RENT

—1. Overview (multimedia)
—2. Overview Basic (dial up speed)
—3. Reviews and Blogs
—4. Cast and Crew
—5. Photo Pages
—6. Trailers, Clips, DVDs, Books, Soundtrack
—7. Posters (musicals)
—8. Production Notes (pdf)
—9. Spiritual Connections
—10. Presentation Downloads

Musical theater and film musicals are curious pieces of entertainment. Just think about it. People dancing and singing all day long? It just isn’t normal. Not normal to burst out in song in the middle of conversation. Not normal to begin dancing when there is not a band, a club, or even a stereo anywhere nearby. And most of all, not normal to publicly express the depth of emotions, thoughts, questions, and confessions that are often confidently and loudly shared in the songs of musicals.

In the last ten years, one of the most talked about Broadway musicals has been Rent. It won the Tony award for Best Musical in 1996 and has been performed in NYC and around the country since then. It is also not your grandma’s musical.

The story that Rent tells is one of friendship, one about trying to get by, and one told through the rock that has ruled the musical world during this end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st. But most notably, the Rent that caught people’s attention was a story that wasn’t afraid of raising eyebrows, of telling a story about AIDS, about both gay and straight couples, and about trying to figure out how to live life to the fullest.

Not surprisingly, the show received a wide variety of responses. For many people, the show almost became an anthem for the lives they were leading, a cult show if there has ever been one. For many, however, the subject matter and/or departure from more classical musical numbers made Rent a bastard completely undeserving of attention.

Yes, Rent is a story that many people can relate to in very specific ways. Rent is also one that many people can easily condemn with a variety of beliefs. But, as the movie version of Rent hits theaters across the country, I would challenge both fans and opponents alike to see Rent not as an AIDS story, not as a story for the gay population, and not as just a rock opera for the young; I challenge people to see Rent for what it is about at its core, a story about love, a story about friendship, and story about searching for meaning in life.

Whether you are male or female, gay or straight, young or old, artistic or logical…Rent has something to say to you.

Unlike the play, the film version of Rent begins with it most well known song, “Seasons of Love.�

525,600 minutes, 525,000 moments so dear.

525,600 minutes - how do you measure, measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee.

In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.

In 525,600 minutes - how do you measure a year in the life?

Its characters ask a question we have all asked ourselves. What is life really? What gives it meaning? How do we measure the lives we have lead, are leading, will lead?

And in the story that follows, they seek the answer to this question. They search for it in relationships, in careers, and in drugs. They seek it for themselves and they seek it for their friends. Sometimes they find it, sometimes it seems to elude them, and sometimes they push it away themselves.

We all know what it’s like to search for meaning. We look for it in the same places the characters look. We are frustrated in the same ways the characters are frustrated.

As all character’s sing in the movie’s title song:

How can you connect in an age

Where strangers, landlords, lovers

Your own blood cells betray

What binds the fabric together

When the raging, shifting winds of change

Keep ripping away

Looking for meaning in life is difficult. Finding it even if you think you know what it is just as hard. But as the characters in Rent reveal to us, finding meaning in life is important. Figuring out what makes life measure up to something valuable is worth more than almost anything else. And, as many of the characters are dealing with their own immortality on a daily basis, finding that life of value and letting go of whatever it is that holds us back from finding it is not something we should put off.

“Why choose fear?� the characters sing.

“Forget regret or life is yours to miss…No day but today.�

The characters know that a life of value will never be found avoiding life. They also know that it will not be found by just giving into some mass consensus of success. But through their friendships, every character helps each other find meaning, meaning found only through their relationships with each other, through the help that they lend each other, through the connections they make with each other, and, most of all, through the love that they share.

Dying in America

At the end of the millennium

We're dying in America

To come into our

The character’s of Rent sing songs that course through all of our hearts and minds. Trying to find our way. Trying to figure out who we are. Trying to live that life we know we should be living.

…when you're dying in America

At the end of the millennium

You're not alone

At the core of its story, Rent is about connections. It is about helping each other out, about learning to love each other, and about learning to love ourselves. As the conclusion of its most popular song tells us, Rent is about realizing how valuable love truly is.

It's time now to sing out, tho the story never ends

Let's celebrate remember a year in the life of friends.

