The Big Picture - ‘Wicked’ Is a Sensation. But Is It Good? Plus: The Top Five 21st Century Musicals.

Episode Date: November 25, 2024

Sean is joined by Juliet Litman to discuss another highly anticipated 2024 release in Jon M. Chu’s ‘Wicked.’ They unpack their very mixed feelings (1:07), hypothesize why this movie is such a big hit (41:30), and forecast its Oscar chances by asking whether it could really win Best Picture (50:37). Then, they both rank their top five favorite musicals from the 21st century (58:58). Finally, Sean is joined by writer and director Malcolm Washington to discuss his new film, ‘The Piano Lesson.’ They talk about coming from a Hollywood family, what he hoped to attempt when given the chance to make this film, and turning August Wilson’s stage play into a bold cinematic experience (1:26:57). Host: Sean Fennessey Guest: Juliet Litman and Malcolm Washington Audio Producer: Sasha Ashall Video Producer: Jack Sanders Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's happening? It's Todd McShay, and I'm back with a new home and a new show at The Ringer and Spotify. The McShay Show. It's a video and audio podcast coming to you year-round with all my NFL draft information. Big boards, mock drafts, and player movement. Plus, I'll be chatting with some of my best friends in football, including some of your favorite football analysts. During the week, we'll have episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays that'll include discussions about my player rankings, who's rising, who's falling, and who your NFL team should be keeping an eye on. Plus, we'll be reacting each week to the college football playoff polls and giving you previews and picks for each Saturday slate. In addition, I'll have episodes on Saturday nights with my immediate reaction to the full day in college football every week.

So if you love the college game, the NFL, the draft, or all of it like me, make sure to like, follow, subscribe, and get ready for the McShea Show on The Ringer, Spotify, and wherever you watch or listen to podcasts. I'm Sean Fennessey and this is The Big Picture a conversation show about Wicked later in this episode I have a conversation with Malcolm Washington the writer director behind the piano lesson the latest August Wilson adaptation

that is now available on Netflix Malcolm is one of the most thoughtful and engaging guests we've had in a while we talked about coming from a Hollywood family. He is the son of Denzel, what he hoped to attempt when given the chance to make this film, and how he turned Wilson's stage play into such a bold cinematic experience. Malcolm, incredibly cool guy. Stick around for that chat. But first, joining me to talk about the biggest movie in the world is a wicked superfan, the host of Bachelor Party, the

ringer's head of production, frankly, my professional partner in crime for more than a decade. And I think first time big picture guest, Juliette Littman. Is that right, Juliette? I believe it is. Actually, no, it's not. I came on in the summer of 2020 to talk about the Disney Plus adaptation of Hamilton. Yes. So I'm back.

Perfect timing. I love it. The circle is squared. Juliet, most people probably wouldn't know it if they only listened to our podcast, but you and I really have been the frickin' frack of the ringer for a very long time. We have had adjoining desks, adjoining offices. I miss those days. We work in tandem on many, many things here, and yet we never pod. What's up with that? I know. I don't

know. You haven't invited me on in four plus years, so here I am. You have like nine pods. What do you mean? I'm delighted to be here. I'm really excited to talk about this because I'm so deep in Wicked and Wicked lore that I've genuinely been really curious about like what normal people think if you're not like deep into music theater. So I'm just very, very honored and excited to be here. So thanks for having me. How wonderful to be identified as normal on my own show for a change. That honestly just felt great. I felt so alive hearing you call me normal.

Let's talk about Wicked. So Wicked has been one of the most anticipated movies of the year. It, of course, was dominant at the box office this weekend, made over $110 million in the United States. It's directed by John M. Chu, a filmmaker that you have a lot of love for, who has been a guest on this podcast before. The screenplay is by Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox. Winnie Holzman, one of the writers on the stage musical. It was also written by Stephen Schwartz. And it's adapted from a novel called Wicked by Gregory Maguire. I think this is one of the most beloved theatrical properties of the 21st century.

Would you agree? I definitely would. It has been on Broadway for 21 years. They made a lot of hay out of the 20th anniversary last year. And there is just so much Wicked content out there. Like, if you just go on YouTube, you can find sort of like every blonde or like seemingly blonde musical theater actress doing a version of at least one Wicked song. Someone who could be blonde is singing Wicked on YouTube at all times. And also people who aren't blonde. It's just, it is a very large tent and it is, it's a fixture. Like it is sort of,

it is the fixture of Broadway at this point, I would say. I want to talk to you about how that happened before we get into the movie itself, because I, as I've said a couple of times on the show, have never seen the musical. I've never seen it performed. I've listened I've said a couple of times on the show, have never seen the musical. I've never seen it performed. I've listened to the soundtrack a few times, but only since I had a child. I haven't read Jeffrey Maguire's book. Me neither.

I don't intend to. It appears he's written dozens of books now in the vein of this film, and maybe even a dozen just in the Wicked series. It's not because I'm allergic to it. In fact, The Wizard of Oz, I've said many times on the pod, is one of the signature films of my life.

It's certainly up there with Star Wars and Jaws and a couple of others as the movie I've seen the most in my life. I had it on multiple times off of a taped VHS recording from the age of probably four through my teens. And it was on in my house all the time. Transformative, emotional, personal experience like it is for so many other people. And yet, for whatever reason, probably because

of the timing of the musical and where I was in my life, I missed it. What is your relationship to The Wizard of Oz before Wicked? Like, non-existent. Like, I like it, and I love songs. What? That's fascinating. Yeah, like, I know more about some of the characters in The Wizard of Oz as, like, an extension of Wicked, or, like, kind of, like, going backwards. Like, I, like, Judy Garland to me is, like, the inspiration for The Valley of the Dolls more than anything else. Like, she, like, I really also, like, find, like, Minnelli family lore very interesting. But, like, I don't have a big relationship to the Wizard of Oz. And I actually have been thinking a lot about that because it's been such a big part of the press tour in, like, a quiet way. And so I haven't really, I was just like, I should rewatch this.

It's been so long. But, yeah, like, I feel like I know more about the Wizard of Oz because I got into Wicked than the other way around. That is just absolutely remarkable genuinely I and maybe that informs a lot of this conversation that we're going to have about our reactions to this movie because obviously I hold a very special place in my heart for the Wizard of Oz and not knowing really any of the source material very well there are some things about this movie that confused me um when did you explain them I look forward to it. When did you see the musical? I first saw it in Chicago when I was in college,

the first national tour. And then it was in Chicago for a long time. So I saw it, that was, I think, 2005 or 2006, shortly after it came out. And then I just listened to the music for years and years and years. And over that time, Defying Gravity became more and more of this canonical song. And I think Defying Gravity also grew as Idina Menzel grew. And Kristen Chenoweth, I was really into Pushing Daisies, which was right after Wicked came out. And she was on that. So there were other ways that my interest in Wicked got reinforced as those two stars became bigger. And then I went this past May with my friend and her two kids to see it on Broadway and it was sold out. It was a random Sunday in May and I like

sobbed through the whole thing. Like every musical cue was like so moving and I was just so happy to be singing again. So it was very exciting. And yeah, Wicked is like a phenomenon. So unlike most other shows, but really anything else. For lack of a better phrase, Wicked is a prequel to The Wizard of Oz. It's a story that's told through the eyes of Elphaba, who's the Wicked Witch of the West, and her experience at Shiz University, at least in part one, which is the sort of wizarding school, the witching school,

where she and Glinda, who is the good witch from the original Wizard of Oz, become kind of frenemies over time. During their time there, they learn a lot about the kind of underworld and machinations of Oz

and who's controlling it and how it's all working. The film is a kind of like reclamation, I would say, of Elphaba's perspective. Cynthia Erivo plays Elphaba.

Ariana Grande plays Glinda in the film. Jonathan Bailey appears, Ethan Slater, Bowen Yang, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum, star-studded cast.

Did you like Wicked part one? I did I liked it Good movie That's it That's all you got? I liked it I mean

I've been thinking about it Like I had a really good time I cried three times Throughout Okay Which you know Is less than I did At the musical

When I sat down And started crying The whole time But I think it's just Such a tall order To adapt something That is so beloved on Broadway that, like, I went in really, really nervous for everybody and, like, wanted it to

be a success. And so I was like, okay, this is good. Like, this is not a debacle. This is not Cats. This is not Les Mis. This is not Into the Woods. Like, this is a good movie. And overall, like, the two main things, like, I told people before they saw it was, like, Ariana Grande is absolutely fabulous in transfixing, and I'm so happy for her. And if you like the musical, this is an incredibly faithful adaptation. And so I think it's, like, it was made very much with the musical fans in mind, but I actually think it does a lot more, which I've, like, kind of, like, took me some time to, like, really think about and piece together.

But I think it's really successful in how it serves a lot of different audiences. And I've, like, anecdotally heard people who aren't, like, musical people.

They're like, yeah, I liked it. It really picks up at the end. And I think that there is, like, it goes through, like, different phases. You're like, okay, it starts as

just hitting you right away with the music, straight into what you know from Broadway. And then, I would say after two hours, in the last 40 minutes, it kind of evolves into something else where it feels more like a superhero movie. Like, it becomes something that you could tie to, like, you know, being inspired by, like, Marvel or whatever. You get the big cameo. You get the big fight scene. And then, you know, like whether you liked the first two hours and 35 minutes

almost becomes irrelevant when Cynthia Erivo finally belts it out. And like Defying Gravity is already a beautiful song. I found like her triumphant moment so, so moving that I was just like, well, this is great. I'm so happy leaving the theater. So that, you know, they nailed the last five minutes. And like, if that, is that the most important thing? Maybe. So if so, they did it. Yeah. You've just underscored maybe some of my issues with the

movie, which is that it feels like a very structured IP execution more so than like a heartful spirited tale that people have had such a big relationship to. But I know I'm not the best person to necessarily weigh in on it because I don't have a lot of history. And so it does seem like most people, most fans of the musical are getting this huge sense of satisfaction from it. Definitely. Yeah, for sure.

Why do you have a big relationship with John M. Chu? I'm so glad you asked. Step Up 2 is like just an iconic movie for me. Also, you kind of alluded to this. You missed Wicked because we talked about this last week. Like, you were a senior in college when Wicked came out. And I think college is really a dead zone for pop culture consumption. Like, you probably go really hard on a few things, but because the experience of college is being, like, engulfed in the smallest world that feels incredibly important, if it didn't make it in, it doesn't exist, right?

Especially senior year. Yeah. Yeah, you're just just like, totally. Like the only thing I really watched when I was in college was the OC and that might be it. And Arrested Development. Like that's kind of it. And I was just like, everything else was, I guess we were watching more pop culture and stuff, but like, that's all I can remember. Right. So I feel like it's probably the same for you. What did penetrate for me when I was in college was Step Up and Step Up 2. And I loved those movies so much. And he directed Step Up 2, which, you know, was also a tall order because

Step Up is, you know, the breakout of Channing Tatum, where he meets Jenna Dewan. Obviously, very important movie to pop culture history ever since. But Step Up 2 is actually really good and quite different. And like John M. Chu is able to step in and like make it a worthwhile movie that then you know led to three more sequels after that and he also I think really understood at the time how to make something successful he um on the heels of Step Up 2 engaged in one of the first like YouTube viral stunts which is he had like a dance battle fight with Miley Cyrus and her best friend at the time, whose name was Mandy. And they had a child,

they had a channel called Milers and Manders. And they had this like, just this weird like, like in 2008, like viral wasn't a thing, but they had these dance battle videos. And John M. Chu like really understood how to, I think, use that moment for himself, step up to, plus this, like, this YouTube phenomenon to create something that fans would go crazy over while also trying to experiment with his own work and craft as a filmmaker. And I think that actually, like, you can still see him doing that kind of thing with Wicked, where when I think more and more about the movie, he made something he knew fans would love and then also, like, kind of quietly set it up to be his own homage to like The Wizard of

Oz. And I don't know that it's all like entirely successful, but like I just kind of admire how he balances fan service with trying to be like the director he wants to be. Yeah, I've always thought of him as a very self-styled Spielberg-ish technician of wonder. You know, somebody who's very conscious of trying to make wow moments for the people who are coming to see his movies, and sometimes self-conscious about it in a way that holds him back. His filmography is wild. Wicked is his 10th movie. I'm going to list off his movies. You just mentioned he directed Step Up to the Streets and Step Up 3D. Those are his first two features.

After that, he makes two consecutive Justin Bieber documentaries. One, Never Say Never, and then the concert film Believe. Never Say Never is a really good movie. It is Justin Bieber propaganda that is incredibly effective. Great job.

I will absolutely take your word for it on that. After the two Justin Bieber films, the Justin Bieber diptych, he makes G.I. Joe colon retaliation, big CR film. He makes Gem in the Holograms, which I think is actually a bit underrated. Oh, wow. Okay. He makes Now You See Me 2. Sure. I think it's inferior to Now You See Me.

