Blank Check with Griffin & David - West Side Story (2021)

Episode Date: December 19, 2021

They said it couldn’t be done. Remaking possibly the most revered movie musical of all time?! A fool’s errand! But folks, we’ve learned a very important lesson…NEVER DOUBT STEVEN SPIELBERG. Especially when he’s teaming up with Tony “Dank” Kushner! David pinpoints the exact moments he wept during his multiple viewings of this most recent iteration of “West Side Story”; Ben praises all the dust and hot people; Griffin thinks that he probably needs to see it again. Grab your dancing shoes and meet us at the gym - it’s our final episode of 2021, and it’s time to MAMBO, Blankies!   Plus, check out the Slow Xmas 2021 holiday music compilation now on Spotify and Bandcamp! Please support the bands/artists featured on this album. Andrew Bryant Spotify Apple Music Bandcamp YouTube Website Twitter Instagram Ian Ferguson Spotify Apple Music Bandcamp Website Gymshorts Spotify (band) Spotify (Sarah Greenwell's solo project Greeensleeves) Apple Music Bandcamp Greenway Records Twitter Instagram (band) Instagram (solo) Jason Hawk Harris Spotify Apple Music Bandcamp YouTube Bloodshot Records Website Twitter Instagram Sad13 Spotify Apple Music Bandcamp YouTube Soundcloud Website Twitter Instagram Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com

Tonight, tonight, I will podcast tonight I'm just gonna fucking do that That's what I'm gonna do That's great, you're done though You're done I'm done, I'm done I don't know, I was looking like You didn't have a second verse

No, I was like There's only you tonight I replace that What you are, what you do, what you say I guess you could say that about a podcast Right the pot is full of light The pot is full of cast Suns and moons all over the place I don't know

You know my favorite lyric In tonight Which is my favorite song in West Side Story Yeah it's the best one I mean it's maybe I mean whatever Okay at my press screening of west side story jordan hoffman the great uh the great jordan hoffman was wandering around at the walter reed

and he was like you know right off the hip what's your favorite west side story song not number not dance sequence not like sequence in the movie just what's favorite song and I said I was like I mean is probably corny and I like a lot of the songs but tonight and Richard Lawson friend of the show was just was just sitting there and he was like and I was sort of looking I'm like I know

it's kind of obvious but I suppose there's no non obvious answer anyway and he was like yeah I mean it's maybe the best sort of Broadway ballad ever written. Like, it's not like an embarrassing answer to say. No. Anyway, but my favorite lyric in, my favorite sort of Sondheim-y lyric is when Tony says,

today the world was just an address, a place for me to live in, no better than all right. But here you are. And what, you know, what was just a world is a star tonight it's such a it's such a like strange thoughtful metaphor like for to to jam into uh a song where the the message is literally just tonight i feel great because i met him i met you like you know there's not like you know what i mean okay all right i get it you're fucking disappointed that i didn't rewrite sondheim more thoroughly for the introduction of my podcast dare i say it was a daunting task i think weeks after the death of steven sondheim the greatest

american lyricist you should have mangled his work. Right. I didn't want to fucking do... More thoroughly. I want to podcast in America. I thought Tonight Tonight was the easiest one to do and just say I will podcast tonight. It's wrong. We're podcasting now. It's the afternoon. It's the afternoon. We're not recording again tonight. No.

No. No. It's a lie. It's a boldface lie. It wasn't good. I was off pitch. What time is it in the song? Who knows? How late is it? Probably the evening It's sundown, the sun is fully down So judging by New York's Current schedule

It's probably 3.30pm Pitch black One more week, Griffin, and then you know what? What? Days start getting longer better that's one thing we can't change the movement of the spheres i hit it i mean i gotta say producer ben say it you could have you could have started snapping ben ducer say it i would have been good with a little just snippety snap.

I thought about that, but then it's just like, what do I go? When you're a blankie, you're a blankie all the way. It doesn't really fit. Wait, David, that was great. Holy shit. That was great. This is the thing. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry to everyone. I'm disappointing. I don't I can't do this as well as David can. He's a master lyricist. And I, I just didn't have the energy to fucking take on a whole verse. So immensely clever of me to replace jet with blanky, a word that has more syllable fits perfectly.

It's a clean fit. Uh, which, which jet are you Griff? Can I read out their names? Yeah You know, because they've got these funny names The jets, you know And some of which, you know

Are not totally PC for 2020 Well, so there's Action Cool name Baby John Okay, that so far sounds like me Big deal Diesel Vin Ice John. Okay. That big deal. Sounds like me. Not me. Big deal. Nice diesel.

Vin ice. Okay. Mouthpiece. That might be you. That might be me. Numbers. Uh, skink snow boy.

Okay. Tiger. And then there's, there's, there's a rab who, who we, we probably, we probably shouldn't be thinking about too much.

Balkan. And Little Moly. I don't know Little Moly. I don't know what that really is in reference to. Okay. Little Moly. Who do you think you are? Antibodies doesn't count as a jet?

Antibody. Hey, I'm anti your body. That's what a jet would say to a shark i didn't say antibodies i said anybody's uh anybody anybody's no i don't really know what you're saying anybody's anybody's is the character in this movie that is trans that was a tomboy in the original film uh right anybody's is sorry is not listed in theets because anybody's is a bigger role. So anybody's sorry. I didn't see anybody's, but they're up top with the main in the main principle. Yes.

Okay. Gotcha. Right. Okay. There's also Glad Hand. I think that might be another jet. Anyway, they got some great names. That's all I'm saying.

Oh, no. Glad Hand. I'm sorry. Glad Hand is he's the guy at the date at the gym who's like hey won't everybody get along come on what's the matter i i god i'll say this i can't sing i can't dance i was jealous watching this movie being like i wish i'd gotten to do this when i was like fucking 25 like or in high school or any production in this movie just to be like a new york kid who's telling you you better watch your mouth uh uh sorry uh glad hand played by mike iveson

who's a great actor i saw him on stage in what the constitution means to me oh sure uh good good good show it was filmed i think uh if you can watch it. In high school, Griffin, did you ever... Were you ever in a musical? Like, even if you couldn't sing, but, you know, I assume they did musicals at your high school. Did you ever do a small role?

Excuse me. I took on numbers myself for the record. I willed my way through it. I did Anything Goes twice. That's the only musical I've ever done. I did it in middle school and in high school. I was in a musical. Which one, Ben?

Freshman year of high school, I tried I joined it because I was trying to meet this girl. Classic story. But I ended up then getting cast in Bye Bye Birdie as the nerd in the beginning. What is his name?

Oh, yeah. And then that made me seem not cool. It made you seem not cool. Oh, you're right. You're hoisted by your own petard. You got in there. But then they were like, Ben, you play Mr. No Sex.

Yeah. You play the dud dud so it gave me no standing in the cast unfortunately uh that sucks i'm sorry ben great great great show though you never did musicals did you do no i i did plays but i can't i can't sing or dance either. So I, and I, and I, yeah, I mean, it's, it's very impressive to me to be able to sing and dance. And you know,

it's more impressive singing and dancing at the same time. Like I'm really like, how do you, how do you keep all that in your head all at once? It's a magical shit. And look, this is a podcast called blank check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

I'm David. Uh, very fast. And, uh, it's a podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. Very fast. And it's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products they want. But sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce. Baby. Years ago, we covered Steven Spielberg, or at least the second half of his career, because it's very long.

We've never gotten back around to covering we really should 10 of the most famous and beloved movies of all time I think we've always been like well that's like money in the bank someday we have in our back pocket we can do Jaws, 3 Indiana Jones Jurassic Park

E.T. Close Encounters it's yeah that's I mean it's all that it's everything you just said. We would have to... We would do Duel, right? I think we'd do Duel. Maybe, perhaps on Patreon, but we wouldn't do Duel. We probably wouldn't do something evil or savage.

Maybe we would. Probably not, though. No, I think Duel's the only one we'd include, yeah. But then the Joneses, E.T., Close Encounters, Jaws, Jurassic Park, Schindler's List. Yeah. Yeah. You do have the Color Purple and Empire of the Sun ones to sort of muddle through.

Always and Hook, though, would be, you know. Right. Would be a blast. And 1941 would be a blast. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like those are sort of big, strange failures. I just feel like Color Purple are sort of big strange failures i just feel like color purple empire of the sun those are both like movies with defenders movies that are good but not great in my

opinion very you know uh serious and worthy and not they haven't quite figured it out uh he hasn't quite figured it anyway whatever anyway we'll do it there he is obviously a man who has had blank check status for decades and perhaps is still one of the only people in hollywood where him wanting to do a movie gets a green light immediately like he just kind of has the runway where it's like what does spielberg want to do next and he's always floating around 10 or 15 different projects you always hear these rumors of he's considering this thing. And then one will jump out of the pack and come together very quickly. I feel like that's always the way for him now, right? Like you'll hear like, like Lincoln was on the burner for like a decade, right?

And it's like, he might do Lincoln next, or he just optioned this book, or he's thinking about remaking this. And then one of them will jump out and I'll be like, this is happening. It's going into production in two months he works very fast once he makes his choice yes that's the magic right he can get everything in place quickly and then

film quickly even if it's a massive production and he'll do shit like the post right where he's like they start the ready player one visual effects stuff and he's like okay what i got like two months oh i'll fucking call tom hanks and meryl streep up right here's like some hot spec script floating around i'll pick it up get the two most like venerated dad movie stars of all time

mom and dad of of film and uh and just knock it out quickly um can you imagine Steven Spielberg's contacts and his cell phone? Like who is Steven Spielberg texting? Do you know? Like obviously his family, but people will talk about this. People will talk about like texting with him. Really? Oh,

that's so weird. Yeah. Like people who are like, yeah, it's weird. I'm like friends with Spielberg and we just like talk about shit. Like, I feel like including people he hasn't worked with and just met with or actor he's

worked with i feel like bill haters talked about like fucking texting with him about tcm movies or whatever that's that's what i would want to do i would want to just be like pick up the phone and be like steve i'm fucking you know i'm watching this glenn ford movie have you seen it and he would i assume be like oh yeah of course And then we would, you know, yeah. Yeah, it fucking rules. That sounds fun. He's a badass. He's a fucking badass. Do you remember David? I mean, he's been saying for a long time

that he wanted to make a musical, right? It's like been a thing for him for a while. Hook was at one point supposed to be a musical. Hook is the big one. Was there another one? Hook actually, I think, had songs written that they never locked down. Hook might have made sense more as a musical. I think it would have.

I don't know. It needs something. That's for sure. But yeah, Hook. That's the one argument for not going back and doing early Spielberg is people are going to get so fucking angry at our Hook episode. But the Hook, look, I recently rewatched it. That was like a real, like,

when I was going through things that my wife had never seen when we were deep in quarantine. I was like, you've never seen Hook? Let's throw it on. I throw it on. As I always am with Hook being like, maybe this is the time I get it. First 20 minutes, you're like, this works. The first act,

you're like, yeah, okay. the first act you're like yeah okay and then i think it just it you know he that is also the absolute fucking height of his like daddy issue shit yes just yes issues with his own dad but issues with himself as a dad and like and and you're just like steve stop it you're it's overwhelming it's like the inception there's like a train running through this thing like Like, this is a Peter Pan movie. It doesn't have to be about how you're a bad dad. I think it's, yeah, I mean, it's like, I feel like I would prefer the Nick Castle version of that movie

that he had been developing for a long time before Spielberg took it over. That's the rare case of a movie that is overwhelmed by Spielberg. But the thing about it is not, it's overthought. It's the wrong thing. It's overwhelmed by Spielberg. It's is overwhelmed by Spielberg. But the thing about it is not it's overthought. It's the wrong. It's overwhelmed by Spielberg. It's also overwhelmed by Robin Williams. Not that there's he's not awful, but he eventually starts to he needs to be reined in a little bit. And but

it looks cool. Like, you know, it's that's it's just the sets are so crazy and like, you know, all that, you know, anyway, look, that's the thing. He's able to command whatever resources he wants, whatever talents he wants. And look, I love this movie that we you know, anyway. Look, that's the thing. He's able to command whatever resources he wants, whatever talents he wants. And look, I love this movie that we're about to talk about, but even in the bad ones like Hook, there are sequences where you're like,

that are directed like musical numbers, where you're like, holy shit. And the thing in Hook, there's the thing where they lead his hook up on a pillow and they're all going like, hook, hook, hook. And like, and then he comes out and everything and you're just like this is mesmerizing this is so well choreographed the camera is exactly where it should be blah blah blah all that the fucking opening of temple of doom where they do musical

numbers it's incredible right so i feel like real real heads have been waiting for spielberg to make a musical forever and he has always sort of said like like, I want to make one. I've waited to find the right thing. What's the right thing? And by his account, he just kind of kept on going back to West Side Story because I think it was a formative movie for him and a movie he shared with his

father. Going back to the daddy issues, I think it left a really big imprint on him because it was like his dad's favorite movie and he had memories of seeing it with his father and his father caring about him, whatever. And then at some point, like maybe six or seven years ago, Fox buys the remake rights to West Side Story specifically for Spielberg. And I feel like everyone was like, why?

Why? Why would Spielberg do this? I understand he must make a musical musical but that feels like an odd choice is this really gonna happen he hires tony kushner to adapt it people are like that's interesting sure and then as i remember there was the thing he got pretty close to making was that pope movie with mark rylance and oscar isaac yes that is a movie that he and Tony, and Tony Kushner had been working on basically since Lincoln, the Kush,

the dankest screenwriter in Hollywood. That was about this. It's about this sort of anti-Semitic incident that happened, right? Like it's this very interesting, true story. It makes sense that they would be drawn to it and i can't remember is it because they couldn't find the right kid exactly that's exactly what it's called the kidnapping of edgardo mortara is what it's

called right um but so here and i have this from a.o scott's uh profile of kushner which was recently the new york times spielberg threw threw West Side Story to Kushner in 2014. Like, when they were cracking this Vatican thing, you know, and it wasn't working out, he was like, have you ever thought about West Side Story? And Kushner Kushner apparently

said he went home, he talked to Mark Harris, his husband, and was like, he's lost his mind. He wants to do West Side Story. It's a fool's errand. Not only does he want to remake a musical, which people just don't do, because there just aren't that many musical, movie musicals, any made anymore.

So remaking one. But he wants to remake a best picture winning musical that has a very sort of ingrained, it's a very well-known film, obviously. But you're right. 2014 is when Fox gets the rights, specifically because Spielberg has sort of mentioned

that he was thinking about it. He throws it out to Kushner. It feels like one of these things in the rotation that it's like, he's never actually gonna make that. They're trying to make the Pope movie. They can't find the kid. And then Indiana Jones 5 is announced.