Remember the love!

Remember the love! Remember the love!

Measure in love.

Seasons of love! Seasons of love.

Yes, musicals can seem quite ridiculous. But frankly, the fact that Rent rocks out about some of the deepest struggles and emotions we can encounter brings forth a lesson of which all of us should take note. Life can be difficult. Other times life is worth celebrating. But as the characters show us, we should not be afraid to recognize and deal with our laments and celebrate our joys and blessings with the energy of today’s biggest rockers.

What exactly does it mean to live a life of love? For ourselves? For those around us? What do we need to do to find that life of meaning, of connection, and of love? I don’t always know. But, as I leave the characters of Rent and return to my own life, I believe that it is out there. I believe that there is love. I believe that there is value. Even in my darkest of times, a piece of me will always know that with love, this life will never fall short. And always coming back to the knowledge that there is a God who has never stopped loving me and will always be there to help me find a life of love and connection, I am continually reminded that life is truly something I should celebrate.

— Overview

Derailed

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—2. Overview Basic (dial up speed)
—3. Reviews and Blogs
—4. Cast and Crew
—5. Photo Pages
—6. Trailers, Clips, DVDs, Books, Soundtrack
—7. Posters(Clive Owen)
—8. Production Notes (pdf)
—9. Spiritual Connections
—10. Presentation Downloads

Life can be a slippery slope. Yes, it is cliché. We have heard it all our lives from our mothers, our fathers, and countless other elders. But, unfortunately for us, it is true. Gray areas are gray for a reason. When we feel like we are standing on the edge of cliff or walking dangerously close to the line, we feel like that for a reason. And, while we may wish to believe that we would never cross whatever lines we have drawn for our lives, it is difficult to ignore the fact that sometimes we find ourselves dangerously close and even over those lines and all we can do is look back at each step we took to get there.

In the movie Derailed, we see this slip down the slope, fall off a cliff, and tumble over many lines. As the movie’s tagline indicates, “they never saw it coming.� As the first few lines of the movie tell us, “the morning it all began began like any other morning…� But, unfortunately for the characters of Derailed, “it� happened. And while they never expected it, planned on it, or imagined it, their lives quickly went from one side of the line to very much on the other.

“The morning it all began began like any other morning,� but then a married man met a married woman and he talked to her and they hit it off and then he could not stop thinking about her and he called her up and they met for dinner and they called home to say they would be late and they went for drinks and they flirted and they kissed and they went to a hotel…and then they met a man—a man who knew exactly what they were doing, a man who knew exactly what he was doing, and a man who was not afraid to use guilt and fear to get whatever he wanted.

Ad exec Charles Schine and financial advisor Lucinda Harris were not expecting what happened to them. In their eyes, they were not doing anything horribly wrong. Their time together would be a welcome escape from normalcy. They could have fun for just one night, maybe a few, but still be able to easily return to their own lives as a loving wife/mother and husband/father. But then slightly wrong turned into very wrong, minor guilt was magnified into extreme guilt, and their lives were derailed in an instant.

From the moment Schine and Harris are caught in their act of infidelity, guilt fills them both. Add to that additional suffering and threats imposed upon Harris, threats directed at Schine’s family, and the murder of a friend who tries to help, and Schine is filled with so much guilt that each new threat only pushes him further and further off a cliff he vowed he would never even venture near.

In the beginning of the movie, Schine is your everyday family man. He rides the train to work, he comes home, and he takes care of his family. By the end, however, he is an adulterer, an embezzler, and a killer. He did not set out to be any of these; all he wanted was a break from life. The problem is that a group of criminals once listened to their mothers’ tell them that this life is slippery slope. Then they figured out a very tempting first step to get Schine to fall down that slope, pick up every possible piece of guilt along the way, and try to find his way back across the line by paying them.

Some people will identify with Schine and some will not. Some will wonder if they would have been “man� enough to do what he “needed� to do. Others may sit by and curse Schine for just getting deeper and deeper in when he could have had a much easier out all along. The things is, when it comes to that first hook, that first almost innocent action that leads to the next and then the next and then the next, we all have at least one thing that could easily set us on a path just as destructive as Schine’s. It may be a woman’s leg. It may be a man’s arms. It may be that little bit of extra money. It may be that extra feeling of security. It could be anything, anything that would just make us feel better for one short moment, anything that would let us escape our world for just one day, one afternoon, one night or maybe two.