We'll see when Now You See Me 3 comes along, coming soon. Then he makes Crazy Rich Asians, which obviously completely transforms his career. One of the biggest hits of the 2010s, a kind of right place, right time, adapting the right novel with the right cast, an incredible collection of people in that film, the Henry Golding discovery,

choose like, I think, balance of melodrama and light comedy fit really well with that movie. I was a big fan of that movie. And then he made In the Heights in 2021, which was released into that sort of like Project Popcorn Max era.

But I saw it in a movie theater in a screening room and I had a great time with it. And I think if more people had seen that movie in a movie theater. And actually, I'm not a huge fan of that show.

I saw that show a couple times on Broadway and I love Lin-Manuel Miranda. But for whatever reason, I could never connect with that show. But the film I thought was actually quite successful. Anyhow. I just got to tell you, you're completely wrong.

That's just an insane take. I love the musical. Like, love, love, love. Listen to it all the time. That movie is so inferior to the wonderful stage production. This is wild, Sean. I'm willing to accept all criticisms on my musical takes.

This is a genre that I really have a lot of love and appreciation for, but I don't know if I've really, truly, deeply, madly loved a musical, a filmed musical in like 50 years. Like there's just, something has happened in the way that these are made now.

And this is part of my hangup with Wicked that I struggle with. All this to say, Chu on his 10th movie, he knows what he's doing. He's an incredibly professional, competent director. He has made a couple of choices in this movie that I find unforgivable. I find the movie at times unwatchable because of the way that the CGI, the production design, and the colorization of the movie intersects. Wizard of Oz, one of the most beautiful movies ever made, that combination of the sepia tone black and white

and the technicolor when they get to Oz is just so wildly influential and like awe-inspiring and I think genuinely forges true relationships to movies and what movies can be for young people. The way that this movie is colored makes me want to hurt myself. I really don't,

I do not like how the color looks at all. It's totally desaturated and I don't understand why. Yeah. It's, it's weird. Um, there are moments where I'm like, wow,

this really pops and it's really cool. Like the first glimpse you get at Munchkin land, when Glenda comes in on the, or Glenda at that point comes in on the bubble. Um, I'm like, oh, this is cool.

Reminds me of the Hobbit reminds me of, you know, like the, the thatch roofs of England and, and sort of The Hobbit, reminds me of, you know, like, the thatch roofs of England and sort of, like, what, and then a ton of color. So it sort of, like, works. It takes, like, a very classic look and then explodes into a color bomb. I felt like, you will know better than me, I just felt like some of his lens choices were so weird. Like, I don't really know why then he would choose, like, seeming like a different

camera package altogether for, like, dancing through life. Dancing through life, I think people really like. I found it to be a real slog in the middle because of how it looked. And it was hard to know, like, who is the star of the scene. And it should be a really big announcement of, like, who Fiyero is. And Jonathan Bailey has so much charm. You don't have to do much to really make that clear. But I thought it was a mess so I actually agree with you I just think that like for for me some of the high the emotional highs really outweighed like the technical lows so I sort of like can look past it but I was definitely aware of it as I was watching and I'm like incentivized to like the movie a lot I'm glad you made the Marvel IP comparison because I do

think for a lot of people who have a deep familiarity with the stage musical and the songs, you're sort of anticipating something as you go through the story. So each time a musical number ends, you're like, oh, well, this is coming next and I can start getting excited for it, which is a very different way of watching something where you have no idea what's coming next. And so it's much easier for me to get hung up on the desaturation. I was reading some interviews with Chu and he kept talking

about the fact that as opposed to The Wizard of Oz, which is a film that is a dream that takes place in Judy Garland's mind, Oz needed to be

a real place in this film. Which I just think is dumb. Like, I don't know. I don't know why we need to try to transmogrify an imaginary place into a slightly more real-seeming place,

but that is a big creative decision that was made that I think kind of hinders my experience just enjoying watching the movie. I do, obviously, the songs are quite good in this movie. Like, I'm not an idiot, and I can tell from the very first series of performances. And Chu, obviously, is really, really gifted with choreography. Really, yeah.

How did you feel like the dancing kind of intersected well? And how did it compare to the stage musical? It's pretty different. His choreographer is this guy named Chris Scott, who he's been working with for a long time. One thing that became even more explicit to me as you were going through his discography, and I know this isn't answering your question, so I'm sorry,

but John Chu and Ariana Grande are both graduates from the Scooter Braun school, essentially. And so I think Scooter Braun brought him into the Justin Bieber projects, which then led to some other ones. And at the same time, Scooter was managing Ariana Grande. So I think that has not been mentioned once in the press tour, but they've kind of been circling each other for a while, which I think is just kind of interesting. And I mentioned it because Chris Scott is like in the video that we were talking about. He's like the second dancer in it, essentially. So John M. Chu has been working with a lot of, I think, his USC friends for a long time. I'm not sure if Chris Scott went, but his cinematographer and he went to

USC together. But yeah, I thought the choreography was good and inventive. I think the smartest thing they did around the choreography was the sound design that went with it. The sounds of the choreography is noisy. Like when they're tapping the books and when they're like hitting their marks with their feet, it's loud. Like you can really hear those moments. It reminded me actually of Newsies, which does a similar thing with the guys dancing. And I thought that- Yeah, the stomping and the slapping of the paper and all those sorts of things, yeah.

Exactly. And so the scene that people seem to also really love and I liked a lot is in What Is This Feeling? And it's when Ariana Grande is walking with the books and everything. And I think they did a really good job of turning up the sound design on that to emphasize the choreography, because otherwise I think it actually could have been lost because it's not bright enough, honestly. Also, it's hard. There's so many extras in this movie and so many dancers. It's hard to really

capture the scope of that, but by using some of the other cues, they make you more aware of it. And I thought that was actually a really successful choice that, you know, I was going to call it quiet, but actually it was a loud choice. Yeah, it's very loud. The other thing that I heard Chu say that I thought was fascinating was that 90% of the vocal performance was captured on set live as opposed to recorded and later filled in, which is very uncommon for musicals and very difficult to pull off. And I'm kind of amazed by that and want to give the movie a lot more credit

because he managed to pull that off. Obviously, Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are in the sort of like 0.0001% of people who can sing on the planet Earth. So I guess maybe that's not as surprising as it should be. But even folks like Jonathan Bailey being able to pull, or Jeff Goldblum for that matter, who have very little singing experience, being able to perform. What did you make of that?

Well, Jeff Goldblum's song is very short. It's two minutes, so it wasn't being asked that much of him and a sentimental man. Also, there's no expectation that he's going to be a great singer in my opinion. So sort of fine. I feel like the biggest loser from this was Michelle Yeoh. She's like the least vocally gifted, but like a lovely actress, so I'm sure we'll continue to have a great career. She sort of talk-sings

her way through the movie. Yeah. So Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo in their multitude of interviews have mentioned this, and they're like, yeah, it was a no-brainer for us. I do find that when actors make this decision, because I talked about it a lot on Les Mis, they love to remind you that they're singing live. So thanks, we got it. I haven't been consuming nearly as much shoulder

content for the Wicked promo as you have. I would say it's like 60% of my content right now. I thought that it was really cool to see. I think for Cynthia Erivo, I was really aware of how it felt like she was holding her voice back and it was building to Defying Gravity. And I found that distracting. On the other hand, I'm also very aware of how powerful her voice is because I watch her on YouTube all the time. So maybe that's a personal problem. I thought Ariana Grande was just so captivating. And she started as a child star. She hasn't really been like an actress in like a decade. And seeing her return to that in basically a comedic role

was honestly thrilling. It's sort of like what you get a glimpse of every time she goes on Fallon, but like for two and a half hours. And I just thought she was so incredible that, you know, probably because she was singing live, she had to really give herself over to it and was never really taken out of the scene and it was incredibly successful. So I thought it worked better for her than it did for Cynthia Erivo,

but maybe Cynthia Erivo, no matter what, would have made the same choices. Let's talk a little bit more about the performances because Ariana Grande is getting really, really high marks for the performance. Anybody who's watched her on SNL, I think would not be surprised to see that she nails this.

This certain sense of like stuck up perfect girl upending her own persona. She's sort of tailor-made for a part like this. Galinda, Galinda. So good. Yeah, it's so good.

And also the way she throws her hair back is just like so funny. She just, all the small moments she really nails. That's a big one. But you know, she just is, she's hilarious. That's a big one. But you know, she just is, she's hilarious.

I loved watching her. One thing that I've read though, and tell me if this is right or not, is that Idina Menzel's portrayal of Elphaba in the musical is a little bit more like sly, playful, knowing, like not,

you know, Cynthia Erivo plays this part very, very seriously and very darkly and very quietly, like very recessed for a lot of the film. Obviously, we're building towards that explosion that you're talking about with the finale and Defying Gravity and this sort of transformation that she has. But I think it's not really, it's just a choice that she made that I think I found the film a little bit more static than I wanted it to because she is a character who's very difficult to connect to,

you know, because she's very restrained throughout most of the film. Yeah. Yes. Dina Menzel's Elphaba is definitely like pushier, I would say. Like she is sure of who she is and I think she feels less wounded by the life she's led. Whereas I think Cynthia Areva's Elphaba is much more aware of like the lack of love from her father and the fact that she wasn't even supposed to be at Shiz. That's a change from the musical. In the musical she just goes instead of being like, she's just supposed to be a

student instead of being like invited the way that she is in the movie. And so I think that's like a big change. I think also there's more of a feeling of like, Cynthia Areva was like tolerating more of Glinda in a way because she also has like her own thing going on. So I think it did feel more like, as you said, recessed. I thought they kind of made her seem like Eleven from Stranger Things in the first scene. I was just like, well, is she going to like gonna like you know have some waffles or something

they made her magic seem really like crazy whereas in the musical it's more just like she's unaware of her talent or like unaware of her gifts essentially and like they need to be honed versus them being like some burden a la Stranger Things this is a small quibble and I know as a fan of Beverly Hills 90210, this won't bother you that much, but everyone who goes to Shiz is like 35 years old. Shouldn't these people be young? Like, how old was Kristen Chenoweth

when she was in the play? Was she in her 30s as well, I assume? I think they were in their mid to late 20s. Because, you know, Adina Menzel had been in Rent already, so she was sort of, you know. She'd been around. Yeah, and it was like a big... Cynthia Erivo is 37.

That's kind of weird that she's going to university. I looked it up. It's myself. Jonathan Bailey's 36. Ariana Grande is 32. I just mentioned that because Cynthia Erivo, when her casting was announced, got the most, like, she's too old to play Elphaba. Oh, there was that feedback?

Yes, there was. And so I do get the sense that this movie is sort of, like, reactive to the audience or anticipating audience critiques. And so I did wonder if that script change of, like, her being invited to shivs by Madame Morrible

was, like, in response to the fact that people said she seemed too old. But, like, I think she just, um... She's basically the same age as everyone else, so it's sort of, like, an unfair criticism.

I guess Ariana Grande, like, looks young looks young, but I don't know. It didn't really bother me. We'll talk more about this, I'm sure. But they're sort of presenting a world, and I'm like, well, I'm buying into this. So if you're telling me that all these people are going to shiz, fair enough. It's a very fair point. I won't argue with it too much, except it did dawn on me at one point. I was like, is it possible Cynthia Reeves was in her 40s?

Isn't that a little weird? I actually thought she was in her 40s before i looked it up i was surprised she's only 37 anyhow um let's talk about the story itself so as someone who holds the wizard of oz fairly dear like a reimagining of the premise of the film i i find a little curious. And I haven't seen part two, so it's impossible for me to fully weigh in. And I honestly don't want it spoiled for me. So you don't know what happens in act two? I don't. You have no idea.

I have a theory about how they'll finish the story, but I won't share it here because it's not important. And if I'm wrong, what's the upside of that? But I will say like... Can I ask a question? Yeah, of course um but I will say like a question yeah of course were you looking for Wizard of Oz easter eggs as you were watching this um I mean not particularly there were things that I felt I clocked very early on which was the man who comes into her mother's home just seemed to be Oz and that he seemed to be the father her father but I

you know that seemed like so obvious that maybe it was a wrong footing. Anyway, you don't have to respond to that to give anything away. Obviously, the movie very purposefully like shows us Dorothy and the Tin Man and the Lion and the Scarecrow going down the Yellow Brick Road at the outset of the film and almost as a way to sort of like assuage someone like me to just be like, I promise this is related. Don't just watch the 1940s style Universal logo at the beginning of the movie. These things are connected. But truthfully, like it just doesn't seem connected because the Wicked Witch of the West is one of the greatest villains in movie history, if not the greatest. And a story that recontextualizes her trauma and the way that she is like, I guess, potentially framed as the villain of Oz. I just find weird.