Right. Was he initially announced as making it, or was that... Absolutely. The thing that was supposed to happen, which is wild, is Kusher developed a script. He was happy with it. He announced, we're gonna make West Side Story. But you believe that as far as you can, because the Pope movie was announced and it didn't come about. There was Robo apocalypse and other things that he's gone as far as casting,

but never come to fruition. Right. So his thing was, we want to cast age appropriate and, you know, a big angle of this movie, racially appropriate. We have to actually cast Latino actors for all of the, uh, the sharks. Uh, so we're going to have to actually cast Latino actors for all of the sharks. So we're going to have to do a really expansive casting search. So the thing he sort of announced was like, we're starting casting now. Then I'm going to go film Indiana Jones five. And I think by the time Indiana Jones five is done, we will have located everyone for the whole cast. Right. So they start casting this very wide net for the movie, taking submissions from anyone and everyone

trying to find all the kids. And then he's like, never mind. I'm not making Indiana Jones. I'm making West Side Story right now. Like, it suddenly happened in this very Spielberg way incredibly quickly. Yes. And, like, he hasn't made a movie since Ready Player One right?

he made the post after Ready Player One but it came out before and so it was just as you say rather than him doing the kind of thing of I'll sneak X in while Y is preparing he just he just yeah he just jumped this

to the front of the line I don't know it was kind of crazy i mean and you say like he hasn't made a movie since ready player one but it's also that long right yeah well it's it's also like this movie was shot two years ago it was this movie like it would have been a two-year gap between movies now it's a three-year gap because of the novel coronavirus right and he's already shot, of course, his newest film, which will come out in 2022, called The Fablemans, which is literally his daddy issues movie where he's finally making the movie about his father. And his father just recently died. This movie is dedicated to him.

His father died at the age of 103. Yeah. The man lived a life. Yeah. And he has this very. Did watch the hbo spielberg documentary griff yep you know he's got this very interesting relationship with his dad where they clearly kind of like came around to each other as adults and had a whole new sort of understanding of each other much late right like sort of weird stuff and the divorce and all that yeah well i did

just to say it quickly the thing on hbo the divorce and all that yeah well i did just to say it quickly the thing on hbo the the revelation in that documentary that i never understood before was just like obviously the whole spielberg thing is like abandoned by father trauma of divorce that that's sort of the shadow that seems to loom over all the movies sort of spielberg origin story right right he thought his dad left his mom in a lurch right what he later found out as an adult is that his mother fell in love with his father's best friend and he did not want the children to demonize her for breaking up the marriage so he like took the bullet and was like i don't know i can't handle this i'm leaving and let them think of him as the asshole so that

she could retain like, I don't know, security? Absolutely, especially because back in the day it would be more unusual for a dad to get custody, you know, like that's part of it. I mean, my, it's, yeah,

it's a crazy story. Right, she was like, I want you to love your mother and I, this is my friend and I think he can be a good stepfather., she was like, I want you to love your mother, and this is my friend, and I think he can be a good stepfather. I'll just let this be a functional family unit and let you villainize me, which is fascinating. It's fascinating, and also in the documentary, you see them together, him and Spielberg's mother, and they clearly have this very nice relationship. They figured it all out later in life.

It's wild. His mother also, she died at the age of 97. They like figured it all out later in life or whatever. It's, it's wild. His mother also, she died at like the age of 97. They're a long lived family. Uh, but he recently died and it's just wild that Spielberg announced like, I'm going to make a film called the,

uh, the Bleelbergs. It's about a Jewish family growing up in Arizona. And Seth Rogen is going to be in it. I'm like, uh, is this, uh, is this,

uh, something you've been waiting to get out And I think Michelle Williams is his mom And Paul Dano is his dad Paul Dano is his uncle And uh sorry yeah Paul Dano is his dad And Seth Rogen is his uncle I assume Rogen is the sort of

The lovable uncle I don't totally know I think so But I think you'd want to cast Rogen as a lovable guy I mean the other fascinating thing is He co-wrote this movie, Fablemans, with Kushner, which is the third time in his career he's written his own film. I believe Close Encounters and AI are the only other script credits he has, right? Right. Yeah, I think so.

I can't. That's a fact in my head. I'm not. I can't totally confirm. It's so wild. I mean mean I don't know about you Griffin but I'm pretty excited for that movie I'm very excited for that movie now the movie we're talking about today is West Side Story a film that he improbably

made sure and that I think has I think once again real heads have just been so excited at the prospect of Spielberg fucking musical numbers this thing is going to be out of control this is going to be out of control. This is going to be a masterclass in blocking and camera movement and all of

these things that, that he has always excelled at that are the cornerstone of the movie musical, which many, including myself would argue is like when executed properly, the ultimate use of the form. Right. A hundred percent. Agreed.

A hundred percent. Yep. Like a good movie musical is taking greatest advantage of everything that film can do, in a lot of ways. Or at least narrative film can do, let's say. Which is why it's so frustrating to watch movie musicals,

especially recently, that kneecap themselves, that cut into the action. Right. That are way too close. You're not seeing full bodies. You're not seeing ensembles sharing the same frame. Yeah.

This isn't a musical, but I was just thinking about this with Saturday Night Fever. I was listening to the rewatchables about it and where apparently Travolta did so much work learning to dance properly, learning all these numbers. And then like,

he's looking at the dailies from the first sequence where the guy is cutting into his feet and cutting into it. Right. And he's like, if you do this, I literally am quitting tomorrow. I will not show up. You must fill me at home.

You must, I like, I must be seen dancing. Yeah. Why would you do this? Like, and I do think a lot of directors are like, well,

I want to emphasize their feet in this moment i want to cut into like this person's face and it's like you need to back off sometimes you need to anyway spielberg always felt like a person who would understand how to do that ironically uh west side story is credited as being like the first musical to use editing expressionistically where the editing is sort of part of the dance of the movie but you're still mostly dealing with big wide full body shots of groups of people uh the cuts are just sort of on rhythm it would be boring if you just had a stationary camera on a stick because then it's like well i'm just in a broadway theater now like obviously you should do things

i was going to say west West Side Story sort of creates that more or less, and then Fosse, some decades later, kind of heightens that to a new degree where the editing is really part of the dance. And then I think the trickle-down of Fosse has fucked a lot of movie musicals. I don't want to lay all

the blame on him, but like many phenomenons, it's like someone doing something really radical really well gets misinterpreted by the wrong people and then gets diluted, diluted, diluted to the point where you just like watch all these musicals. I mean, I feel like there have been

musicals in the last 10 years that you and I have liked to varying degrees. And even when we like one, we usually say like it's relatively good at not cutting too much right like you want to give it like faint praise i mean boz lorman i i love the man but i do think you know moulin

rouge is like edited within an inch of its life and it makes sense in moulin rouge because it's this sort of like heady mtv like mania thing but again right people learn the wrong lessons from that west side story cabaret moulin rouge three great films that have fucked up things for everyone over the last 60 years but i mean that's look it's a classic story of hollywood obviously is the stuff that's influential is often good but then they uh i mean rob marshall to me you know, a man who I'm sure is perfectly nice, who I consider like a grand enemy of cinema. Yeah. I mean, it's one of these things where you and I talk about every time he gets announced for some new $150 million Disney movie. We're like, this guy must be so nice.

He must be the loveliest. And he must run a good set, you know. And like, he has directed four musicals, four movie musicals, Chicago, Nine, Into the Woods and Mary Poppins Returns. Yes. Three of them are terrific shows. One of them is Mary Poppins Returns, which is not a show, but is is what it is. I think that those movies descend in quality. Who the fuck does that happen to?

I know it's insane I think Chicago has flaws but I kind of like how he staged it and then I think he learns all the wrong lessons from it and then nine is like pretty bad but yeah okay you know kind of like they go ahead no I didn't sorry I didn't mean to cut you off

I just I had to come in and just say that we're forgetting a really important recent musical that I think needs to be mentioned, which is Cats. Ben, we will get to this. We're going to get to Cats and Les Mis. We'll get to that. Because for me, to me, that was like a transcendent experience. Cats.

I loved seeing it in the theaters. And it's really I feel like it's I feel like it should be included in the films you're mentioning Ben, Ben, Ben, we're getting to it having a big influence Katz is its own thing chronologically Katz is important as like the last pre-pandemic musical

yeah I would call it the last pre-pandemic thing in a way to really break through in any way. Like, obviously it was unsuccessful, but the way it sort of like took hold of the culture in a moment. It was gaining steam already as a cult object, as a thing people would get drunk and watch.

Experiential. You have to go see cats with people. You have to find the right level of inebriation and go to a place and experience it with friends and strangers. The frickin, you know, Alamo Drafthouse was basically like, that's that's 80 grand a month for us for the rest of our fucking life. People coming to see rowdy cat screen. Yes. And and then there was the novel coronavirus.

But no, just as a quick anecdote, I went to see a rowdy cat screening at Alamo, like beginning of February, end of January, like right before everything went to shit. And friend of the podcast, Larry Owens, was there. And I was like, Larry, are you introducing my rowdy cat screening? And he was like, no, I'm introducing the other rowdy cat screening. But my friend's introducing your rowdy cat screening.

And this screening starts 10 minutes before. So I'm going to try to run in and catch her intro they had like multiple screens doing rowdy cats at the same time every weekend like rowdy cats was ready to become fucking Rocky Horror at least for a year or two and then the theatrical movie going experience is fucking as you would say David kneecap

well you know what maybe that is maybe that is the thing that will finally you know one day bring it back not not not you know if you know are we we trust in vaccines we love scientific breakthroughs but then there'll be that one day where I almost like we're bringing back rowdy cat screenings and it sells out in one minute and we're like oh shit so roll this back for a moment right nine when it came out i was like how could the guy who made chicago fuck up this badly and then i would argue as well into the woods and mary poppins are worse than nine in a certain way they're all similar levels of bad into the woods maybe has into the

woods is such a good show that's the thing thing. It gets more watchable. And the performances are very good in it, but the filmmaking in it is horrendous. The filmmaking is pretty bad. And also beyond like his fucking editing of this stuff, like, you know, the sets are a little lame. I don't know. It's just like kind of lame. I've only seen it once.

Mary Poppins Returns is a movie some people stick up for. Yeah, I don't get it. I don't really get it either. There are things in it where I'm like, okay, I get that you like that, but I do think the musical numbers are out and out bad, especially the big ones, like the big group ones. And I like, I don't know, man.

I put that on like some Christmas. It was on fricking whatever, Disney, whatever. You know, being like, okay, maybe. And like 10 minutes in, I was like, get this. I'm bored. I'm bummed out. Like, I don't want to. This is a bummer. I find it lame ass shit.

Very annoying. And I'm so in the tank for Mary Poppins. It is a thing that like a good lady. She's a good lady and she's a pretty good babysitter as well. When you consider what she had to work with. I agree with that. I think she's a pretty good babysitter as well. When you consider what she had to work with. I agree with that. I think she's an underrated babysitter, actually.

Anyway, Rob Marshall is now making The Little Mermaid. His reign of terror will never be ended. He's doing another one. Now, Hamilton obviously explodes and I think reinvigorates a sort of cultural love for the movie musical, especially with a younger generation, right? I think musicals have sort of like caught hold again a little bit. Um, greatest showman makes a metric ass load of money has continued to be this

sort of evergreen record sales thing. And then they'd fucking do the album. That's like greatest showman re-imagined where they cover all the songs with pop stars and like the kelly clarkson never enough or whatever is like you know yeah yeah you always forget about that greatest show that's what i'm saying you can't let him sneak by no and that's like everyone was like why are they letting jackman do this is this his blank check for like finishing up wolver? Right. The story was that the production was like a fucking mess. They had to shut down four times. He got cancer in the middle of it.

They brought on different people to try to rewrite and redirect the movie and reedit the movie. It comes out. It bombs opening weekend. And everyone's just like, this is embarrassing. As we thought. Right.

You know, it gets pretty bad reviews. It opens, you know, $10 million and everyone's like uh huh yeah of course he did a pt barnum musical who gives a shit about that and then the next weekend it goes up 15 and people are like huh that's weird and then greatest showman had a run that sort of we haven't seen the likes of since like big fat greek wedding or or Titanic where it just stayed stable every single week for like four

months. Yeah, it did. I think The Greatest Showman's a good time and I think the songs are pretty bad and I think the presentation of P.T. Barnum's life is maybe

a little varnished in that movie. Why, David? I think it might be sanding off some of his Barnum's life is maybe a little varnished in that movie. I don't know. I think it might be sanding off some of his rough edges. No, the animals loved being there in a way that movie feels like, like seven brides or for seven brothers or something where you're like, this thing is like objectionable, but I can't deny it's got my toes tapping.

You know, you're like, these aren't legendary numbers, but it fucking works and i why did they make a musical with this subject matter but i don't know i have a grid on my face so i think that that supercharges everything again right well yeah yeah mama mia obviously that's the mommy it does well the second mama mia fucking rips les mis did well i think uh what the only musicals to get Best Picture nominations

in the last, whatever it's been, 15 years are, or 20 years, are Chicago and Les Mis. I think none of the other ones have connected Oscar-wise. Maybe I'm forgetting one. Obviously, Moulin Rouge got one. That's

at this point more than 20 years ago. That's 20 years. So that was pre-Chicago, I was saying. Does Chicago winning Best Picture made everyone think, does this go back to being Oscar bait? Les Mis might be it. Yeah, I think. I mean, the other big...

Look, I'm looking at a sort of... I mean, you can list all the belly flops of producers. Rock of Ages. But, you know, Hairspray was a hit. Hairspray rips. Great, great movie, in my opinion. Right? Yes.

No, I dislike the Travolta performance immensely. It makes me uncomfortable. I think everything else in that movie is great. I think everything else in that movie is great. And I say this from a very unbiased opinion. I think Les Mis is a really bad movie agreed but it does the show is good enough that you're sort of with it it's the fucking same thing as into the woods and you're like there's some really good performances in this it kind of carries but i think in both cases

the directors are oh well la la land griffin, La La Land, Griffin, was nominated for Best Picture. Oh, of course, of course. Motherfucker, yes. But that's another one. Nominated for Best Picture. Almost wins Best Picture. We could start a fire. Yep. Makes a ton of money.

Mm-hmm. So it's just like. The huge hit? Right. There was the wave post-Chicago where no other musicals were connecting. And in the last, like, five years, there's been an influx. There's been a rise again. And I think Greatest Showman, above all else, was just like, fuck, it's open season.

We're back. All of this to say, in this 2021, year of our Lord, we've had Dear Evan Hansen, In the Heights, and West Side Story. You're forgetting two other great musicals. Live action? Live action. The other two great musicals that came out this year actually three if you include tick tick boom which i guess you should oh sure okay tick tick boom on netflix yeah uh but yeah it's on netflix but you're forgetting annette of course sorry and you're forgetting a little movie called girl boss cinderella my friend

that's right she's a girl. She's going to have her own business. Making dresses, I think, is the plot of that one. David's favorite movie of 2021. Not a good movie. No, no. But a movie with many musical numbers. Obviously, it's mostly a jukebox musical with a couple

original songs is kind of how they did it. But yes, what you're trying to say, Griffin, is that all of these movies have underwhelmed at the box office. Not with critics, by and large, although Cinderella underwhelmed with critics. But they have not connected with audiences. Now, is it maybe

a little unfair that, you know, the year of the movie musical was the year of the novel coronavirus? Perhaps. Yes, probably. Yes. Good to see those movies with a lot of people yeah and it's i i do think a thing you worded it very very well on twitter of all places recently i love to word things well on twitter better than wording things badly but it really is like you know the movies that are doing well, almost exclusively, are franchise movies that primarily play to boys 17 to 32 or whatever.

