Come on--what is not to like? (Photo: Sony Pictures)

Woo-hoo! I cannot believe it! I am bundling up right now to wait in line for the unmitigated, nerve-tingling pleasure that is Chris Columbus's screen adaptation of Rent, which opens today. The film is 100 percent New York, all the way down to its bulging lower intestine--at least according to The Observer's Choire Sicha, who notes today that this East Village paean is as authentic as it gets:

(N)ot since The Day After Tomorrow has New York City itself been so faithlessly rendered on the big screen. What the hell skyline is this? What’s this F-train stop doing at the corner of 10th and Avenue B? Why has the Life Café been moved down the road? What is this mysterious block on which these kids live? At one point, street signs seem to indicate that it’s Avenue A and 10th Street, which makes no sense.

It is, of course, not a cinéma vérité project. It’s still an idea of a neighborhood and a crisis--and a gloss on both, and on the neighbors that commingle there. The word “fuck,” as I recall, is spoken exactly once in the film. There is but one shot of a needle aimed for a thin forearm. All in all, it’s about as gritty as the Rent Cycle Karaoke class that takes place at the 38th Street Crunch on Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. It makes the East Village look a little less authentic than Sesame Street, a little more than It’s a Wonderful Life. It’s illusory, despicable and the worst sort of rewriting of history, because that history has actually never really been written in the first place.

Come, come, Choire--do not do this to me. We cannot quibble over history! Not now! Sony has been riding such a hot streak of noble-minded classics up to this point, and you are not going to have me heading down to the theater with mixed feelings on this one. Especially not when the studio's future now includes that fancy new digital projection and another year of Revolution Studios films including the eagerly awaited Rocky Balboa. Let's change our attitudes, mister!

I mean, just look at old Anthony Rapp dancing over there! Nobody is going to tell me this movie is atrocious. TAXI!