Like, I don't know why I'm having a hard time with it. I guess it's a story about not judging a book by its cover and about bullying and about being open-minded about people who are different from you. Obviously, Elphaba has green skin

and she is mocked mercilessly at the outset of the film. And these sort of like gentle unions that can form when people begin to understand and accept each other. Like, I understand all the bromides that are in the text of the story, but I'm not going to jump to any conclusions because I don't know where it ends up. But you didn't, I guess when you just began loving this musical, you were like, who cares about what the Wizard of Oz has to say about these people? Yeah, I think I was really incentivized to love Wicked because of Rent, because Rent

was like probably one of the most important things to happen before I turned 13, you know? So Idina Menzel was like looming large for me already. So I was like incentivized to care about Wicked at the very beginning. And then it took on a life of its own as it became so successful. And the Wizard of Oz piece of it, it was like totally separate, honestly. And I actually, I also read a lot of interviews with Jon M. Chu, and like he loves the Wizard of Oz a lot. And Jonathan Bailey has been wearing Wizard of Oz t-shirts for all of his press tours. So like for me, I'm like the Wizard of Oz really looms over this movie for people who care about it.

I'm like I should learn so I can really understand how they're feeling. But like, yeah, like Wicked is almost separate from the wizard of oz for me yeah i guess the choices that are made for example obviously little people are used as performers for the munchkins in the original film and um taller actors are used in Munchkinland at the beginning of this film. The monkeys, for example, are not costumed people, but CGI. And I guess all of those choices, much like the choice to kind of desaturate, are connected to this idea of like making this feel more like a real, quote unquote, real place. But to me, that makes it feel like a divorce from The Wizard of Oz. Like it feels like not like trying to separate itself in some distinct way. Right.

Well, two things about that. First of all, all the animals in this movie are bad. Like it's just a bad experience. I was like... We'll talk about the animals and what they mean to the story too. Okay. I was just... Yeah.

Do you want me to talk about that? I do. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. I find that... I found that critical framework in the movie to be, like, fairly thin. Yeah.

Also, in my, like, 15 years of listening to the soundtrack and not seeing it, I had completely erased the animal subplot. Like, I was just like, and when I went to see the musical in May, I was like, oh, right, there's, like, an animal rights piece of this. I forgot about that. Like, I was genuinely, like, surprised. Basically, it's an allegory for fascism, and the animals are being—they're animals who speak, and they're being suppressed by,

we find out, Jeff Goldblum's character. And that motivates Elphaba to want to, like, get rights for all the people of Oz, including herself. And I think she also connects to them because she is green. She doesn't know why. She was born that way. And so it's sort of the animals and Elphaba together stand in for sort of like the people of Oz who have been othered and therefore are being discriminated against

or rejected. And then she finds out it's coming from the top down. And so it becomes, you know, like a government conspiracy. Is that good? I don't know. I'm not sure that I totally bought that part of the movie is what I'm saying. Well, the thing is that also the monkeys, the flying monkeys become like Elphaba's fault, basically, because she is able to read the Grimory. So she is able to cast the spellimmery. So she is able to cast the

spell on the monkeys that give them wings. And I actually thought a really uncomfortable and sort of like gripping scene was when the monkeys are feeling the pain of their animals, of their wings growing. I am not an animal lover. In fact, I would say I'm pet blind, but I found that very uncomfortable and I was like sad for the monkeys. So it was effective because I felt really bad for them. As you watch CGI monkeys transformed into winged horrifying creatures. Yeah. So the animal piece of it is so bad. To your point about not, it's just like, it's not effective, right? Like it's just actually not an effective part of the musical. And like, I don't walk away from Wicked thinking it is about like fascism honestly well you can see you i can understand it as the literary device it's an obvious homage to orwell

and animal farm and the idea of like the separation between classes between types of people and who gets to be in charge and why they get to be in charge and taking advantage of the structures that are built by one class to raise up another class like it's all fairly evident it's just in the movie itself and i can't say in the musical, one, you've got Peter Dinklage giving a very weird performance as, is he a goat? He's a goat. He's a goat.

Yeah, Dr. Dillmott. It's basically Tyrion Lannister as a goat. Tyrion Lannister as a goat, who is a very wise man who's being pushed out of Shiz University, much like all the other instructors.

Who are also animals. Who are all animals, yeah. Why he's one of the animals who are all animals yeah why he's one of the last ones to stick around is unclear um nevertheless um Elphaba grows a deep bond with him what is his name professor who Dillamond Dillamond um and that that is like really the inciting incident for her enlightenment yeah basically um but i i just think there's one of the reasons wicked so successful is there's so many other ways to watch it and i think in the intervening years as the soundtrack has become like the defining thing uh in the two the two original leads the and their i don't know their friends but their relationship of kristen chenoweth

and adina menzel's like it's a story about two women friends who, like, didn't expect to be friends and didn't expect to like each other. Like, for me, the most moving songs are in Act 2, so I'm, like, very excited about Part 2. Oh, see, I have not heard many people say that. That's interesting. Well, Defying Gravity is, like, the iconic song,

but at the very beginning of the movie, they play the orchestration of the song For Good, which is the penultimate song, And it's just incredibly, incredibly beautiful. It's one of the most important tracks about friendship probably of all time. And it's just incredibly moving. And I think both Defying Gravity and For Good, the two most famous songs, can be applied to so many different types of relationships and feelings and people. You can really see yourself in them, even if it's not exact to what's happening in Wicked. And so I think that explained a lot of the sentimentality and just like emotional connection

people have with Wicked overall. Because you can really, and even with talking about the animals and like, it's about fashion, but fascism, but you know, it's also like, you know, a lot of people made this point, like it's very relevant right now. And then also the songs, the lyrics of Dancing Through through life where he's like life's less life's more painless for the brainless life's less fraughtless for the thoughtless like i think a lot of people also like yeah makes sense just gonna check out and move forward and you're saying that intersects with our life right now yeah so i think and i think it but it at all times in what ways juliet

what do you mean uh you know i'm just just scrolling my Reddit app looking for, looking for whatever it wants to give me. So I'm just going that way. But, but it actually, it doesn't really mean, like as a teenager, can't you imagine just being like, yeah, like I'm just going to be, I'm going to have less pain and think less and just like listen to music and smoke a joint. Like I just feel like at any time in life you could apply a lot of the lyrics to Wicked and feel a lot of meaning. to Wicked and feel a lot

of meaning yeah I think that's right I think I'm obviously extremely mixed on this movie I'm not so heartless as to not recognize that what I think particularly for me dancing through life

popular and defying gravity are the three big set pieces of the movie dancing through life is obviously Fiero's big song popular as Glinda's big song and Dancing Through Life is obviously Fiero's big song, popular as Glinda's big song, and Defying Gravity is Elphaba's big climactic moment.

All three performers who are the stars, who are all, I think, all very good in this movie. I wish Cynthia Erivo was slightly more playful in the first act and second act of the movie, but by the third act, you're so fully with her. I agree with you largely about Ariana Grande. She's incredibly funny and is a wonderful performer. Popular's probably my favorite number because it feels the most like a John M. Chu movie to me. It feels most, that sort of like spring that he brings to his best stuff from Step Up to Crazy Rich Asians,

that light comedy that he's so good at, I really enjoyed. But there are so many stretches of the movie, one critical one in particular, which is when Elphaba and Glinda sort of like forge their union in the silent dance sequence. Sure. Where I was like,

this is one of the worst things I've ever seen in a movie. Like I found it to be completely incoherent and poorly staged and weird. But again, like it's a scene that I don't, what is it like in the musical? How does it compare? I think in theory, what you were saying about a film about two women who would never imagine that they would become friends finding common ground is a good idea and a nice thing. And when it happens in real life, how wonderful,

but it happening in that experience, I don't know it just didn't work for me at all yeah so those three songs you just noted are are all extended in the movie and changed from the musical so they are all the like the three moments when i think john m2 really got to express himself um define gravity is very chopped up in the musical it's it's less so. Popular is a standout song for Kristen Chenoweth from the soundtrack and for all Glendas everywhere. But they added a riff at the end in just like 30 seconds, basically just kind of capitalizing on Ariana Grande. And then Dancing Through Life is a very important musical trope, which is when the whole cast comes together to advance the plot and for a lot of things to happen at once in the context of a song. Like every great musical has a dancing through life. Some of them have a couple. And I really disliked dancing through

life in the movie. And where would you say dancing through life ends in the movie, Sean? Like what's the final frame of that scene? I couldn't tell you. Yeah, because it's 10 fucking minutes or more. It's like 15. It's so long. And in the musical, it goes from, like, Fiyero's entrance through, like, arriving at the Osdus ballroom. But, like, the dance is much shorter. Things don't go silent.

Like, it is dramatized in a way that was, like, overdone for me. And I was just like, this is really getting long. And so I just think that it was sort of, like, everyone's moment was both, like, intensified but also worsened, except for Ariana Grande. And I think that's maybe why, to me, she's the star of the movie. But, like, for both Jonathan Bailey and Cynthia Erivo's characters, I felt like their defining moments were actually, like,

taken down a notch by some of the movie choices. I get why they did them, especially with Dancing Through Life because so much happens in that song and you have to like lay it out linearly worse on stage. Like you could do a few things at one time. I just thought, I thought the choreography in Dancing Through Life was really,

really good. Like that felt like him trying to get as close as he could to the Stanley Don and Gene Kelly, you know, this sort of like bandwagon style, like Fred Astaire movies where you've got this like huge intersecting cast and a swirling camera and, you know, trying to move sets around. And I thought that that was kind of impressive. But again, that's like a song I have no relationship to. Sure. thought that that was kind of impressive but again that's like a song i have no relationship to so it didn't i did watch a 13 minute video of um the like creative team and jonathan bailey and john mchu explaining the dancing through life scene and how they shot it and the scene where like they're going through like the sort of hamster wheel library like and fiero jumps out is all one shot and they had to like flip the camera and stuff and so hearing them talk about

the artistry was like really really cool but i I do think it just became like overstuffed because the obligation to like explain everything that happens in that sequence is just too much. But so it's like really a mixed bag. Like I think I'm like inherently more pro-Wicked than you are because I just have a relationship to it. But I think like every all of the highs in the movie are met with some flaws too. Why do you think this movie is such a massive hit? I think a lot of people have had 21 years to like form an attachment to it. I think also Broadway soundtracks that take off become so like core to people's like sense of like their pop culture self, their reference aura, that like you have a relationship to it. So you're

just like, let's see what someone else wants to do with it. I also was reminded this morning that Ariana Grande has 375 million Instagram followers. She's also now had two number one hits this year, a number one movie, probably the viral sketch from Saturday Night Live this season so far in the Domingo sketch. And she's massively popular.

So her committing to a year of Wicked promo has definitely paid off. It's an interesting thing to me. Obviously, this movie and Gladiator 2 has been sort of compared to Oppenheimer and Barbie. It's a, I would say, a significantly lesser combo than those two films. But eventizing dual releases, one more male-leaning, one more female-leaning. Obviously, Wicked has this extraordinary queer fan base, too, that has come out, you know,

very loudly for the film and the musical over the years. Let's say Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande have gone way out of their way in the promo tour to acknowledge them as well and talk about the relationship

between Glinda and Elphaba. So you are, like, it's a film that's reaching a lot of audiences that are looking for a film to be excited about, to raise up, to claim as their own. That's reaching a lot of audiences that are looking for a film to be excited about to raise up to claim as their own

that's obviously a factor the queer culture thing is a big part of it too like definitely and they've really like I definitely have not like given enough credence to that

in this conversation like first of all they have like the cast has been like yeah Glinda's a little bit a little bit closeted like they've kind of like

come out and like named her as like a you know a queer character and I think Jonathan Bailey and Cynthia Erivo are two like leaders in queer culture a little bit closeted. They've kind of come out and named her as a queer character. And I think Jonathan Bailey and Cynthia Erivo are two leaders in queer culture

and also massively, massively talented people. So I think that's a huge part of it too. I'm glad you mentioned it. Yeah, and I guess the musical thing is so interesting.

This movie was more marketed like a musical than most musicals are, but there's been this trend in the last five years in Hollywood to not really reveal that a musical is a musical in the marketing materials, in the trailers. This being so famous and well-known and loved, there's not as much worry about that. You want to hear Defying Gravity in the trailer to the movie, or you want

to hear Popular or something just to get people's excitement up if they're familiar with it. But musicals are really hit or miss. And so the fact that this one is hitting, I think is like a combination of, like you said, the right stars, good timing for this sort of thing. And also just like a super professional filmmaking team.

You know, this is not like a Johnny come lately. This is somebody who has been figuring out how to make movies like this for roughly 15 years. And it feels like he's ready to do it. It's just, I look at the material,

the source material and I'm like, this is okay. I guess I'm a little confused as to why it is the mega phenomenon that it is. But, um, then again, it's not probably not aimed directly at, uh,

42 year old men. Right. Yeah. I found something so moving about seeing it in May. When I, I mean, you know, again, I've been listening to the music for 15 years

or more and seeing people so excited to be there. And then also just for me, you made this point about the professional production. The guy who was playing Fiyero at the time

had been in 1,000 performances of Wicked. And so I was so impressed just thinking about how he is so good at playing Fiyero that, like, he can do it more than 1,000 times in his marks every night. It's, like, just, like, I find beautiful. I don't know. I find, like, the artistry of Broadway and the professionalism that's needed

to be really impressive. And I think that I really like about this movie as well. And I just think also, like like Wicked has become something that you can pass down and share. So there's also like an intergenerational aspect to it. You know, I do think it's like a similar to The Wizard of Oz for some people. Some people being me. My daughter

has seen The Wizard of Oz probably five times and she quite likes it. She went this Halloween as Glinda the Good Witch. She does not know about this recontextualization of Glinda. She has been listening to the soundtrack to the musical. She was in Target on Saturday and insisted upon getting an Elphaba dress. Oh, interesting.