Young people who feel invincible. Probably one of the best age groups. Such a good age group. Having just exited it. Especially when you focus on the whites. especially when you focus on the whites. But I think above all else, also the other factor here we have to say is like,

movies where people are afraid of being spoiled online if they don't see them right away. I do think that's a huge thing driving movie going is the kinds of movies where A, we've been conditioned to believe that these are the movies that you need to see on a big screen. Other movies can be watched at home, but you need to see Black Widow on a big screen with surround sound and all the accoutrements. But B, you don't want to have to fucking mute words on Twitter and log out of Facebook for

a week. No, no, for sure. Yeah. And obviously, younger people are more plugged into social media anyway, so they're also more afraid of social media for that reason. But you're right. But yeah, no, I mean, yeah, go carry it. Finish your point.

No, but like something in the Heights was expected to be a huge crossover hit. And then it just sort of belly fl't getting people back to the theater and the musical in particular is a film that's supposed to be experienced with like a fucking cheering crowd yeah and also these movies are made for families and yeah just older people are not back in droves uh i've had conversations with older people in my life not my mother who loves to go to the movies but a lot of other older people in my life who are like, oh, well, I can just wait to see, you know, who have been fairly satisfied to just wait for it to be on TV anyway, because what do they care, right?

You know, like, there is the vibe I get. And I'll be like, oh, you know, it's good to go to the movies. Come on, you know, right. And they're like, eh. Look, and the thing that you and I text about, I cannot cast any aspersions on anyone who does not feel safe

going to the theater, because we all have fucking different limits right now, and the world makes no sense. Well, and also, you live in different places, you know. Absolutely. It's one thing to go to the movie theater in New York, and another thing to go somewhere else. Yep. Absolutely. But I also do think it's interesting the people who, like,

only think it's worth going for these three very narrow movies. Like, the people who only went to the theaters worth going for these three very narrow movies, like the people who only went to the theaters to see the three Marvel movies this year or whatever the fuck, you know, and everything else they can sort of wait for. And look, I once again do not bemoan anyone who just feels more safe waiting to watch in the comfort of their home. The thing that you and I text about late nights is just like, how is this going to affect the pipeline of what gets made and how quickly and to what severity?

Because the fact of the matter is the only movies that are actually getting people to theaters in numbers are the humongous mega tentpole blockbusters. And even so, those movies are not making enough money to justify the insane amounts of money they cost to make and market. They're making as like Black Widow is making as much as West Side Story should have made. And Black Widow should be making twice or three times that amount in terms of the business model. I don't fucking know. The point is, this movie comes out and open to $10 million, pretty much the same number that In the Heights opened to, better than Dear Evan Hansen. It is this bizarre fact to go full circle to what you were pointing out, Ben, that Cats was seen as a giant bomb despite becoming obviously a beloved sort of

cultural reclaimed object almost immediately. And what I texted you the other day was, and we will see, this is coming out, this episode, in weekend two of West Side Story, people are kind of holding their breath and going,

is there any chance it does a great showman? Does it just not dip? Does it stay steady throughout the holidays? Do families finally go out to see it? I don't know.

But there's a good chance that the three studio movie musicals that were released theatrically in 2021 will all undergross Cats. Yeah. I mean, again, there is a pandemic. Cats didn't have a pandemic.

I'm not judging them. That's part of the soup. That is part of the soup of what I'm saying. I'm not condemning their box office performance outside of the pandemic. Also, Cats is at the Winter Garden Theater, as we all remember from the ad. You know, one of the most successful musicals ever made.

People just kind of had their knives out for In the Heights. And I feel bad for In the Heights. Because it's a good movie, and everyone was mad at Lin-Manuel Miranda. I don't even know. I can't even remember why. Whatever. Everyone was just sort of like, sick of him. And that movie's pretty good. I wish it had made more money.

It's fine. Everyone kind of tags it with like, eh. And look, I like John Chu. I do think this movie kind of puts him to shame on that front. Where it's like John Chu, I'm like, did a good job. And this does a much better job just with the aesthetics of filming big musical sequences. But I still think In the Heights is pretty good. Look, we're 45 minutes into the episode.

We should start digging into the meat of the movie, but all this context I think is important. I just want to say that with In the Heights, I think there was that feeling of, this is going to be the thing that gets people back into the theaters based on just the joy of movie going, right? Not it's a franchise where people have been waiting for the next installment, but like, man,

how great is it going to be to see In the Heights with a crowd and a big screen? I think a lot of the fucking film Twitter and the film community and critics and everyone were sort of writing

their reviews and their takes based on that idea of like, because especially critic screenings were happening and had been happening since before the pandemic when the movie was originally supposed to come out

and people were like, this thing just plays magically with a crowd. And then it comes out and it just sort of belly flops. And then I think there was the feeling of like, is West Side Story going to be able to succeed where In the Heights didn't? David, you went to a critic screening. I feel like all the responses I read from the first wave of people seeing it at critic screenings, at premieres, at what have you, were likevitational like people i think were just so relieved that this movie was good that spielberg was in good form that they felt like it kind of

argued its own existence that you have a couple lightning in a bottle performances and people are like this thing's just kind of fucking magical and then people don't really go we live in new york city where i imagine the movie is doing better than any other city in America. Like I was just looking at Fandango with Ben and most screenings in New York were sold out opening weekend. Like I and I saw people posting online like I live in Chicago. Here's the my Fandango and it would be like two seats sold out for evening performance at the best theater in the center of town.

We went to see it at IMAX on Sunday afternoon, 2.30, opening weekend. I would say it was 98% sold out. Like, there were some empty seats in the first two rows, but the rest of the theater was packed. It's the biggest. Lincoln Square. And I would say

our audience was respectful. Well, I don't fucking care about your fucking audience it sounds like they're a bunch of nerds i'm just telling you like i think it was respectful it did not feel like there was a ton of energy going on there i would say the only moment is when link when they're the movies in lincoln square that you kind of got like some kind of audible response from the audience because it's in the place they are. Correct.

You would hear people like try to start a clap that wouldn't really take. Yeah. And then there was applause at the end of the movie. But I like, I don't know. I'm just, I'm curious. This is the thing I want to throw out to you, David. I do feel like you had a baby. There's still a pandemic.

You're like exclusively going to see movies on the job, right? Like you have not paid to go see a movie at a theater with a general audience in the last year. No, I have, but rarely. A couple of times. Rarely. Not that often. Rarely. A couple times. Rarely. Not that often, yeah. Rarely.

And I think most critics I know are in similar positions where it's just like, well, I want to make these things count. I want to be strategic. I'll go to the screenings and whatever. I think critics' screenings have hotter audiences now than, like, any public showing.

I'm not saying that the movies are getting graded on let me talk because you're talking about my screening and i my screening had like 10 people in it there was no energy whatsoever okay screening because i did not go to the premiere what you're talking about is the film premiered sure at jazz at lincoln center the night before i saw it and i'm sure that was a hot fucking screening because that had everyone in the house. Everyone's all jazzed up for the yada, yada, yada. I did not want to go that night.

I can't remember why I was. Oh, yeah, I just I couldn't go that night. So I went the next morning to the sort of backup screening for Critics Circle members. No one was. It was me, Jordan Hopp and Richard Lawson, 10 other people. It was silent there was one old guy laughing at some stuff and and i appreciated that guy whoever he was shout out to him i couldn't quite figure make out who it was uh but no there was no energy in my i was not

like this was not like a sundance fever situation where like i walk out of there i sat there the movie started i like just immediately I was like oh he's he did it I can't believe it and I was so happy the whole movie I have seen it twice since on my fucking television I burst into tears twice watching it on TV having

wow yes at two specific shots at literally shot making can you tell us the shot absolutely I can tell you the shots. Is it when the chains and they throw all the weapons together? Is that the moment that kind of chokes you up? That rules.

Number one is in the gym when they scream Mambo and the camera cranes out like really fast and suddenly everyone disperses into their groups, into the full dance i just like i just it's electrified it is electrified and the second is during america

which is a great number obviously yes where they sort of close to the end of the number where they do a move where they are hopping the boys and girls are hopping on the curb and like sort of jumping back and forth and clapping like they're you know it's sort of like i was just like this is i can't believe how good this is like i especially since i love the original west side story movie i've seen it like a billion times it's sort of like a on rotation type movie my whole childhood my mom loves west side story blah blah blah you know and I love that movie I got plenty of love in my heart for OG

WSS and I still just like I can't oh it's so good like that's like that's my reaction sort of shivery delight at seeing I mean there's so many other sequences I love too I'm just saying those are the two that made me cry with happiness.

I was happy at other stuff. Okay. If I can respond. I'm not accusing you of having a souped up reaction grading it on a curve. I just, I feel like what I'm trying to point out is I think there's an

incredibly great disconnect now because of how few people are going to theaters and like critics and people who are attending film festivals are obviously the most passionate people about this. And so you're seeing things with crowds that are like so happy. I'm not talking about you. I'm not talking about specific movie. I'm just talking about more of a general thing right now where I feel like the people at these screenings, I'm jealous. I'm jealous mostly that I don't get to fucking go to them. Okay, here we go.

Jealousy rears its green eyes. But I mean, I've heard from lots of people who love this movie. Like, you know, it's not just critics. A lot of my friends went to see it. They flipped out about it. You know, it's not just that. And it's not just about this movie. It's just that I miss that fucking

energy at a theater. I feel like the only time I felt it maybe this entire year was the stupid fucking end credits thing at the end of Venom, which depressed me. That's the one thing that got a rise out of people. Right. I certainly watched a theater go ballistic at that. And a rise out of people right I certainly watched a theater go ballistic at that

and I was sort of like I remember I'll look I'll say I just saw Spider-Man colon No Way Home probably gonna blow the fucking doors off of every theater in America which right I saw it with a press crowd that was enthusiastic

but I would say maybe not rocking and I was like i can imagine this with a sort of midnight you know fan crowd really freaking out that might be fun but there's a moment in that movie that made me cry and like i'd maybe cry in the way or i was kind of like i can't believe that got me like you know you know so it was a little annoyed rose like that was that's really pandering to me but I was also like oh you know it worked is it when J Jonah Jameson says get me pictures of Spider-Man

I cannot wait to tell you what moment it is I bet I'm not sure you'll be able to guess Griff but I bet you might it's not like some tiny moment it's like a big moment but it's sort of a meta moment I can imagine it's part of a meta moment, I guess. I can imagine.

It's part of the metaverse? That's interesting. Yeah, well, Mark Zuckerberg shows up and he just really convincingly pitches whatever it is. I don't even know what it is. Whatever it is he's doing now, taking over our brains.

I just, I miss movies other than Marvel movies being able to get that kind of energy from a crowd. And even if they weren't humongous blockbusters, I feel like spoiled New York, good film culture. You used to be able to get that sort of thing. And I don't blame it on anything or anyone. I once again understand why people want to stay home. But it's a fucking bummer.

All of this to say, I was very primed to just fucking love this movie. Ben and I saw it. We were both very hungover and dealing with a COVID scare. So that perhaps affected our headspace. May well have. Sure. May well have. But I was like, this audience is going to get me fucking amped up.

I think this movie is very good. I did not get the levitational thing I was hoping for. But this is the thing. You're just mad you didn't get the, you know. Well, correct. And I don't know if I have any complaints about it, although I will say there was the one question ringing through my head the entire time that I know is going to make you really angry, which is probably why I've spent 50 minutes winding up to this question.

What's the question? I still don't totally understand why he wanted to make West Side Story specifically. Uh-huh. Versus what? Because it seems to him that it's just like,

it's just one of those things that he's had in his head his entire life. I think it's the closest he has to an answer. I think he wouldn't have his head his entire life. I think it's the closest he has to an answer. I think he wouldn't have made anything else as well. I guess I get that. If that makes sense.

You know, it's like, he's been kind of, as a kid, imagining a West Side Story movie or whatever, you know, because that was like the musical for him when he was a kid. So that's just, that's the one he gets to do. This is what's, I guess, sort of interesting for me that I sort of kept on wrestling

with. This movie felt to me the thing it reminded me of the most weirdly and as much as I love the movie I'm about to say, I will objectively admit that this is more successful. But it

reminded me a lot of Peter Jackson's King Kong, where it's like not a reinterpretation at all. It is a filmmaker making a sort of like tribute and unpacking of a movie that has rung in their head for decades, right? Because it's like, it's not like, this whole time I've been wondering, and obviously when the first trailer came out, it sort of dispelled this, but it's like, is he going like, this whole time I've been wondering, and obviously when the first trailer came out,

it sort of dispelled this, but it's like, is he going to reinterpret this in some way? Does he have some big angle on this? And it's like, no, he's very much not just readapting West Side Story, he's not making a new version of the stage musical West Side Story. He's making a movie about the Jerome Robbins,

Robert Wise, West Side Story. I don't think he is. Not about in a meta way, but I think this movie is an unpacking of that film in the same way that like Peter Jackson's King Kong

is about the Cooper King Kong and not a reinterpretation like the Dino De Laurentiis movie. There are things he does differently here, obviously, but I feel like this movie is so indebted to the other time West Side Story

has been done on film. Of course it is. But a lot of the changes this movie makes are restoring it to the original Broadway production. So it's a little bit... The thing about remaking West Side Story... There's a lot of people, why would you remake West Side Story? Obviously, it is one of... As iconic

as it is, it is the movie musical most demanding arena. I love West Side Story book. Yes. Obviously, it is one of, as iconic as it is, it is the movie musical most demanding arena. I love West Side Story. I put it on probably a month ago, just sort of, I think after Sondheim died. I've been re-watching it the last couple of nights.

Yeah. I have it in very high definition. I love the movie. I love so much about it. I think the opening 15 minutes are in conversation for best opening of a movie ever. I love so much about it. I think the opening 15 minutes are like, you know, in conversation for like best opening of a movie ever. I think it looks so good.

It is distracting to watch it in high definition. The brown face. It's insane. Yes. Yes, that is true. It's really upset. Right. It's 4K on iTunes.

They haven't released it in 4K on physical media, but I've been watching the 4K as well. Yes, it is. You can just see that they're wearing really, really thick makeup and you're just like, Jesus, like, you know, obviously you always knew Natalie Wood is not Puerto Rico, you know, but like, you're just like, whoa, boy, this is different than like watching it on VHS. That is obviously number one reason to remake the movie or rather to do a new West Side Story movie.

Do a new West Side Story. Right. Exactly. You know, like there's as hallowed a classic as it is. But that's almost the distinction for me is like remaking West Side Story versus doing a new West Side Story film. The other thing is you've had two productions in the last 10 years that sort of reinterpreted the material.

