Rent

Saw it. Loved it. Was there any doubt?

I was pretty much grinning throught the whole first act (plus the whole biting of the cheek to prevent my self from singing along).

I was kind of put out though... maybe it's just me, but there are times when our society has gotten too casual. I just like to think of going to the theater as an event and that you should dress up at least a touch. Jeans are a stretch, except for maybe a matinee but this was an evening performance and there were even people there in shorts and flip-flops. I'm not asking for evening gowns or anything, but shorts?! Sorry, like I said, probably just me.

EditDiscussing this with the roommate and came up with another issue: Why are jeans and sneakers not ok at nightclubs, but acceptable at the theater? This just doesn't make sense to me.

(no subject)

Yet another story where the icon says it all.

Link-filled thoughts

I fully intend to see Fahrenheit 9/11. In fact, I already have plans to see it next Tuesday. I enjoyed Bowling for Columbine and the much older Roger & Me.

That said, I am a little trepidatious going into this, especially after having read Dude, Where's My Country?. Maybe it's because I read it right after reading the amazingly well-researched Fast Food Nation, but after "Dude..." I was left feeling that I'd read Moore's personal manifesto as opposed to a well-documented look at the status quo. He was completely unsubtle in his cherry-picking. And it seems that that hasn't changed for this film:

I know, thanks, before you tell me, that a documentary must have a "POV" or point of view and that it must also impose a narrative line. But if you leave out absolutely everything that might give your "narrative" a problem and throw in any old rubbish that might support it, and you don't even care that one bit of that rubbish flatly contradicts the next bit, and you give no chance to those who might differ, then you have betrayed your craft. If you flatter and fawn upon your potential audience, I might add, you are patronizing them and insulting them. By the same token, if I write an article and I quote somebody, and for space reasons put in an ellipsis like this (…), I swear on my children that I am not leaving out anything that, if quoted in full, would alter the original meaning or its significance. Those who violate this pact with readers or viewers are to be despised. At no point does Michael Moore make the smallest effort to be objective. At no moment does he pass up the chance of a cheap sneer or a jeer. He pitilessly focuses his camera, for minutes after he should have turned it off, on a distraught and bereaved mother whose grief we have already shared. (But then, this is the guy who thought it so clever and amusing to catch Charlton Heston, in Bowling for Columbine, at the onset of his senile dementia.) Such courage.

I don't know. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like Moore feels he must pull to the EXTREME left in order to get people slightly left of center (Nader, anyone?). But in doing so, he completely undermines the validity of a lot of the left's actual POV. Anyway, I guess I'll just have to wait and see what I think of the movie.

(no subject)

Went grocery shopping today. I'm sad to say, I was influenced by my recent viewing of Rent. No, no drugs or anything, but there's the line in "Today for You" that goes "A box of Captain Crunch will taste so good." Guess what's now in my pantry? It's been years. Fitting though, because I forgot how much like crack this stuff is.

Warning: complete and total nonsense. Read at your own risk

OK, so before I bashed, I should have gotten all the info. I hadn't realized the new movie was a prequel.

"The new chapter, which will hit theaters in June 2005, is called "Batman Begins"—presumably because "Batman Sucked the Last Time So We're Starting Over" was too clunky." Hee!

Christian Bale is more palatable as a younger Bruce Wayne. Though I will still expect him to burst out into song about the tyranny of William Randolph Hearst, but that's just a personal problem I'm willing to deal with.

Of course having a main character named Lucius isn't going to help me keep things straight during the movie as I'll be expecting a very blond Malfoy and be getting Morgan Freeman instead. Oh the confusion. Add in Gary Oldman and Batman is getting a wee bit Potter-ific. Perhaps Albert has Hogwarts ties? Screw Uma... Oprah, what about Albert... Albus. See? See?

Kidding of course. It's late and my mind is working in very odd ways. My apologies, but you were warned. And if you didn't see it, this is your punishment for not reading the subject heading. Sucks to be you.