Could you maybe not be so negative about my movie please? Thanks!
I will probably bring on the wrath of some Rentheads for this, but . . . this is just too amusing IMO:

So, Harry Potter isn't the only film opening soon. But at least the early reviews for it were pretty positive. The same, however, could not be said about the upcoming film version of Rent . . . or, at least, at first.

For the past two weeks now, early industry screenings for the film have been occurring. So some fans, who are members of specific guilds like SAG, have been able to view the film early and many have been posting reviews of the film on BroadwayWorld, TalkingBroadway, and even Oscarwatch.com.

And the majority of the reviews - when first posted in these three places at least - weren't very raving. Some very much the opposite in fact.

One Rent fan named Munkustrap, who went to a screening posted a very negative review a few days ago, and seemed very solid in his opinion on the film. After a few days however, the review was deleted. (The original review gave it 2 stars out of four. The thread for the deleted review can still be found here however.) Why, no one could guess, but Munkustrap said he's had a change of opinion after seeing the film again, deleted the first review himself, and began posting more positively about the film.

Most of the BroadwayWorld posters however (some who haven't seen the film yet) are pleased as punch Munkustrap has a change of heart about the film - for whatever reason. User MJohnson05 however notes this rather large change of opinion, as well as the fact that a few other people who posted critical reviews (including himself) seemed to be doing a 180 about the film suddenly - or at least being more positive about the film when posting about it - in a thread started by user BroadwayGirl107 in which she too has a negative and disappointed view of the film:


i have to say i was getting a little worried when everyone (including me) who had been negative started posting more positive comments after our initial reactions. i was more worried still when someone deleted their first review altogether. it's nice to know we (well, i can only speak for myself -- i) was not crazy. i was worried that people behind the scenes were contacting other people and asking them to post positive things, as i was contacted. or maybe i'm just paranoid. i think more than that i just feel bad for giving in to said people-behind-the-scenes, as opposed to standing by my original review. that said, of course with days passing, i think more fondly on the stuff i liked, but i also think less fondly on the stuff i didn't. overall, i guess, the mixed reviews mean just that: the film is in for mixed reviews. and that's better than all bad, right?



BroadwayGirl107: People contacted you to post a more positive review?

Well, no one's contacted me, lol. And even if someone did, I'm not pretending things were better than they actually were because someone else wants me to. I don't do BS.


User EvelynNesbit1906 confirms that there has been contact to posters on Broadway World about speaking more positively about the film,
As to MJohnson's claim that a person or people had been trying to make him alter his review... I can vouch for him. I received similar PMs that also referenced an attempt to make MJohnson edit his post. The sad thing is that I think reception to the film on here would be much better if we were all just left to talk amongst ourselves.



MJohnson: thanks for backing me up, evelyn, btw. i felt bad about posting that but i also stand behind my belief that this board is here for people to voice any and all comments, be they positive or negative, without interference from the artists in question. if i want to talk about the screening of the producers i'm going to next week, should i not out of fear of nathan lane PM'ing me? posting my opinion on here i look forward to doing precisely because i'm *not* going to have mr. lane PM'ing me -- what i'm going to have is a thoughtful and incisive discussion with people like me who care about art and theatre and film, and who are not going to feel the need to defend their work, but discuss their differing opinions (and maybe defend those, too).


zzannahk: i've seen a lot of comments, including my own, deleted too
all of munks comments are gone

luvtheEmcee: Munk deleted that himself. Long story.

sweetestsiren: ...Long story?

That doesn't really cut it for me. The review was extremely negative, with a few positive points mentioned a few posts later, and I thought that it was very odd that he would retract his thoughts so suddenly and not offer an explanation as to how his perspective had changed.

It all seems a bit worrisome...


The back and forth about this - and whether or not people are just having a more balanced opinion about the film now or not - all comes to a head when Anthony Rapp himself (Mark Cohen to all Rent fans) - realizing he's been busted as everyone knows he used to be a regular poster on BroadwayWorld until Sony Pictures asked him to stop and to only post things on the official Rent Blog - posts in the thread to defend himself about the PM's he admits sending:


Whiteboy Spice (aka Anthony Rapp): Here is the context of the whole interaction:

I wrote a pm to MJohnson, responding to points he had raised in his (quite negative) review, and saying I was sorry that he had been disappointed in the film. His review seemed dismissive to me at the time, and perhaps I should not have, but I decided that I would take a moment to stand up a little bit for this project that I so believe in, and I wrote to him wanting to engage in a conversation. I did not ask him to change his mind about the film, nor his review. In the pm, I also shared with him that everyone in my life who had seen the film, including people who had not ever seen the show, had been uniformly impressed and moved by it. And before the cynics out there tell me, "Well, of course they're going to say that, because they're your friends," I can only say that is presumptuous of you. You do not know my friends, and if you think they would lie to me about something as important as this, then you are disrespecting them and me. They are my friends precisely because they have always been honest with me. There are plenty of projects I've done over the years about which they have been less than thrilled, and they have had no problem telling me so.

Anyway, in response to my message, MJohnson wrote to me that he didn't hate the film as much as it seemed in his public review, and in fact included many things he'd liked about the film. In response, I then said, well, maybe he could have possibly thought about putting more of those positive things in his review, to represent more fully his experience. I wondered why someone would post something so negative publicly and then turn around and privately have many more positive things to say.

I did not ask him to change his review; I did not try to suppress his reaction to the film; I engaged him in a conversation about his reaction.


Despite the cheering from almost everyone about Anthony posting and "clearing this up," MJohnson still sticks on point that what Rapp did made him feel uncomfortable:


i just hope people actually read what i posted; i think you'll find what i was arguing was that it made me uncomfortable, not that it was wrong.

still, somehow i find my voice being silenced by an accusation i didn't warrant.

here's a direct quote to refresh everyone's memory: << i am not suggesting in the slightest bit that he did anything wrong, however getting a PM from the actor in the movie i just wrote about was definitely not a comfortable thing for me, nor do i feel it was particularily without motive. he didn't ask me to discuss why i felt what i felt in a PM with him -- he asked me to post it on the board. that's where i thought it drew the line. >>

i also stated previously that i think mr. rapp is talented, and i'm sure a nice guy. he did not try to suppress me in any way. he just asked me to temper my negative review with positive things i thought, which i did. i was just trying to air my uncomfortability in feeling like i was pushed into an audience member/artist conversation that i didn't ask to be in.



amasis: That MJ felt uncomfortable being engaged in a discussion is perhaps a matter of how comfortable he was with his own opinion. There was no need for him to edit anything, and there wasn't even a need for him to engage in a PM discussion with anyone if he felt he wasn't ready or wasn't up for discussion at that particular time. Yes, he was asked to, but he could have politely declined. Or (less politely) ignored the request.


Yeah, or maybe it's a request that probably shouldn't have been made in the first place?

:sits back and waits to get asked to change her post to a more balanced one:

ETA: Um, Anthony? Maybe you should just let this go already? *stares*