And a lot of that was an attempt to add. Sure. But the main driving thrust of both those productions was can we add more cultural authenticity to the depiction of Puerto Rican people? So the 2009 one, which was better, that had Lin-Manuel Miranda's involvement and they tried to add some Spanish lyrics

and it just wasn't... It was one of those kind of noble effort things that just did not totally gel and then the Ivo Van Hova version is very aggressive in its changes it removes the fun songs because this is serious folks

and it you know it turns the it has a need to get raped it has like police brutality playing out on a big projector like while officer krupke is being like it does a lot of stuff where you're like very interesting entirely unsuccessful as a piece of entertainment like you know you've you've you've lost the thread yeah i saw that show as well and And I would say like, even just another element, David, is the, they had a lot of like handheld camera work on stage that was then being projected. Being shown on the projector. Right. Yeah.

And it was so distracting, you know, but like, and then even stylistically, it just wasn't successful. It took you out of it more than anything else. successful it took you out of it more than anything else no i i mean and i think the obvious stupid way to approach making a new west side story is to do something like that right like i think most filmmakers and to spielberg's credit that he wasn't tempted by this would go like what if you made it really realistic what if you said it in a present day or do a total revamp right some some some very yeah exactly right to more explicitly comment on the fucking culture and take it out of heightened musical land but this is a movie that still has a credit for jerome robbins for the original choreography in it like this is very much a movie no no no no i'm sorry no this movie has new choreography by justin peck

it credits jerome robbins i think to be nice it says original choreography by Justin Peck. It credits Jerome Robbins, I think, to be nice. It says original choreography by Jerome Robbins. It does. It does. But the choreography in this movie is not by Jerome Robbins. David, I'm not implying that they copied the choreography. I'm just saying this movie is in such direct dialogue with that original film that even if it is just an honorific,

they are saying like we have to tip our hat to the choreography that we're riffing on. It's tipping the hat. I believe there are a couple of moments where they are in homage, nostalgically reflecting his choreography because a lot of the, a lot of people were like, you can't do the West Side Story without the Jerome Robbins choreography, but they did. It is fully original choreography, but it is in the same vocabulary. Will you give me that?

Well, it's, yeah, it's dancing. What do you mean? I'm saying they're doing similar, it's a similar movement. I mean, this is, I'm not saying this is criticism. It's me trying to like wrestle with this movie in a way,

which is very much, as I said, exploring the film of West Side Story, even though a lot of the textual changes are bringing it back to the original stage version. Tony Kushner is a very smart

man. I would venture. One of our best living dramatic writers. Right. He's a good writer. Ben's laughing. Ben's giggling. I'm token Yeah, no, David wasn't giggling Oh, Ben was hitting the bong

He was sipping some weed As Michael Douglas would say in Wonder Boys But, and I think he has So, you know, he's being Lobbed the challenge you're talking about Which is, you know, find a way To thread this needle, to pay homage to be still set in the 50s

but also update. By the way, an incredible A.O. Scott piece on Tony Kushner in New York Times a couple weeks ago that mostly talks about him wrestling with what he could add to this material and all that. David, go on. He has this brilliant

concept to directly address the fact that the land being fought over, the turf in West Side Story is doomed. It's set for, it's the Upper West Side. It's what they, you know, the old Lincoln Square area that's going to be bulldozed. It's slums. You know, they called it San Juan Hill back in the day.

It was a big Puerto Rican neighborhood And it's going to be turned into Lincoln Center The lovely music and movie complex That all New Yorkers enjoy Yadda yadda It's gentrifying I think that's such a clever Way

I agree Of Re-contextualizing it without, you know, updating the timeline or anything like that. Whatever it is, the first 15, 20 minutes of the movie for me were the highlight.

I just felt so much fucking power in, obviously them riffing on the opening, which as you said, the opening of West Side Story and just sort of like the sound and movement of it is so iconic. And they're doing new things with Spielberg at the peak of his powers into that cory stall scene i was like this movie is

fucking playing with fire like it's it's incredible good i mean obviously the the beginning of west side story rules the original one rules too it's so audacious in both to have these tough guys and they're tough you know they're mean these are juvenile delinquents these jets you know parade down the street and then start like doing ballet twirls and still somehow feel threatening and aggressive and impressive and masculine you know like so good i was gonna say as an overall thing that is the area in which I think this film is most successful in terms of what Spielberg is adding that was not there is I think they are dangerous in this movie in a way they are not in the original film. performance and direction and framing and all of that, you do actually feel the sense of danger. And I think the stakes of violence in this movie, in a way, they could not get across. And the original is an interesting mesh of a very heightened theatrical style with him finding the

right elements to imbue with a certain sense of realism. The Jets are a white gang. You know, like it's quite a thing to depict in 2021. They're not, they're not like an Italian gang or like, they're just white. They're, you know, like they're white kids. That's, that's, that's all that's tying them together. And like, it's, it, I think it's wise for Kushner and Spielberg to sort of give you more menace from that, like both from their actions, but also just like their attitudes like you know it doesn't mean they can't sing and dance for us it just but like i mean mike feist who plays riff it's so i love russ tamblyn in the original he rules he's he's a great dancer

you know he's he's he's awesome but but yeah mike feist really there's something scary nails that kind of wiry manic kind of energy like Like, he's really, really, really cool in the movie. It is a mesmerizing performance. I saw him in Dear Evan Hansen years ago on Off-Broadway. Does he play the friend in that?

David nodded to Brack. Okay. He plays the dead kid. Okay. And it was one of those performances. He only has one big number, or Sincerely Me, which is a good number in Dear Evan Hansen, which the first act is pretty good, in my opinion.

David says as he takes a sip of ice coffee. But he was one of those performers where you're like, that kid kind of was great. Like, that's kind of not how I would think you'd play that role. Like, that was interesting. And he got a Tony nomination.

And you were like, ooh, watch out for that kid. And obviously Spielberg, you know, has a great... The guy's kind of famous for his casting. He's just made some discoveries. He's got a really good eye for actors. And this movie really shows that off,

I would say. He's mostly cast it very well. He just... He has a fascinating look. And he's got an energy that's really slippery and hard to pin down. And as you said, it just feels like he's not playing things how you would think to play them. Expect them to be played. And the energy kind of is unsettling in a good way. Can I read you a thing I found that I found pretty striking?

Yeah. So this was, you know, the last whatever years of Roger Ebert's life, he would do the great movies entries. Yes, of course. On his website. Loved him doing that. Right. And he would elevate movies to,

this is now officially part of the great movies pantheon. And he would sort of write a new, less of a review, more of an essay. Right. Sometimes he's reaffirming a classic. Sometimes he'd be going back to something he had panned it back in the day. And he'd be like, you know what? With retrospect, blah, blah, blah. Right. Sometimes he's reaffirming a classic. Sometimes he'd be going back to something he had panned it back in the day. And he'd be like, you know what, with retrospect, blah, blah, blah. and change. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles and Groundhog Day are two movies that

he ultimately put in the Great Movies pantheon that he sort of shrugged when they first came out. And he'd sort of admit, like, I watch this with my family every fucking year. This thing just works. It has grown for me. It gets better. I share it with people. But this, I just want to read this block from

his Great Movies entry on West Side Story, which he writes in 2004. He's obviously not a working film critic at the time he sees the movie. But, you know, it's a film that I think probably left some impression on when he was young. He writes, so the dancing is remarkable

and several of the songs have proven themselves by becoming standards. And there are moments of startling power and truth. West Side Story remains a landmark of musical history. But if the drama had been as edgy as the choreography, if the lead performances had matched Moreno's fierce concentration, if the gangs had been more dangerous and less like bad boy Archies and Jugheads, if the ending had delivered on the pathos and tragedy of the original,

there's no telling what might have resulted. Which is interesting. I find that block very interesting because it's sort of acknowledging like no one is disputing the weird power this movie has, not just in sort of how revolutionary it was, but there's just kind of magic captured within it, right? An energy, a concentration of style and ideas, all these sorts of things that even though there are these obvious problems, the two lead performances don't work. You have horrible brown face, some of it's laughable, like all this sort of shit, right?

He's saying like, this is great. I'm giving it a capital G great. But there are these obvious things where you have to ask. It's a hugely flawed movie, right? If they had been able to make this work, would this be the greatest film ever made? And it almost feels like the things he lists are a checklist of the things that Spielberg was trying to do with this movie. Like, if you ask yourself,

what is Spielberg adding to this soup? It's almost exactly those specific things. I would argue, and I imagine this is going to be a somewhat contentious sidebar of our thing, he got one of the two leads right. I think he certainly succeeded in getting the danger into the text. agree yeah i i

think the ending does have a lot of pathos and tragedy definitely yeah um but what's the thing you thought he missed i don't i don't know i don't know and it's also like look i want to see this a second time really bad sure because once again i think this is very good. I have like no criticisms of this, maybe aside from Tony, which we'll talk about. But yeah, well, yeah, I mean,

I think, I think Tony is a fair criticism. I, although it's kind of a, it is a classic West Side Story criticism. He is David. He's the toughest character. That is why I said of a stiff,

right? Tony and not Ansel, because I have problems with Ansel that we'll get to, but I also just feel like Tony himself is perhaps an evergreen problem with any version of this material. As my wife would say about Romeo and Juliet, you know, Romeo is not the best character. No. You know, it's just a tough character in any version of this. Sure, sure.

It is a reason, though, if Spielberg is going to come back around to this material 60 years after it's been done at this iconic level, that's a thing I want him to find a solve for. I don't hold it against him that he didn't. Yeah. It's not like I think he phoned that in. It's just that I think that is the one thing.

Whatever. We'll talk about Tony. We'll talk about everyone else. I mean, no offense to him well okay you know what some offense to him richard bamer like stinks in west side story the original he's he and he didn't even do the singing either so like he's he's bringing nothing he has said i hated being in it i hated playing like a bland leading man like which is weird because like that's all hollywood ever asked of him until he was like fucking on twin peaks uh interestingly i saw that he was on set uh rachel ziegler who obviously plays maria in this movie has you know she's posted lots of like instagrams

from the set you know richard bamer was on set you know palling around and giving him notes and you know so i guess his relationship with the movie is not completely sour. Sure. But it must have been, I don't know, it's sort of interesting that he's around, obviously. I assume maybe Russ Tamblyn showed up. He's still around. Yeah.

And Natalie Wood is obviously grossly miscast in that movie. She is, but she's not as bad. It's not a great performance, and obviously she's not singing, but she's all right. She's more miscast, but better. She's a better actor. Innately. And was just such a compelling screen presence.

Yeah, yeah. But she's like, when you see Natalie Wood in Splendor in the Grass or Inside Daisy Clover, you're like, oh shit, wow, she's a really good actor. When you see her in West, oh, shit, like, wow, she's a really good actor. We see in West Side Story, like, eh, she's okay. Have you ever seen that movie, what's it called?

Love with a Perfect Stranger? Never seen Love with a Perfect Stranger. Love with the Proper Stranger, I believe. Oh, thank you. With the Steve McQueen movie. Correct. That's a fascinating movie that she's very, very good at. That's, like, gritty, right?

Like, for the early 60s. Like, it has an abortion or something it's all about an abortion the title of the movie is love with the proper stranger i always get the title wrong because the actual title is so fucking strange uh yes it's it's like a weird relationship dramedy centered around a uh an abortion from a one-night stand that is oddly light uh and a steve mcqueen playing comedy and ellie wood got an oscar nomination for it it's very good anyway now lee wood was a very good actor um i think as i said first 20 minutes this movie's cooking with gas for me right oh man the crane shots the sets

the way that he's showing the landscape it's dusty as hell it fucking rules you like you like a sort of bulldoze slum Ben right like empty buildings you could dance around in bricks you can throw

100% that is what the original is missing. It's missing dust. That's what makes it fucking gritty. They're dirty as hell. They have scabs on their arms. David, the original is very bright and,

you know, beautiful and colorful. Not that this movie lacks color, but you know, it's very abstract almost. Uh, yes, yes.

Opening really good the movie kind of drops for me a bit the second Ansel is introduced and then picks up again when Zegler is introduced I mean she's right

and we can unpack this more now but I do think I mean it's a weird fucking thing, and it's just these, like, ephemeral things that are hard to quantify that have nothing to do with crap and have to do with luck and timing and all of that. As sort of bland

as Bremer is and as miscast as Wood is, maybe it's just the era, the time, the filmmaking style working in concert, the acting styles that were prevalent in the day. I buy the chemistry between the two of them more in the original film as just a very earnest, sort of superficial, energy-based depiction of young love that I think is effective enough

to float the rest of the movie especially onto the supporting performances that are far more interesting and you know buoyed obviously by these songs that weren't even sung by them but that are so undeniable I think in a way because Zegler is so

good it fucks up Tony even more you mean just because she's kind of blowing him off the screen because he's just okay and you're sort of like right and she's doing this sort of like transcendent classic movie star performance and like owning close-ups in a way you haven't seen in forever and just like seeing the shit out of these numbers that the whole thing we're gonna have to rest on the chemistry the young love magic between these two people being so undeniable that it floats you across murders and strife and numbers

and all this sort of shit and like by the end and i think i think their meeting is the scene that works the best i think the stuff at the dance is the stuff that works the best but even when you get to like tonight tonight, which is, I agree as well, my favorite number in this show, I did feel the balloon deflate a little bit where I'm just like, I'm not totally in on the two of them being in love with each other.

Well, I mean, it's the Romeo and Juliet problem again. You're just going to have to buy that these two fall madly in love with each other in one night. By the next night one of them is dead like it's obviously you know I love the way he does

tonight in this movie I love the number I'm mostly just speaking to what I think is a lack of tangible chemistry between the two of them and David the thing you're saying about, like, you have to just buy into the fact that all this can happen

over the course of a day and the love is so undeniable and whatever, it's one of those things that was a lot easier to sell in 1961 when you're doing a far more heightened movie. You're not trying to imbue it with a greater sense of social realism. You just go like, well, it's a musical. That's what happens. Sure, the more you up the realism, the harder it is to take the musical elements seriously i get that disney musicals were 75

minutes long it didn't have psychological depth it was a lot easier for them to go like and you fall in love at first sight and you're married right away you know and it's like the kushner of it then sets me up to expect if demand, more out of the emotional realism of the relationship, which is still just dealt with in a kind of musical puppy love kind of way. And she, look,

whenever she's looking at him, I'm fucking buying it. She's so good. It's an incredibly impressive performance, but it's also just like supernatural, not supernatural like the CW show. I mean, like, it's very natural. Luminous, just, you know, camera loves her, you know, just exuding personality.

Correct. I mean, look, we were, you know, let's talk about Ansel Elgort. The thing with him is I feel like he has always been a very polarizing performer. Right? Would you agree with that? Uh-huh. I was introduced to him in 2014, I would say. He was in three movies.

He was in Divergent, Divergent, which he is a supporting role in, in my memory, right? He was in The Fault in Our Stars, which launched him to fame. Yeah. And he was in a little film called Men, Women, and Children, which we all forget. And so I saw the latter two. I didn't see Divergent.

