I’ve been pretty sick all week. I missed two days of school and I’m sleeping a ton. Sujal has taken very good care of me, which is why I told him whatever he wants to do this weekend, we’re on. Being that I am still sick and he’s on call, he chose for us to watch “Rent” — which he brought home on DVD last night. I wasn’t thrilled about seeing it in the theater, nor was I thrilled about watching it at home. Sujal loves both the staged musical and the film, and you can read his review here.
I’m not sure what it is, but I tend not to really like musicals that much. They seem hoaky to me. There are exceptions. I really liked Les Miserables. I also like Oklahoma!, though I think I mainly like it for its kitsch factor. Of course I grew up on Grease. Watching Rent, I first felt like the singing and dancing trivialized the subject. I watched Angels in America about 2 years ago, and I really liked that. They have a somewhat similar story. I think I am much more into narrative, a real story with solid character development. I liked to be intrigued by interesting storytelling. Yes, you can do that with a musical, but the singing and dancing gets in the way for me…
I did really like the scene with the song “La Vie Boheme”. Visually it was fun and it’s a great song. I did Enjoy watching Chicago and I really like Moulin Rouge. I don’t know. Rent is growing on me a bit, but I don’t share Sujal’s love of it.
We late check out some links to the writer, Jonathan Larson, which was interesting. Wikipedia‘s entry on him is informative. There are cool connections to his life. Frankly, as we watched the flic, I kept wondering who wrote this and why. I figured that the writer must have had strong ties to the Village, to AIDS, to homosexuals, to being broke. It was also cool to learn the musical’s connection to La Boheme, and while I know next to nothing of opera, it made me more intrigued.
The Connecticutian 