Rent (Fullscreen Two-Disc Special Edition)
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Jesse L Martin, Rosario DawsonBrand: SONY PICTURES HOME ENT
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Color, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Special Edition, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 135 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-02-21
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Product features:
- Condition: New
- Format: DVD
- Special Edition; Color; Dubbed; DVD; Subtitled; NTSC
Movie Reviews of Rent (Fullscreen Two-Disc Special Edition)
Movie Review: Jonathan Larson's Powerful Musical With Energy Intact and Not as Dated as Feared
Summary: 5 Stars
Suffice it to say that the movie version of "Rent", nine years after it exploded on Broadway, delivers the goods in late 2005. That in itself is no small feat since its then-topicality brings the story a somewhat tainted 1990's time capsule feel. Credit needs to go to director Chris Columbus, who has the audacity to bring back six of the eight original cast members and does surprisingly little to alter the story structure for the screen. The late Jonathan Larson's energetic, hook-heavy music is what made the show so memorable to me when I saw it during its first year in New York, and the now-familiar score still maintains its searing drive as it flows through the episodic story of almost starving artists living in the squalor of Manhattan's Alphabet City in 1989 with the AIDS epidemic running rampant (currently the neighborhood is going through significant urban renewal). In fact, four of the eight main characters are HIV-positive, and this makes the story resonate as much as the vital music does today.
Having the cast return to roles they originated nearly a decade earlier when they epitomized twenties angst is a risky move as the characters would seem to be less compelling inhabited by actors now in their mid-thirties. As it turns out, age is not the issue versus the ability of the actors to generate the excitement they did onstage. Their contributions at minimum are solid and effervescent with some standing out, for example, Anthony Rapp as Mark Cohen, the geeky documentary filmmaker who records the lives of his friends with candor and regret. Jesse L. Martin - he of the dazzling smile and honey-coated baritone - seems genuinely liberated from years of button-down civility on "Law and Order" to play computer programmer Tom Collins smitten with drag queen Angel portrayed with unbridled pride and poignancy by Wilson Jermaine Heredia. Martin's and Heredia's giddy duet, "I'll Cover You", is full of such romantic fervor that other more traditional couplings can only aspire to such dizzying heights.
Idina Menzel plays the bisexual performance artist Maureen Johnson with real brio though she seems a bit over-the-top even when not performing her supposedly avant-garde work, "Over the Moon". Despite nailing his passionate solo, "One Song Glory", Adam Pascal looks somewhat lost in his portrayal of Roger Davis, the tortured singer-songwriter who begrudgingly falls for Mimi Marquez, the borderline junkie/exotic dancer downstairs. With her saucer eyes and flirty demeanor, Rosario Dawson replaces original Daphne Rubin-Vega as Mimi, and she turns out to be an excellent choice, showing off unseen singing and dancing skills within the context of the most screen-savvy performance of the cast. She does an appropriately saucy turn on the showstopper, "Out Tonight". Rounding out the principal cast are another newcomer, Tracie Thoms, a belter who plays Maureen's lover yuppie lawyer Joanne Jefferson (and consequently wails with immaculate bravura the bridge to the show's most famous song, "Seasons of Love"), and Taye Diggs, who manages to make the most of the relatively thankless role of Benny Coffin.
No matter the variability of the acting, everyone sings with glorious power, a fact made clear at the outset by Columbus, who smartly has them sing "Seasons of Love" in the manner it was introduced onstage with spotlights on a darkened stage. He also takes cinematic liberties which work in some of the numbers retranslated into the film, such as "Light My Candle", "Tango: Maureen" and "Take Me As I Am". Some like the centerpiece ensemble, "La Vie Boheme", work almost the same way they did on stage with its sheer exuberance intact. Some scenes don't work as well, for example, "What You Own" where Roger is literally living out the symbolic lyrics in Santa Fe. With its more naturalistic tone in spite of the numerous breaks into song and dance, the movie reminds me less of Robert Wise's and Jerome Robbins' adaptation of "West Side Story" than of Milos Forman's take on "Hair". Be forewarned that those who loved the stage version are the ones who will most be in thrall over the film version. That would include me.