And I remember it was this very squishy-faced kind of teen actor. Very, very you know, in Men, Women, and Children, there's a lot of crying. Men, Women, and Children, like his Tumblr gets deleted or whatever and it's a whole fucking to-do. No, he's obsessed with World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft, yeah,

you know. Fucking Dean Norris shuts down his server or whatever. That's one of those movies that, like, if you describe it exactly, it's like, oh, well, you know, Dean Norris shuts down his World of Warcraft and he starts crying and you're like, I'm sorry, this was, this is a film in theaters, you're describing to me? When I explain this movie to people,

they truly think I'm pranking them, where I'm like, Jason Reitman made a very serious Oscar bait drama about how the internet is evil. Featuring early performances from Ansel Elgort, Timothy Chalamet. Chalamet is in that boy. Yep. Uh,

uh, fucking, uh, obviously, uh, Travis Tope. Of course. Caitlin Deaver.

And then the adults are Jennifer Garner, Judy Greer, Dean Norris, Adam Sandler Rosemary DeWitt and it's narrated by Emma Thompson and they're like you just you made that up this is a psy-op? It's a bananas movie

a truly bananas movie but anyway and like so I thought of him as this very squishy squishy squishy like just like you know like this very squishy teen and then and squishy brooding squishy brooding but you know soft brooding right like definitely uh definitely not as tough as uh whatever i don't know what who i mean apart from chalamet who are the other actors of his generation who should i be comparing him to i mean i'm so bad at keeping

this in my head like who who who are young, hot actors? Look, I feel like we've talked about many times on this podcast movies that are undone by a BBP, a boring boy problem, right? A lot of these films, when they demand a leading man under the age of 25, you have these guys who are being put up who, like, have the look and they have the energy, but they're not compelling. And Hollywood is so committed to making them work. And, you know, it's these are big things. Right.

But these are roles where, like, you know, a young John Cusack is discovered, not because he's obvious poster bait, but because he's got some off kilter energy. Michael J. Fox. I mean, all these guys who used to get these roles who had real personality. Here are some people, I guess. Lucas Hedges, obviously. There's a young actor. Look, Lucas Hedges is incredible. I think he's probably the best of his

generation. He has, whether it's by choice or not, not really done the big route. Yes, he's Satan drums. You've got Tom Holland, who's been in a few movies that fella right who is an actor that i like but i'm getting a little bored of sure and cherry was a bit of a warning sign oh he's a snooze and a half that that boy i mean it's so you have to remember

how fucking exciting he was in civil War where you were just like, holy shit, is this guy charismatic? I can't wait to watch a whole fucking movie of him. Right. And obviously he has like The Impossible and he has Lost City of Z. He's like, you know, worked with some good directors and done some more heavyweight drama stuff. And then it just feels like he's gotten boring over the last five years.

He's just not really branched. You know, you got like guys like, yeah, yeah i mean i'm looking i'm googling like young actors and i'm you know will poulter is an actor i really like but he has totally figured out that he's good at playing weirdos right he's a character actor not he's a character actor right we're sort of talking about the leading men barry keegan same vibe nick robinson um but but yes no david nick robinson is a great example of someone who's just like capable nick robinson is someone if you squint you're like is that ansel elgort no offense to nick robinson i'm just saying they both have that look he's capable he's got a very pretty face it's it's just there's not enough there to to drive, right? Well, speaking of driving,

to get back on to Ansel Elgort. He was in a film called Baby Driver. Yes, a film that you love. A film I think is great. I think other people think is okay to bad. Some people like it. I feel like it's got a mixed shrug. I think it's a watchable shrug. But,

you know, when people have been asking me, like, why the hell is al gord in this you know well forgetting the controversy that embroiled him later that we will discuss like you know that that obviously happened post shooting this movie i'm like look like it or not baby driver is an audition for this kind of a movie yeah like yeah and beyond the fact that i liked it it was a very very huge success considering it had no you know ip it had you know like for a 2017 action film dropped in the middle of the summer like making like freaking hundreds of millions you know it was kind of like oh shit like so absolutely and he's the titular role uh it has big stars in the supporting cast. But as you said, that movie is like an argument for his ability.

It's all about his movement and the way he holds the camera's eye and all that. And when you look at this movie, which has a wonderful cast of no star. Yes. Basically all people who are Broadway performers, who are unknowns, all that kind of stuff. I have to imagine there was some interest in maybe having one name in the cast. Sure. Like, right?

You know, like, so maybe that's why they went for making Tony a known quantity. I don't know. And you're like, this guy ostensibly sings and dances a little bit. No, sure. Right. He went to LaGuardia. He can, you know, he's a good dancer.

I think he's dancing in this movie. He's very impressive. Um, you know, Isa Gonzalez, who's also in Baby Driver, she was considered for Maria. She's pretty old. I mean, she's 31 years old. She's doing great. But, you know, like, that would have been more than Emily Wood. They wanted young people in this movie. Yes.

Yes. No, I, look, I get why they cast him from that angle. And I do think people, cultural memories are short that they forget that it's like, yeah, fucking Baby Driver was a big ass hit and Hollywood was ready to test him out and other shit. And I guarantee you six people on the Reddit are going to say Griffin said this. I know no one ever said this. But I remember because he had been one of the names thrown around for Han Solo. And everyone was like, oh, fucking YA dystopian. Right, right.

Romance novel, fucking mushy face boy. We don't want him playing Han Solo. Alden gets the part. The movie fucking goes off the rails. And then Baby Driver comes out like a month after. Am I wrong on my timeline here? Or then baby driver comes out like a month after am i wrong on my timeline here or no it comes out like a year after i i'm trying to remember wait comes out a year after what after solo what came out before solo right solo comes out a year after baby driver sorry that's what i meant to say yeah i feel like walking out of baby driver because solo's a year away but lord and mill Miller had just gotten fired off of it, if I remember correctly, when it comes out and everyone was talking about the movie being a disaster.

I feel like immediately after Baby Driver, people were like, they should just cast him. He should have just been Han Solo. Ansel should have been Han Solo. Baby Driver shows that he's just he's he's stable enough. He's got sturdy shoulders, whatever. They should have just hired this guy. He looks more like Harrison Ford. So he was very much a guy

who was being part of the big conversations at that point in time. And that's pretty much, you know, they cast him in 2018. Yeah. Right. But I still remember when he was cast, a lot of people rolling their eyes

just because it's sort of like, enough, Ansel. Yes, he was cast in 2018. I think he was cast A lot of people rolling their eyes Just because it's like enough Yes he was cast in 2018 I think he was the first person cast Announced at least Because he's probably He's not like Spielberg saw Whatever a thousand Maria's With a big star

They're not going to do that So yeah and then the movie is made And then after the movie is made he is accused of sexual assault on twitter uh you know after like in the middle of the pin it was june 2020 and so and then that cast like crazy shadow a number of incredibly credible accusations backed up by texts and all this sort of shit uh he undeniably seems like a big ass creep to me there was a profile on him i forget where when baby driver was about to come out that was just him talking about how much he loved being famous and they couldn't really get him talk about he was very online if you remember

just he was very online and he wasn't that interested in talking about like the craft of acting or anything he was just like how fucking is this? I'm in a limo right now. People are giving me free clothes. I get to do four talk shows today. Like he was just so caught up in the whole thing of it. I think his parents come from an arts background. Like his father's a photographer. Correct, correct.

But he was just like, I just really want to be famous. I just love like girls liking me and all this sort of shit. And in a way that is often the downfall the undoing of these narcissists is like suddenly you have all this attention and you have a social media account and you just go like the fucking internet to that right can i just try to sleep with everyone i mean look i right he's been like you say fairly credibly accused he has said look i was in this relationship but i didn't you, you know, he denied any assault. It's this weird limbo thing

where he's basically, since that, gone silent. Like he's deleted all his socials. He is not, it's not like he's been, he has not done any like one-on-one interviews for this movie, but he has been around. He was at the premiere. He's on the press tour,

you know, he's in groups answering questions. I think he did a couple of TV appearances, right. You know, like, and it's just kind of feels like, I don't know who, but like,

it was just kind of like, just fucking, you know, do what's asked of you. And then like, well, also the movie gets enough. The movie gets pushed back a year because of the pandemic. you know, do what's asked of you and then, like, then we're done, right? Then it's like, then enough.

The movie gets pushed back a year because of the pandemic, so there's 18 months between the allegations and the movie coming out, in which time he does, like, no other work, right? He's supposed to do

the Tokyo Vice show with Michael Mann for HBO, Max. Who knows what the fuck he's gonna do. Another thing that he booked pre... Right, yeah, I don't know. Right, I don't know if they've shot all of that and they're sitting on it if they finished half of it i don't know what the fuck is going on there other than that this is the first time he's been in anything since the goldfinch

which is 2019 and he's in some announced in a brian helglund movie called finest kind with jake gyllenhaal which who knows if that happens. But his career seems to be in limbo. It very much felt like it was a don't ask, don't tell situation. Even the marketing of the movie, they're not putting his name above the title. He's sort of shadowed on the poster.

He's not in the trailer much. That's the whole thing where they're like, look, we're not, obviously we can't reshoot. This isn't a fucking Christopher Plummer thing. There's no way you could redo the movie let's just say that quickly because i feel like people have been asking this for 18 months fundamentally with the way spielberg works and also with the fact that this is a fucking musical there was no way to replace him without reshooting 70 of the. This is not something that you could sort of piecemeal like Christopher Plummer.

You'd have to be on that. You'd have to rebuild the sets and stuff. It was, it's impossible. It's impossible. Anyway, they essentially would have had to swallow the whole film and go like, we're making it over a second time.

Uh, I think people don't understand a between the way they're really Scott works, but also like the, the fucking Getty character barely leaves one location. He only interacts with two other characters. It happened because it was doable.

And if it wasn't doable, they would have had to swallow that pill too. You know, all the money in the world, guys. I love Ridley Scott, but he works really fast and he's less deliberate in his shot sequencing at this point in his career than Spielberg is, who's building entire complex sequences around long camera movements and big sets and all this sort of shit. It was just impossible. It was impossible to replace him without throwing out the entire movie, essentially.

So that's just out of the question, and it just felt like they kept a lid on him. You know, Zegler, everyone else, very online. Spielberg does interviews about other shit, whatever. And then the week the movie's coming out, they finally have Ansel doing some press. He goes to the premiere. I still feel like he's been speaking by less than the rest of the cast publicly.

But I think there was this hope from some people, a very understandable hope, that they would just not include him in publicity at all, and that would be this sort of silent acknowledgement of, we do not condone this guy. Right, that they would just not include him in publicity at all. And that would be the sort of like silent acknowledgement of we do not condone this guy. Right. That they didn't. Well, look, I can't speak to that.

I mean, it's just this weird situation of where he's like, I deny it. The tweets all disappeared. There's no, you know, like there's been nothing else. So it's just kind of like once again, the allegations are super credible. I believe them but it's it all makes it weird to go in watching this movie where it's like now the internet is so upset that like he fucking is seemingly being supported by the film which i don't think he is i think by the way it's it's a a problem they are just sort of like you know dealing with as best they can

I guess I also don't say this in any defense of whatever but it's like movie contracts are so weird and complicated that there are often times things where it's like if you don't invite him to the premiere you have to pay him this amount of money or they have the grounds to sue you

or whatever the fuck it is right whatever the fuck it is I don't know the fuck it is. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But all that having been said, you go in watching the movie with a lot of baggage on him where it's like, here's a guy who I think has really connected on screen once in the times I've seen him and now I dislike him

as a person and it's sort of this albatross around the movie's neck. It's like, I want him to be good in this. You want the movie to be good. You want everything about the movie to be good. Right, right. And I think when he came on, it's like, I don't think he's bad in it. But I don't think he's tapped into something in the same way that almost everyone else in this cast has.

There's things where I get it with him. Like, he does kind of have the look of the era. Totally. So I get that. Like, he just kind of looks like a 50s kid in the right way. So, and he's tall,

and he's, obviously, he's quite a graceful, like, he's good at moving, which is sort of crucial. I don't mind his voice. He's got this sort of croony voice is how I would put it. It's not great. And everyone else in the show kind of sounds like an angel.

Absolutely. And like Larry Kurt, if you guys ever want to listen to the original Broadway recording, you know, like this obviously is a character character that i mean you can really belt it like you can hey you can someone with an amazing voice that rules um yeah you know i i think he's i i say the baby driver thing to say like i've always been uh more positive on him as a screen presence than i think some are and like not not like i mean like the goldfinch sucked i don't know if i don't't know if, I don't really know if that's on him because that movie is just sort of leaden, but I mean,

he's not good in that. So it's not like, I'm like, I'm looking here, David, here's his entire film career. Okay. Carrie divergent fault in our stars,

men, women, and children, the divergent series insurgent. I'm not counting an uncredited cameo in paper towns. The divide, the divergent series, Allegiant. Allegiant.

Just call it Allegiant. Yes. Baby Driver. And then here's a run of movies that don't exist. November Criminals. Yeah. Jonathan. Billionaire's Boys Club, which is a movie that sat in a shelf for a long time because

of Kevin Spacey. Kevin Spacey. And then it's the goldfinch of West Side Story. That's his entire film career he's pretty much only played leading men outside of a few supporting performances in big movies but it's hard to argue that any of those performances really work outside of baby driver as a movie star work and fault in our stars successfully as a teen heartthrob vehicle uh yeah so you know i think there's i i love this movie so much so maybe that's why i just think he's fine in it

uh and some people are more i think he's all right i don't know he's the least interesting element and tony is probably the least interesting element it's also just everyone else is is playing at such a high level and there's there's this kind of like the fact that everyone else is playing at such a high level. And there's this kind of like, the fact that everyone else in this is sort of like unknown, this is their first movie, or they're mostly a Broadway person who hasn't had this big of a showcase or whatever. It feels like everyone else is doing very selfless work, right?

Like these are just people who fucking love the craft of acting and dancing and singing, and they're just giving themselves over to the machinery of this larger movie. And in the process, producing star performances with that ineffable, hard to pin down magical element that transcends through the camera doesn't. Right. And it feels like Ansel's the only one who's coming into this with a sense of like, here's

who I am as a movie star, you know, which which is not necessarily what this movie needs i kept on doing the thought experiment in my head because i mean you went through the list of the other guys of this generation right we're like who who say you have to have a name who who's the name who do you well okay so i mean lucas hedges and chalamet can both sing these three guys are all roughly of the same age chalamet went to uh uh what you would call lagardia as well like ansel yeah right and i'm like i i think uh chalamet would be awful i mean no offense no but that's the thought experiment i was doing where i'm like the reason chalamet has had so much success as a leading man is because like compare him to his fucking generation he's so clearly interesting and unique and has a vibe that is hard to pin

down and is multi-talented could work in different genres and styles or whatever. There's a reason he has this, uh, value as, as a young leading man. Um, but I don't think he's the right pick for this and he's too modern.

