Harry feels RENT is definitely worth paying for!!!

Hey folks, Harry here… Somewhere back in one of my articles somebody in Talkback dared me to review RENT, saying they knew I wouldn’t for unlisted reasons. Now, it momentarily set me back wondering why they’d think I wouldn’t – but I figured it would probably be because I’ve got a film at REVOLUTION and that I wouldn’t bite the hand that “feeds me”. Or maybe they thought I was closeted gay and wouldn’t review it for fear of outing myself.

Going into the screening tonight, I was kind of dreading seeing RENT. Frankly, the reason was because not a single one of the trailers really did it for me. For one, I’ve never seen RENT, I know intellectually it is an adaptation of LA BOHEME – and I’ve often wondered how well that was translated. I wondered how much of the message of a Bohemian existence would be layered through this musical tale. Ultimately though, I love musicals. My mother loved them, my father loved them and they instilled in me the belief that cinema was never more fantastical or uplifting than through the eyes of a song and dance. And certainly with this subject matter. A musical that essentially most feels is about living and dying with drug addiction and the ravages of AIDS… the music better be uplifting and transcendent – or else you’ll just be emotionally wiped out. At the end of the film what really struck me wasn’t the “gayness” of the film, or how the film blissfully lives in that period of 89-90 in New York’s seedy struggling artists side of town… but how I feel the film is more about the modern conception of family.

Societally the conceit of family has become something rather abstract to most. There’s the insular version that is still the immediate bloodline family, then there’s the wife and the kids version of family… but more often then not, especially for folks beginning in the generation older than me and going down through kids in College today. Family for many of us is defined by not just “Mom and Dad” or the “Wife & kids,” but that extended rag tag group of friends. The ones each year we reach out and help deal with the ravages of living through another year. It was that side of RENT that really really got me. That’s LA BOHEME coming through, and growing up in Austin – the friends I have, while not the characters in this film, tend to be the slightly more hetero version of this cast of characters. People that struggle with finances, struggling with the suck of how to earn end’s meat or soy.

So – what’d I think of the movie? I LOVED IT. It reminded me a lot of HAIR. Ok ok ok, growing up in the bosom of a hippie family, maybe I love HAIR a helluva lot more than you, and it may explain quite a bit about my steadfast refusal to let shears near my hair. But why this strikes me like HAIR has more to do with how this is a musical stuck in a cinematic reality. Like RENT, I’ve never seen HAIR performed on stage, but just like HAIR, there’s a part of me that just can not imagine how this was staged on a stage. I can’t imagine Anthony Rapp’s Mark Cohen not bicycling through the streets of New York singing, while Adam Pascal’s Roger Davis is in their grungy flat wondering how to heat their flat. This isn’t like MOULIN ROUGE or CHICAGO – this isn’t particularly “stagy” or “theatrical”. This belongs being discussed in that particular group of Broadway Musical adaptations that strive to bring the song and dance into the streets and air that we walk on and breathe in. Once again, that’s why I compare this to HAIR.

That both musicals took about 10 years to get to screen, and seemingly both had missed their window of “significance,” though with HAIR, by the time it hit theaters in 1979 – the tone of the country was pretty much trying to put the thought of Vietnam behind them. And I suppose you could say that today in America, we as a society are trying to legislate the reality of Gay America back into a closet somewhere instead of looking it dead in the eye and say, “Welcome to America, we’re the melting pot.”

Both HAIR and RENT at their heart are romances. The central romance of RENT, the one that pulls at the heartstrings is the love between Jesse L Martin’s Tom Collins and Wilson Jermaine Heredia’s Angel Schunard… and wow. There is a part of me that would just fucking love to see Wilson Jermaine Heredia pick up best supporting actress for his/her role of Angel Schunard. And Jesse L. Martin to pick up Supporting Actor for his Tom Collins. They originated the characters on Broadway – but I’m betting this performance has never been as intimate or beautiful as it was in this version. Seeing Tom and Angel walking down the New York street, Angel buying Tom a coat – the scene was beautiful and gorgeous and sumptuously New York looking in the way that Woody Allen’s ANNIE HALL made you want to fall in love. Forget that it’s two men in love, or a man and a glorious drag queen in love. It’s two human beings so obviously in love with one another in the gorgeous sunlight and turning leaves of New York. God… This sequence is so fucking beautiful. I have to admit though that Wilson's Angel did remind me of my step-uncle Charlie, who was a drag queen that died of AIDS in the early 90's. An absolutely wonderful soul. Wilson's Angel captures that odd beauty and love for life that I felt Charlie had.

Actually, I loved Stephen Goldblatt’s cinematography. It isn’t MGM like BATMAN & ROBIN, it’s closer to CLOSER. Rich colors, deep blacks, but these characters – while in a lovely shot environment… I guess I should mention Howard Cummings’ Production Design – which reminded me in ways of his work on THE USUAL SUSPECTS – as the decay of the city was very much in place. But in combination with Goldblatt’s camera – there was a very definite slightly heightened reality to it – but it felt absolutely perfect for them.

