OMG!  WORST movie of all time... RENT!

AHHHHHHH, I've wasted two hours of my life watching the most atrocious movie ever, the film adaptation of the musical Rent.

Why, oh why?

I thought even as a straight guy that I had a pretty good soft spot for musicals...but this was terrible. The songs were just complete rubbish. My ears were in some serious pain. Every time someone started singing, it just sounded like they were making sh!t up off the top of their heads, nothing clever, no good wordplay. And the melodies were nonexistent.

And the characters were awful cutouts of stereotypes of possibly the most annoying people on the planet. I just realized what it is that I LOVE about living in St. Louis...NO FREAKIN' PERFORMANCE ART!!! I know I tend to be a bit conservative, which let's face it is truly as rebellious as one can be nowadays, but the implied morals to the story were just wicked. I'm not even gonna start in on what all I found offensive to anyone with a brain, but jeez, it was all so ridiculous. The moral of the story is what? People are supposed to live rent free and not sell out to the man? Aren't these people a little OLD to be pushing the whole Bohemian thing? That deer-in-headlights Eric Stoltz wannabe with the camera was supposed to be the conscience of the play? OMG. And then the drag queen Angel... I'd love to be able to call myself an artist by sitting around beating on a plastic bucket with drumsticks.

I could go on but I think that film MAY have done me in...

There are just so many things about Rent that rubbed me the wrong way...I couldn't stop thinking about it at work tonight.

First off, the whole obsession with the homeless as being some hallowed class. And the same for those with HIV. As if none of either of those groups is in any way responsible for the predicament they are in. There is almost a kind of contempt for those who have homes and for those who don't have HIV. It's really a message that gets tiresome. It's just like every X-mas and Thanksgiving, every local news channel has to show a bunch of footage of homeless shelters etc, just to try to make everyone feel bad for "having so much." Go to hell! I work hard for a living. It may be waiting tables, but I still support myself and I am insulted by the notion that by somehow being able to sustain myself, that I am in some way causing someone else to starve. It's nutty. Like my NOT having HIV is offensive to those living with the disease. That's the vibe I get from some of the more pious scenes in Rent.

And as for my waiting tables... Duh, that's what struggling artists are SUPPOSED to do! What's up with these tards in Rent who have no talent, yet are above taking a menial job to pay the much maligned R*nt? That's what galls me. The guy who wants to be a rockstar does nothing but sit around playing garage band chords on his guitar (complete with the patented D major suspended 4th pinky thing at the third fret that all beginners do when they try to write a song...That's for the musicians reading this) and taking a year to write a song... AND living rent free! I wanted to scream at him to get a damn waiter job!


A few of them had jobs...The teacher, the lawyer, the stripper- good for them. But overall, the theme of this play is that we're supposed to be a bunch of perpetual children into our thirties. I really wanted to yank these self-important douches into a theater and show them films of the sacrifices our young men and women made in World War II. Hey, I'll admit I never did much for my country outside of being a nice guy...but God, somebody stick a pacifier in the mouths of every character in Rent.

Well...except one. I actually sympathized with Taye Diggs character. Am I the only one who thought he was the only reasonable person in the film? As much as they tried to portray him as the bad guy, I thought he had the right idea.

I think Oscar Wilde said something once along the lines of "Ambition is the last refuge of those who have no talent" I think it sums up the characters in Rent and also the whole play itself.

I need to see "Urinetown" to wash the taste of Rent out of my mouth!