He picks roles that make sense for him. He's very good at it. He's been very good at that. Obviously he has more clout than any of these actors. He's a big name. He's got a huge fan base but so that helps with his picking roles but he's picked very smartly and when he's in something like Dune you're like oh you found a

blockbuster sized thing that makes sense for you. That's great. And look everyone's fucking like clowning on it. But like if Shalma is going to do a big budget fucking family movie, Wonka is the right pick for him. It is. Absolutely. Yes.

I mean, who knows if that who knows? Maybe it'll be good. Doing a Paul King Wonka musical on paper is at least the type of big budget movie star thing he should do that matches his persona. Hedges, I think Hedges would work. I don't either. I think he's too sensitive. Yeah, he's such a

sweetie pie and I don't like him as much when he plays harder tougher characters. I didn't totally vibe with him in Ben Is Back. I mean, that movie didn't totally work for me i didn't he's all right in mid 90s like but oh i actually think he's very good in that but but i

do think part of that is that it's sort of a put on like everyone's seeing exactly this guy right exactly that's the thing he's phony but it's it works it works. But he's good as a sweetie pie. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I don't. Maybe he's a good actor. He's a good actor. I'd check it out.

I don't know. I agree in terms of iconography. Ansel's what you want. But I just think the movie falters. Maybe it's what I said before, that it's just that there's an imbalance now. That before, Bremmer was bad and Wood was miscast so they were both at the same level and you can just buy

their love as a superficial thing at a time where stories are painted with broader brush strokes and let the colorful characters on the side take you away and now it's like you have Zegler doing exactly what you fucking want out of this role and like giving like a goosebumps like hairs

on the back of the neck performance when she's given the chance to, like, run with the ball. And then when the scenes are resting on, like, look at the fucking love of these two kids. I'm willing to buy it happens that quickly. They throw everything away for it, you know? It transforms the world in a day. All that sort of shit.

But it's just, like, it's an imbalanced match, you know? Sure. It just doesn't bother me as much, maybe. But, yeah, it's an imbalanced match, you know? Sure. It just doesn't bother me as much. But yeah, it's fair. It bothered me in that I wanted to care more, if that makes sense. Like when it was Jets versus Sharks scenes, when it's her with Bernardo or with Anita,

like I was feeling the juice. And then when it would rest on the two of them and I'm a fucking sap and I'm an easy lay especially for like teen romance shit I think it's very easy if you're gonna get butterflies on this shit combined with movie musical these numbers that are so undeniable

and I just the central romance did not connect for me on that level sure that's fair I really like their romance in the first i like the dance i think they got a lot i like the dance the dance is the scene where i think it worked and i like the tonight number i like him pressing his face up against the bars and trying to figure out how to like get around the fire like all the physicality of that scene really works for me and then i think he's really good in cool i just love what they do

with cool cool is a weird number like yeah uh it's a no i like to go number through number here sure fine okay so the first number is the the opening number where the jets are causing trouble they're dancing around they're stealing paint cans they're messing with the neighborhood they're being dicks they get uh in a rumble with uh they get a scuffle with the with the sharks uh you see more things too i just want to say i love there's like a little tiny thing in the opening where they go to a bar they take a sign that's kind of covering up what so you you basically see it used to be an irish pub sure again i think just like like building out the universe really quickly uh yeah like it's it that number in the original movie is not like emphasizing that they're really victimizing a neighborhood whereas this number really kind of underlines that. They are causing trouble in a

Puerto Rican neighborhood, basically. Which is all... They don't like that it's Puerto Rican now. Table setting, visual storytelling, just super fucking elegant shit. That whole opening of going from the billboard to the rubble of what will be Lincoln Center, and just

sort of floating over it and hearing the doo-doo. And as you build, build the guys coming out. I mean, all this shit's fucking great. 10 out of 10, no complaints. You got this scene with Officer Shrank played by Corey Stoll. Another scene that I think

is great. And immediately going like, I see what Kushner's adding here. Kind of doing the Kushner thesis statement and talking about where he's like, you guys are the last like I see what Kushner is adding here kind of doing the Kushner thesis statement talking about where he's like you guys are the last of the can't do Caucasians you know he's sort of like both mocking the Jets and also being like look I can help you out

I'm still like a figure of authority who can like you know who does not I don't he doesn't seem like especially sympathetic to the Puerto Ricans they sing La Barranquilla the sort of anthem I like that they sing the Puerto Ricans. They sing La Borinquena, the sort of anthem. I like that they sing, the Puerto Ricans, the Sharks sing that

before Jet Song, before the original. It's sort of a clever little poke in the eye to have them actually get to sing first. And then you have Jet Song. You have Mike Feist as Riff doing the sort of the first song is Jet Song. When you're a jet, you're a jet all the way, all that.

You're tapping into the thing that makes doing this movie today most potent, which is this thing that is unfortunately still at the forefront of our cultural dialogue, which is like the people at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder all being

taught to hate each other and fight each other. Absolutely. other. Absolutely. Right. Absolutely. In a way where they refuse to acknowledge the commonalities of their suffering, their shared experience, and instead are getting riled up by people who could not have less to do with or understanding of their life. Also, the territory they're fighting for is literally in

ruins around them right they live amongst rubble it's like absurd you know it really is absurd that that that we know looming ahead it was going to have all wealthy you know uh people moving in and taking over the neighborhood end this is the end of San Juan Hill. It's the end of a neighborhood. Not like, yeah, 100%. And you can read up on how Lincoln Center was built. Obviously, like a lot of these things, the government basically muscled in on land

and called it a slum and used that as an excuse to bulldoze it. Like, you know, this happens a lot in the history of urban development. I'm fully jazzed at this point i i'm like so on board i feel like i see what he's doing and then and then we cut to fucking ansel with rita moreno so then the next number is is something's coming a great number the last number i think written for west side story when sondheim was like i don't fucking get

tony what's his what what is, why does he do anything? This is not a real character. And so they add a sort of, I want song for him. This is the, I want song. Like basically to define like, this guy's a little different from the other Jets. Like he's sort of, you know, a little more introspective and maybe interiority, you know, change.

Yeah. No, what's so funny, Davidid i can't stop laughing just thinking about it no uh just obviously there's been so much written of uh sondheim in the last month uh since he passed and sort of relitigated but even before his death that like he's at this moment where he's being culturally re-evaluated because of the new west side story because of his role as a character in tick tick boom thatick, Boom, that he's like sort of he was at the forefront of people's minds, weirdly.

Criterion just released the Whatchamacallit company cast recording thing, which had been out of circulation for a while. Anyway, that like he always, right, West Side Story was a job for hire for him. It was kind of like a thing he

did under the gun to make his name. He never loved it. He viewed it as sort of like over-eager work on his own part, overly clever, trying too hard to impress. And yet, it's like the one thing of his that

lasts cinematically. He's not a guy who's been done right by his film adaptations despite being a guy who like loves film and wrote his own movie and all of that sort of shit like that west side story is this thing that like there's 60 years between that him becoming legendary on broadway and then it remade. And in the 60 years in between those two, he never had an adaptation properly work for him. Right. Uh,

and he's, he's very, he's critical of West side story. He knows it's good. He doesn't like it. Yeah. I, he,

you know, he knows it's fucking West side story. It's not like he's like, I mean, that thing's a piece of shit, you know, but yeah, he is, he's sort of knows it's fucking west side story it's not like he's like i mean that thing's a piece of shit you know but yeah he is he's sort of it's just it's the most unabashedly kind of classic broadway thing he was ever involved with and i think a lot of those elements are like stuff that he later pushed back against and built upon and twisted around and so when he when you

think about west side story he's like why do these kids fall in love? What? Get out of here. Right. Yeah. And that was sort of show-off-y that the lyrics are too clever. I mean, I read something recently. Like, why would they talk this way?

They wouldn't talk that way. I'm just trying to impress people. I wish I would take it down a notch. Yeah. Yeah. So, I think this number is fine. I think it's well done.

Sure. I feel, as I like to say, a little air out of the balloon at this moment because you're just like, okay, here's the guy who's delivering a six when everyone else at this movie is at a ten. And now here's a number that's just about him. You know? Sure. It's sort of, it's just, right. It's how you introduce him.

it's just right it's how you introduce him um and you are being introduced to this new character valentina who is an update on the character doc the the pharmacist uh played by rita moreno who is the original anita in the original film not on broadway cheetah rivera was anita on broadway uh who which is another idea that i think is clever like another you know kushner update supposedly suggested by Mark Harris. I think it's clever. I think she's very sweet in the movie. It's sort of a full performance. I thought when I heard

oh, it'll be a little cameo. She'll have one scene where she... It'll be Dick Van Dyke and Mary Poppins return. Yeah. But I really like her. She's very... The scene where she's teaching him Spanish is very well done. Obviously the later scenes are powerful too but you know. Look, Brita Moreno is great

and it's like we have so few people left from that era of Hollywood and Lord knows she's in her 90s and she's one of the last people still standing. But when you have someone who just has that kind of like classic Hollywood glow to them, it's impossible to replicate, you know?

I also just think as old actors are so fascinating. When people reach like, you know, your sixth, seventh decade of performing and it just becomes so unforced and natural you know they're able to sort of like lend that weight so offhandedly it's I always find a very compelling watch totally agree I think she's great I love to see her I think it's unlikely

but if she wins another Oscar for West Side Story it will be kind of hilarious after this is the gym the dance in the gym which is just electrifying in my opinion It will be kind of hilarious. After this is the gym, the dance in the gym, which is just electrifying, in my opinion. Obviously, that's Leonard Bernstein's Time to Shine.

You have all these different dance numbers that are so cool. But I love Spielberg's idea of, you know, kind of color coding, like kind of giving the Jets and, you know, those of color coding, like kind of giving the Jets and, you know, those kids, the Jet girls, like the kind of bluey, greeny clothes, giving

the Sharks more like red, yellow, right? Like, you know, like nothing crazy, but just sort of like making the mixing and then the separating like feel so, like, pop so well. Do you not like the gym? No, no, I like the gym. This is your background

on your Zoom right now. I was just gonna say, it's becoming very clear that one of us has seen this movie three times, and two of us saw this movie once two days ago, or whatever. Shout out, Rebecca Bolnus, friend of the show, is in this movie. I have not been able to spot her yet. I believe she was in the gym scene yet. I believe she was in the gym

scene and I believe she was in a different extra because she is a Latinx person who can dance. Who can dance, baby. Yeah, I meant to ask her if she spotted herself and I'm not sure. But anyway, yeah. This is

my favorite. I mean, it's my favorite in any West Side Story is the gym. It's so cool. Were you about to say something about the gym? The dance, Ben? Yeah. I was going to say that it is like...

Is it with the most dancing? Like the biggest ensemble throughout the whole movie, would you say? Yes. Probably the most people. right yeah I would think so compared to in America where they're out on the street I'm trying to figure out

similar size you know at the end of America they're all there's like more people at you know like there's sort of crowd builds in America but the gym sequence it's also a lot of people in a contained space it's really cool to see how he how he uses that it's really cool the way the choreography is having them all mixed together like you're saying like the colors but just everyone is so okay we haven't said this yet and we're almost two hours in everybody in this movie is hot, hot, hot.

Like everyone is just like, Oh my God, you are gorgeous. And I'd love to even just like, we got to start going through some of these like, uh, members of the jets and the sharks, like, you know,

the kind of just like side characters. But I just wanted to say that. And I also just want to say the dancing is so physical and like intense. It like, man in the gym I just like I want to rewatch it David just to see how hard everyone is going yeah I definitely want to rewatch

this and there's just so much going on I think it's clear that you have been able to parse specifics in the craft more than we have where the first viewing is a little bit overwhelming not a bad way you know but you're just getting taken away by everything specifics in the craft more than we have where the first viewing is a little bit overwhelming. Not a bad way, you know, but you're just getting taken away by everything. I mean,

absolutely. I just was, I could not, every time he cut to a wide and then held, I was just like just on my knees thanking him. Well, yeah, it's just what I want. It's just, you know, anyway, but that whole, and we should mention before then you have this

great scene with Maria Bernardo and Anita in their apartment and Chino comes in the sort of like nice boy who's taking Maria to the dance they sort of layer him in a little bit more he's the person who shoots Tony spoiler alert but I feel like they do a slightly better job having him

be a real character in this and he's really good I want to shout him out actually what's his name it's Jose Andres Rivera I think Josh Andres Rivera sorry and you know

in that scene you see how much Spanish they're speaking Spielberg as usual does not subtitle he doesn't subtitle in Amistad either. People sort of forget about that. Like, it's a trick he's pulled before. I think it's always clever because you know what they're saying. Like, you know, you get it.

Obviously, there's detail you're losing. Sure. Like, if you can't speak Spanish. But, like, it is kind of just powerful to watch. You know, you have Anita occasionally going, like, English, English, come on, we have to learn. Which is usually the trick that movies pull where they're like one character be like we should speak english so we learn are learning english and then no one speaks spanish ever again and

instead they mostly ignore her you know or they'll sort of speak in both languages yeah i also i like that they emphasize that anina i mean so that maria and bernardo do not have a particularly good relationship no it's not like they're and but like bernardo has this very sort of like macho you know you need to behave like you know you're a troublemaker you know he's he's not really that nice to her and and he's not very respectful of her independence and it's so clever to cast ziggler who's so small she's so petite and you know cute you know she's she's little she's what if she was probably 18 or 19 when they made this right she was 17 when they cast her 18 when they made it yeah and and so like you know because the craziest thing in west side story and it's in roman julia is that yeah she sleeps with tony after he's

murdered her brother yes which is you know juliet sleeps with romeo after he kills tibble like um but uh you know like an hour after yeah like right his blood is basically on his clothes and like you know i just it's nothing it's not like super pointed. I just noted in every viewing, like, there's not a lot of love between them. Sure. Anyway, anyway, it's interesting. Anyway, so after the gym, well, at the gym is when they see each other. You know, they both walk into key lights and look at each other.

Sidebar, you know the funny thing about Rachel Zegler's IMDb page, right? Is it that the George Lucas talk show is on it? What is it? Well, so up until a week ago when this movie finally came out, I believe she only had three credits on her IMDb page and they were three appearances

on the George Lucas talk show because she had been like anointed this next big star, but this movie's been on a shelf because of COVID where it's like West Side Story, Shazam 2

and Snow White were all like coming soon. They're all announced or in production or whatever. Right. And then her only like active released work was three appearances on the George Lucas talk show. Right. Now it's been stuffed up with like oh live with Kelly and Ryan and the Drew Barrymore show. Now it's

all fucked up. We had 100% of her released. Not only has she been on the show twice. Right. Is it's all fucked up. We had 100% of her released. Not only has she been on the show twice, right? Is it only twice? I think it's only twice. I'm seeing only twice. But she also has a very special thanks credit for a different episode.

