Update:

Charlie's French Cinema Nudity site has been updated.

Charlie wrote:

You wondered about "Les Bronzes 3: amis pour la vie." It is the third installment of a series starring a group of actors known as Le Splendide. They made several movies in the late 70s early 80s, most of them being cult movies. The best one is called "Le Pere Noel est une ordure." ("Santa Claus is a real bastard.") Since they split, they have gone on to successful solo careers, but this is the first time they are reunited, so the project created huge expectations. The movie opened 3 weeks ago, and it has already sold more than 8 million tickets - even though it is really lame!

Scoop's note:

Some perspective. The population of the USA is five times that of France, so the number Charlie cited is equivalent to selling 40 million tickets in the USA. Imagine a film reaching $300 million in three weeks, and you can assess the magnitude of this phenomenon.

Catch-up:

Here are my thoughts on The Weather Man. (Caps in yesterday's edition.)

Rent (2005):

"525,600 minutes is about how long this movie felt"

Film Threat

I wrote in a recent review of Domino that the film advocates a self-defeating argument about the American media and their obsession with violence and celebrity - since the only media whores obsessed with Domino Harvey were the imaginary ones in the movie. The fact that the film had to make it all up, because the real media virtually ignored Domino, demonstrates that the film's premise was wrong to begin with. Only one person was obsessed with Domino Harvey - director Tony Scott. In fact, Scott appears to have been the only one gullible enough to have believed any of Domino's stories in the first place! Rent has the same problem. It is a modernization and Americanization of a Puccini opera, La Boheme, and it began as a highly successful Broadway play, eighth on the all-time Broadway list with about 4,000 performances, and a gross of $210 million. Yup, that's right. It was a play which celebrated the rejection of the consumerist mentality, and you only had to fork over 200 bucks a pop to see it.

Ya know, I'm just not thrilled with the blend of Italian opera convention and neo-realism. When you go to one of those Puccini operas, it seems kind of quaint and conventional that they sing every word, but it doesn't seem that stilted because

(1) they follow the old-fashioned theater conventions, and don't perform in "real time" scenarios - they don't sing everyday verbiage like "I have to take a shit" or "why don't you ever buy enough bagels?"

(2) the whole friggin' thing is in Italian, anyway, so even if they did sing about their bowel movements, I wouldn't care. Hell, I can't even understand the words to most songs in English, so when they sing in Italian I have no clue. I can just listen to the beautiful music and feel the general sense of the words. When Butterfly sings "Un bel di," the meaning is entirely in my head and exists apart from the words. She might actually be singing about re-capping her tires, and I would never know it.

The musical convention of singing every word is less comfortable for me in these new-wave musicals where they do include mundane verbiage and, what's worse, I can occasionally understand it. The opening song of Rent is basically a rendering of Pi to about forty decimal places with a chorus singing "Love" in counterpoint. Later on, they do a bluesy wail of "I'd like a table for eight," and the heartfelt response, "Sorry, sir, there will be a half-hour wait. Have a drink in the bar." Of course, there were a few songs where my toes were tapping and I was happily constructing improvised harmonies and humming along - until I snapped out of my trance and realized they were singing about the advanced stages of degenerative diseases. It was catchy, though. Man, if you like music, being gay is suh-weet. You get most of the good songs in general, and all the good fatal disease songs. Straight people have a ton of catching up to do on death music. Seems like gay people are always singin' and dancin' about AIDS, but where are the catchy tunes for cancer or heart disease?

Plus if you're gay, you can share clothes, and you are never expected to pick up the whole check for two people eating together. I should look into that. I wonder if it works like becoming a Catholic. By that I mean that when you convert to Catholicism you don't get to pick and choose the parts you like. You can't tell the priest, "OK, I buy into the blood of Christ, but not the body." No, you accept the whole package, or your application is denied. Is it the same with being gay? I wonder if you are allowed to be gay without giving blow jobs or attending Cher  concerts. Do they make exceptions for converts? Cuz I might agree to sing YMCA, but I ain't gonna go see Ricky Martin, and I absolutely ain't gonna Macarena or do the Hand Jive in public.

IMDb doesn't include any breakdown for straight/gay preference, but the male/female breakdown places Rent in ultra-chick-flick territory. The male-female differential of 1.6 comes close to the all time champion chick-flick, Dirty Dancing (1.9). Rent is scored 6.7 by males, 8.3 by females, with the strongest support coming from females under 18 (9.0). Even the male score of 6.7 is not such a bad score. Even if you factor out a presumed number of gay guys who loved it, hetero men must still have scored it about six. On the other hand, the top 1000 voters, those movie geeks who review hundreds of movies, hate the film and score it only 4.1! Critics were split down the middle.

The performers in this film all do a great job. They should. They've played the roles enough times. Six of the eight come from the original Broadway cast, including two who are now married to one another (Taye Diggs and Idina Menzel), who first met while doing the play in New York. The two exceptions were Daphne Rubin-Vega and Fredi Walker, the original Broadway Mimi and Joanne. Walker, by her own admission, was too old to play Joanne. Rubin-Vega was not only too old (34) to play Mimi (19) on screen, but was pregnant as well. The two newcomers including rising star Rosario Dawson, who adds singing and dancing to her list of accomplishments. All cast members, original cast and additions, are committed to their characters.

As for those characters, here are my recommendations to the ones left alive, if any:

1. Get jobs.

2. Pay your rent

3. Pool your remaining money.

4. Hire a real songwriter.

Idina Menzel

Rosario Dawson (no nudity, but hot)

Other Crap:

Movie Reviews:

Yellow asterisk: funny (maybe). White asterisk: expanded format. Blue asterisk: not mine. No asterisk: it probably sucks.

Paul Walker, star of the #1 movie "Eight Below," is sick of stars whining about the paparazzi in Los Angeles.  He said if they don't like it, "Move.  Get the fuck out.  You don't like the press, why the hell are you shopping on Rodeo Drive?  Come on, it's easy to disappear if you want to."

*  Go to Antarctica!

*  Just ask Steve Gutenberg.

*  One good way to go completely unnoticed: co-star in a movie with eight
adorable dogs.

*  Unfortunately, all the stars we wish would disappear never do.

Police in Indianapolis arrested Cecil Carmer for misrepresenting his
identity after they stopped his car and allegedly found equipment and ingredients for making meth; and he tried to pass himself off as his brother Robert.  That might have worked if he hadn't had the name "Cecil" tattooed across the back of his neck

* And the words "I Love Meth" tattooed on his forehead

* He's not just the president of the meth business, he's also a client.