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Is this a scary movie?
Kathy and I went to see Rent. I overheard three teenage girls overheard while waiting for the movie to begin.
Amber Is this a scary movie?
Catherine What?
Amber Do they have any guns in this movie?
Catherine No. God.
Amber Do they actually show them…shooting up drugs?
Nicole Well, I won’t spoil it.
Amber GASP. But - what kind of drugs?
Nicole Um, heroin.
Amber Okay. I’ll close my eyes for that part. Do they actually, like, have to do that?
Catherine Well, OBVIOUSLY NOT.
Amber Well, obviously not, but do they have to pretend -
Nicole I saw a fake cigarette thing in the movies, I’ve seen how it works. They wrapped something in a piece of paper and they lighted it.
Amber What makes the smoke, then?
Nicole Well, um, they light it and then they put it out, and you know how smoke comes out?
Catherine Yeah.
Nicole That’s pretty cool.
I kind of liked Amber. I thought the last naive teenager went extinct around 1988.
Rent spoilers below
I know it’s the height of uncool to like the musical Rent these days, that it’s been called pablum for the masses that soft-sells the horrific reality of AIDS in the late ’80s. I don’t care. I like it anyway. I like the melodrama and the harmonies, I like that the story follows not only the opera La Boheme but the writer’s real life. I like the way the movie costume designers managed to turn Adam Pascal into Jon Bon Jovi circa 1986, to the extent that I thought it WAS Jon Bon Jovi for the first ten minutes until I realized that the guy is 43 now and can’t pull off that look anymore.
And when I was in my mid-twenties, I liked to play it on the stereo. Pretty much exclusively. For two years. (Todd knows much of the music, not because he likes it but in the same way you know the latest Hillary Duff song, because it plays constantly in the background at the dentist, the grocery store, and in the too-loud headphones of the obnoxious kid sitting next to you on the subway.)
When I was 25, I found the Angel/Tom storyline boring and the Mimi/Roger ending hand-clutchingly romaaaantic. At 33, I was crying so loudly during Angel’s funeral that Kathy started looking for somewhere else to sit while throwing kleenex at me. The scene was beautiful. On the other hand, when Roger leans over the dying Mimi to sing her the song he wrote I felt like standing up and yelling, “Yo! Roger! Pick her up and BRING HER DOWNSTAIRS SO SHE CAN GET IN THE AMBULANCE FASTER, YOU FUCKING ATTENTIONWHORE!”
Rent spoilers end
In other movie news, I recently saw Robin Williams live and in person walking down the street. I knew that lots of Hollywood celebrities are in town filming various things, and I’d made a mental note to head down to Yorkville to see if I could spot any of them. Instead, Paul and I happened upon the filming of “Man of the Year”. The Canadians were extremely dignified about the entire process. They drove or walked by, looked at Robin Williams in the same way you’d look if you happened to spot your next-door neighbour in the produce section, and kept on their way. I gawked like a thirteen year old. Paul and his friends had figured out that there was a famous person in the offing, and - having no idea which one was the star - ended up deciding on a woman wearing a green scarf, waving frantically and saying breathlessly, “She looked at us - did you see? She looked at us!” I wanted to go over there and say, “Listen, you may think that you’re just a lowly extra, but in the eyes of a bunch of seven year olds today, you were a movie star.”
Boy at the Science Centre. Seriously, are you allowed to have a Batman symbol on your yarmulka? (”No! None of the other kids have to wear them, I won’t either!” “Listen, honey. Here’s a lovely Batman patch. How about we sew it on? Hmm? How about that?”)
AAAAHHHHHHH!!!!! Robin Williams? HOW COOL IS THAT?
I absolutely LOVED “Rent”. It has been a very long time since I’ve run out after a movie and bought the soundtrack. I dragged Sage into HMV which, I later learned, is unheard of. I’ve been listening to it every chance I get. I’m driving my daughter crazy singing the opening song on our walks to and from school. My daughter rolls her eyes and complains but I point out that she has been doing the same to me using Kelly Clarkson and Hilary Duff songs so I don’t feel the least bit guilty. I hope that I can do Mimi’ song, “Please Take Me” justice because that should really make my daughter look at me in ways she hasn’t, yet. ;)
Yes, the movie is a very sugared down version of life at that time. For living in a squat in the middle of New York City it is incredibly clean. I mean, looking at Roger’s apartment I would want to live there, electricity or no.
Mimi has the best complexion, hair and teeth for a street person (later in the movie) and you would think that after she has been living on the street for a while the last thing anyone would want to do is hold, carry, hug and kiss her. You’d think, after the 911 call was made, that she would at least hit the showers once she started feeling better.
But hey, it’s a movie and if you can’t have suspended disbelief in movies then when can you? It is a work of fiction. I can understand that one couldn’t do that with “The Story of Anne Frank” or “Schindler’s List” but is this movie really going to be the defining factor of that time period? I am not trying to downplay it any way. I thought it was terrific but I don’t think it was the piece to define the times.
I too cried when Angel died (Sage was truly sobbing) but I knew that it was going to happen and so I guess I had somehow prepared myself. I absolutely loved the character and my favourite line in the movie is during her eulogy when it is said that she once walked up to a guy harassing a bunch of transvestites and said to him, “I am more of a man than you will ever be and I am more woman than you will ever get.” I think that is amazing.
I will never look at Jesse Martins the same way again. I’ve been watching “Law and Order” for years and never knew the man could sing amd damce. Sigh (huge, dreamy smile).
As for the teens we were surrounded by, I think they were just hoping for a double feature and the kiddie movie had just let out. Sadly, I don’t think they got much, if anything, out of the movie. One girl was phoning her dad during the credits to get a ride. No emotion at all.
On the other hand, when Roger leans over the dying Mimi to sing her the song he wrote I felt like standing up and yelling, “Yo! Roger! Pick her up and BRING HER DOWNSTAIRS SO SHE CAN GET IN THE AMBULANCE FASTER, YOU FUCKING ATTENTIONWHORE!”
This made me happy I had already finished my tea. Because the tea would otherwise have ended up on the screen. Heh!
Oh, and I was Rent-ignorant, at least plot-wise, but I did want to know what happened. :)
5 thousand twenty-five hundred six hundred minutes, how many times, times have you heard that? Okay, like, my daughter is learning that song in her choir and they are choreographing it and everything and she totally sings it all day and night long. And, even though I DESPISE every musical ever (except Grease because I was a tween with hormones when I first saw it) I kinda wanna see Rent. Oh, and my top worst musical ever-Xanadu.
There’s a comedy troupe in Rhode Island that does song parodies spoofing the local scene, and they do a parody of that song that goes, “Five hundred twenty-five thousand bad politicians…”