Or no, for a... I don't know. She has a very special thanks credit and she has a music credit for performing Ray's theme. Did she sing Ray's theme on the show? Correct. I should watch the Rachel Ziegler

George Lucas talk show episode. Yeah, you should. I mean, she's going to be part of the George Lucas talk show official soundtrack album coming soon to vinyl. Great. Sounds good. Can't wait. That sounds like something Connor would do. Yep. And all the IMDb credits for different

things on the show is very much Patrick's bit but yes she fucking rules in this movie so hard she's so good she's so sweet she's so sort of fierce when needed

luminous she's just you know right who is that how is she this good at holding a close-up you know 100 and not just a close-up but like a big ass close-up in a big fucking spielberg movie dealing with one of the most legendary pieces of american musical theater ever like and she's really sort of standing her ground and holding her own. And yeah, yeah. And then Ansel's okay. And yeah, I think he's, I mean, I think he's good.

I feel so weird with this stuff. You know, I actually like his performance. I don't know. I think it's like a bare minimum performance. I was ready to give him credit because I wanted to like his performance. And you don't want to be the annoying person who's like, well, I hate him. But, you know, I knew he was bad about any, you know, canceled person.

You know, like it becomes this weird performance. We talk about it all the time. And it's like, there's obviously, there's work that is permanently marred by realizations of people's private lives. But there also is increasingly, as we do a show that's about the fucking film history, both recent and distant,

that there are things you have to extricate at certain points in time, not by choice, where you're just like, this still works. I know I don't like this person, but what they're doing here, what they contributed to this is still effective. And I certainly was ready to be able to say his performance worked for me, despite the fact that I don't like him as a dude. Sure. I understand. Right.

His performance works for me, okay? Yeah. It works for me. I think it was bare minimum for me, and I wanted a little more. Speaking of, the next number is Maria. Just met a girl named Maria. I really like...

My favorite thing about the staging of this number he's walking through he's leaving the school obviously the gym he's walking through a parking lot and you see a janitor pushing a mop behind him

and the janitor kind of rolls his eyes there's sort of this little there's a kid every weekend who just met a girl named Maria where it's sort of this little like the janitor's like you know there's a kid every weekend who just met a girl named Maria or whatever you know what I mean like right like where it's just like it's like clever little like you know look to Tony this is the

first time this has ever happened to him but obviously you know these are children basically uh sure sure and and yes uh what do you think of Maria is a sweet song. It's the, I would say it's one of the cornier songs. I like, it's a nice song.

Look, I've hit the fucking broken record here, but it's just like, it's another number that's just Ansel, which means it's a dip in energy for me. Right, right, right. We're on the record there. Okay. We're on the broken record. In the original movie, they break up in the musical, and Maria is followed by record. In the original movie, they break up in the musical

and Maria is followed by tonight. In the original movie, they break it up with America. I think they were just sort of with the thinking of like, well, the love song shouldn't be back to back. But here they restore it to the original.

So he basically just walks to her. I love that set. The, you know, kind of alley set with the fire escape where she's like you know basically has a spotlight on her the poster for the movie so fucking good

yeah I mean this movie has an incredible balance of using real streets of New York City and incredible sets integrated very well with each other it was all filmed in New York and New Jersey a lot of it you know not a nice location shooting. A lot of like upper Manhattan, you can see, I think.

Harlem, Flatlands, Brooklyn, Patterson, New Jersey, where they did outdoor sets. Yeah. And they did, right. And they did indoor sets. Steiner Studios. In Steiner Studios, right. Which is great.

I love that they did that, you know. Because it wasn't, The original one was shot in Los Angeles, except for some location stuff in New York. But the original is such a studio. Those sets are so cool. Yes. The bright color walls and all that. Anyway,

we talked about tonight. What's the next number? The next number, Griffin. America. It's a little number called America. That's my favorite number. It's a pretty great number. You know, it's a pretty good one. Yeah.

It's also like, you know, the first screenings of this movie and people come out and they're naming all the performances. And I saw so much shit spotlighting Ariana DeBose that I'm sitting there waiting like when is she going to pop off? You know? Because she's been in the movie at this point but kind of just off at the fringes. This number is just so much fucking

fun. It's just like infectious. It's totally... She is fantastic. Yeah, she's pretty phenomenal. Yeah. She is a Broadway person. I believe made her debut as a So You Think You Can Dance competitor back in the day. She was in Bring It On.

She was in Motown. She was in Pippin. She was in Hamilton. And she was in A Bronx Tale. Don't forget that they made a musical out of A Bronx Tale. You can never forget. She was nominated for a Tony Award for playing Donna Summer in Summer,

the Donna Summer musical. Damn right she was. I wish I'd seen Summer, the Donna Summer musical. And she also was in like Shemekadune and The Prawn, neither of which I've seen, but I think a lot of people who saw Shemekadune said she was kind of one of the most fun elements

of Shemigadoon. Man, she played the bullet in Hamilton. She did. She did. She played the bullet. She's one of the dancers in one of the ensemble. Yeah.

Anyway, she's great. America is great. It's another fucking lightning in a bottle thing where you're watching her really like go like okay now it's my movie but it's yeah I mean it's fucking I don't know it's look all the obvious shit it's hard not to repeat yourself it's just like I love watching big wide shots of people moving really well with bright colors in real environments or real practical sets the colors are wonderful

i like that he builds it so like that i mean it's so you know she she sings her little opening on the balcony on the fire escape and then she walked down the stairs they do that thing where they let the build-up play out for one more you know round while everyone is gathering around her then she hits the streets and then like three of them sing the first bar six of them sing the second bar nine of them like they keep adding girls coming in onto the street and then the boys burst like it's so perfectly staged it is incredible i have seen it three times i'm realizing now that it's just sort of like written in my brain did anyone notice the big shark? The guy, the really big

tall guy on the sharks? You mean Jaws? You mean, um, fuck. What was that cartoon with the sharks talk, Griffin? Jabberjaw? Sure. You know, come on. What was the cartoon? No, like,

come on, Griffin. Not Jabberjaw?jaw no it was like a 90s sort of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ripoff it's like literally based on like fruit snacks it's fruit sharks fruit sharks show based on fruit snacks

they made the fruit snacks first they were like these characters got legs literally sharks with legs it would be pretty cool if all the sharks in this movie were just first they were like these characters got legs literally it would be pretty cool it would be pretty cool if all the sharks in this movie were just street sharks who were just super extreme that's the kind of radical take i want to have on the material that that round man mound of pounds slam moo um ben are you thinking of a specific character? I'm sorry.

I can't remember the big shark that you're talking about. Sound off in the comments. He's chonky. You can't miss him. He's my favorite. He's just like such a big presence but his dancing is incredible.

That's all. I like Ben saying you can't miss him to the person who's seen the movie three times and has the shot sequencing committed to memory. There's a lot of boys in each gang. I'm still getting them down. I'm not mocking you. I'm saying Ben is always going to be able to spot a big boy in a film,

even if he's deep in the background. You know, in the Broadway musical Hadestown, which is a wonderful show, one of the ensemble is this fucking massive guy. Like, he sticks out. He's much taller than anyone else. He's like 6'7".

His name is Timothy Hughes. And there's not a lot of dancers in Hadestown, so you're like, you're watching four dancers and one, like, Goliath basically do all this stuff together. And he became this kind of people were like who who's that who's the big boy who's like like you know be like you're sort of a minor internet star so it can be good to be the big boy in the ensemble sometimes it's good to be the big boy yeah america it's great it's and i think they do a good job you know it's it's a controversial number because, especially in the original,

it's the most, you know, it's got this sort of edge to it of like, ah, well, you know, Puerto Rico, what a shithole, right? You know, it's got this kind of like, she's very derogatory. And they have kind of like trimmed and sanded the lyrics over the years to make it a less hostile number in that way. And they've added Bernardo's counter-arguments. It's so good now.

Sure. But you also have the way it comes back around at the end of the movie. Yeah, absolutely. Her fucking shit-talking this broken country we live in. Yeah, it's shit country. Anyway, after that, which is so good You got G. Officer Krupke

Which rules The way he stages it again So good Doing it in the police Whatever The precinct And Man, my boy Diesel

He is so good Yes Man, my boy Diesel is... Oof, he is so good. Um, yes. Uh, Diesel. You like Diesel. That guy does rule. Yeah, and there's just, like, good fucking character comedy here. You know? He finds all these fun little bits for them to do.

Exactly. They've all got, like, a good... Like, yeah, they all got, like, different physicality that they can bring to it. Yeah. Um, yeah. I I mean it's fun those boys Yeah they're You'd think it was weird Like To sort of

Root for these guys sometimes and be disgusted By the mother like how do you manage that Right like how do you Have sympathy For these kids and hate them and like understand that they're violent and all you know i don't know and like i just think that obviously you're suspending your disbelief a little bit because it's a musical but it's also just they're very charismatic performers no that's the thing i think he pulls off very well especially considering as

i was saying before i do think he makes them feel actually dangerous before you know in the original movie there may be likable at the expense of ever being seen as threatening. And then you have One Hand, One Heart. You know, always the most treacly number. I like that he sets it at the cloisters. It just makes it more interesting. Sure, sure. It just, like, it's literally,

because it's such a slow number, so especially in a movie, it can be a little, you know, kind of like, you're tapping the you know it's nice one hand one heart is fine but it's like their little make-believe wedding number but um i don't know don't you like the cloisters give it up for the cloisters griffin i do look i i just i i i'm not giving it up for the cloisters i love the clister. I love the way this movie uses New York. It's just the longer the movie goes on,

I think especially post cool and the rumble and everything, but we're about to get to, it just becomes so much about the two of them as it needs to be. And I was just so much more interested in like the rivalry between the gangs and the weird tension and chemistry there than anytime Tony and Maria are together

um absolutely uh the next number is cool this is fairly this has been sort of like somewhat drastically changed because um in the uh original movie it's done after riff is dead and ice sings it and he's telling the other jets to play it cool and it's more about that and here it's been entirely restaged they're doing it out

sort of in the you know in the yard like in this sort of like on the docks like right like by the water and this sort of a crumbling uh dock or whatever it is right you know what would and they have it be this dance between tony and riff over the gun that riff has just bought you know and like about like let's try not to as you know tony's trying to mitigate like let's not escalate and like riff is much more angry and they like actually just like visualize this through dance um and it's sort of like they're fighting but they're also kind of in love with each other there's this very strong energy between tony and riff yes throughout like this weird kind of like riff is like a spurned lover in a way like he he's kind of like why he still loves Tony. He's obviously kind of obsessed with him, but he's also sort of like, why are you not with me anymore?

Like, why are you what happened to you, man? You used to be beautiful. You know, this is the thing, though. I think fucking Ansel is less effective at selling romantic chemistry than he is at any other type of chemistry. Because I find his dynamic with Rita Moreno kind of touching. I find his scenes with Riff pretty charged in a good way. Even with the sharks, with Bernardo. Yeah, yeah.

I don't know, it's interesting considering he made his bones being this fucking Heartthrob in this romance movie But you know The Fault in Our Stars it's like I guess they have chemistry It's so He's just I don't like that movie that much

I don't know how you feel about The Fault in Our Stars But it's effective It's not like you watch it you know you get it you're like i can see why this connected with young people obviously but whatever i guess it's just like he can sell it more as a teen and as a grown but they're i don't know they aren't supposed to be teens i don't know i mean it's just a lot of crying i guess he's a better crier than he is a lover. I think his best scene in the movie is reacting to the quote-unquote news that Maria's been shot.

I think he's actually very good there. I agree with that. And I've talked to other critics who are like, I don't think he sold that moment. I'm like, I do. I think he's good at that. and it did remind me of his reaction to getting his fucking world of warcraft character deleted right i was like right he was oh he was always pretty good at the sort of like total teen devastation thing and there it is i think it's like appropriately melodramatic and embarrassing yeah right exactly yeah 100 he's right he's he's

he's it's it's over for him in that moment. Anyway, after that, you have the quintet, the Tonight Quintet. You're cutting between the Jets, the Sharks, getting their chains and their bats ready, Ben. Anita in church, you know,

excited to be kissed. You got Tony and Maria excited to be in love. You got Tony and Maria excited to be in love. You got David Sims excited for Tony and Maria to kiss. Yes, kiss, kiss. More kissing. I like that Maria kisses Tony in this, by the way. She kind of...

It is weird that they do truly cut to you during this number, just sitting in a screening room next to Jordan Hoffman saying, like, tonight, tonight they'll kiss on screen tonight. And you're waving your arms around. just sitting in a screening room next to Jordan Hoffman saying like, tonight, tonight, they'll kiss on screen tonight. And you're waving your arms around. So good.

This leads to the rumble, which is set in this warehouse filled with salt. And it's got that shot that they kind of emphasize in the trailer that feels like one of those shots Steven Spielberg's had in his head for a fucking generation of like the shadows crisscrossing, like entering from either side that I think is so clever.

Like, right. Like, it's like, these are the same people in a way. And, and yet it's so frightening and, you know,

like they, they're intermingling and they're also opposed. It's so, it's so cool. Yeah. Uh, I, I love, you know, again, I love the original movie. I think the knife fight sequence is very devoid of grit. You know, it really is just feels like them dancing.

The knives kind of come out of nowhere. And it just, you know, like, I think obviously this is a much, this feels more brutal. They're really, you know, beating each other up and it's nastier and it's harsher. And right. You know. Yeah. Yeah yeah it's not just like yeah what's yeah i think once again the gang stuff is most successful in this movie in terms of the the new life he brings to it um and then i feel pretty uh the sort of counterbalance to that. Maria doesn't know yet that her world is falling apart. She's so happy. You know? What do you think of I Feel Pretty? Set in Gimbels?

Sure. You got Ziegler dancing around with mannequins and all that. Where is it set in the original movie again? Where is it set in the original musical? That's a good question i don't really is she just like it's just like in her apartment isn't it okay look it up it's it's it's a lot less dynamic from what i remember no i i think being in the store gives it a lot of fun

uh i guess it's just yeah it's just like an anita sort of seamstress warehouse you know and like so because so she's got clothes that she can drape around her and dance around and all that but it's it's not like the gimbals thing is cool like having all those really cool like tableaus of like a life she wants that she's not gonna you know be able to get with tony they're just more bit opportunities and also the tension of like they're supposed to be working. You know? Like it's fun if you can have a musical number have a game behind it like that.

Totally, totally. A little something, yeah. And then you have somewhere, obviously in the original show, that's part of like a ballet. They did, as they love to do, they did like a ballet. Right. Where somewhere is sort of sung by no one in particular.

In the movie, the original movie, it's sung by Tony. Okay. And in this movie, it is sung by Valentina, by Rita Moreno, which, you know, obviously she's not the singer she was when she was young, but it's this sort of sweet, muted moment.

Yes. I don't know did you was this effective for you uh Ehrlich who I got in a fight with was sort of like I think Tony needs that because like I think he needs the like you know he needs one more big emotional number he can defend himself I'm not I don't want to speak for him but you know like he was sort

of making that argument and I was like I don't know if we need more Tony at a certain point you know like I like giving Valentina the stage well that's the problem i i think you're both right in that like it it should be tony in a movie where tony is clicking but with the movie they have you're better off giving it to a performer who's connecting more and also you know she's it's used in this metaphorical way of like she's dreaming of a nicer world right like she's sort of like she's someone who married a white man she's she's puerto rican doc yeah doc himself the now dearly departed doc and like right

like so she's just sort of like trying to imagine a better place you You know, the movie is 60 years after the original. There's still a lot of bad shit that unfortunately feels reflected by the, you know, like, right? Like, I get it. I get it thematically. Wait a second, David.

