENT trailer

#2

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6/2/05 at 12:09pm

Holadem
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Yeah, I saw it front of Sith, beautiful stuff.

Unfortunately, I enjoyed that trailer more than the friggin show. A huge dissapointment, seeing how I have wanted to see it for years now.

The trailer conveyed everything I was expecting to feel from the show and didn't. The joie de vivre in the middle of adversity. The show was ALL adversity... didn't convey the hopeful tones very well at all to me.

Maybe I just had crappy performers? Dunno.

--
H

#3

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6/2/05 at 12:37pm

Michael Reuben
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It's a good trailer, but I'm keeping my expectations low. So much depends on whether the script found a way to integrate the songs into a convincing narrative (as Bill Condon did with Chicago).

Quote:

The show was ALL adversity... didn't convey the hopeful tones very well at all to me.

That's too bad. It's there in the music, but the performance has to bring it out. If you saw it recently on Broadway, I wouldn't be surprised if the performances were somewhat anemic. That tends to happen with long-running shows.

I saw it about eight years ago, not with the original cast but with a terrific group, and there are moments I can still remember as if it were last week.

M.

Zoloft and Paxil and Buspar and Xanex, Depacon, Chronaphin, Ambien, Prozac,
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#4

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6/2/05 at 1:42pm

ThomasC
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Thanks for the link. Very good trailer, looking forward to it.

The man I loved - the man who vanished - he never came back at all. But maybe he's still out there, somewhere. Maybe some day, when Gotham no longer needs Batman, I'll see him again.

#5

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6/2/05 at 8:31pm

David Williams
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I've never seen the musical, but have listened to the soundtrack. Funnily enough, the only song I cared for was the one used in the trailer. The trailer definitely looks solid and I'm geared up to like this movie... maybe the music will be better on a second listen.

"Only two things are infinite––the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not so sure about the universe." ––Albert Einstein

#6

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6/2/05 at 8:33pm

MichaelD
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Okay what am I doing wrong. I click the link and no trailer.

#7

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6/2/05 at 8:36pm

ThomasC
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Quote:

Okay what am I doing wrong. I click the link and no trailer.

Probably taken down due to bandwidth or rights issues.

The man I loved - the man who vanished - he never came back at all. But maybe he's still out there, somewhere. Maybe some day, when Gotham no longer needs Batman, I'll see him again.

#8

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6/2/05 at 8:37pm

Michael Reuben
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The trailer seems to have been removed from the site. Maybe the site didn't clear the rights.

M.

Zoloft and Paxil and Buspar and Xanex, Depacon, Chronaphin, Ambien, Prozac,
Ativan calms me when I see the bills.
These are a few of my favorite pills.
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#9

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6/3/05 at 6:44am

Abby_B
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Disappointed that I missed seeing the trailer. RENT is one of my favorite musicals. Love the music and have seen it twice, once with an amazing cast and once with a decent one. The cast does add a lot to the experience. I do think most of the music stands on its own too...

#10

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6/7/05 at 10:55am

ThomasC
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The trailer is back online:

http://movies.channel.aol.com/franch...ves/rent_movie

The man I loved - the man who vanished - he never came back at all. But maybe he's still out there, somewhere. Maybe some day, when Gotham no longer needs Batman, I'll see him again.

#11

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6/7/05 at 3:32pm

Mikel_Cooperman
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They're filming this here in San Francisco but have yet to see any location filming. I look forward to seeing the trailer.

#12

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6/7/05 at 8:31pm

Sean Laughter
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I was a total RENT-head at the time this show first premiered, had the whole thing memorized and everything. Nowadays, listening to the album the tone sounds a bit too, I'm not sure how to say, "90's adolescent whiney" I suppose. Not like horrendously, but it borders there at moments, I still love the show though, I guess it's just a perspective change coming with time and age.

#13

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6/7/05 at 9:22pm

Adam Lenhardt
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I don't care what people say, I like Chris Columbus movies. That trailer was great. If he was trying to escape the Harry Potter shadow, he succeeded.

#14

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6/7/05 at 9:35pm

Mikel_Cooperman
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I saw the preview finally and thought it looked really good to me. We'll see.

