Rent – The Drinking Game

“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.

Comments

[Sandrah B]

One question: why are you guys so mean?

[Gary Rebis]

My mother made me watch that movie in the theater. It goes on forever. I remember sitting in my seat just dreading the next song.

[Becky]

Since when have musicals EVER made any sense?

The reason RENT was so well recieved back when it was first released off-off Broadway in NYC in the early early nineties is that it was written by a guy who actually lived in the Lower East Side who died tragically of a heart attack before RENT ever blew up. It's an unfinished symphony. With all its flaws, it's a love story to its author, essentially.

[Mustache]

Because you're a fucking moron, Sandrah B, because you're a fucking moron.

Rent is based on Puccini's opera La Boheme, it is not an original story. It's only originality is how colossally bad it is.
Hilarious description of it though

[mac]

hahahahaha! that's one of the best drinking games ever!!!!

[ellen]

the protest bit is so bad i had to fast forward cause i was squirming with mortification.

[CC]

dude, when maurine started mooing i nearly pissed my pants.

oh and don't forget the sucking noise.

[Rory]

I remember not understanding the free rent offer when my girlfriend made me watch this piece of shit last year. The Taye Diggs character offered them free NYC loft rent for life! I would have assasinated Maurine if that's what he wanted. Or at least pay people to kidnap her. Or, at the very very very least take her on a road trip or something and pretend you ran out of gas or got lost and make it so they can't get back.
By the way. He didn't die before it was finished. He died the night before it SCREENED. That piece of shit had his FINISHED stamp of approval on it. Who decides what gets a pulitzer prize?

[SHABAZZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]

musical theatre is the last refuge of the fucking jerry. I haven't seen it but I will now, and although I can imagine that the people from the broadway show are the worst offenders in Rent, why is Rosario Dawson even in movies?

thanks larry clark you piece of ox shit. OK she was great in KIDS because of what happened to her in it, but she is always - always - shit in movies. In Sin City she's supposed to come across all bad assness but instead comes across all bad actress. did anyone see Josie In The Pussy Cats on a plane? there is some highgrade lipstick thesbianism in that devised piece of shit. what about Pluto Nash? 25th Hour? Alexander? besides Sin City and maybe one other one I can't think of she's never been in a good movie, she's like a sloe eyed tranquilized bad film omen... she's like the female version of Alan Cumming - another asskisser and party circuit neighbourhood bicycle made good (no good)

every time Dawson opens her mouth and some of that NYC barrio via hamptons via over-blowing her way onto the casting couch raspy moron drawl dribbles out the terrorists hate our freedom. pack it in dopey eyes

[sytles magillicutty]

Sandrah - shut the fuck up.

[544]

You are not going to believe this
http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Movies/11/23/review.rent/index.html

[544]

whoa, I just researched that reviewer to see if he was gay and I found out, not only is he gay but he just died
http://www.nlgja-la.com/

[Nicholas Gazin]

Rent is gay wish fulfillment. "La la la, I'm making bad art but all my friends tell me it's good! Tra la! La! I'm dying of AIDS and all my friends are either starving or junkies but we all look pretty great!" (That was a song that got cut from the final draft of the script.)

A musical that's also pretty twisted is Grease. John Travolta pretends to be a tough guy but the straight laced Olivia Newton John causes his guido act to melt away. They try to make a relationship work but Travolta just can't not act like a thug in public. He eventually gives in and becomes a prepster only to find that his love itnerest is wearing leather pant, make up and taken up smoking. They sing a horny song and then drive a car into Heaven where they presumably sit at the right hand of God and cast squares into the lake of fire, yea verily. The first time I viewed this movie at eleven years old I was immediately weirded out that the moral seemed to be, "Don't be yourself, you're boring." I guess all awkward pre-teen girls all want to be femme fatales and enslave John Travolta.

[Hella]

Rent is the baddest movie i ve ever seen... watch it. funny article tho... johnatan larson s fuckin bad

see guys, AIDS IS funny!

[Flavius Josephus II]

I think it's funny to criticize a musical for having mistakes in it, when this rambling incoherent article is full of mistakes.
Just one example, the Spike Lee line (which should not be in quotations, because it is paraphrased)comes during "Light My Candle" not "I should Tell you." If your going to criticize something, do a little bit of research, not just drunkenly watch something once.
I think there's a lot of bad crap in the movie too. But I like the music. And the singing is conversation because it is supposed to be like an opera.
Who runs this piece of shit?

[rx]

manotick! ha. brilliant.

[Frances]

My experience with Rent made me realize that winning awards doesn't necessarily mean shit. I blindly went to see Rent on Broadway (big mistake), and had two immediate reactions to the musical: during the first half I kept thinking, "What the fuck is going on?" During the second half I started to chant to my self, "Please end!" I hated Rent for personal reasons above and beyond the fact that it just plain sucks. Most of my friends are delusional, asshole drug addicts with no money and who have serious problems paying bills. Rent glorifies these people and their shitty sense of entitlement. It fucking sucks getting the electricity turned off and then having your douchebag roommate give you some attitude about it (as their way of acknowledging that it was their fault). If you like Rent, then you probably haven't had to contend with such characters in real life.

ha i didnt even read it cos its huge
wak

[foxymama8600]

i like the musical buit the movie was way to long. Plus, they cut like half the secong half and didn't do justice to the stage production.

[Zoe]

OK, this comment is coming from a pretty big fan of RENT: your description of the movie is completely accurate and made me laugh out loud. Honestly.

Thank you for being blunt, honest and hilariously funny. :-D

[jesusismagic]

the movie was bad. it had its high moments, but all in all it was bad - it didn't know what it wanted to be. it could have disregarded all the gritty aspects and just been a brainless romantic comedy type movie about relationships. it could have been the gritty almost disturbing version of the film about the underworld of new york. it could have been a testament to art and, though they're fools who don't have jobs and don't have futures, are living for what they believe in.

instead we got bits and pieces of all three which dont combine too well together so it ends up as if we have young artists (really we're only implied to know so, never really shown) who have aids (but they don't really ever mourn the disease - even the funeral scene was a yawn) who do drugs and get sick from withdrawel (but only for the sad montages because god forbid we keep the whole movie dark).

the play, albeit, is an acquired taste. i love the music, and see it for the vocal performances. the plot is only told through the performances, but not in any sort of tradionl theatre style but more like a concert. we all know that, but is the problem with this movie the way it was presented or the source material? to me, yes, the play has some flaws and its boring moments and tends to dwell on some ridiculous songs that add absolutely nothing to the story.

but do you think if the movie had concentrated more on the dark aspects of new york at the time with less emphasis on 'look at my awesome dance moves hoo-ray for rent' and more on the depressing yet more cinematic aspects of disease and homelessness that it would have been a better flick?

basically if you see chicago on stage, it's tripe. it's an acquired taste again, you have to love the songs and have a love for the presentation. but the movie is fantastic. it tells a plot and doesn't glorify in anyway murder or stealing or deception, but presents it in a cynical but logical light.

could rent have been like that? the pretentious references to disease and the arts handled in a dark and gritty manner to be a testament to a time period rather than a group of seven college dropouts?

[jessica]

i'm sitting here laughing my ass off at this review only because of the number of mistakes. if you want a drinking game, it should be find the amount of errors in the article, not the movie! if you're going to review a film, at least get the dialogue that you're mocking right.

[kate]

haha, brilliant review of a shite film