Rent!

Ngoc and I just got back from seeing Rent, the movie. Yes, its great. The music is still there, largely due to the fact that nearly every original broadway cast member was back for the film. But like any film adaptation, they took some creative licensing. A few songs were cut, shortened and the order was slightly re-arranged. And the transitional dialog, normally sung (think "You okay honey?" "I'm afraid so."), is spoken. They added dialog, fleshed out some transitional scenes, all to add more backing and such to the characters. Though I prefer it all to be sung, I feel that adding in dialog was a smart decision on the director's part. This film is introducing a story to "the masses" who might not otherwise have heard about it. Its a "second coming" of sorts for the show. Its now hitting a much larger audience than before, and so they went out of their way to more visually explain things that are mentioned in passing in the original stage script.
All the actors did wonderfully in their roles, including the non-originals. My favorite character, Collins, was performed very well by Jesse L. Martin. Well enough that one forgets he's a Law & Order veteran. He becomes Tom Collins in all his glory.
All in all, its not Rent the musical (and its foolish to expect a clone of the stage production), but it stands strong in its own right, and I think is an excellent rendition of the story.
If you're a Rent fan, I recommend seeing it at least once to form your opinion of whether you like it or not. And if you're not a Rent fan, see this movie; there's a good chance you'll like it. But be warned, there's no sex, guns, explosions, action heroes and evil mad dictators.
EDIT: Been thinking about this a bit, and a couple more things popped into my head. At the beginning of the movie, they did the cast standing in a line singing Season's of Love. However, after Angel's death, they didn't do the whole standing in the line singing Season's of Love with Angel's spot empty. I thought that was a very powerful scene in the stage production, and I miss it in the film. Also, Angel's death sequence was sort of over=shadowed. They had a series of scenes showing Roger & Mimi's break-up (with the drug-dealer, etc). In the stage production, after the "Contact" song, you here a series of "It's over." from different characters, and finally Collins' heart-wrenching "It's over" as he hugs Angel's lifeless body. They cut "Contact" from the film entirely, and intermixed scenes of Angel's deterioration with Roger & Mimi's break-up and Mimi's deterioration, and finally with a scene of Collins crying in the hospital hugging Angel. Then they just fade to the funeral. Collins' reprise of "I'll Cover You" is very moving though. I got teary-eyed like normal.

Ear infection

So the last few days have been rather interesting. Staring on Tuesday night, my right ear ached very badly. I didn't think much of it at the time, and assumed it would go away. I woke up that night because it hurt so bad, and I began to wonder what this was. I called a "nurse hotline" available via my health insurance, and she concluded what I suspected; I had a classic ear infection. So I called my assigned primary care provider and scheduled an appointment for Thursday morning at 9:30 AM. I then suffered through the whole day, taking tylenol to dull the pain. By Wednesday night after work, I was in some significant pain. Ngoc asked if we should go to the emergency room, but I thought to just suffer through the night and get an anti-biotic prescription. Ngoc left to go home after tucking me in, and shortly after she left I found a position on my bed that felt like it was more comfortable. I was able to feel some of the liquid moving in my ear and it felt like gravity was able to take effect and pull some of this stuff out. I had to go to the bathroom, so I got up, and when I looked at myself in the mirror, there was blood coming out of my ear. Not gushing or anything, but oozing out nonetheless. I called Ngoc and told her I think we should go to the emergency room. We checked in to the emergency room at about 10 or 11 PM (I'm not sure as I was rather delirious from the pain). After a really long time, I was finally taken to a room with a bed, and laid down and was able get some rest, despite my ear being extremely painful (on a scale of 1 - 10, I described the pain as 6), but they didn't think to give me anything for the pain. The doctor finally came by, and concluded I have classic "swimmer's ear". He then disappeared saying they'd give me a prescription for pain killer and an anti-biotic ear drop. After a really long time, and my endurance of putting up with this pain was really starting to give, Ngoc went and found my nurse Tony, and he got a vicadin from somewhere. They gave me that, and it made a huge difference, and I was able to fall asleep. My dear sweet Ngoc was at my bedside the whole time, falling in and out of uncomfortable sleep in the chair. Eventually another nurse came by, gave me the prescriptions and my discharge papers and I was able to finally leave. This was around 2:30 AM or so. We went to a 24hr Walgreen's and got my prescriptions filled, and Ngoc finally dropped me off at home around 3:30 or so. I took another vicadin, and dropped some of the anti-biotic into my ear, and went to sleep.
I went to my doctor's this morning, and he just confirmed everything the ER doctor had prescribed, and he also gave me a prescription for ZMax, saying it was a one-dose anti-biotic that would help reduce the swelling. I haven't gotten it filled yet, and I'm kinda unsure about mixing two anti-biotics.
So here I am, 3:30 PM on Thursday. The pain in my ear and jaw is significantly reduced, though I can still feel a lot of build-up inside my ear, and it still leaks out a mixture of blood & clear fluid, but its much more bearable. I can walk slowly around the house, and am sitting downstairs with my laptop watching TV. I slept quite a bit earlier today, and have followed the anti-biotic drops pretty well so far. The pharmacist said I should feel better in 12 hours, and I do, but not 100% better. But its at least bearable.
I called in sick to work today, and my manager was really nice and said I could have the day off. I'm scheduled to work Friday and Saturday too, and she asked about tomorrow. I said I'd see if I feel any better tomorrow morning, but at this rate I'm fairly sure I won't make it tomorrow either. Hopefully I can be back in action on Saturday.