Show Rent some pillows and a foot rest because this movie is really long Stacie Peart The Globe Chris Columbus took a break from the popular Harry Potter movie franchise to direct the f film m adaptation of Rent The popular Pulitzer and Tony Award winning musical about Bohemians in the East Village of New York City is itself an adaptation of the opera Le Boheme With no prior Rent exposure I quickly found that the story takes a ahard ahard ahard hard look at subjects like homosexuality homosexuality homosexuality AIDS and drug abuse at the end of the in New York City The films release was perfectly timed with World AIDS Day While I am usually an admirer of musicals I found Rent to be too long to sit through in a movie theater On Broadway theater attendees expect to be detained for around three hours however this was too much for a film Well maybe just this f film m. m Rent brought back most of theo the o original ginal stage cast and all of its key issues to the big screen Original cast members Taye Diggs Benny Wilson Jermaine Heredia Angel Jesse L. L Martin Collins Idina Menzel Maureen Adam Pascal Roger and Anthony Rapp Mark returned to their then original roles Audiences will find some of the actors recognizable Martin was brought into American households through his stint on the popular TV show Law Order Rosario Dawson has been also making a name for herself on the big screen by taking roles in films such as Sin City and Men in Black 2 Diggs began his film C career reer with the break break- out role in How Stella Got Her Groove but also used his musical talent for the 2002 to stage-to-screen hit Chicago Anthony Rapp also made madea a mark for himself in f films ms like Adventures in Babysitting and School Ties Rent begins with all nine main mam characters singing Seasons of Love a song that has hounded every moviegoer for weeks during its heavy rotation on the overhead movie theater music systems The film then fades into the actual story which is loaded with dialog and singing While I found the cast well chosen for their then amazing ability to sing and express the emotions that the songs needed to carry the story I found the plot d. d Its It's a group of people who are friends or friends of a friend Rent takes the audience through about two years of the groups group's lives Without first fast seeing the Broadway musical I have no way to compare the two however from past experience experience experience ence seeing Phantom both on onstage onstage onstage stage and on screen I hope that theon the theon theon on stage version is better than the film While the actors were able to kind of pull the audience into the story with the power and conviction of their voices I began to get really tired of the goofy lyrics and a story that lugged on for an hour too long This is latest in hi a long series of musical flicks to take up residence at atthe atthe atthe the local theater since the success of Baz Luhrman's Moulin Rouge Hollywood seems bound and determined determined determined deter deter- mined to remake every Broadway hit into a film whether is should be or not If youre you're a music fan and want to see a great movie Id I'd suggest you go and see Walk the Line This film I t r 1 r s 1 LT 1 av r j 1 I I I i AL r t u a a aa a rJ r- r E I- I J u Rent gives a look at the late New York City Rosario Rosarlo Dawson plays Mimi a sas sassy y stripper at a night club L arama orama music and and even a little romance to the screen Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon had to not only learn to sing for the film but they had to learn to sing like the legendary musicians musicians musicians musi musi- they were portraying Its It's a farb far b better picture and can appeal to a wider audience Those who decide to ignore my warning should be prepared to sit for fora a while since any musical adapted from Broadway to a film version of the story doesn't cut much from the original script If fact its it's likely more was was was' added to the film in the transition to the big bi screen R Rent Refit bt Is tat fated t 13 LPG I |