#15

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6/7/05 at 10:03pm

Adam Lenhardt
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Also notable is that with the exception of Rosario Dawson and the "Wonderfalls" chick, the main cast is composed entirely of Rent stage veterans, most I believe from the original run.

#16

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6/8/05 at 9:01am

Sean Laughter
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Yeah, everyone except the original Mimi (Daphne Rubin-Vega) and Joanne (Fredi Walker) is from the original broadway cast (well, maybe not like the chorus members, but in terms of the main characters).

I am pretty dissapointed Daphne Rubin-Vega isn't doing Mimi; did she turn it down, was she busy, did they not want her? Does anyone know. She's like the quintissential Mimi so it is somewhat dissapointing.

#17

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6/8/05 at 2:40pm

Michael Reuben
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Quote:

I am pretty dissapointed Daphne Rubin-Vega isn't doing Mimi; did she turn it down, was she busy, did they not want her?

I don't have any inside knowledge, but I suspect this is yet another case of Hollywood passing up a terrific stage actress in favor of someone with a certain "look". For another example, see Bebe Neuwirth and Velma Kelly (not that Catherine Z-J didn't do a fine job).

M.

Zoloft and Paxil and Buspar and Xanex, Depacon, Chronaphin, Ambien, Prozac,
Ativan calms me when I see the bills.
These are a few of my favorite pills.
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#18

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6/9/05 at 5:58am

Sean Laughter
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That's what I'd expect as well Michael. I remember reading some letter-to-the-editor that Chris Columbus wrote to Entertainment Weekly after they ran some story about the film where he said he met with the cast to make sure they could still realistically play people within the characters' age ranges.

Looking at Vega's official site I think it's pretty clear she's not able to pull off a 19 year old anymore (though I'd argue Adam Pascal can't pull off the age of his character either). I'm not sure the age of the characters is really that important in the piece anyway, and I think the only real mention of age is a single line in a song where Mimi says she's 19.

#19

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8/2/05 at 3:06am

ThomasC
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Music video for "Seasons of Love":

http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_p...s_of_love.html

The man I loved - the man who vanished - he never came back at all. But maybe he's still out there, somewhere. Maybe some day, when Gotham no longer needs Batman, I'll see him again.

#20

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9/14/05 at 8:09pm

Adam Lenhardt
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Some samples from the movie soundtrack are available here:
http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/rent/audioplayer/
Having heard the original broadway cast recording a gazillion times, it's very disconcerting to hear the same material so different. Other songs, like "Light My Candle" are surprisingly similiar. Rosario Dawson has a singing voice that's a little more pure and thus possessing a little less character. But otherwise, it's almost verbatim, just different enough to be creepy. "Life Support" is a very different take on the solo, but then the refrain is the same." Rosario Dawson doesn't have quite the projection for "Out Tonight" but that may be the compression of the site, too.

#21

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9/14/05 at 8:32pm

Michael Reuben
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Quote:

Rosario Dawson doesn't have quite the projection for "Out Tonight" but that may be the compression of the site, too.

According to reviews of The Public's recent revival of Two Gentlemen of Verona (the Guare/McDermott musical), she doesn't have a strong singing voice. I can't offer personal observation, because I didn't see it.

M.

Zoloft and Paxil and Buspar and Xanex, Depacon, Chronaphin, Ambien, Prozac,
Ativan calms me when I see the bills.
These are a few of my favorite pills.
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#22

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9/15/05 at 6:34am

Sean Laughter
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Yeah, "Out Tonight" sounds somewhat dissapointing. I was about to attribute it to the mixing of the song, but she just doesn't have the same kind of energy as Rubin-Vega had. Vega's voice was just so idiosynchratic in the role that going from listening to her forever to someone else was bound to be jarring.

That said I really like the sample of "Santa Fe" and Anthony Rapp seems to have brought Mark straight from the stage, whereas even listening to "Today 4 U" even Angel sounded a little lethargic.

#23

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9/15/05 at 7:47am

Holadem
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Quote:

That's too bad. It's there in the music, but the performance has to bring it out. If you saw it recently on Broadway, I wouldn't be surprised if the performances were somewhat anemic. That tends to happen with long-running shows.

I saw it at the Bushnell Theater in Hartford, CT.

