Kathy and I just watch Rent via Netflix.
WOW! I mean that in many ways both positive and negative.
The music was fabulous from top to bottom. The music itself evoked immense emotion throughout every song. The lyrics were at times every day sort of dialog (ok, every day sort of dialog that inner city folks might have) and at other times penetration and deep. The vocal performances of the singers was out of this world – I mean WOW again. These men and women can sing. The combination made things that were different and at times uncomfortable to think about from my every day mainstream world – things like a tremendous love song between two men, and various other songs about aids, poverty and homelessness.
The story was kind of depressing but at least not off the deep end. In fact, I expected at the end that someone else might die and they took a different tact perhaps to lighten the story up a bit. I know the nature of aids, poverty, drug use, homelessness and other issues plaguing the inner city or foreign to my middle class and mainstream world.
In the end, with all the good stuff going for this movie and I know this probably makes me a bit small, I didn’t like it because I prefer my movies about things that ultimately uplift me (action, adventure, comedy, romance, drama too but ultimately with a uplifting end). There were many elements in this musical that were perfect but the story got in the way for me (though only mildly so cause I didn’t hate it).