And I LOVE that they didn’t take the story out of 89-90. I could imagine someone arguing that the World Trade Center shot would be “distracting” and truthfully, it did briefly take me out of the film. Not in a negative way, but in a warm… remember when those buildings majestically stood out in the skyline of our greatest city? In the film, when they show… it’s like a brief defiant, “FUCK YOU” to those that tore them down. It isn’t meant for that I’m sure, but you can’t look at those buildings and not miss the America that existed while they stood. Certainly – while those buildings stood – we were focused, I feel, a bit more on the terror that was untimely removing people from our country. Sometime this year or next it’s likely that we’ll pass the unfortunate reality of a million Americans diagnosed with AIDS… and over 600,000 dead in the U.S. Personally, I’ve always felt we should focus on beating hell out of disease instead of adding to the death tolls of the world. And would love it if financially the U.S. prioritized it’s “DEFENSE SPENDING” to what is really killing Americans… CANCER, DIABETES, HEART DISEASE, CHRONIC RESPIRATORY DISEASE, ALZHEIMER’S, AIDS, etc… Ok… Ok… The movie. Sorry – there’s a political aspect of RENT that I can’t deny stirs this sort of thinking up.

Ok, so why should Hetero Men see RENT? Is there anything for you?

Well… How do I put this? You know how incredibly fucking hot ROSARIO DAWSON was in ALEXANDER or SIN CITY? That’s nothing on how absolutely drop dead whip it out and whack hot she is in this. HOLY SHIT! I’ve always thought Rosario Dawson was yumptious – but here… Well, this is the first time that she’s had a great character that also marries it with a commanding sensuality that’s just incredibly fucking hot. She plays a dancer at a strip club. No, she doesn’t get naked. But ohmygod does she know how to wear and move in clothes that sets the mind a pondering what lies beneath. But more than any of the actual tawdry or slutty scenes of her teasing her clientele at the Cat Scratch Club… what really makes her hot is when she’s not “performing” and is just flirtatious, alive and lost. There’s a sweetness and even though she should be seven miles from innocent, it’s there. There’s that lost girl quality that I loved about Darryl Hannah’s Pris that stirred thoughts for years… decades… ok, I’m still hot and bothered about her. BUT – about Rosario’s MIMI…

There’s a number called LIGHT MY CANDLE – that at one level is about getting her candle lit, that she’ll use to prep her heroin… but even more, it’s about her flirtatiously trying to get into Roger’s pants. And what’s really great about this scene – is – imagine you had a life threatening sexually transmitted disease, that you were a recovering addict that’d been clean for a little over a year – and in walks ROSARIO DAWSON with a baggie and craving sex. “Pop quiz Hot Shot, what do you do?” Heh. This scene has so much innuendo and tease and delightful flirtation… And it is beautifully shot. Roger is wounded physically, soulfully and mentally and in walks this vixen, that’s so alive, so completely alive, but she represents everything that he’s afraid of, but she’s everything he wants. The number is absolutely hot as they come. Rosario is just amazing in this scene.

Actually the film is filled with stunning scenes. LIGHT MY CANDLE was great, but then so were TANGO: MAUREEN, LA VIE BOHEME and I absolutely loved loved loved TAKE ME OR LEAVE ME. That’s the Lesbian tiff number – and Maureen’s sexed up all the way – and then in a really unexpected switch-hit of powerful sexual aggressiveness and power – Joanne becomes AMAZING.

At the end of the day, Columbus has done a really wonderful job on this film and he should be heralded for using so much of the original cast, something that too few actually do. And these actors and actresses know these parts so well that their singing seems like the most natural damn thing that you’ve ever seen.

How will this film play outside of the Urban areas, outside the Blue States? To be honest, I honestly haven’t a clue. I’d love for it to perform extremely well. One the music, the acting and the story are so damn good. The desire in Austin to see this movie was so rabid that even though there were two theaters in Austin playing it. Even though we had a big screening room at the Galaxy Highland 10, there was such a turn out that they had to schedule a second screening after ours for the spill over. THAT’S AWESOME. I’ve never seen that happen, I’ve seen them open a second screen, but never a screening after the primary. Very cool. Also at several points after many of the musical numbers the audience would applaud. But once again, this is Austin. Travis County – the only county in the state of Texas that actually voted against the Pro-Anti-Gay Marriage proposal that was up for “approval” here in Texas’ recent election. And specifically – the voting district that this theater was in voted 80% against the measure. SO – honestly – I can’t say how it’ll play. We had a person in the audience in Angel’s Christmas Drag Queen costume. Quite a contrast to me wearing all black for WALK THE LINE and all those kids in Harry Potter robes.

Obviously there’s a lot of folks out there that will absolutely hate this film. For political reasons. Because it’s a musical that is pretty much non-stop singing with very small dialogue moments. Just this side of opera. Then there’s people that just won’t be able to get past a feeling that the material is dated. However, Quint, Father Geek and I went in thinking we’d hate it – and we came out thinking the exact opposite. How does someone that really loved the Broadway musical like it? Well, my girl friend has been driving around listening to RENT – like the musical geek she is, and she came out really liking it. She knows the musical inside and out and ultimately was bugged by very small departures… mainly that it wasn’t 100% Singing like the original… And she wanted them to keep what happened to Roger’s original love, April and show it as they did on stage. When she told me how that plot point was handled on stage, I have to say – I think it would have given Roger even more pathos than he already had in this version, but ultimately I’m very glad this film got a PG 13. Mainly because I think the issues handled in the film are important to put in front of a new generation that haven’t seen or heard this musical.

This is a damn fine musical and I really want to see the stage production of it next time I’m in New York.