The best problem all week

[browngirl]

The problem with a chunk of completely unscheduled time is scheduling it, figuring out what all to do with it. There are some things I'd like to get done, I'd like to have something to show for this weekend even if only to myself. And, you know, the clock is always ticking.

But be that as it may.

"How do you measure, measure a life? Measure in love..."

Right now I'm watching RENT instead, and, oh, I love this musical so much, in such an adolescent way. I had meant to watch it while doing something else as well, but I'm pretty much sitting here singing along with all the lovesongs to New York in all her grit and glitter, to dreams and despair, to hope on the edge of darkness. This end-of-the-millenium gloss on the eternal theme of the beautiful and passionate and doomed.

"How can you connect in an age when strangers, landlords, lovers, your own blood cells betray?"

When I first saw the movie I loved everything in it from the musical and was kind of disappointed in some of Mr. Columbus' interpretations, but this go round I think it actually works that they speak things they sang in the stage production, and I like some of the rearranging of the time frame. Not to mention how the camera follows Mark into and out of everything, and Roger when Mark's not onscreen. (Oh, man, Mark and Roger.) It says something that our most POV character is the "one of us to survive", the filmmaker boy from the suburbs who'll have this as memories and stories when half the characters have died, but considering what he demonstrates of the complex relationship between observing life and living it, I don't think I entirely mind. I still miss some of the songs, but "Christmas Bells" is the kind of giant everyone-in-the-cast-sings scene that must have seemed redundant with "La vie Boheme" coming up. And they couldn't've put in "Contact" anyway (even with what they put in in "Out Tonight", the strip club and all).

"Like Thelma and Louise did when they got the blues, swan dove into the courtyard of the Gracie Mews."

What was I on about? "Today 4 You" came on, and I can't stay still during that song. Fortunately no one is home to watch me dancing like an idiot. I might get older, but in some ways I'm never growing up, and that's just fine.

"Forget regret, or life is yours to miss."

(Oh, and did I mention I worship Rosario Dawson?)

Comments

[awfief.livejournal.com]

I netflixed the movie and absolutely loved it. I'm a RENT-head too, though a private one, not an internet whore. I didn't have many problems with the interpretations, but it's just such a well-written musical that I guess it's hard to screw up. I didn't even have a problem with the characters' ages; I guess that's because I'm so used to watching movies and TV shows where 30-year-olds play teens anyway.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

*laugh* Yeah, the 30-year-old teenagers! But, then, most of them originated these roles on Broadway, I figure they deserved to play them in the movie.

[valkyrwench.livejournal.com]

I watched that movie one time, and it absolutely undid me. I had to leave the room after the credits and cry. I can't watch it.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I hear you; one good thing about watching at home is being able to stop the movie and cry.

If I were into planning my own funeral, I would request that "I'll cover you" be sung at it.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

indeed, I made someone who owed me a favour go to see it with me in Toronto; I knew I'd be ticked off at bits of Columbus' directing, but it doesn't matter, it's Rent. I warned him that I was calling on him to come with me because he was one of the few people I can cry around, and I knew I'd be crying during it, and he sort of blinked at me, but indulged me.

I got to the title card (no people had even showed up yet!) when I started tearing because the story speaks to me so viscerally.