"Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes. Five hundred twenty-five thousand moments so dear. Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes. How do you measure, measure a year? In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights in cups of coffee. In inches, in miles in laughter in strife. In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes - how do you measure a year in the life? How about love? How about love? How about love? Measure in love… seasons of love."Has anyone seen the Pulitzer Prize winning musical Rent? We had a screening of it the other night because we'd been curious about it ever since Team America did that spoof where they go, "My grandma has AIDS. Everybody has AIDS. AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS." Well guess what. It is way worse than you could ever imagine in your wildest dreams. Is it bad enough to be good? No, it's better. It's so bad it's fascinating. If you do a drinking game where every mistake or absurd notion means you have to have a sip, your beer will never touch the coffee table.
Let's start with the plot: the heroes (one with AIDS of course) live in a gigantic loft in the East Village. They haven't paid rent in over a year and the landlord wants it soon. That's right. The landlord let about $66,000 go unpaid. Not only is he willing to write off the debt, he's willing to allow them to live there forever, rent free, if they can just please stop this "performance protest" from happening. The performance protest is a thing where a chick named Maureen gets on stage and sings in heavily laden metaphors about gentrification and how evil it is. The shows are free but judging by the TVs in the background and the motorbike she rides in on and the explosions and the blah blah blah it must cost about $50,000 to put on. Why the fuck do the landlords give a shit about this so-called protest? Because they want to build a cyber media center on the block and one of her idiotic songs makes a strange reference to cyber stuff that could be construed as negative. Towards the end of the performance she asks the audience to "Moo" like a cow with her. Not sure why but the moo thing drives "the man" crazy and the landlords send in the cops to break it up.
Anyway, the landlords offered our heroes free rent forever if they would try to stop this protest. That's, what, $66,000 times another 35 years? That's over two million dollars. Why didn't they even consider asking her not to do her cow show?
After the performance everyone goes to 7B and the landlords are at the next table. What the fuck are they doing at 7B after this supposed anti-landlord musical performance protest? Tension ensues and so does a massive dance off. Get this. It's been at least an hour and a half by now and the movie has barely begun. There's about 135 sub plots they have to carry out.
Like the AIDS guy from the loft who is being chased by Rosario Dawson. He can't love her back because of his AIDS. At one point he gets so mad at her for coming by he sings, "Who do you think you are / crashing in on me and my guitar?" Towards the end (finally) he discovers she has AIDS too and there's this super romantic music and it gets all lovey because they both have AIDS. You have never seen two people more jazzed about having a fatal disease. An amazing lyric that comes out during this scene is she goes, "The moon is bright tonight" and he sings, "Maybe not, I heard Spike Lee is shooting a movie down the street." A lot of the songs don't rhyme by the way. They're just sing talking.
Another great romance is when the guy from Law and Order comes by to visit the loft and gets the shit beaten out of him by thugs. Instead of going upstairs after the mugging (he was at their front door!) he sits there in an alley, contemplating his cruel fate until a beautiful drag queen (who later makes $1,000 killing a dog for a rich lady) rescues him.
The main guy of the movie is the worst by light years. He is the personification of the Village Voice and spends the entire movie capturing everything on a Bolex because he's so broke that's all he can afford (that film is like $100 for one minute by the way). He films AIDS meetings and moo riots and, of course, endless songs. Unfortunately for him and his artistic vision the mainstream media loves his footage and he becomes a major network cameraman and Maureen becomes his "agent." Oooooh kaaaaaye.
This movie is exactly what your big sister thought New York was like when she was grounded and you sat on her bed and she cried and promised you she was going to move there one day and show them but, of course, she never did because she met Graham and they moved to Manotick and had Darren. It is two and a half hours of being in a 13 year-old girl's brain only with way more terrible songs and way more AIDS. Don't rent it—buy it. We promise you won't regret it.
Let's start with the plot: the heroes (one with AIDS of course) live in a gigantic loft in the East Village. They haven't paid rent in over a year and the landlord wants it soon. That's right. The landlord let about $66,000 go unpaid. Not only is he willing to write off the debt, he's willing to allow them to live there forever, rent free, if they can just please stop this "performance protest" from happening. The performance protest is a thing where a chick named Maureen gets on stage and sings in heavily laden metaphors about gentrification and how evil it is. The shows are free but judging by the TVs in the background and the motorbike she rides in on and the explosions and the blah blah blah it must cost about $50,000 to put on. Why the fuck do the landlords give a shit about this so-called protest? Because they want to build a cyber media center on the block and one of her idiotic songs makes a strange reference to cyber stuff that could be construed as negative. Towards the end of the performance she asks the audience to "Moo" like a cow with her. Not sure why but the moo thing drives "the man" crazy and the landlords send in the cops to break it up.
Anyway, the landlords offered our heroes free rent forever if they would try to stop this protest. That's, what, $66,000 times another 35 years? That's over two million dollars. Why didn't they even consider asking her not to do her cow show?
After the performance everyone goes to 7B and the landlords are at the next table. What the fuck are they doing at 7B after this supposed anti-landlord musical performance protest? Tension ensues and so does a massive dance off. Get this. It's been at least an hour and a half by now and the movie has barely begun. There's about 135 sub plots they have to carry out.
Like the AIDS guy from the loft who is being chased by Rosario Dawson. He can't love her back because of his AIDS. At one point he gets so mad at her for coming by he sings, "Who do you think you are / crashing in on me and my guitar?" Towards the end (finally) he discovers she has AIDS too and there's this super romantic music and it gets all lovey because they both have AIDS. You have never seen two people more jazzed about having a fatal disease. An amazing lyric that comes out during this scene is she goes, "The moon is bright tonight" and he sings, "Maybe not, I heard Spike Lee is shooting a movie down the street." A lot of the songs don't rhyme by the way. They're just sing talking.
Another great romance is when the guy from Law and Order comes by to visit the loft and gets the shit beaten out of him by thugs. Instead of going upstairs after the mugging (he was at their front door!) he sits there in an alley, contemplating his cruel fate until a beautiful drag queen (who later makes $1,000 killing a dog for a rich lady) rescues him.
The main guy of the movie is the worst by light years. He is the personification of the Village Voice and spends the entire movie capturing everything on a Bolex because he's so broke that's all he can afford (that film is like $100 for one minute by the way). He films AIDS meetings and moo riots and, of course, endless songs. Unfortunately for him and his artistic vision the mainstream media loves his footage and he becomes a major network cameraman and Maureen becomes his "agent." Oooooh kaaaaaye.
This movie is exactly what your big sister thought New York was like when she was grounded and you sat on her bed and she cried and promised you she was going to move there one day and show them but, of course, she never did because she met Graham and they moved to Manotick and had Darren. It is two and a half hours of being in a 13 year-old girl's brain only with way more terrible songs and way more AIDS. Don't rent it—buy it. We promise you won't regret it.