So this is the first breakthrough of Elphaba interests. Now, in part because of that scene that you talked about with the monkeys transforming, I was like, my daughter can't go see this movie. Like, we can watch it at home, but it's two hours and 40 minutes. It features some horrifying transmogrification, and it's frankly a little slow at times. Yes, I agree. I'm a little bit, this is a segue into a question about part two, but how long is the stage musical? Like when you saw it in May, how long were you sitting in your seat? Two hours and 40 minutes for the entire musical, including the intermission. First film is two hours and 40 minutes, and the second film presumably will be more than two hours, right?

I guess. I mean, act two is shorter, but in some ways more meaningful. So my question for you is why? Like how did this happen? Well, why is it so long? Yeah. I think it's because it's like, it's like taking, like if the musical itself is like a folded up paper fan

or like an accordion, it's like taking that and stretching it out. And it's like everything that happened still happens. Like beat for beat, what you see on stage happens in the movie,

except it can't, nothing can happen simultaneously. And also, like, going in between scenes, it takes longer. And then there is some new exposition, but, like, honestly, not that much. Like, there's more at the beginning explaining, like, the relationship between Madame Marble and Elphaba. Of course, there's the added three minutes of Christina, of, I keep saying Christina, of Idina Menzel and Kristen Chenoweth at Wizomania, and then Defying Gravity, and that sequence is made much longer as well.

And they throw in some other things, like Jeff Goldblum asking them what color the bricks should be, and they pick yellow. Like, that's not in the musical. That's added into the movie. So there's things like that. But I really think it's just because it's so faithful, honestly.

Like, if it was not going beat for beat and they're willing to cut some stuff it might move a little bit faster but i don't know what you cut so i i don't know how you make it shorter and still be like as make all the fans of the musical as happy as they have made them forgive this inherently gender essentializing question but amanda is not here and i would do this if she was here too okay do you as a woman feel like you need more ip movie franchises no i do not because this movie is very clearly pulling so closely from that framework that you're talking about where you had the key cameos from previous cast members you've got got a MacGuffin. Each musical number is like a fight sequence or like a splash page sequence. You've got big cliffhangers serializing the stories

leading into the next stage. You've got these quote-unquote weak or different heroes who emerge to be the most powerful. Like all of the tropes that you would find in a superhero story, or frankly, even like a Transformers movie, are in this movie, are essential to the structure of this movie.

Something we heard a lot about with Barbie was that it was like, finally, a blockbuster primarily aimed at women that speaks to, you know, an unspoken sensibility that should be more at the movies. Obviously, that movie is really funny and clever and kind of fucking with that idea in the first place,

which is one of the reasons why I liked it. It's self-awareness I appreciated. Wicked that idea in the first place, which is one of the reasons why I liked it. It's self-awareness. I appreciate it. Wicked, not in a bad way. And I'm not saying anybody doesn't deserve this, but it does feel very much like, okay, let's look at what worked on this movie and try to port it over.

Does it feel that structured and that, I don't know, like baked in in the musical itself? No, it definitely does not. Like the musical just kind of stands alone. Like I don't, there's no, funny enough, there is an after, right? It's The Wizard of Oz. But like, I've never once been like, okay, Wicked's over. Now it's time to watch The Wizard of Oz. There's no like sequence. There's no sequence that it's following or playing into. So the musical definitely doesn't feel that way. I also will just say, like, without any spoilers,

the more I have also read people's responses to Wicked, I'm like, oh, this is even more of like a, you know, universe-spawning movie than I realized. Like, there's a lot of, there are a lot of tie-ins to The Wizard of Oz, like a lot. And I didn't clock them because I'm not a Wizard of Oz person. I think a lot of people didn't clock them because they weren't expecting it.

But, you know, if you want me to send you some links to what's in there, I'm happy to do it. Yeah, send me all the Easter eggs. Send me all the Scream Rant links. There's so many. The Collider links. What do you got? Everything you got for me. There's, like, just, like, tons.

Like, should I name a couple? If you'd like. Well, they won't mean as much to me, but, like, the Lion Cub. The lion is, you know, comes back in The Wizard of Oz. The lion cub in the bike in like the, when What's-Her-Face is riding by, is supposed to connect to the bike scene in The Wizard of Oz. Like things like that. There's a lot of like other just, there's some sartorial choices,

particularly on Fiyero that connect to some of the costumes in The Wizard of Oz. There's a lot of layering of connectivity like that. Yeah. We used to call these things allusions. Allusions, Michael. A-L-L-U-S-I-O-N-S. We didn't call them Easter eggs, but now they're all just Easter eggs. You can't just allude to a piece of material that is connected to the story that you're telling.

Boy, let's talk about the Oscars. Okay. Because this movie, once it started screening, and I saw it at a fairly early media and industry screening. I saw it on November 1st, so I've been waiting over three weeks for this. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for being a part of this. I'm so so glad i'm sorry i've been combative with you i love you so much but i i just i don't think you have been trying to work my way through the movie come on by our standards is where we haven't been combative uh this movie really like hit the race hard two weeks ago when a lot of people started seeing it and i had katie

rich and joe on the pod last week and we talked about its chances and how it has like really arrived and the Dune Part 2 placeholder for big event movie that had been sitting in the race. Like this kind of quickly moved ahead of it. It's hard to tell how real that actually is. I don't claim to know. I just know that a lot of people have seen this.

A lot of people like this movie. And because of some of those themes that you talked about and some of this, where this movie like very neatly, metaphorically aligns with where we are in the world right now, I can see the wind at its back

a little bit in the race. You don't follow the Oscars as closely as I do, but what's your sense of like how it's fitting in right now? I think people are surprised by how good Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande are.

And like truly good. Like these are great performances. Like I actually was thinking, will they become the Idina and Kristen for a new generation? And I think it's totally possible depending on how part two goes and how people feel about the soundtrack of part two.

But I think that Cynthia Erivo's delivery of Defying Gravity, especially when you listen to the soundtrack of part two. But I think that Cynthia Erivo's delivery of Defying Gravity, especially when you listen to the soundtrack versus the sort of like spliced up version on screen, is so moving. Like, it's just incredible. And I really do well up thinking about her moment of triumph on the top of the broom. And I think that that combined with just like the humor of Ariana Grande that we don't get to see from her that often has like really surprised people. And so those two, I feel like are really just getting so much deserved attention. And then I think the costumes are incredible, like just like great, great costumes and a lot of small touches. Like the fact that they are always wearing like bags,

like purses instead of like a backpack, I like really love. It also kind of reminds me of like, I don't know, like some fancy restaurant. Sometimes I do that. And I think the choreography is also really impressive. So I, you know, I, I think that like, I don't know, the choreography will be rewarded, but I do think a lot of the other like craft pieces of it, like the smaller parts of it are, are being recognized too. So I don't know. I just think those two women, this is going to change their careers. I really do. So I'm with you almost through and through.

I think costumes, hair and makeup, production design, sound and visual effects, maybe visual effects, maybe not, all seem... Animals are tough. Yeah, they're not. It's okay. They all seem like pretty safe bets.

And this is a movie that, you know, it is like Dune part two. And then it's sort of like below the line. You've got best in class working on movies like this. There's going to be a lot of recognition for the people who made them. I don't think anybody had Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo as locks until they started screening the movie. And now that they have Ariana Grande,

maybe surging close to the lead of best supporting actress right now. She's seen, it seems like she's like neck and neck with Zoe Saldana. I don't know how true that is. There's still like a lot to come in that race in particular. Felicity Jones in The Brutalist, for example, could get a big moment since that movie comes out later this year. Best actress is incredibly competitive this year.

I think a lot of people seem to think that Cynthia Erivo and Nicole Kidman are fighting for the last spot Nicole Kidman's going to be in baby girl you haven't seen that right no and from what I read I don't plan to interesting take um I liked it I liked it uh I think it's Mikey Madison's year so I don't think it really matters either way nevertheless best picture I don't think it's gonna win best picture but if it wins best picture I'm gonna I'm gonna be a brat about it I gotta tell you um I like an IP part one winning best picture even though I know it's a post-strike year but honestly like really that's that would not that's not I don't think that would be a good outcome I don't think that sends the right message to Hollywood at all

which is like keep making keep serializing your stories and be more like TV I think just sucks I also don't think it's deserving and I liked it it a lot. And like I said, I love Wicked. But what it really succeeds at is being a faithful adaptation, which is really hard to do. I was thinking about the other ones that have either succeeded or failed. I feel like Chicago is the closest to also being a successful adaptation of the sort of big Broadway adaptations of recent memory. But most of them are bad. So the fact that he was able to pull it off is like a big deal and really impressive, but doesn't make it like the best picture winner, in my opinion.

It's a feat unto itself. I think that's one of the big reasons why Chicago did win, which I would say is not amongst Oscar nerds, is not considered one of the better wins of the last 25 years. Totally. But I liked that movie at the time when I saw it. I probably haven't seen it since it came out. But I think one of the reasons why it won

is exactly the reason you just cited, which is that it's very hard to make these effectively. And Chicago plays well as a movie. Totally. And because of that and because the, you know, it's the same thing. It has three or four like huge set piece songs where you're just so into it.

A couple of supporting performances where you're all in. And so because of that, it's getting rewarded i it's more the part one thing to me i've also seen a lot of people make this comparison and i'm curious if you you probably won't agree with this because you're looking forward to some key moments in part two but many people have said that this is a little bit of like it and it chapter two which i know you didn't see because you watch won't watch horror films correct but the first It movie is pretty darn good. Really scary, really entertaining, faithful in the right ways to King's story, focused

entirely on when they were all kids and experiencing Pennywise for the first time. But part two is about the grownups and engaging with Pennywise many years later in their lives. And part two just frankly isn't very good. Even though it has Jessica Chastain and Bill Hader and, you know, it's just kind of like a CGI mess and the pacing's bad and it has problems.

And some people I've seen speculate that part two is going to be like kind of a letdown relative to part one. But you don't see that? I think part two,

I have a sneaking suspicion this is a one for us, one for them. And I think this was for us. And I think two is going to be for Jon M. Chiu. Oh. And I think I was for us. And I think two is going to be for Jon M. Cho. And I think I'm okay with that. I like him. As you know, as discussed, I like his work.

I really think there's going to be a lot more connection to the Wizard of Oz and a lot more of the allegory. And I'm not looking forward to that. I am purely looking forward to it for two songs, which one is the first song in Act Two, which is a long song. It's very good. It's Thank Goodness is what it's called. And Christina, I keep saying Christina. Kristen Chenoweth has like a really,

really beautiful soliloquy in it, basically about expectations and what it's like when you actually live your dreams. And it's really, it's a very mournful song, which is funny since Act 1 begins with No One Mourns the Wicked. And then the penultimate song, For Good, are just two staples of my life. So I'm very excited to see them performed. That said, I think there will be a lot more political stuff.

And Jon M. Chu's kind of alluded to this a little bit. He has a quote where he said, I've already cut the movie and it's going to hit hard and after the election and whatever. So I'm actually really not looking forward to that part of it. But that said, I'm like happy to be in this world.

I'm like, you know, I defend basically every show that I ever enjoyed watching. Cause I'm like, well, if I didn't have that show, what will I have been doing with my time? So it's kind of how I feel. Like I'm grateful to be a part of it. So I don't know. I do think it'll be more of a departure from the musical. Interesting. Okay. Well, thank you for coming

on the Wicked journey with me. Sure. Anytime. I don't know if I'll ever see this again. I guess I'm probably going to end up seeing it like a thousand times with my kid. Well, I think the music video moments will live on. The one thing we haven't talked about is the sequence of What Is This Feeling, which he uses split screen a lot and also has pretty good choreography. That's the best movie-as-a-movie sequence, I think, because it takes something that was successful on stage and a very good song but uses techniques of the screen in a way that you just don't get otherwise. So I wonder if moments like that and also it has really good choreography will kind of become like what replays in your world it's like

not the whole movie because it's too long but you'll get you know it'll be the cups of pitch perfect of this movie i think will be them and their splits their split screen you just got your your pauline kale on nice talking about four men content and where they need so much but just but but for watching it on youtube and not an entire film, which I don't think Pauline would appreciate. I just want to be asked back, so I'm trying to seem smart. Did you prep? Did you like, were you nervous?

