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 enlarge | Directors: Chris Columbus, Jeffrey Schwarz
Actors: Taye Diggs, Wilson Jermaine Heredia, Rosario Dawson, Anthony Rapp, Adam Pascal
Studio: Sony Pictures
Category: DVD
List Price: $19.94
Buy Used: $4.50
You Save: $15.44 (77%)
New (43) Used (67) Collectible (2) from $4.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  376 reviews
Sales Rank: 2823
Format: Ac-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Dvd-video, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), French (Dubbed)
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Number Of Items: 2
Running Time: 135
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: COLD11155D
UPC: 043396111554
EAN: 0043396111554
ASIN: B000E1YVZU
Theatrical Release Date: November 23, 2005
Release Date: February 21, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Boredom defined. January 18, 2008
2 out of 10 found this review helpful
Non-stop self-righteous whining. The story would be embarrassing for a 15-year-old to have written; the songs would be bad for an 8-year-old. Nothing makes a bit of sense even from the point of view of the movie. Not one character is worthy of any interest--they all love themselves so much, you don't have to. 2 and a quarter hours feels like 525,600 minutes.
A Great adaptation...but with some flaws December 29, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I have a "from the beginning," perspective of RENT. In 1995, I moved to New York, because one of my oldest and dearest friends asked me to. She was there, living in other people's apartments, and wanted a place of her own. We had lived together in Michigan and had known eachother since about 15 years old. Once we settled into a studio in Brooklyn, she decided that she didn't want to be in the office of the New York Theatre Workshop, but wanted to Stage Manage Theatre. Mind you, we were both in our early 20s.
Upon her resignation, she was offered assistant stage manager for a new musical at the workshop: Rent. Night after night she would come home and talk about Jonathan, Anthony, et. all. "Light My Candle," was a song that she often had in her head during rehearsals. At the time, we had NO IDEA that a phenom was in the making. As opening night at the NYTW approached, she offered me comps. No great thrill. I'd seen some other workshop theatre and was disappointed. Then Jonathan died. She came home that night in shock. The next day was to be the first performance in front of an audience. It was transformed into a memorial at the theater. At this point, things drastically started to change. The memorial turned into a 'performance' half-way through, and she described the experience as a life-altering experience. Again, still not much hype about the actual show.
Moving on, I took a friend to opening night at the NYTW. It was packed. The theatre was shockingly small. Maybe 300-400 seats. My guest and I ended up in the aisle, sitting on the steps, about 10 feet from the stage. The big deal that night was that 80s teen queen Molly Ringwald was in the audience, as a close friend of Larson's.
Well, the show was like NO experience I'd ever encountered. At intermission, my companion and I smoked outside the theatre in wonder of the talent on stage, the brilliance of the composer and the fact that we were lucky to be counted among the few who would experince this masterpiece.
After the show, we were invited to the cast party. I'd been to many cast parties in my life and my companion, Jackie and I almost didn't go. We were young and New York had better things to offer. However, we agreed.
Next thing I know, I'm at a buffet table, standing next to Molly Ringwald. A few moments later, while eating Swedish Meatballs, one of the actors, as wide eyed as me, grabbed me by the shoulders (not knowing me), and said, "I'm at a party with MOLLY RINGWALD!!!!). At the time, I was as excited as he was. Looking back, I think, "my God! Wilson Jermaine Herdia, future Tony winner and film actor, was as star-struck as I was.
Within days, the publicity was overwhelming. Before I knew it, my roommate mentioned the B word. Broadway. Holy S#*t!!! There was a LOT of red tape in the transmission. One of the cool aspects was that the cast was really tight. They wanted absolute equal pay. They even came together to champion my roommate...just an assistant manager, but a human being that they had grown close to. She (my roommate) wasn't AT ALL in any unions and was very young. Eventually, things were ironed out, and my best friend was going to broadway! (Imagine that from a gal from Michigan living in a studio apartment in Brooklyn with another person, at that young age!)