As we see in the movie, the cycle from that first action to that last is vicious. First it is just desire, a brief attempt to escape something else. But then there is guilt. From guilt there is desire to make up for it. Too often, trying to make up for it just leads to crossing even more lines, leads to more guilt, leads to a life even further from the one you were supposed to be leading…and then all you can think about is how you will ever get back across any line that has ever existed in your life.

Every day, all of us encounter tiny things that can throw us off course. The good news is, if we actually pay attention, we can choose to not only avoid crossing the lines we see as uncrossable, but also to avoid letting ourselves get so close that crossing them is almost easier than staying on the right side. Sometimes we will find ourselves beginning to slide down the slippery slopes of life. All of us, no matter how hard we try. But lucky for us, we don’t have to keep falling, we don’t need to keep jumping over lines, and we certainly don’t have to allow our lives to be controlled by guilt and those who will not hesitate to wield it over us.

This life is difficult. It is impossible to always do the right thing and never take a wrong step. Guilt is almost as second nature as our desire for happiness and fulfillment. Thankfully, life’s temptations and the guilt our missteps can pile upon us need not define our lives. Unlike Schine, we can choose to confess whatever gives us guilt instead of letting it control us and lead us further and further into a life defined by it.

Thanks to a God who knows how much guilt can derail any life, we have the promise of forgiveness, restoration, and freedom from even the worst derailments we may face. We don’t have to pay Him millions of dollars. We don’t have to do whatever it takes to make what we’ve done go away. All we have to do is admit what we’ve done and ask God to forgive us and help us to get back on track.

—1. Overview (multimedia)
—2. Overview Basic (dial up speed)
—3. Reviews and Blogs
—4. Cast and Crew
—5. Photo Pages
—6. Trailers, Clips, DVDs, Books, Soundtrack
—7. Posters(Clive Owen)
—8. Production Notes (pdf)
—9. Spiritual Connections
—10. Presentation Downloads

Shopgirl

—1. Overview (multimedia)
—2. Overview Basic (dial up speed)
—3. Reviews and Blogs
—4. Cast and Crew
—5. Photo Pages
—6. Trailers, Clips, DVDs, Books, Soundtrack
—7. Posters (Steve Martin)
—8. Production Notes (pdf)
—9. Spiritual Connections
—10. Presentation Downloads

While not everyone may notice it, I am a person who is greatly affected by the movies I watch. I think about them hours after their credits have rolled. Their stories and questions migrate between my heart and my mind for days after I have left the theater. And, in some cases, when a movie hits closer to home than usual, I am thrown up or down to an extent from which it is difficult to return to normal.

Yesterday, I was finally able to see the movie Shopgirl. Ever since I read Steve Martin’s book, I knew I had to see it. I identified with Mirabelle the shopgirl more than I have ever identified with any other fictional character. And yesterday, after I met her on the big screen, I cried to the point that my hands began to go numb. I cried until my legs shook. I cried until I could not cry anymore. To put it simply, Shopgirl affected me big time.

The movie Shopgirl is about a young woman named Mirabelle and her relationships with two different men. One is the older wealthy Ray Porter. The other, the more age appropriate slacker Jeremy. In many ways, the story is about relationships, about men, and about the different courses a relationship can take. Jeremy amuses us with a plethora of dating faux pas and stumbling attempts to make a good impression. Ray makes us almost forget the huge age difference between him and Mirabelle with his politeness, concern, and generosity. Much more than a story about the men Mirabelle dates, however, Shopgirl is foremost a story about Mirabelle.

As Ray introduces Mirabelle, she is a shopgirl who sells things that no one uses anymore. Every day is no more than a repetition of the same motions over and over again—biding time behind a glove counter, driving back to an empty home, going to sleep, and starting over again. Mirabelle also battles depression and has for a very long time. As Ray’s introductory voiceover tells us, Mirabelle is woman who needs an omniscient voice to tell her she is of value, this one here, Mirabelle.

While the movie does not deal with Mirabelle’s depression as much as the book, the story that unfolds touches on the issue; and, through Mirabelle’s relationships with Ray and Jeremy, it paints a picture of many of the holes depression makes anyone who suffers from it long to fill.