Prep is my life. It's just like living and consuming Wicked. Speaking of your life, let's talk about movie musicals. You cited a couple of big ones at the beginning of our conversation that haven't gone so well. Cats. You know, Les Mis was financially successful and won some Academy Awards, but I think is reviled by some. What was the third one that you cited? Into the Woods with Emily Blunt and James Corden and many others. I deeply dislike that movie and I've never seen that stage musical,

although I know I hear it's wonderful. It's inventive. I think at this point it's so impactful that I think that impact has been lost. You know what I mean? It's been like mitigated through constant reproduction, restaging and whatnot. But it's definitely, you know, it's probably the most successful, financially successful Sondheim. So none of those films are going to be on your list of your favorite 21st century movie musical No, this was very hard for me to make and i'm going to be honest when I saw your list I was like, okay. This is where sean wants to go. I'm gonna follow him there Well, see when I saw what you put down I was like, okay

So maybe i'm right to have made some of the choices I made because the pickings are kind of slim here the pickings are slim because I think you know into I don't think we can say Into the Woods, Les Mis or what was the other one we just discussed? Cats. Cats. Which is an abomination. A zero star movie. One of the worst things put on screen. We don't acknowledge it. I just want to say Comet Denominator and two of three

James Corden. So keep that in mind for your future musical casting. I don't think we can say any of those are great and like a lot of the other movies that have like music that I like are so absurd. My favorite movie, or not favorite, but the movie I've watched the most that has music at the center of it is Music and Lyrics starring Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore. I guarantee you no one else on this planet can say that. So I'm not going to put that on my list, but the song they write is really catchy.

Yeah, I find this tricky because, one when I don't live in New York anymore, so I don't go to see stage musicals. I don't go to the theater really in LA very much at all. It's really a loss for you. And it is a loss. And I used to love going to see shows on Broadway. And I would have loved to have taken my kid

to have that experience. And it was something I did as a kid. We would go on like field trips in school to go see. We definitely saw Miss Saigon. We definitely saw Phantom of the Opera. We definitely saw a number of shows. We definitely saw Miss Saigon. We definitely saw Phantom of the Opera. We definitely saw a number of shows. We definitely saw Stomp.

Definitely saw Cats. Like saw many of their shows. Rent is one of the most important things to have happened in my life. I mentioned it before, but I do think a lot of my perspective on musicals, I was, I guess Rent came out in 97. So I was 11 and it was like the biggest deal there was.

And it remains like one of the biggest deals there has ever been for me. So I think like my perspective on musicals. And then also Wicked because of the Idina Menzel is so tied to that. And I do think that like if you, the musicals of your childhood really influence how you think about the genre and like their place in pop culture. They do. It's interesting that you say that. So there's a couple of other things that I think fly into my mind when I start thinking about this, because I was raised in the heart of the rebirth of the Disney, like the second golden generation of Disney films, you know, the Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King, you know, that era, Little Mermaid, when the studio really like reclaimed its mantle

as like arguably the greatest movie musical studio of all time. Sure. And, you know, setting aside like vintage MGM and a handful of others. So that to me is as much movie musical. You know, it's not just about adapting a stage musical. Also, Hollywood history, you know, sure, there's, there are Singing in the Rain and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and, you know, Bandwagon and stuff like that. But there are 10 times as many completely failed movie musicals in movie history trying to adapt stuff off of Broadway that just doesn't work. It's too clunky. It's too long. The right movie's awful.

It's really bad. Yeah. I think part of it is part of going to a musical is the live experience, right? Like in some ways that's lost when we talk about a movie musical and going to a musical or anything staged where you're present, you get to make so many choices yourself. And there's so many people on stage usually. And you get to look where you want to look. And you get to experience it in a way based on how your eyes move. When you see a movie musical that is adapted from a stage show,

you're being, someone's perspective is being imposed on you. And so it really corrupts whatever your memory is or whatever your feeling was of watching that. And I think that is just

an impossible barrier in why the success of Wicked is actually so impressive. And also probably why they were scared into going for Beat for Beat because otherwise people are like, well, that's not my memory.

Fuck this. And so it's just impossible to live up to that. Like no one could capture what it was like for me to see rent the fourth time I saw it, you know? And so I don't even, why even try? I, I, that's such a smart point. I love that you said that because it, it confirms something that is on our list, which is that we don't really have very many Broadway adaptations. You know, we don't really have any stage musical adaptations because filmmaking is just a different form. In the same way that you made the point about using the split screen style in Wicked, which is something you could not accomplish necessarily on stage, is an amplification of an idea from the musical,

but it's more easy to create something either wholly new or to shape around something more literary rather than this like musical live experience that you've had going to see it. Is it like a good time or a bad time for Broadway musicals right now? I think it's good. Yeah? There's a lot of shows right now that are like very buzzy, like Almost Happy Ending with Darren Criss. Nicole Scherzinger is playing the lead in Sunset Boulevard. She won the Olivier,

the British Tony, for it last year and finally came to the U.S. The show is getting mixed reviews, but she's getting incredible reviews. Death Becomes Her

just opened. I know. I'm curious about that as a Zemeckis fan. I forgot to mention it on our Zemeckis pod, but I had been reading that it's pretty cool.

Yeah, and Beyonce just went to see it because Michelle Williams is in it. So I'm excited to see it but I had been reading that it's pretty cool. Yeah, and Beyonce just went to see it because Michelle Williams is in it. So I'm excited to see. I happen to love that movie and, like, think about it often. So I want to see the musical. I think it's a pretty good time. Would you have swapped out Back to the Future 2 for Death Becomes Her and or Zemeckis Hall of Fame?

I don't know. Death Becomes Her is, like, a niche movie, but it's so perfectly done. I also think, like, talk about movies that are still resonant. I just think that, like, in the age of, like, the mainstreaming of plastic surgery and stuff, I think about it all the time. I totally agree. It got a huge second life in the 21st century. Yeah. That might have been a mistake on our part, but, you know, it's me and Brian, you know, two straight white guys in their 40s not acknowledging death becomes her. It's also just such a good cast. Yeah, it's incredible. But I think it is a pretty good time. You know, I think it took a while after COVID

to kind of like build stuff back. Also, I think plays are having a big moment. I think actors like doing them. And then like it was just reported, I think today that O'Mary made its investment back, which is hard to do. Four and a half million dollars. So, and that's still going strong.

I'm seeing it in a couple of weeks. So I think it's a pretty good time for theater. I know Denzel is about to stage Othello in a couple of months, right? Which is pretty exciting. He's really only done that like four or five times in the last 40 years. So that's going to be a hot ticket.

It's really cool. Also, I feel like he just loves Shakespeare. He's been in so many Shakespeare productions, right? He does. He does love Shakespeare. Let's do our list. Let's do our favorites. Okay.

I found this to be difficult as you did. I don't even really have like a clear methodology for what makes a good one because I think all five of mine are different in different ways. And in some ways when I do these lists, I try to pick like different kinds of movies so I'm not repeating myself. Sure. How did you think about the list making? I went with what music based on the movie did I want to listen to over and over again. Oh, I love that. What movie compelled me to keep listening essentially? you think about the list making i went with what music based on the movie did i want to listen to over and over again oh i love that what movie compelled me to keep listening essentially um and also i think a really key part of it is like i mentioned this earlier is like i like i'm

willing to buy into wicked i think with movie musicals you have to establish like the terms of of your world and so that the music doesn't feel weird. And so that feel like, well, why is this a musical? I have to say that's my biggest complaint about Amelia Perez, which is just like, why is there music here? Like,

there's actually no reason other than like, just because they wanted to. And I think that like, that's how I feel about a lot of that film is just because they wanted to. Yeah. And I, but with the music in particular, it's just like,

I do love Zoe Saldana. If anyone wants to talk to me about center stage, please send me a DM. But like the music in particular, I do love Zoe Saldana. If anyone wants to talk to me about Center Stage, please send me a DM. But the music has to both enhance and evolve the movie and push it forward in a way. And so I try to think about what soundtrack really impacted me and what I was trying to recreate by listening to the music. Okay. Let's do our lists. We can do these fairly quickly since most of these are well-known properties. Why don't you start us off with your number five? My number five was at one time the highest grossing film in the United Kingdom. It is Mamma Mia. And while I don't think it is a perfect movie, it is incredibly fun. My listening to ABBA has gone straight up since 2008. I also

think it was like a career turning point for Amanda Seyfried, which is a weird thing to say, but I really think is true. And it's like the most fun, I think, that like anyone has had making a movie perhaps ever, particularly Christine Baranski and Meryl Streep. So I just felt it had to be acknowledged,

though it's sort of serious, it's flawed, but it's a great time, and I can totally buy into it. And again, the music of ABBA is pretty hard to deny. If a jukebox musical can be a hit, it can be as a movie as well. It's a great pick. I would ruin my life for Amanda Seyfried. She's been a guest on this show. She's an absolute legend. Probably the coolest single person I've ever talked to in the history of this show. I think she's a great actress. Fun fact, I've never seen this film. Don't care about ABBA at all. Okay. I don't know that it's like a Sean fantasy film.

However, it's a good time. I think your daughter might like it. Perhaps show it to her. I'm sure. Honestly, I think that one of the reasons why I have the daughter that I have, and this is the third time she's come up on this episode, the absolute like princess-pilled girly girl that she is, is to kind of like backfill all of my holes

from the last 40 years of cultural consumption how about open you up to a new world are you saying I'm not kind I'm thinking

it's not about your failures I'm about saying what lies ahead yeah I mean I wouldn't describe Alice as particularly kind

either but she's just forthright just like I am we're not talking she's probably gonna love Mamma Mia. And you got to put it in her hands. You know, you show it to her.

You put her onto it. And then, you know, we can dance to Dancing Queen together. Do you accept DVDs or only Blu-rays? No, I mean, we'll take what we can get, but Blu-rays are preferred. Frankly, 4K, if you can find it. That's really my preferred mode. Okay. I don't think you've seen The Garage recently, have you?

It's been a while since you've been at the house. No, I haven't. Things are getting a little out of control with the physical media, I gotta say. That's how I feel about books. I'm just like, this is an issue. Maybe we should buy like a hanger together where we can put all of our physical media. What do you think? Sure. We could do high fidelity, like part four and just be like a record store and bookstore together. Oh, well now you're, I mean, that's our retirement plan together. That's how we

maintain adjoining offices long-term when we co-own a Blu-ray bookstore. Okay. My number five is Sing Street, which is the movie that I liked upon release and like more the further I get from it. It's been almost 10 years since Sing Street came out. 2016, John Carney's, not his next musical after Once, but he's the director of Once, which is a beautiful movie. I think I have a lot of Irish bias when it comes to the John Carney story. It's a very sentimental story. Sing Street is not so much about love affair

as it is like the making of a band, the making of a scene, the making of a sound, a kind of like new wave rock band in Ireland amongst teenagers in a private school that just has like an incredible amount of energy and verve and sincerity and great tunes, really good performances. I really like Lucy Boynton in this movie. She kind of disappeared. I don't know where she's at. Probably best known for Bohemian Rhapsody,

but she was really great in this movie. Have you seen Sing Street? I have not. I didn't see the musical on Broadway, nor did I ever see the movie. Excellent adaptation. I highly recommend people check this movie out. I like all of John Carney's movies, even Flora and the Sun, which kind of got mocked when it came out a year and a half ago, starring our girl Bono's daughter, Eva Hewson. Eve Hewson. Love her. Eve, yeah. Respect her. She's really great. Flora and the Sun is okay. She's the best.

St. Street is where it's at. The Nick forever. What's your number four? My number four is Encanto. First of all, I had to include something from Lin-Manuel Miranda. That's just sort of,

he's like one of the most important people, if not the most important person in musicals in the 21st century. He'll be coming up again on my list. And this is, I heard the music first.

I don't have children. And so I was like, but you know what, I think I'm going to watch this movie. And it's just like really well done. And it's actually like a little bit different than some of his other stuff for kids in a way that I just really liked.

And there's just like a lot of bops in it as well that like makes sense. So it's a great movie. I like this movie too. I've seen it quite a bit. Every time I go on vacation with my extended family, all the kids watch it like nine times in a row so I'm very familiar

with it's great sure I mean we don't talk about Bruno it's just you know great song one challenge I have is like playing

you know when you play on Spotify now and there's the video visualization with like scenes from the movie that's really hard to get my kids face off of that like to not be focused on that

while we're listening to music so a little bit of a dangerous thing like Disney has continues to crack the code on poisoning generations myself included um my number four is oh brother where art thou which is a coen brothers movie and you might think to yourself the coen brothers have made a musical but oh brother where are they really is a musical obviously it had an extraordinarily successful soundtrack it's also obviously a kind of a remake reimagining of the odyssey's also obviously kind of a remake reimagining

of The Odyssey. It's also kind of a remake reimagining of Sullivan's Travels. It's like a reference to the Preston Sturgis movie about a bunch of guys who break out of prison and become incredible recording stars.

And yeah, just an incredibly fun, beautiful movie, oddly set during the Great Depression that I love. Where are you at on Oh Brother? You know, it's part of the heyday of George Clooney as an actor, so I'm very high on it. I would say everything he did from 1994 to like 2005, I'm very, very pro. So I think it's great. I just want to note, I think the Coen brothers made two musicals.

