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Oh dear god... THE RENTILIANS ARE HERE?

Shields! Shields! Shields!

Has this Rent fan seen the movie, or is she (I assume it's a she) basing her criticism on the play alone?

A review should be one's honest reaction to what they've seen. "Constructive criticism" has nothing to do with it.

For whatever it's worth, I thought your song parody was quite funny. Made me laugh.

A fan like that offers a clear reason why a stage-to-screen transition so rarely pleases everyone. They would rather have a beat-for-beat replay of the show, rather than a movie that works in and of itself.

I haven't seen Rent, the movie or the musical, but I know Columbus has been too faithful in the past to his source material. It's why the first Harry Potter movie was so, so boring.

David, I assumed you had seen or were familiar with the original stage musical. Is that not the case? I'm seeing this Friday, and it looks a lot like the type of Broadway musical that I hate (I've never seen it but I'm going by the song in the trailer)

sounds like this "Rentie" has about the intellect of the 13 yr old. Haven't read Poland's review, but this writer's complaints are all a bunch of crap.

It's a decent musical with an awful, AWFUL ending. Get over it.

By the way David, is Rent the movie you were talking about last week that was awful but you wouldn't divulge and information on?

Somebody else asked him that, he said Rent was much better than his mystery movie (lousy tease).

for some reason I think the lousy movie was The Producers, but I could be wrong (did get good test screenings). Other possibilities: Fun w/ Dick, Libertine, Derailed. I'd bet on Libertine out of those cause DP hates Weinsteins.

You beat me to the punch on Dick and Jane. I've seen it. It's horrid. It jumped immediately to mind reading Dave's blind column a few weeks back.

anything with tea leoni is in the "possible-unwatchable" category. I give mulder and bueller much props for not jumping out a window yet.

The review or Rent seems fair enough to me. Although was there nothing good in it at all? The letter to David seems odd because i doubt the person has seen the movie. And if they have and visit the blog, please tell us. But it seems like a silly argument to make that Columbus didn't want to upset fans by omitting stuff - that's how things are "adapted".

They have apparently axed a couple of songs from The Producers and fans are upset, but in the context of the film I'm sure it works.

Surely Fun With Dick & Jane is that bad. Like, REALLY bad. Catwoman bad.

Sure there's constructive criticism...like when he said to cut 30 minutes in the film and it might be terrific...too late for that though right?
Anyhow, I do like musicals, but this film has looked like crap from day one.

That's a real funny letter.

"Surely Fun With Dick & Jane is that bad" should read "Surely Fun With Dick & Jane isn't that bad"

Fun With Dick and Jane definitely looks Catwoman bad. Possibly worse. One of the most painfully obnoxious and unfunny trailers in a long time.

The real problem with the film version is that it isn't as faithful to the stage version as it should've been. A lot of its in there, but some of the singing was changed to dialogue, which is fine I guess, but at times was delivered quite akwardly. The direction was rather sloppy. And the homeless, which served as an additional character, has been cut almost completely. It's as if I was watching a neutered version of the original, and was annoying. A lot still rang true from the original work, but it didn't have the energy that really made the great moments so magical to watch.

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