In the beginning of the movie, Mirabelle listens to a radio show that talks about how women long to be held. Later, as she sits alone in her apartment, we can almost see that longing circulating through her heart as she digs around for the Jeremy’s thrown out phone number and calls him back for a clearly undeserved second date.

But then Ray Porter comes along and holds her in the way she needs to be held. Mirabelle begins to bloom with attention. Although she never asks him why he picked her, the fact that he did silently states that she must be special. His gifts to her tell her that something about her makes her worth it. And their nights together give her and many of those around her the impression that she truly has something of value.

Through both of her relationships, we see Mirabelle’s desire to be loved, to be valued, and to be cared for. Sometimes those desires are satisfied and sometimes they are disappointed. At points, it seems Mirabelle knows that she is filled with value. At other times, it is clear that finding value is never as simple as just medication, just attention, or almost any one thing alone.

By the movie’s end, however, Mirabelle does find what seems to be a life filled with much more meaning and value. She is able to create the art she had been gifted to create. She is loved by man who, as Ray describes it, is tender and true. Mirabelle seems to know that she is indeed a person of value, and with just that, the movie cannot help but have an ending that makes you smile.

From its beginning to its end, Shopgirl is hilarious, entertaining, intelligent, and touching. For me, however, the Shopgirl that I connected to was also heart-wrenching. Yes, it was happy story with happy ending. But, the story was also realistic; and, as anyone knows, real happiness is never as perfect as we wish it would be. Happiness is very often extrememly difficult to find. Happiness when found is never a pass to effortless contentment for the rest of life. And, when depression lies in the past, present, and/or future, happiness will always have a certain awareness of its opposite just a stone's throw in any direction.

I may not be Mirabelle. I certainly have no romantic stories resembling hers. But, as I watched Shopgirl, I could feel every emotion of hers going through me. Like Mirabelle, I too am shopgirl. I sell books that no one reads anymore. And, connecting me to Mirabelle at the heart, I too have struggled with depression for many years.

As I watched Mirabelle trying to fill the holes depression had created in her, I could not help but think how hard those holes are to fill and how many people struggle so much to fill them. I knew every question that circulated through her body—questions about her value, her purpose, and even her existence as someone who merits love. I identified with her struggle to find her creativity. And, watching her try to navigate through both her personal and professional life, I knew that what she was doing was far from simple, far from fun, and most certainly filled with fears of doing things for the wrong reasons, missing opportunities, and finally finding something to hold onto only to watch it crumble before her eyes.

It was hard for me to watch Mirabelle knowing what was going on inside her. It was difficult to watch knowing that so many people have to deal with depression every single day. Luckily for me, Shopgirl’s ending refused to let me dwell on that forever. While it may have taken me some time, the story that I saw unfold in Mirabelle's life cannot help but make me hope that all of us can find lives of meaning and value. And, as Mirabelle finds, in that pursuit, we need not be alone.

As the intersecting freeways of the movie’s opening and closing indicate, life is filled with a multitude of merges, exits, intersections, and connections. Each connection we make gives all of us a chance to touch others with a love that is true. When we meet, we have the opportunity to hold each other and tell each other how special we are. And, even if we only travel a short distance together, we all have the chance to leave everyone we meet with a kind action or word.

As I sit here a full twenty-four hours after seeing Shopgirl, I know that I will probably keep thinking about it for at least several more days. I will think about Mirabelle and her search for happiness. I will think about what she went through and the things she found. I will hope that there actually is an omniscient voice out there trying to tell me and everyone like me that we are of value, these ones right here. I will cross my fingers that, like Mirabelle, I and everyone living in this world will hear the truth that tells us we are valuable and see the relationships and opportunities that will help us to see why. And I will pray that even in the darkest of times, we will see the truth of love, the truth of value, and the truth of purpose that has been with us since God first knew we would be.

—1. Overview (multimedia)
—2. Overview Basic (dial up speed)
—3. Reviews and Blogs
—4. Cast and Crew
—5. Photo Pages
—6. Trailers, Clips, DVDs, Books, Soundtrack
—7. Posters (Steve Martin)
—8. Production Notes (pdf)
—9. Spiritual Connections
—10. Presentation Downloads