Between closing night off-broadway and opening night on Broadway, a lot of work was to be done, all without the creator's input. I remember Cathie taking me to the new Broadway home for RENT at the Niederlander Theatre. This theater had not been utilized for YEARS. The day I was there, construction was being done to the stage, the "house," and the lobby. It was a mess. We both agreed that a show like RENT deserved to be in such a run-down, shabby theater.
Hype was escalating. I was getting caught up in it. Had the actual show not moved and touched me as it did, things might have been different, but i was excited. It was surreal. At this point, the hype was really taking off. Again, I was wrapped up in my own world. How does one know at the time that you are experiencing History first hand?
Cathie brought home a video tape of the show at the NYTW. She needed to study it for the broadway rehearsals. At this point, I was in love with the show. I made an audio tape of the performance. The audio was recorded through the soundboard, so audience responce was minimal. I listened to that tape almost every day until the official cast recording was released. I still have it. There was even a song that was cut.
Now to the film. The show moved me beyond any other experience. I saw it countless times on Broadway. I am not one of those 'rent-heads' that would stand in line for tickets, so I don't necessarily consider myself the biggest fan of the show. But I know it well. The film moved me again, as it did off and on Broadway. I was thrilled to see most of the cast on screen, as I felt their performances were beyond compare. The emotion and feel of the film was outstanding.
What I didn't like was the shift of time to the late 80s. This show IS the 1990s. Roger's hair was repulsive. Nothing like the punk/pop spikes he had in the original. And how can a movie taking place in the 80s mention THELMA AND LOUISE?!?!? Finally, I hated the opening sequence of Anthony Rapp singing while riding a bike through the 'streets of New York." And how could the filmmaker turn "Take Me or Leave Me," into a song at their wedding?!?!
Anyway, view this one with an open heart and you will surly be moved by the power of the music, story and performances. It deserved a better chance in movie theaters.
 AWESOME!!! December 28, 2007
The DVD is awesome. I have really enjoyed the soundtrack on my surround system and look forward to watching again and again for years to come.
RENT RENT, bye-bye! December 26, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Rent is loosely based on Puccini's opera, Puccini - La Boheme / Freni, Pavarotti, Harwood, Ghiaurov, Karajan. In the opera's opening scene, the artists, musicians, and bohemians are torching their scripts, novels, and sheet music for heat because they are poor, desperate, and freezing. Ditto for the denizens of Rent. Update to Manhattan's Lower East Side, pre 9/11, pre gentrification, post AIDS; slight change to drug addict, stripper, musician, film maker, drag queen, performance artist, lesbian lawyer, gay philosophy professor, and yuppie developer, and voila! Rent: a film of a Broadway musical that took Broadway by storm in 1996.
Aspiring filmmaker (Anthony Rapp), and Roger, an aspiring songwriter (Adam Pascal), find out they owe a year's RENT to Benny Coffin III (Taye Diggs), a former friend, now a yuppie developer with dreams of gentrifying. He had promised them free residence when he married the landlord's daughter, but now is pressuring them to stop a protest of evicting the homeless from a nearby property. Exotic dancer Mimi (Rosario Dawson), inexplicably has the hots for Roger, even though he never seems to actually finish writing a song. Mark's former girlfriend, performance diva Maureen (Idina Menzel), has found a new romance in a lawyer named Joanne (Tracie Thoms). Philosophy professor Tom Collins (Jesse L. Martin) finds his soul mate in drag queen Angel (Wilson Jermaine Heredia).
Directed by Chris Columbus (Home Alone, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Widescreen Edition)) who felt that though the Broadway version was 10 years old, a lot of the original cast could still carry their roles. All but two of the film's cast are from the original Broadway cast. Some of the songs are removed to make way for more dialogue, but the songs are still integrated into the movie in a clever way. The Broadway version was sung throughout, like a Rock Opera. In the film they sometimes break into song suddenly, with no warning, as in the scene where Maureen, the performance artist, and Joanne, her new girlfriend, have a commitment ceremony. It highlights her flamboyant personality, and the trouble that Joanne is having dealing with her flirtatiousness. The shock is also palpable on their respective parents, who seem OK with it, but are really pushed to their limits (I like to picture Lynne & Dick Cheney as Maureen's parents).