Two reasons I did not enjoy the show:

1 - This is the one show I saw where the vast majority of the dialogue was all songs, as opposed to say The Producers or Mama Mia where musical numbers complemented the dialogue, but (IIRC) did not replace it.

I simply have a harder time understanding songs in that setting.

But mostly:

2 - My expectations of the show were quite different from what I ended up seeing. I first heard of the show during my college years in New York, and vaguely knew it about being young (and in love?) and struggling in the city. There was un underlying theme of light at the end of the tunnel, of hope. I felt this was something I could strongly identify with, being a young man who was struggling to come up with rent and tuition. I somehow managed to graduate and leave the city without ever seeing the show.

When I finally did last year, it ended up being dramatically darker than anything I expected, certainly more than anything I had ever come close to in the worse of times: junkies, protitutes, AIDS, death. To the point where the personal connection I had hope to have with the characters was simply not there. I guess there is struggle, and struggle...

I will check out the movie, I liked the trailer.

Is it me or does the movie cast look older than show's? They certainly don't look like teenagers in the trailer.

--
H

#24

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9/15/05 at 10:38am

Sean Laughter
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Quote:

Is it me or does the movie cast look older than show's? They certainly don't look like teenagers in the trailer.

Well, most of the movie cast is made up of members of the original Broadway cast, so they've obviously aged since then. I'm not sure if the show's characters are teenagers though, I always saw them more as 20-somethings, though Mimi is explicitly said to be 19, close enough to 20-something anyway.

#25

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10/25/05 at 8:23pm

BradWOO
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Hey.

I picked up the soundtrack over the weekend and am very impressed. The songs seem to be mostly intact from the play.

#26

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10/25/05 at 8:43pm

Brian Kidd
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Pretty much the only things excised from the show are areas where dialogue is sung instead of spoken. In that case they have been converted into spoken dialogue for the film. The only large musical section cut from the film is the Christmas number; a shame since it's quite strong. I'm not sure what the reasoning was behind the cut. Also, the homeless people singing has been cut as well. Perhaps these numbers were a bit too stridently theatrical to play in a film. Anyway, I don't think Columbus is any great talent. He's kind of like Ron Howard, competent but not noteworthy. He has (amost all of) the great cast from the original show in his favor so it's a start. We'll see how he does. Dumb to shoot such a quintessentially NY show in SF, though.

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#27

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10/26/05 at 9:38am

Joe Hsu
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I'm pretty excited to see this movie as I love movies and have a passion for singing. The cast does a pretty good job on the OST although I agree that Rosario doesn't quite match up as well as the others.

I just wonder...what must it be like in the Diggs household...do they sing around the house? What do they listen to...

(Idina Menze who plays Maureen is married to Diggs)

#28

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10/26/05 at 11:18am

Michael Reuben
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Quote:

what must it be like in the Diggs household...do they sing around the house?

Right now, I doubt it, because they're both doing eight shows a week in off-B'way productions, and actors with that schedule need to rest their voices when they're not working. (He's in a revival of A Soldier's Play; she's in a new musical called See What I Wanna See, which I wanna see

).

M.

Zoloft and Paxil and Buspar and Xanex, Depacon, Chronaphin, Ambien, Prozac,
Ativan calms me when I see the bills.
These are a few of my favorite pills.
(Next to Normal) HTF Rules & Regs My 2009 Film List
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#29

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10/26/05 at 11:42am

Sean Laughter
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I just noticed there's a new trailer linked from the quicktime movie trailer site rather than the original one. Of course, it's probably been there for months and I've just never noticed.

#30

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10/26/05 at 8:56pm

Adam Lenhardt
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One thing I don't like is that "Mark" tries to go for a more radio-esque performance than the more show-tunesy Original Broadway Recording.
I've grown to appreciate Dawson in repeated listenings to the movie soundtrack. "Tom Collins" goes a bit overboard (I'm reminded of Bleeding Gums Murphy in the Dancing Homer episode of "The Simpsons") but most of the other performances are intact. "Roger" strikes the right peaks even though he approaches the tunes more from an acting standpoint. Idina still rocks as Maureen, but the echo effect in "Over the Moon" is irritating.

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