They also made Inside Llewyn Davis. They did. Well, is that a musical? I guess it is in a similar way. It's a movie that centers music and a cat. Yeah, I think it is. And I think if I include O Brother Where Art Thou, then I think it has to be. And there are other movies that will come up in our discussion.

Yeah. other movies that will come up in our discussion. Yeah, the diegetic music or the performed in real time as capturing the characters' real lives. Inside Llewyn Davis, probably a better movie than O Brother. It is a better movie than O Brother, but it's not a better movie. Really? I think it's more boring than O Brother, where are they? But I think

the revelation of Oscar Isaac in that movie, it was so early in his career, was just so incredible. And I really like the music of Llewyn Davis. I do too, but I think I like the movie more and the... I don't know. I don't know. Let's just say they're tied in my fourth spot.

The YouTube repeat viewing for me of Oscar Isaac singing Roar as if he is Llewyn Davis is so incredibly high. It's one of like the pop culture highlights of my life. So check it out. Good to know. Good to know. What's your number three? Number three is a true musical, probably the only like true musical. I don't even think Mamma Mia counts because it's a jukebox musical, but Hairspray from 2007 starring Nikki Blonsky, James Marsden, Brittany Snow, Michelle Pfeiffer, Queen Latifah, Christopher Walken, and John Travolta. What a great, great movie. It is also the movie-to-stage and back-to-movie adaptation, which is very common these days.

It is just so well done. I was thinking about it. I was reflecting before this podcast. The performances are universally strong. Like everyone in it is really good. And even people who like are not famous, like Elijah Kelly, I thought he was going to have a huge career based on, on Hairspray. I would have bought all of his stock. And also I think it represents another key part of like musical movie success, which is well done camp. And of course, John Waters is the father of camp and really

understands it. It gets away with a lot as a result, and it's just really great. And then I think the emotional center of it is just an incredible song from Queen Latifah that kind of offsets a lot of the really frothy music otherwise. And it's just really great. If you haven't watched it in a while, I recommend it. I haven't seen it in a while. Things really went off the rails for Adam Shankman there, didn't they? Yeah, I think this was his peak. This was many people's peak, honestly. It's really weird.

Bedtime Stories was his next film. The Adam Sandler movie. Then he made Rock of Ages, which is a fiasco of a musical. What Men Want, starring Taraji P. Henson. Disaster. Remember that one? Unfortunately, I do. And then Disenchanted, which was the sequel to Enchanted.

Did you ever watch that? No, I didn't't I liked Enchanted I thought about including it I think James Marsden is like an underrated like musical comedy guy he's great I love James Marsden

I hear he's very nice I like that Marsden that movie confirms that Marsden fits in the lineage of John Travolta and Christopher Walken totally

I really enjoy that framework of the song and dance man through movie history. Totally. Good pick. Yeah, it's great. Also, John Travolta,

I think it was his first time in a musical since Grease, so it was like a big deal. My number three is, it was going to be Dancer in the Dark, which is a movie that I've always really liked

and I find is fascinating and incredibly sad and punishing. But then I remembered that there's some really sordid and sad details around the production of that movie where Bjork accused Lars von Trier of some absolutely awful sexual harassment. And I'm like, I don't really, it's an awkward thing where I want people to see Bjork's performance, which was, is so intense and so impressive, but also led to her basically never acting in a movie again because of her terrible experience on this movie but it's a movie about a woman who is experiencing like incredible like the loss of her sight and she works in a factory and she has like a big imagination and a big

relationship to musicals and it kind of like blends real life um with this fascination with musicals um shot in that kind of dogma 95 style where it's like multiple digital handheld cameras that are cut very aggressively to capture like all angles of performance. Very cool movie. It's just a little hard to be like, this is one of the best of this time because it's couched in so much pain.

So I'll give a shout out instead to Popstar Never Stop Never Stopping. Perhaps you've heard of it from the Lonely Island. I like to think I'm among the top 1% of Lonely Island fans. So yeah, I've heard of it. Are you in on their movies? I was just going to say, Bin Laden, Finest Girl,

is like one of my favorite songs maybe ever from this movie. But I like the music much more than I like their movies. But I love, love, love, love their music and music videos. Like just, they're so funny. And they're my favorite rap group. Did you listen to their pod with Seth? Yeah, of course. I like, it's like my favorite, like doing chores pod.

I love it. I also love Seth Meyers. I like everything about that pod is like straight down the middle for me. This movie is so, so funny. It comes kind of at the tail end of the Apatow era and it really bricked in theaters, but it opened right at the launch of The Ringer.

It was basically the first Friday of The Ringer's launch. It was the first big movie of that weekend. And we claimed it and loved it. Nobody else went to go see it. To me, this is like a full-blown rewatchable. Like it's such a funny movie. It's one of the very few good studio comedies of the 2010s. Highly recommend people check it out.

And yeah, it's just like full of hilarious Lonely Island songs. I mean, they've written like 200 at this point. So, great movie. It pushes the envelope in like all the right ways. It is like very edgy, but like in a bad way, in a great way. It is so funny. Absolutely love it. Agreed.

Very happy to see your number two. What do you got? A Star is Born, 2019. All comes back to Judy Garland. It really does. I don't know. This movie's undeniable. It's a force. Lady Gaga's a force. Bradley Cooper's a force. This is another movie we claimed and loved. I have a Jackson Maine tour t-shirt that I still wear all the time. I don't know. It's another movie where you're like, holy shit, they nailed it. And it's very exciting that they were able to pull it off. And there was so much anticipation from the first trailer and the snippets of Shallow.

But everything about it has become iconic. I also think because it hit right before COVID, it was like a fall 2019 movie, right? Its legend got to grow kind of quickly because we were all at home. And the Oscars performance could kind of like stand alone for a while. And there's just so many things about it that are legendary. And it's just a good movie. Like it's actually a good movie with a really good original music, which is hard to do as well. Yeah, I think it's the fifth version of A Star is Born. Prior to that, my favorite still is the Judy Garland, James Mason version.

I think that's the best one. And if you have never listened to the songs from that original, from that, it's not the original, I guess it's the second version, the one that came in the fifties. Yeah. Um, Judy Garland is just like out of this world, like the, the most extraordinary singing you'll ever hear in your life. This new one. Yeah.

It was one of my favorite movies of 2019. I think Amanda and I did roughly 48 episodes about the movie. Love it. So great pick. My number two, also a recent film, West Side Story from Steven Spielberg. Obviously this is a world-renowned filmed movie musical

from back in the 60s. The new version is just some of the best damn directing and choreography you'll ever see in your life one of the most striking movies ever also a movie that kind of bombed and not very many people saw in movie theaters like i saw it in theaters twice was just completely taken away by this movie uh i love it so much you're in on this or no i liked it i don't think it's an improvement on the original movie with natalie wood um and so like i that's why i didn't include it i love west side story as a musical like and the music is incredible um it

does also like ensemble really well which is something that's important to me i think my favorite thing about the 2022 remake is um the way it captures new york and sort of like a heightened surreal way um it doesn't try to make it feel like a living city. It makes it feel like a set. And it actually really works in an interesting way. But I didn't love it. Shame on you.

Steven Spielberg will remember. What's your number one? My number one. Are you surprised by my picks, Sean? Well, you've given me an opportunity to talk about something else that I'm

interested in discussing with you. I'm not super surprised because you and Amanda are alike in many ways. You are different in some ways, but you are alike in many ways. And this is one of them. I chose Walk the Line starring Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix. It is absolutely hands down my favorite Reese Witherspoon experience I've ever had. I love her clothes. I love Joaquin Phoenix's renditions of Johnny Cash's songs. And I think it's just a really good biopic.

I really like it. And also definitely, I knew Johnny Cash. I knew of his music, but it really opened up the musical oeuvre of Johnny Cash to me. And I think this is just a great movie that's also really sad. And also another underrated actress

from the television show Big Love, Jennifer Goodwin. Love her as well. And she plays his first wife. She's kind of fallen by the wayside these recent years hasn't she yeah

that's a sad story yeah I mean James Mangold is running this back with A Complete Unknown which is out in one month and is a biopic of Bob Dylan

Johnny Cash figures into that biopic he's played by Boyd Holbrook not Joaquin Phoenix in it I saw it last week I'm holding my thoughts

on the film for when I record a podcast about it. I think you're probably aware of how my relationship to Bob, right? Sure. Yes, I am. Complicated subject matter. Walk the Line's good. I like it. It's a great movie. I remember seeing it very vividly and I really

had a great time. And also, the costumes in it are so good. It's like a fun movie to watch. Like, it's a very, like, visually style. The style of it is, like, very cool. I mean, I also, you know, it's kind of easy with the 50s and 60s style and the structured dresses for Reese and everything. But she's just so plucky as June Carter Cash. It's very fun.

How do you feel about Walk Hard destroying it forever? It's funny. I was thinking about John C. Reilly when we mentioned Chicago because he's my favorite part of the movie. Mr. Cellophane. It's such a great part of that movie. I'm okay with it. I don't know. I really support both Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, so I'm okay.

Okay. My number one is Moana. I remember very vividly in the early days of The Ringer, Jason Gallagher was trying to sell me on how good Moana was. And I think his son was young at the time when the movie was released. And I think the movie was going really hard in his house. And I was like, that's cool, man. I'm not seeing it. And I didn't see it.

I didn't see it for many years. And now I've seen it probably 15 times. And in addition to it having the framework of like a very traditional post 2000s, like female empowerment Disney story, which is like pretty common through the Disney and Pixar films post, you know, like the antiquated ideas of romance that you find like sleeping beauty there's been this real concerted effort to give the female characters a kind of independence that's all there and that's all all of that is good and the like the culture that is portrayed in the film and the adventure aspect of the story is great all of it works really really well it's brisk. It's well-paced. But it's Lin-Manuel Miranda just absolutely cooking up something delightful. Like the songs in that movie are so good.

And when you are a parent and you have to listen to this shit all the time and you find one that you actually like, it's such a relief when your kid is like, I want to watch that one

because you know you can just sit comfortably with them and not be annoyed. And so is Moana the greatest movie musical of the 21st century? I don't give a shit. To me, it is the one that has given me the most comfort and joy. So it's my number one. Great pick, Sean. And also a great tie-in this week. How smart. Well, that's the thing is coming later this week on the show, we're covering Moana 2. We're doing that with Yossi Salik and Rob Harvilla.

How do you think that's going to go? I think that'll be really fun and also very lengthy. So everyone bring your water. Yeah. Well, it'll be Thanksgiving weekend. People will be able to consume it. That'll be all right. I'm excited that Moana 2 is coming out.

I like Moana. I'm like on the periphery of Moana culture. I've never seen the full thing. The reason I choose Encanto over Moana is the music did not compel me to watch the movie, but I was like, when I heard the Encanto music, I was like, I'm going to check this out. But I do like the rock soundbites from Moana,

so I'm looking forward to new soundbites from the rock. I think I neglected to mention Moana when I did the Red One episode, but that is like a true good that he has accomplished in his relatively complicated last 15 years of the movies. He's genuinely great as Maui. But yeah, Moana, check it out, man. It's fucking good. I love it. It's beautiful. And you know what, Jason, you were right if you're listening. Good job. Good job by you. Where can we find you,

Juliette? On Bachelor Party on Mondays and Thursdays, talking reality TV. Less and less Bachelor these days, but a lot of reality TV. And on Ring Her Dish on Mondays, jam session, usually with Amanda. When she gets back, she will continue to be my co-host. In the meantime, it's a rotation of great people to talk to me about pop culture, mostly celebrities. And on Fridays, on Ring Her Food, food news. Check it out. It's only 30 minutes.

It's a great way to pass some time. Gosh, I haven't been invited on any of those pods. What's going on? Do you want to talk about reality TV? I don't really watch any. All right. So that's tough. At least I watched some movies, but thanks for having me, Sean. I really appreciate you watching Wicked and all these movie musicals and bringing your incredible expertise to this episode. Thank you, Juliet. Thanks so much for having me. It was really fun. Let's go to my conversation with Malcolm Washington. Malcolm Washington is here with his first feature film, The Piano Lesson. Malcolm, thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. It's an honor.

So obviously you grew up in a house with film in it. I'm wondering what was the first movie? We did watch movies. You watched movies. There was film there. Was there a movie that you saw that opened your mind that made you think you could be a filmmaker? Good question.

