Comments on: Newsies, Rent, and Santa Fe

By: Matthew Belinkie

Matthew Belinkie — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 04:22:23 +0000

@Marmaduke – The ironic part is, that poor horse was originally from Santa Fe, and always dreamed of coming to New York.

By: Marmaduke

Marmaduke — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 03:04:52 +0000

But he’s really not going to return that horse though? That’s why street urchins get such a bad rep.

By: Dan From Canada

Dan From Canada — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 20:34:47 +0000

Also, “Christian Bale is reportedly not a fan of the film. He said: “Time healed those wounds. But it took a while.”"

Which is pretty ironic since a lot of Christian Bale fans first came across him via that musical.

By: Dan From Canada

Dan From Canada — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 20:32:59 +0000

Newsies and Swing Kids pretty much cemented Christian Bale as one of my favourite actors. (Robert Sean Leonard too for that matter) and I was watching both of those at an age where musicals were generally “not cool” for the boys to be watching, but I’ve always been a musician at heart, so I’ve always had a soft spot for musicals and music-themed cinema.

I think the part I find the most interesting is the degree to which “The West” has been idealized in America despite the fact that in almost any relevant particular, the west would have been a much worse place to live in terms of standard of life unless one of your primary indicators of “good living” was “A general absence of law and rules”

As much as the American cultural consciousness has glorified roughing it, living by the fruit of your own labour, dependant on nobody but yourself, the general lack of sanitation, law, medicine, skilled tradespeople et al would have made the early wild west a pretty crummy place to live.

By: Gab

Gab — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 12:39:10 +0000

“Saying a movie is a cult classic can be the equivalent of saying a girl has a nice personality.” Ouch. I get- and agree with- the point, but ouch.

I’m a 1/5, too. In fact, I’ve had a crush on Christian Bale AND Bill Pullman ever since I first saw that movie, so BEFORE the former played Laurie or Bruce and BEFORE the latter played a ghost-obsessed father or President of the United States- in other words, I liked them before it was cool. ;)

The streets may be paved with Cheese in America (where there are also no cats, you know), but the ones way out west are paved with nuggets of the purest gold. How could one possibly resist?

By: lee

lee — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:19:47 +0000

Noooo! This is how rumors get started! It was *verbal* assault that he was charged with, but the charges were dropped.

Also, I wouldn’t go so far as to compare Bale to Cruise, at least not until Bale becomes a Scientologist.

By: B.Lily

B.Lily — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 22:57:48 +0000

Wait! What? He beat up his mom??!

By: lauren

lauren — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:48:10 +0000

Awesome. I thought of that part from Newsies the first time I saw Rent. And for a while, because I couldn’t remember either song very well, I was really confused and thought they were the same song. Eventually I watched Newsies again, post childhood, and realized they were, in fact, two different songs.

Also, I am one of those 1/5. Newsies is awesome. Although it may feel different if I watched it now, knowing that Christian Bale beat up his mom, throws crazy on set tantrums, and was voluntarily part of Terminator Salvation. I imagine it’s similar to watching Top Gun in the post -couch-jumping era.