But mostly the songs develop very naturally, and almost evolve from spoken to sung as the emotions heighten, as in the seductive "Light My Candle" sung by Mimi to Roger, or they grow out of actual performances in the context of the action, as in "Out Tonight" which begins with Mimi's dance routine. One of the best lines is from "Candle" where Roger says she looks familiar, and then Mimi says she is a dancer at the Cat Scratch Club. "I didn't recognize you without the handcuffs," he sings.
The musical was written by Jonathan Larson. Tragically, he died just before his show could be staged, of an aortic aneurysm. In some bonus footage he is shown proclaiming that he wants to write the "Hair of the `90s." He also received some support and encouragement from Steven Sondheim. Though RENT is no West Side Story (Full Screen Edition), it shows a lot more innovation than Moulin Rouge! (Widescreen Edition), in its attempt to revitalize the Musical form. That movie took familiar songs and recast them as plot stepping stones. RENT can at least claim that original music and lyrics were written specifically for it.
For me, it was interesting to speculate how the film's cast and the people that Jonathan Larson was writing about were related. If their characters were gay, were the actors portraying them also gay? I wondered if Larson pictured himself as Roger, or perhaps more of Mark, the film maker? (Wouldn't it have been great to have Andy Dick in this role, Anthony Rapp's fine performance notwithstanding?) Maybe he most closely identified with Angel? An interesting bit of trivia was that Larson supported himself as a waiter at the Moondance Cafe, and later, Jesse L. Martin also worked there as a waiter, even being trained under Larson. His character, the philosophy professor Tom Collins, was very gay, and I wondered about him. He has played Dr. Greg Butters, love interest for Ally Mcbeal: The Complete DVD Collection [Region 2 Import], and also plays Detective Green on the long running police procedural, Law & Order - The Fourteenth Season (2003-04 Season). I once saw him along with S. Epatha Merkerson, also of L&O, as she picked up an Emmy. Seeing him that night, with Merkerson, and two other seemingly gay men in her entourage, it really seemed like he was. An internet search could not confirm this, except at one point it said he was never married (was married to his career), didn't have a girlfriend--but then one gossip item showed him out on the town with Cynthia Nixon, of Sex & the City.
Also dating someone from Sex & the City is Rosario Dawson. She was electric in RENT, and I saw that she had quite a varied career, from independent films to blockbusters to bombs. She is from the Lower East Side, and a mix of African American, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Native American, and Irish. She was discovered sitting on a porch and asked if she wanted to be in a movie. That movie was Kids, directed by Larry Clark. Since then she has been in Clerks II (Two-Disc Widescreen Edition), Sin City 2, Grindhouse Presents, Death Proof - Extended and Unrated (Two-Disc Special Edition), and Josie and the Pussycats (PG-13 Version). She has also worked with Prince and Jay-Z, as well as been romantically linked with various and sundry people. Hard to keep up with them all. Even someone from Dawson's Creek, now wouldn't that be apropos?
Taye Diggs, along with Jesse L. Martin, was also a love interest on Ally McBeal. He was linked to Ling Woo (Lucy Liu), and he was also not only a cultural reference, but also played Will Truman's love interest on a few episodes of Will & Grace. Jack makes numerous references to Taye Diggs, as in a birthday wish of someone for a hot air baloon ride over Taye Diggs' house, and he is also a prominent feature of the gay assistant's character's fantasies on Ugly Betty. His character in RENT is neither gay, nor particularly appealing as he is kind of the villain--a once idealistic friend who is now a cynical yuppie developer. It is just interesting how he has become such a cultural icon. He is even mentioned several times on Hannah Montana.
What with the interesting cast, music, songs and story of RENT, I would have to say, RENT--no buy it, today!
Bye-bye.
Viva La Vie 1080P!! December 24, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Rent is simply stunning in 1080p.
Anyone who enjoys this show at all simply must pick up this title on blu ray. This is the last "Rent" you'll need to pay on home video methinks.
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