You know, I feel like there was more movies that made me feel like I could never do that because of how much I love them. But I remember seeing Tree of Life with my mom when it came out we saw in theaters she was living in New York we went to there was like a like an art house theater in Lincoln Center that I think is gone now okay yeah yeah it is yeah tragic yeah um but I saw that movie there with her and i remember at the end of the movie we were like holding hands like bawling crying and i'm like 20 years old you know i'd never seen a movie that dealt with like big kind of themes like that or how and dealt with it so intimately and i saw myself in the story and i me and my mom was a for our i remember having this feeling of it's

the first time that we both uh saw ourselves in the same thing. And then time kind of warped around itself in that moment where it's like, wait, you're the child and I'm the child too together. And it was a movie set. Like she's from the South and it was in the 50s. And it was like a similar era of her youth. So it was just like one of those movies. I was like, whoa, this is more than a film there's like something spiritual and poetic and all these things were were in it so that was one

of an early one what did you think you were going to be doing back then you must have been college at that point yeah in college i didn't know what i was doing um i hooped for a little bit in college but then after that i started studying movies but never I didn't think to make them like I was like just writing about them um and studying them but not never making them it's interesting I had um Rommel Ross in here the other day and we were talking about it and he he played ball in school too and he was talking about how that like did help him and didn't help him on his artistic path did playing basketball like help you at all figure out any aspect of your career it not in some ways yeah like just small things like so much of

directing is just managing people and running a production um so it's like team building it's communicating so all the all the principles that you learn in team sports is totally there and like how you build out the team you want you know we were talking about the Knicks

and I'm a Laker fan but so you want to you want to build out diversity of thought of experience you know you want you want some you want some wily vets

you want some OGs you want some young talent you want some you know you want to just get all of that out so I think in that regard it definitely helped but the film You want some young talent. You want some, you know, you want to just get all of that out. So I think in that regard, it definitely helped.

But the film, the artist's life has been a different journey for me. When did you decide you were going to be making films, that that was something that you wanted to do? I decided in, when I was in undergrad. I made this film. I went to, again, I was writing about them. I didn't know how to make them. And I did this, this pro like a summer program. And I was like, okay, let's, let's see, let's try it. And I ended up writing this story that didn't intend to be personal, but it became so personal. And we shot on 16 millimeter film. So you're, you know,

you're loading the camera yourself. You're doing everything yourself. And when the, when I finished making the movie, I was looking at him like, whoa, something came out of me. You know, it was like not something I planned to do or aim to do, but there was some third spirit, some voice that came out. And I was like, well, I want to, and it was really satisfying. I was like, I want to see what that's about. Like what this, this subconscious thing that's coming out of you, like what is Chase that thing? I assume you were on set as a kid at times, right? I was on set a little bit, but like not everybody assumes that because, you know, my, obviously my dad's a big actor, but. I was just wondering if like, I tend to ask that for anybody whose parents are in the business, because then you like learn that for somebody like me growing up, movies are not mechanical.

They're just magic. Yeah. But sometimes if you grow up and you go to visit a set as a kid, you see that it is like, it's labor. It's collaboration. No, it's magic. It was magic to me. The way I grew up, I grew up in the Valley, man. And we were like riding bikes in a cul-de-sac.

Like it was, I would say it was no place for a kid, you know? And my parents always were so cool about setting up our lives in a way that they were trying to create good people and like well-rounded humans, you know, with a consciousness and a worldview. So I wasn't on set every day as a kid, understanding how movies were made at six years old. What about August Wilson? Were you exposed to his work early? When did you come to him? August was such a legend in our community and in our culture.

And I come from a proud culture. So August is a name you hear about. But I didn't engage in his work meaningfully until I was at AFI in film school. In film school, we got to direct. I got to direct a scene out of one of his plays. And that was the first time I got to really read and interpret and be like, oh, wow, okay. I see what everybody's talking about. This is why he's on the Pantheon.

There's just incredibly rich characters and and somebody who's saying something one of the things i loved about your movie is august wilson's work is incredibly powerful but it is written for the stage and the adaptations are complicated because sometimes they can be seen as too stagey that's the word that you hear all the time your movie is very cinematic you know it is very visually oriented it's trying to break beyond just what you would expect you'd see on a stage. Can you just talk about like developing what you wanted this movie to be visually and making sure that it stayed true to what his vision was when he was writing it? Yeah, I'm such a fan of the cinema.

Like that's where I grew up. That was like my sanctuary as a kid was going to Universal. We used to go to Universal. Yeah, City Walk. City Walk. Yeah. Absolutely was up there. And then later we moved and I started going to Universal. We used to go to Universal. Yeah, City Walk. City Walk. Yeah. Absolutely was up there. And then later we moved

and I started going to Century City. Yeah. And then to my adulthood. Shout out to Arclight Hollywood. I hope somebody brings it back. That was my spot. It was a spot. Oh my God.

I know. But that's like the language that I love and that I speak. So with this, there's so much reverence for Mr. Wilson and his legacy and his work. But I felt like

the best way to honor it was to try to break it. Right? It was to break beyond the ways that we've seen it before. And it's also a work that's been produced a lot. So I felt like,

okay, we can do something very different with this one and the other ones will still exist. You know? How specifically did you think about that? Like, because

the structure of it is fairly straightforward, but you've got flashback elements. think about that? Like, because the structure of it is fairly straightforward, but you've got flashback elements. You've got almost like, these kind of like supernatural genre elements. Like what specifically were you looking to do? All of that. So play with form, right?

So first, you know, we have this structure of the stories kind of barreling on this path anyway. How can we break that? How can we fuck with that a little bit? You know, how can we inform these moments with things of the past and also imaginings, memories? Some things are like dreams and nightmares. The thing that lives in between both where it's like,

you know, when you have a memory and you're like, was that true? Am I failing my own memory? But what is honest about is my feeling of the thing is it didn't, might not have happened exactly like that, but how I, how I felt about it did. So it was trying to weave that into the structure of it, but also play with the language of film. So genre is a thing that we wanted to make something exciting and bombastic and muscular and just kick the door down.

Like we wanted to come in like that, but also tell a story that was subjective in nature, that we're telling a story of a family who all have different ideas of what happened and what they should do, who all are standing on hallowed ground and write in some way about the direction

the family should go in. But how you experience it as an audience member will change how you think that that moment should be. So we're going to play with perspective and subjectivity and give you some moments or really about the person listening. And sometimes it's about this other thing, not the big monologue.

That's the real story point for this part. And not to get into the story too much, but I wanted to guide the audience through the story using things like this, like perspective and point of view. Before we go too much further into the movie itself, why did the adaptation happen? It had been recently staged. Samuel L. Jackson acclaimed for his work

and the performance. Like, why did it become a movie? Was it something that you said, I want this to be my thing? Was it something that, you know, there's this mission

to film all of Wilson's plays? What happened? So there's a mission to film the century cycle. There's a mission to film these as plays at Netflix, I mean,

as films at Netflix. And this one made a lot of sense to, to be next because it was the play and they had Samuel L. Jackson and my brother, John David, uh, we're going to do it. And anytime Samuel L. Jackson wants to do movies, like, yeah, let's find out how to get this movie made. Um, so I, I spoke to them, uh, about this take on it. And like I said, what, what we were trying to do was, was to, to be fearless in our pursuit of making this a film. So we wrote, me and Virgil, co-writer and homie of mine,

we wrote the script to show everybody what the take was. Like, hey, this is going to be a genre movie. This is going to be like a fun movie that you're going to fall in you're going to fall into it expecting this uh fall into the genre elements of it but when we land it's going to be this poetic um kind of musings on ancestry and lineage and legacy like these big themes that's where we'll land the plane but on the way it's going to be a fun ride um and do you want to come, do you want to take it in this direction? And luckily they did. Yeah. I love the take on it so much. Tell me about working with your brother. It's complicated. I'm sure you guys are close, but making a film is

complicated and it's a lot of hard work. And he'd also played this part before, which I'm sure helps, but also you have your vision. So what is the dynamic on set with two people who are as close as you are, but maybe have a lot of history too? You know, it's interesting. I'm such a fan of my big brother, you know, and he's somebody that, I'm not only a fan of his work,

but just who he is as a person. Like he was such a great example for me coming into my you know, my adulthood and ways to move and what to listen to and all these things. But getting to work with him was so great because we had a shared language already and, you know, in any creative process or any project you want to be able to communicate freely, clearly, to have trust with the other person. And so in that way, it was so amazing.

But at the same time, you want, sometimes if you want something so bad, you start pushing too much for it. And I think that once we both had to understand like, hey, we both want to do good for the other person. Like let's settle in and just, you know, trust the offense. Yeah, yeah.

And we'll be okay. And once we did that, we just fell into a wonderful rhythm. And there was such a great collection of actors that were there with us. You know, Danielle Deadweiler, who smashes this movie. She's so gifted. And Samuel L. Jackson is so good in this movie. And I think a different type of performer in this film than you might expect, which I think was really wonderful and it was just awesome. So I'm curious with someone like Danielle,

who has built up a reputation as like a commanding performer, you know, somebody who kind of can take over a movie a little bit. I think that benefits this movie in some ways, but it's interesting. Your brother has a very big part, but there are a lot of big supporting parts. I have some questions about those parts too. How do you balance like who's stealing the moment properly? Like it's something I'm always curious about when you have a lot of very, very charismatic actors and especially with a story that's written so thunderously, you know? Right.

That's such a good way to put it and to set it up in that way because there's so much to chew on. And each of these actors and characters, there's so much depth and dimension to them. And each one of them are deserving of their own version of this film. But what was amazing with working with all of them was they were so generous to each other. And it wasn't about stealing the show or stealing the moment. It was about telling the truth and just being honest. And then everything else would kind of fall where it may.

And from a filmmaking standpoint, that's exciting because if you have all these elements of everybody being honest and telling the truth and delivering their best, as a filmmaker, you can make choices as to who are we empathizing with when, whose side of this should we be in any moment. And sometimes you're completely objective, right?

Sometimes you let them, you lens them equally, you give them similar size across cuts and things like that. And other times you take a stance, you put the camera in another position or you cut it in a different kind of way, depending on what the story's trying to give you or trying to say for itself so it was exciting to work with such great actors where you can have the privilege to start making choices and where you want to put the camera and what you want to what you want to say ultimately was there anything that surprised

you being in command on set for the first time on a feature that you didn't expect? I mean, obviously you probably are surrounded by people who've made a lot of films. You talked about the wily vets versus the rookies, you know, balance. But I assume when you're in that situation and this is the first time you've done this particular thing, some things happen and you're like, shit, I just did not see that coming. Or this was a nice surprise or whatever. Well, in performance, it was, in just making a movie, there's so many incredible surprises that all, you try to get all of them in the movie.

Because you plan this thing for so long, you think about it for so long, but ultimately when you get there and you start shooting the last thing you want is for it to be exactly what you planned. You're like, please, somebody come with something that I couldn't, that's beyond my own level of comprehension that I couldn't see in the thing itself. So you're seeking that anyway. So that was exciting. But I think overall, one thing that I was actually really surprised about, I come from short film. I made a bunch of shorts and music videos and stuff like this. And in that space, I feel like we were constantly, especially in school, you're constantly trying to make your movie look like a feature.

You're trying to make it look, you know, I want my movie to look like the master. I'm trying to make Phantom Thread. And, you know, that's what you want. You get the anamorphic lenses. You, like, get the Steadicam dolly out. And now I'm working with so many of my heroes, like Leslie Jones, our editor, is a legend.

And I loved working with her. And Mike G, our DP, has made so many, shot so many shots so many incredible movies and what I found was interesting was at that level they're all trying to dirty it up they're like no no the characters and and these other things like don't it shouldn't be too glossy like we should let's let's dirty it up a little bit and that was really exciting because it's like yeah like that's that's now we're getting to the truth and that's where the cracks and crannies in the story are

and that's where all the flavor is. Like, that's the thing. It's interesting, when I saw the film at Telluride and I wasn't really sure what to expect. Obviously, you hadn't directed a feature before. I was completely blown away, especially by the third act.

I was like, this is such a cool choice to make this, this like exorcist style, like electrifying. Just double down. Yeah, I thought it was great. And then I saw Gia Lucas in the credits and I was like this is such a cool choice to make this like exorcist style like electrifying yeah I thought it was great and then I saw Gia Lucas in the credits and I was like aha that's a really interesting choice for a movie like this like so why Mike as your cinematographer Mike um Mike shot It Follows which is a movie I love and I thought what he was doing with like the top light and that and the kind of

the kind of camera work it was this kind of slow this slow and moving camera that I thought was really interesting and then us I saw and really loved how there's a

the funhouse sequence and what he's doing with light and shadows and what he's doing with the and shadows and what he's doing with the complexion of the skin it's really wonderful and composition

so I was like really interested in his take on genre but he I hadn't seen him do a movie like this either so it was kind of like

meet me in the middle and then when we talked we talked we had so many similar influences and we talked a lot about Tarkovsky like we were both

like interested in that kind kind of um that kind of length film language visual language um and so he brought so much great genre stuff but he was great with story too and telling the story with the camera so he was somebody that that early on I think the studio and everybody started to understand exactly what I was after when Mike came on and Annalie our sound our designers like she she made such an incredible soundscape for this thing and and it's so alive the house is breathing and the genre elements there like all these people came together and kind of put it together I thought that all those choices are really great like totally elevate what could be something that just feels more claustrophobic.

And it's claustrophobic at times in a good way, but I feel like it was really expansive in a way that was surprising. The big revelation for me acting wise was Ray Fisher. Okay. Who, you know, people know from the DC movies. Yes. But I didn't clock that it was him through the first 20 minutes of the movie. So different. And just like remarkable.