Summary of Rent (Fullscreen Two-Disc Special Edition)
IN NEW YORK'S EAST VILLAGE, A GROUP OF BOHEMIANS STRUGGLE TOEXPRESS THEMSELVES THROUGH THEIR ART & STRIVE FOR SUCCESS & ACCEPTANCE WHILE ENDURING THE OBSTACLES OF POVERTY, ILLNESS & THE AIDS EPIDEMIC.Rent, the show that in 1996 gave voice to a Broadway generation, has finally become an energetic, passionate, and touching movie musical. Based loosely on Puccini's La Bohème, it focuses on the year in the life of a group of friends in New York's East Village--"bohemians" who live carefree lives of art, music, sex, and drugs. Well, carefree until Mark, an aspiring filmmaker (Anthony Rapp), and Roger, an aspiring songwriter (Adam Pascal), find out they owe a year's rent to Benny (Taye Diggs), a former friend who had promised them free residence when he married the landlord's daughter. Roger has also attracted the attention of his downstairs neighbor, Mimi (Rosario Dawson), while Mark's former girlfriend, Maureen (Idina Menzel), has found a new romance in a lawyer named Joanne (Tracie Thoms). Philosophy professor Tom (Jesse L. Martin) finds his soul mate in drag queen Angel (Wilson Jermaine Heredia). But because this is the late-'80s, the threat of AIDS is always present.
The remarkable thing about Rent the movie is that nearly 10 years after the show debuted on Broadway, six of the eight principals return in the roles they originated. They're a bit older than would be ideal for their characters, but they do have the advantage of having learned the show directly from creator Jonathan Larson (who died of an aortic aneurysm while the show was in previews), plus they started young--we're not exactly talking Sarah Brightman and Michael Crawford here. Alongside a polished performance like Rapp's--sometimes observer-commentator, sometimes participant in two of the score's showstoppers, "The Tango Maureen" and "La Vie Boheme"--the two new additions (Thoms in place of Fredi Walker, Dawson in place of the edgier Daphne Rubin-Vega) slip comfortably into the ensemble; the pivotal Dawson makes a seductive case as Mimi when she tempts Roger in the mesmerizing "Light My Candle" or burns up the stage of the Catscratch Club in "Out Tonight." Moviegoers who have an aversion to people who break into song while walking down the street probably won't have their minds changed by Rent (even if they are singing rock songs), and the gritty subject matter and lack of big-name stars make it unlikely to cross over to general audiences the way Chicago did. But fans of musicals should find "Seasons of Love" as stirring as ever, and the show's passionate admirers--the "Rentheads"--probably couldn't have wished for a more sympathetic director than Rent fan Chris Columbus, or a more faithful representation of the show they love. --David Horiuchi
On the DVD
Three powerful musical numbers cut from the final film are the highlight of the two-disc DVD. In the aftermath of the funeral scene, Anthony Rapp sings "Halloween," and he, Adam Pascal, and Rosario Dawson share "Goodbye Love" (both songs were in the stage version). Then in an alternate ending, the cast finishes "No Day But Today" on the bare stage on which the film began. There are worthwhile arguments for why these scenes were cut or replaced, so it's fortunate that the DVD lets us see these at all. Those musical numbers have optional commentary by director Chris Columbus, Rapp, and Pascal (two other cut scenes have no commentary), including one funny moment in which Rapp explains in great detail the technical challenge of shooting "Halloween" only to have Columbus say, "Yeah, but I don't know if that's the take we used." The three also provide commentary on the film itself, with Columbus discussing various decisions, criticizing the critics, and marveling "I still don't know how we got the PG-13," and Rapp and Pascal occasionally recalling differences in the stage version.
The other whopper of a feature is No Day But Today, a nearly two-hour documentary that uses video clips, still photographs, and interviews with family and friends to celebrate the short life of Jonathan Larson and his creation. Topics include his early interest in musical theater ("I want to write the Hair for the '90s."), the support of Stephen Sondheim, the impact of the AIDS epidemic, the long and difficult road of Rent (casting the show, Larson learning to collaborate, the transfer to a Broadway stage, and the Rentheads), and Larson's tragic death. The last 20 minutes covers the making of the film, director Chris Columbus, the decision to rely on most of the original cast (the only two principals who didn't appear in the movie, Daphne Rubin-Vega and Fredi Walker-Browne, are interviewed in earlier segments, but only mentioned in passing here), recording sessions, and location shooting. If the movie of Rent was a tribute to Jonathan Larson, the DVD is all that and more, a moving and incredibly detailed look at an extraordinary talent whom the world lost far too soon. --David Horiuchi
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