Are you saying that the world is bad? That everything's terrible? Yeah, yeah. There's some stuff. Oh, okay. And then you have a boy like that slash i have a love this sort of anita and maria duel where you know obviously anita is mad that maria is still with tony yeah maria is like look I fucking love the guy. What can I tell you? What are you getting into? Kids and their love?

Yeah, well, I mean, you know, it's, by all means, she should be rejecting Tony. He killed her brother. Right. I mean, he's already come through the window at this point. Does he do it right after the sequence? No, it's before. This is the whole thing. Anita sees them together.

Right. and she's like i can't believe you're letting this man you know like that you're sticking with this guy right and she's in love with him yeah and she convinces anita and then and anita is convinced enough to go you know to docs to go to see valentina and to set tony you know to tell tony like look she'll meet you tonight and you guys can fucking go off into the great blue yonder. And then, obviously, her mind is changed by the Jets, you know, attacking her. The Jets turning

on her and being horrible, and that sequence is very chilling, and you know, Anita DeBose is so good in it. Yeah, and Marina Moreno coming out and being like, you're a bunch of fucking rapists like you know i've known you all since you were boys and you're like being just utterly brutal

about them and that's pretty much the last you see of the jets they just sort of slink off like it's not like you know there's nothing more like for to to sort of sweeten the the thing here it's it's it's just sort of you, it's all it's all darkness. Yeah, and I think, you know, Mariano did an interview somewhere, Entertainment Weekly or something, talking about, well, thank you. Five comedy points. But

just how surreal it was to A, be on the set of a West Side Story movie again 60 years later, and B, be playing this scene from a different angle, now being the one who has to save the character that she most famously played, you know? Absolutely.

It is so interesting. You feel that energy in her performance. Yeah, totally, totally. It's good. The ending is very powerful. I mean, it's partly that Zegler is such a god damn star and like you know

because the ending is really that thing where she's pointing the gun at everyone and like you know it's supposed to be it's the moment where everyone realizes what fools they've been and all that but yeah I agree fully yeah good movie sad yeah ending's very sad I forgot how much of a donor this movie is.

Throw me on Juliet, baby. I mean, I'm already seeing people, and we can get to this at the box office game now, but I'm already seeing people question whether it's going to have the legs people think it will with word of mouth and whatever, because it is a movie that doesn't leave you walking out of the theater being like,

fuck, yes! I know people like you are like, fuck yes, Spielberg! But the general audience is, right, unless you're feeling invested in Spielberg pulling this off, it is an ending that leaves you feeling a little rattled. A hundred percent.

It's this very solemn ending. The credits are, they're lovely, but like, they're solemn. You're definitely walking out of there being like, whew, wow, you know, right, you know it's right you're not walking out there going this is the greatest show what is the you know what the last number of the greatest showman i think is from now on which i do think is pretty fun that's the one where he's like back with zach efron he's like oh it's the it's the one we're gonna right yeah it's the one where he's like we're gonna do this shit forever from now on this is the greatest show

yeah that's what he's like that's right I love that also in Never Enough when he goes this is the greatest show is never enough I don't know maybe I should rewatch the greatest showman yeah I'm feeling like I want stupid bullshit movie

but it fucking worked I don't like I want stupid bullshit movie but it fucking worked I don't know I mean it's like look I'm gonna watch this a second time we're ending this year off on these episodes that are like first reaction episodes but you've obviously had more time to chew on these movies than I have and you're even getting a couple extra

days in on me for Matrix my eyes are green with envy. But unlike something like Benedetta, where I was like, okay, I think this rules. I definitely want to see this a second time. There's more for me to chew on. But I'm getting the attended effect of this movie.

The X factor was something like Spielberg doing West Side Story, where I'm like, whether or not it's fair that I'm putting this on it, I'm not just looking to it with like, I'm going to sit here and try to like, parse the craft and admire what he's doing. I'm sitting there and hoping I'm going to fucking levitate. You know? Sure.

High expectations. It's tough, especially in a bummer time. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I'm also like, just. High expectations. It's tough, especially in a bummer time. Um, I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I'm also like just dead inside now. It's one of those. No, you're alive. You're singing and dancing. I'm permanently broken. Permanently broken. Griffin's been pushing this permanently broken narrative. David doesn't like that.

We have to fix Griffin 2022. Hashtag fix Griffin 2022. David keeps stitching never cursed inside all of my clothing yeah I know inside all of your baseball caps and your Toy Story shirts and your I was trying to think of Griffin alright let's play the box office game because we do need to wrap up yeah it opened to 10 million dollars not good

it opened to 10 million dollars hopefully it will have some legs I don't think it's going to have like greatest showman legs but everything's kind of had legs like Ghostbusters. Afterlife is sort of continuing to clean up, you know, in pandemic sense like it's had pretty nice legs

partly obviously and not a new lot of new movies are not coming. You know, it's been fairly quiet post Thanksgiving and like the problem is that West Side Story second weekend is going up against No Way Home which is going to make a fortune. Right. And in past

Christmases you'd have the halo effect of like well Avatar sold out the trickle down. Yeah. Benefits Sherlock Holmes fine let's go see West Side Story. Right. Right. Totally right. There's the part of me that questions like are people have people just already bought their Spider-Man tickets two weeks ago. And if they can't get in to see Spider-Man, they're waiting to see Spider-Man rather than going to the theater and saying what else is less foot traffic right now. Right. I think perhaps whereas movie going felt like a thing if families are all locked up with each other not locked down but locked up with each

other in a non-lockdown era day three everyone's sick of each other you're like i don't know let's just go fucking see a movie what's the thing that everyone can enjoy that's a time when west side story explodes i wonder if just behaviorally people are more in a position to be like what's on fucking netflix what's the new thing what do we watch rather than feeling like you have to get out of the house to go do that. But I don't know. I would love nothing more than to be pleasantly surprised. But it opened to an anemic number one, $10 million.

Right. What's number two? It's another musical. Encanto. Encanto. Still need to watch that. What's it up to now? $71 million. Doing alright. I was talking about this with my dad last night where he was like well the only things that are doing well are like

kids movies and animated movies and I was like no I mean it's things that skew younger but the actual like family films have all been underperforming relative like Encanto's doing okay but certainly not robust Disney musical

numbers and nothing's come close to making 100 million encanto is coming close ish but it probably won't we'll see um i have been surprised in a way because obviously everything's so depressed uh for little kids movies um and how quote unquote it's doing well in a week also because like i just feel like disney didn't dump it exactly but i do feel like they push it out with less fanfare i would and obviously it's not based on anything it's a total you know so like and you know and it doesn't seem like it's concept is the easiest set like it's not like some very high concept thing yeah so it's doing all right it's all right it also feels like they kind of gave it a theatrical release that more than anything functions as a promotion for it's going to be on Disney plus Christmas Day.

Like they've just kept on redirecting things back to that of like, but it'll be on in 30 days. Christmas Day, you can watch it with the whole family. And I probably will then. Katie Rich has told me she really likes it. She's watched a bunch. Her kids really like it. Okay. That's what I was going to ask she really likes it she's watched a bunch her kids really like it okay that's what I was gonna ask Charlie likes it in fact she was like I've used all

my like press screening you get a certain number of views or whatever she's like should I ask Disney for more because Charlie wants more in Kanto anyway number three at the box office Griffin your favorite film of the year my favorite film of the year being My favorite film of the year... I'm being disingenuous.

It's Ghostbusters Afterlife. That's right. Number four at the box office. I mean, this is very similar to The Bed and Dead, obviously. You said my favorite film of the year, and I was like, did they re-release For Those Who Wish Me Dead? Is it now finally making a mark? Can't wait for that to clean up at your blankies. Number four...

Big adult drama. House of Gooch. Gooch. Goochie Gooch. Look, that's one of the box office performances that gives me a little bit of hope, you know? I mean, obviously it is an adult drama that appeals to younger viewers.

It's got Lady Gaga in it. It's got Adam Driver. It's big and bold and silly. And so that's probably part of why it's doing a little better yeah it's still gonna lose money but it's performing relatively well based you know everyone talks about losing money but i got some news for you griffin these studios these major corporations they're doing all right they're fine david look i'm i'm not sweating them at all i'm sweating them going well we're not gonna make

something like that ever again well they're gonna have to make something yeah they do number five at the box office your favorite movie of the year it's another favorite movie of the year you actually like this movie as do I we talked about it last week

on the Benetta episode. It's Eternals hanging around. Still hanging around. It's made $161 million. Now, is No Way Home going to make that in its opening weekend, probably? Yes. Maybe in its opening day. Maybe not that good.

But, you know, as much as Eternals disappointed, in the middle of a pandemic It has quietly just kind of snuck To 400 million worldwide Like that is a Disney That is a Marvel flop A Marvel flop In a pandemic

Still is just sort of like an easy 400 plus Right So yeah And then yeah you got welcome to raccoon city the resident evil movie which I need to watch you've got Clifford you might be the only person

in America who speaks of welcome to raccoon city with that amount of urgency you've got Christmas with the chosen colon the messengers which we got into before you've got dude and you've got America's favorite venom let there be carnage uh-huh uh new releases this week national champions whatever that is that stx movie uh you've got red rocket griff have you seen red rocket i have not uh it's

funny that it feels like licorice pizza has somehow absorbed all the quote-unquote problematic discourse that everyone was earmarking for Red Rocket. Right, licorice pizza where the 15-year-old boy gets one kiss. Red Rocket, the movie where a much older man sees a 17-year-old girl and is like, I want to make porn with you. Strategically grooms her and that's the main story. I just feel like for the last six months, everyone's been like, oh boy, I'm not looking forward to the discourse about Red Rocket. And I'm like, this is an actual

fact, David. I went to see Licorice Pizza for a second time last night. I went to the bathroom. There were three people, maybe around our age, walking out of Red Rocket. Okay? And they walk by a poster of licorice pizza. And they're like,

isn't this the movie where, like, a 35-year-old grooms a 15-year-old? Like, systematically, like, deliberately, like, preys on. And I was like, you just saw Red Rocket. Look, they're both good movies in my opinion. Look, I'm looking forward to watching Red Rocket. You're allowed to make me that bad of a people.

They're both playing in transgressive spaces, but yeah, Red Rocket is about a harmful person. Yeah. It's a much darker movie. It's very good, in my opinion. I'm sure we'll fucking get into this in our Blankies Award episode, because I can't even imagine what the discourse is going to feel like three months

from now, but watching liquorice pizza a second time to to call her predatory when he is the one making advances at all times you cannot like that they kiss at the end of the movie that is completely valid but it's not like she is the aggressor

in a single scene Esther interviewed Alana Heim yesterday and she said like what do you think happens after uh the end of the movie like you know like after after there is a running and she's like i think that immediately cooper uh hoffman like pulls me down by mistake or so where i fall and i'm mad at him and we don't talk for a week and it just goes on like that forever she's like that's my take like It's just constant bickering slash, oh, you're all right.

Yeah. Yeah. Look, we'll talk about this three months from now. Yeah. This is our West Side Story episode. Mm-hmm. Excited to see it again. Steven Spielberg.

Last one of the year. Last episode of the year. Yeah, this is the last. Right. That's right, because we're going dark next week. It's Christmas time. And then we'll be back in the new year to talk about a little movie called The Matrix Resurrections.

A film that you need to drop off the Zoom right now so you can go see. Wait, oh my god, hold on though, guys. Do you hear that in the distance? What? What is it? It's like a bell ringing, but it sounds stretched out almost as if it were slow.

Rings are usually much faster than that. I don't... Oh my god. Wait. Oh my god. It's another year of slow Christmas. Oh boy. Okay. And then this is a placeholder where I'll later put in the actual stuff

information about it. But I'm laying down. I don't feel good. So yeah, that was me. I was just on the couch. Wasn't feeling good. It was a few days ago. I'm feeling better now.

I'm feeling extra good because it's slow Christmas day. Those of you who don't remember, last year I started my annual tradition of putting out a compilation of slow holiday music. You can find the link to the album in the episode notes. 11 tracks of slow goodness. We have some really great contributors. Want to shout out to Jim Shorts, Sarah Greenwell. She covered the Chipmunk song, Christmas Don't Be Late. Country Band, Jason Hawk Harris. Dude's got a pedal steel guitar player on the song. We got a track from Sad 13, player on the song. We got a track from Sad 13,

a solo project for Sadie Dupuis from Speedy Ortiz, Andrew Bryant, Ian Ferguson, excited about this, guys. It's slow as hell. David, I want you to know there was sort of an

unofficial listening party for Slow Christmas recently, and I got to hear some of the tracks. I don't want to spoil things for people, but, you know, Volume 1 was mostly a work of editing. Yeah. Right? You're slowing down things in post. This is really a holistic work of production. He has had people play Christmas music slowly. I cannot wait.

This is not digital tinkering. This is slow from the ground up. I'm so excited. Slow Christmas 1, you know. Huge hit. It came out of nowhere, though. It was a surprise, right? We didn't know what to expect.

But this one, it's got the burden x the second album yeah huge expectations on its shoulders i i i i can't wait well and i can see what the complaints are going to be already and i don't think they're fair but people are going to say it's too star driven it has too many big names attached people will be right plummet right when they see some of the collaborators on this album but I think it's great I think it's a better work I honestly think it's a stronger work than volume one and I'm excited for people to hear it

so excited so check it out take us out look folks thank you for listening this entire stupid horrible year i i beg of you please remember to rate review and subscribe thank you to marie bardy for our social media uh aj mckeon and alex baron for our editing jj burge and nick lariano for our research all

people who joined the blank check family in 2021 and have made the show better and have made our lives easier. And I am eternally grateful and I love all of them. Our old dear friends, Pat Rounds and Joe Bowen for our artwork. Our old dear friends, Lane Montgomery and the Great American Novel for our theme song. You can find their new album, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Online, wherever albums are found after you listen to Slow Christmas Volume 2. Go to blankies.rad.com for some real nerdy shit.

You can go to our Shopify page where we have the discounted Talking the Walk 2020 shirts and 5th Anniversary shirts. Price to move move baby. Uh,

and, uh, tune in next week for nothing. There's absolutely nothing. Give us one week off, please. That's all we ask of you. And then we'll be back in,

uh, in January, uh, with the, the matrix resurrection. Maybe you've heard of it. And then Jane campaign, we're going camping folks.

And as always, I'm going to try to get one good snap on microphone. Okay? I want like one snap that registers. Can you guys hear any of those or any of those coming through? I hear them. They're pretty dull, right? They're kind of dull.

Yeah. They're a little bit. That one was okay, maybe. That one was okay. That last one was good. I think I was good. I'm good. Oh, okay.

All right. We're good. Don't start doing it, Ben, because then you're going to make me look worse. Okay. Ready? Yep. Horrifying.