Best movie of this year hands down!

This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I was not into the whole singing side of things. I do agree that rent sucks. Both the rent in real life and the actual movie. I understand it was aimed at talking about everyone's painful history with drug addiction and hiv/aids however it wasn't a movie/play I could get into at all. I was completely bored for 2 and a half hours.

Well, i think i just understood my own taste in musicals a tiny bit better!My best guess for this movie is that it might help to have seen the stage play? For i myself went in blindfolded and boy did i trip on the way through... First the good stuff; i kinda liked the guy playing Roger. The character was unappealing to me - too whiny and brooding for my taste - but the actor did have a voice that i liked and he felt like the only one of the cast that put in emotion and power in his singing. I had an unpleasant feeling with the rest of them, like they were more interested in looking pretty and singing beautifully than conveying emotion, but this one kinda nailed it for me. - Joanne was great too. Good actress, beautiful voice, appealing character, and i have to mention, smoking hot. I liked her! - I liked three of the songs. Not bad for this one! I usually have a painful time trying to find music i like. - The sets were kinda nice in two or three places, especially the main apartment.Angel was a great character that i knew all too little about. The relationship between him and the guy with the hat and the Santa Fe- song was beautiful, despite a lack of buildup. I liked him, but had too little time with him to connect fully with the guy. - The theme. I love the idea to explore the world of bohemians, of unconventional people, of people with aids and how they deal with it emotionally - here thrown into a blender with music to make a movie with endless possibilities! The not so good stuff...1. Most of the songs felt bland and boring to me, with insanely uninteresting choreography and settings, performed by actors that did not put in all that much passion in it all. I felt like that all the way through the movie, with exception for the "One song glory" - the cold metal, huge city and desolate roof matched the theme of the song beautifully. But as for the rest... i'll give an example. Sorry, girl - showing your face between another girls legs and glaring at strangers is not empowering or meaningful here. It could have been, with some buildup - make those strangers explicit homophobes for example, not just random old white guys with money. In this context, it was mostly like a seventeen year old girl proclaiming "I am complex, you know! Look, i can even touch and kiss other girls! I am a girl whom likes girls! Those lesbian people only kiss other girls to get men turned on, right? Did i mention i was complex?!" 2. Most of the characters were bland, stupid, selfish or otherwise annoyed me. I guess Maureen was supposed to be somewhat likable but i kinda wished for her to die in a car accident all the way through... i got the impression of a selfish ... that was all too happy to have other people do everything for her. Get a job and get your head out of your backside, lady. Oh, and Joanne, God - you deserve so much better! Most of the others lacked any kind of grounded personality, so all i had left was my annoyance at those whining slackers.3. The overall message. I am a bit of a hippie myself but by god - Boo Hoo, we are being evicted after living rent free for two years, but screw you in the end because we do not need your charity, we are artists! Artists that haven't produced anything in over a year... GET A JOB YOU LAZY MORONS!!! The message kinda made me angry, yes... 4. A complete absence of any kind of red thread. So.. you saw your friend beneath your window, gave him the key, and show only slight annoyance at the fact that he then disappears for 14 hours? Alright, so you people know each other i guess... and i do not get any kind of emotional connection between a single one of you, you just tell me verbally how you feel about each other. Alright... I guess this Angel guy was the glue that kept all of you together even though you have never shown us that in any way. Sure... By they way, most of you have aids or are HIV-positive. It would have been kinda nice if you had established that Angel was further down the path to death than the rest of you, that way my reaction to his death might have been something more than "Eh?" 5. The songs were just... songs. In Wicked, Defying gravity is a powerful moment were Elphabas desires, frustration and situation finally streams out in a beautiful, powerful and inspiring scene. In Les Miserables, Who am i? is a song where Jean Valjean has to put the peace of his soul and his newfound good nature against his fear of once again going to prison. In Rent, well, some of the songs show how the characters feel - without any kind of buildup, making them lack any kind of punch or emotional impact for my part. My reaction varied from "Okay?" to "What the holy Broadway?" It is not enough for me to see Angel, April or anyone for that matter die - if i do not get a buildup, i will not react to it. And what the... was up with that candle lighting-song? 6. All around, huge wasted opportunity. A musical about a deadly tragic illness, love, trans and gay persons in the 80s, the bohemian life style. This could have been amazing. But for the reasons above, this whole thing completely misses the point for my part.

If you're not one of those weird theater-crazy hippy types then this movie probably won't be for you. Personally I don't like musicals that much to begin with, but there have been some that I've enjoyed despite that fact. The South Park movie and Sweeney Todd for example. This movie however made me want to never see a musical ever again. The songs are so clunky and just.. bad.. It's like you'd have to be on a butt load of pain killers to enjoy songs like Seasons of Love. Seasons of Love should be the theme song for the Mormon faith; it's so cheesy, uninspired, and makes you want to puke because it's so overly happy. "One Song Glory" makes me want to punch the nearest breathing thing in the throat. It is such an annoying song that it irritates me just writing about it. I don't remember a whole lot about the story since its been a few years since I've seen this movie. Mostly that everyone has AIDS and owes rent money from last year. Also that guy wants to write a good song so he'll be known after he dies of AIDS. Other than that I got nothing. It was boring and painful to watch.

I love musicals, I have seen a lot. But this one.... Holy guacamole, it has the worst cast i have ever seen! They can't act, and they don't sing well. Even if they had chosen great actors/singers, the music is atrocious, and the lyrics are even more.... with the exception of a few songs. The storyline is not well construct and kinda boring. I don't think it brings a good light on the subject it was suppose to talk about. I am amazed that it has a 6.9 out of ten... i guess i don't have the same taste as the rest of the world.This is definitely not a movie i would recommend to a friend or a customer ( i work in a Movie rental store).