Like I thought he was actually like kind of held the movie together in some ways for me. Well, you know what? I think his character too represents the audience in so many ways. Like he's the one that receives the piano lesson. He's like our eyes and ears into this thing. It's like so much of it is through his imagination of it all. So in a lot of ways, it's good that, you know, we're supposed to position ourself with him.

But the way that he played him, I thought was so beautiful because Ray is this gigantic man, you know, Ray's like tall, super strong. He looks like a linebacker. Yeah, he looks like a superhero. So, and he was playing him in this way. Like we did this camera makeup test and it's the first time that the actors wear the clothes of the character. We're starting to light it in a way.

We're moving the camera, how we think that we'll use in lensing, how we think that we're going to do it in the movie. And we're playing music too. So just kind of trying to set a vibe and let everybody settle into their stuff. And Ray started doing this thing where he would like sit in this he'd pick the smallest chair and then try to be tiny inside of it and Big the contrast of him the biggest man in the room trying to be the smallest in the room was so interesting I mean gave me insight to oh how he's thinking about this character And he thought through the whole thing in such a wonderful way,

but then threw all of it away and was so present in the day that I'm, Ray is like a brother to me and I'm so proud of what he did in this film. Yeah, I really was so amazed. Is there a difference when you're on set between talking to someone like Ray

and someone like Sam Jackson? Like how do you communicate with actors? How do you modulate? What's the right thing to say to more experienced versus less experienced? This is like my favorite thing. This is my favorite thing on filmmaking is because it feels like a thing that you'll develop over the course of your whole life, you know? And it's something I like is like, I love talking to people.

I love talking about movies. I love talking about movies. I love trying to understand where somebody's coming from. And in an ensemble, you have so many different actors that have different experience, different process. They communicate in different ways. They listen in different ways. And I think the role of director is very much meeting the actor where they are and then help guide them to where the movie wants them to be.

And that's a different journey for each of them. So with this one, yeah, Danielle and Ray and John David, Sam, Mr. Potts, Corey, Erykah Badu, all different people that I got to deal with differently. We forged different kind of relationships. And it's funny because now we're rolling this movie out and everybody's coming back together again and we're talking about it.

And everybody's like, wait, you talked about that? Like, you talked to me about this other thing. And it's like, yeah, we all have this different kind of experience of this thing, you know? And I think that that's what's so great. And we had a project that could sustain all of that because the characters are so well-drawn. They're so dimensional that there's enough to, there's a full dimension and a full life of each because the characters are so well drawn. They're so dimensional that there's

enough to, there's a full dimension, a full life of each of these characters, even if we only see them for a little bit. At any point, did you have to say to any of the actors, like, this is not for the stage? Because obviously film acting is very, very different from stage acting. You got a couple cast members who played the parts on stage. How do you navigate that to like, this is too big or this is too small? Like what, what's the language you use to communicate to people? You know what? I think from the beginning, A, we had a, everybody's very smart. Everybody knows what we're doing. Everybody knew that this is, you know, they'd all worked in film before. But from the beginning, I gave everybody a bunch of material a bunch of images I made books

all the time I was always making books and videos um and in the script and all of these materials are screaming to you this is a visual this is a movie this is tonally different from what what was done before this is a new thing um what was in those materials? I made like a hundred page book of reference images of like my musings on Afro-surrealism, my musings on spirituality and faith of West African spiritual practice, of the black Southern American

Christian church tradition. These belief systems that are being wrestled with in the black community and the black American experience. And with the film, ultimately the end is, is a wrestling of these conflicting,

um, but ideology that, that exists in concert and, and black Americans today still, um, these are parts of our, of our histories. Um,

so ideas about that ideas of black American reclamation, our themes and the film, just all the things that I was thinking about wrestling with the movie, as well as images of the time and historical context, information on Parchment Farm. Just a bunch of ideas that they could touch or not. Thoughts on genre and what genre can do for a film like this and what we're what it's what how we're going to use it exactly um so just a bunch of different things that they can tap into or not but you know this is a considered work that's a film so you weren't like quizzing anybody at the end it was like no do you what are my thoughts on afro surrealism because that's not

even always for like this was also for the crew too yeah this was for everybody yeah everybody got it. When you walked around our production offices, the walls were adorned with like pages out of these books I was making. And it was to bring everybody together. Hey, this is the vision. This is the mission. This is what we're after, you know. That's so interesting.

You hear all the time that filmmakers will put together a lookbook or they'll have references or they'll say like, hey, look at this performance in this film. But the idea of like writing through your thoughts on an intellectualized aspect of the story that you're telling, I don't know if I've specifically heard that. Why did that strike you as something to do and share? Well, because I was doing it for myself. Because this is something like, I think that I've thought through this story conceptually so much. And in making a film, you're housing so many different ideas. I know some filmmakers are like, never do this. Never intellectualize the thing. But this is a canon. This is an important piece of American history and literature, American artistry.

And so, yeah, I'm going to think through it. I'm going to think through it. I'm going to like intellectualize, I'm going to connect it to these larger ideas that exist around it and inside of it and dialogue with it. And I think that that helped some of our crew. It definitely, it just helped me, helped me to write through it and think through it in that way. I wonder if, I don't want to get too pointy headed about this, but I wonder if like, if't want to get too pointy-headed about this, but I wonder if because you're already working in adaptation, so you've got this really strong thing to kind of balance all of those things against. Yes. That somehow it kind of keeps things grounded in a way so that you don't get too far flung, but it still lets you do things that you wouldn't otherwise be able to do in an original or something like that. You're absolutely right.

You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. It was strong enough to contain it. This is a Pulitzer Prize winning masterwork. Here's why it's a Pulitzer Prize. These things are in it. We're going to explore these things. And there's stuff in here that exists in the text and stuff that we added to it that they're icebergs onto these much bigger cultural touchstones.

You know what I mean? And like I said, I'm trying to make a film that is exciting and stuff and is scary and funny and all these things. But underneath that is mountains of ideas, of cultural touchpoints. Do you have to stress test those things with the estate? Like how does that work where you're adapting something, but you're adding to it or you're redefining it? You know what?

The estate was, Ms. Constanza Romero Wilson, August's widow, was so welcoming of me. And I think August himself was so concerned with the future of black artistry, you know, and was always interested in pushing things further. That's why he deals with space and time so much. He's concerned of the past and the future and the present and how these things all live together. So I got a lot of support, not only from the estate, but his niece was like, I talked to his niece in the beginning when I was really scared and reverential of just wanting to do a good job with the thing.

And she was like, fuck it up. She was like, tear it up. Do you. That's what he would want is for you to take and, and then bring all that you have to honor what he's doing, understand the man and, and his, and his mission and what his purpose, but ultimately embody that spirit, embody that, that mission, and then, and interpret it and adapt it in your way and bring it out and how you do it. And that's what we tried to do with this one. That's very cool. I really liked that you did that. Cause it, I mean, it's weirdly a challenge now to the other, is it seven or six more adaptations that need to come? Because like, in a way, like you want to see these things evolve and become new because

otherwise they're just a regurgitation. It's a story in the movie itself. It's like, you have to build on the legacy that was left for you. You have to contribute to it and that's risky and it's dangerous and you have to have skin in the game, you know, but you ultimately, you have to build on that thing. And I hope that this one is like a window cracking for the rest of them where somebody else will come and blow it out the water and do something that we never even could have imagined for the next seven or however many are left. Were you nervous at Telluride? Are you kidding me? Yeah. Yeah, I was nervous at Telluride. Yeah.

A hundred percent because this work is so personal. I've never made a movie. I've never made a feature film before. I've never put one out. Everything I've made has been so, it's lived in like small corners of the internet. Like I don't tell people about it. It's not like out publicly, you know?

Was that purposeful and strategic? Yeah. I just wanted to develop. I didn't want to develop. I liked making this stuff. I didn't want like, I wasn't like ready for the scrutiny. I wasn't ready. And I was making personal things. So I didn't want to expose myself to that kind of, I just wanted to keep developing and making things I loved. And I knew at some point I would have to confront that fear in myself, confront that insecurity in myself of, Hey, you know, if you want to make stuff, you're making it for people. You're ready now. I had to. Yeah, I had to. It was like, this project was too important and too big for everybody, for all of us. It was much bigger than me, you know? And ultimately that mission became, I was humbled in front of that mission.

So now that you've made this, what kind of movies do you want to make? I want to make, like moving forward? Yeah. I want to make movies that, I just grew up going to the theater. I grew up having exciting film experiences. And I want to make movies that reach those audiences too. I want to make movies that operate on those audiences too I want to make movies that operate on multiple levels that that are fun and exciting and you can go with your friends on

a Friday night um but ultimately when you leave you didn't expect for it to stick with you the way that you did do you do you have anything that you are working on to I do yeah I do you're not going to tell me anything about it I'm from the Spike Lee school. When I was working for Spike, Spike wouldn't tell you anything until it was set in stone, it's happening, it's coming out. Interesting. You wouldn't even know.

Can you tell me about working for Spike? You worked with him on his TV show? I worked with him on She's Gotta Have It. Yeah, yeah. And it was amazing. Spike, obviously we know the films that he's made, his impressive body of work. But what people don't understand about Spike is that underneath Spike, he's uplifting generations of young filmmakers.

He's Professor Lee for real. When you walk on his sets, there's so many people that he's bringing with him and showing them the ropes. And I'm one of many, you know, that he allowed in the room, that he not only allowed in the room, but gave opportunity to later. Like he'll produce his assistant's movies and he'll put your name in a hat and he'll uplift you. He'll fight for not only just above the line, like Spike will fight for have to have black teamsters in the union. He fights for black gaffers and electricians like across sets. He he's made so much opportunity for so many black people that couldn't get in to the unions or couldn't get onto a set.

So he, he, that's the thing that I saw firsthand that I'm so impressed by and doesn't talk about it. He just does it. He just does it. He just does it. So there's a generation of filmmakers

that have come up under Spike and I'm honored to put my name among them. Malcolm, we end every episode of the show

by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they've seen? You're clearly a cinephile. Yeah. The last great thing I've seen. Whew.

I watched, wait, are you going to answer this too? No, no, just, this is you, man.

This is your interview. Okay, when we wrap, I want to ask you the last great thing you've seen. I, recently, I watched, I watched,

there's two things that are coming to mind, but I'm going to, I'm going to just give you one. I watched, the other day, I watched Belly. Oh,

you know, Belly, the Hyde Williams. I mean, a classic for me. A classic. Oh, I love that movie. Do you? Yeah, I do. What do you love about Williams? Yeah, I mean, a classic for me. A classic. Oh, I love that movie.

Do you? Yeah, I do. What do you love about it? Well, I mean, it's like visually one of the most like breathtaking movies ever. I saw it in theaters when I was a kid and I was like, because I was a hype music video freak. Yo, same. Yeah. So I was talking to somebody.

I'm sorry not to. No, go, go, go, go. I was talking to somebody recently and we were talking about like the 90s, like 90s black renaissance in art, you know? And I was talking about how important music videos were. Music videos are, and that so many, some of them have transcended music video and are in this space of fine art.

Right. That they're reaching to something bigger and working in the medium in a new way. And Hype Williams' work is so influential. And I know... The Basta and Missy videos.

Come on. Yeah, I totally agree. Even how he's playing with like aspect ratio and letterboxing and all that stuff. He's like Hype and skin tones. There's a direct line

from Hype Williams' belly to like Barry Jenkins' moonlight 100% direct line the like the walking into the club sequence at the beginning

of belly and then when you get into DMX's house and gummo is on and the house is all white yeah and those contrasting colors and the angles

yeah the way that they're shot I'm with you 100% 100% it's cool to hear that you know for sure Barry and like for someone like you, that that influence

is kind of trickling down. Because, you know, that's the only feature he ever made. Yeah. And I don't even, I guess he still makes videos. But you know,

like I feel like that's what I'm so excited about this next generation of filmmakers because we all grew up in that. We all grew up on that stuff, you know? So you look at like

Hype Williams and now you look at people like khalil joseph like khalil is like somebody that i admire his work so like he his work was some of the first work that i saw where i'm like actually that's the answer to your question your first question you said what's the movie what's the movie that made you want to make films it was khalil joseph's work watching until Quiet Comes. I saw Until the Quiet Comes, and I just saw myself in something.

In the same way that when I first read Ta-Nehisi Coates, I saw myself in that, and I felt like you're talking directly to me. I felt like that with Khalil Joseph, Until the Quiet Comes. And he did this thing called double consciousness at MoCA. Did you see this? Incredible, incredible work.

So, sorry, I rambled, but those are- You didn't ramble. Those are great answers, Malcolm Washington. Thanks so much, man. Thank you, incredible work. So, sorry, I rambled, but those are... You didn't ramble. Those are great answers. Malcolm Washington, thanks so much, man. Thank you, thank you. Thank you to Malcolm Washington. Thanks to Juliet. Thanks to Jack Sanders.

Thanks to Sasha Oshel for filling in on this episode. Thanks to our producer, Bobby Wagner. Later this week, as I said, with Yossi and Rob, we will dig into Moana 2. We'll see you then.