West Side Story (2021)

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[00:07:56] No, I did plays but I can't sing or dance either. Yeah, I mean it's very impressive to me to be able to sing and dance. And you know what's more impressive? Singing and dancing at the same time.

[00:08:14] Like I'm really like how do you keep all that in your head all at once? It's a magical shit. And look, this is a podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. Very fast.

[00:08:26] And it's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products they want. But sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce.

[00:08:37] Maybe years ago we covered Steven Spielberg or at least the second half of his career because it's very long. We've never gotten back around to covering. We really should. Yeah. Ten of the most famous and beloved movies of all time.

[00:08:52] I think we've always been like, well, that's like money in the bank. Someday we have in our back pocket. We can do Jaws, three Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, E.T., Close Encounters. It's yeah, that's I mean, it's all that. It's everything you just said. We would have to.

[00:09:09] We would do dual, right? I think we do dual maybe. But we wouldn't. We probably wouldn't do something evil or savage. Maybe we probably know. No, I think dual is the only one we'd include. Yeah. But then the Joneses, E.T., Close Encounters, Jaws, Jurassic Park, Chandler's List.

[00:09:27] Yeah. Yeah. You do have the Color Purple and Empire of the Sun ones to sort of muddle through. Always and Hook though would be, you know, right. Would be a blast. And 1941 would be a blast. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like those are sort of big strange failures.

[00:09:44] I just feel like Color Purple, Empire of the Sun. Those are both like movies with defenders, movies that are good but not great, in my opinion. Very, you know, serious and worthy and not they haven't quite figured it out. He hasn't quite figured it out. Anyway, whatever.

[00:10:01] Anyway, we'll do it. He is obviously a man who has had blank check status for decades and perhaps is still one of the only people in Hollywood where him wanting to do a movie gets a green light immediately.

[00:10:15] He just kind of has the runway where it's like, what does Spielberg want to do next? And he's always floating around 10 or 15 different projects. You always hear these rumors of he's considering this thing and then one will jump out of the pack and come together very quickly.

[00:10:29] I feel like that's always the way for him now, right? You'll hear like Lincoln was on the burner for like a decade, right? And it's like, he might do Lincoln next or he just optioned this book or he's thinking

[00:10:40] about remaking this and then one of them will jump out and they'll be like, this is happening. It's going into production in two months. He works very fast once he makes his choice. Yes, that's the magic, right?

[00:10:51] He can get everything in place quickly and then film quickly, even if it's a massive production. And he'll do shit like the post, right? Where he's like, they start the ready player one visual effects stuff. And he's like, okay, what I got like two months.

[00:11:06] Oh, I'll fucking call Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep up. Right? Here's like some hot spec script floating around. I'll pick it up, get the two most like venerated dad movie stars of all time, mom and dad of film and just knock it out quickly.

[00:11:21] Can you imagine Steven Spielberg's contacts on his cell phone? Like who is Steven Spielberg texting? Do you know? Like obviously his family. But people will talk about this. People will talk about like texting with him. Really? Oh, that's so weird. Yeah.

[00:11:36] Like people who are like, yeah, it's weird. I'm like friends with Spielberg and we just like talk about shit. Like I feel like including people he hasn't worked with and just met with or actor. He's worked with it.

[00:11:47] So I feel like Bill Hader's talked about like fucking texting with him about TCM movies or whatever. That's that's what I would want to do. I would want to just be like pick up the phone and be like, Steve, I'm fucking, you know,

[00:11:59] I'm watching this Glenn Ford movie. Have you seen it? And he would, I assume be like, oh yeah, of course. And then we would, you know, yeah. Yeah, fucking. That sounds fun. He's a badass. Badass. Do you remember, David?

[00:12:12] I mean, he's been saying for a long time that he wanted to make a musical, right? It's like been a thing for him for a while. Hook was at one point supposed to be a musical. Hook is the big one. Was there another one?

[00:12:21] Hook actually, I think, had songs written that they never like locked down. Hook might have made sense more as a musical. I think it would have. I don't know. It needs it needs something. That's for sure. But yeah, hook.

[00:12:36] That's the one argument for not going back and doing early Spielberg is people are going to get so fucking angry at our hook episode. But the hook hook. Look, I recently rewatched it.

[00:12:45] That was like a real like like when I was going through things that my wife never seen when we were deep in quarantine. I was like, you've never seen hook. Let's throw it on.

[00:12:54] I throw it on like as I always am with hook being like maybe this is the time I get it. First 20 minutes. You're like this works. Your first few the first act. You're like, yeah, okay.

[00:13:06] And then I think it just, you know, that is also the absolute fucking height of his like daddy issue shit. Yes, yes. Issues with his own dad, but issues with himself as a dad and like and you're just like, Steve, stop it. It's overwhelming. It's like the inception.

[00:13:22] There's like a train running through this thing. Like this is a Peter Pan movie. It doesn't have to be about how you're a bad dad. I think it's yeah. I mean, it's like I feel like I would prefer the Nick Castle version of that movie that

[00:13:35] he had been developing for a long time before Spielberg took it over. That's the rare case of a movie that is overwhelmed by Spielberg. But the thing about it is not. It's over thought. It's the wrong. It's over by Spielberg. It's also overwhelmed by Robin Williams.

[00:13:49] Not that there's he's not awful, but he eventually starts to. He needs to be reigned in a little bit and but it looks cool like, you know, it's that's it just the sets are so crazy. Right. You know all that, you know, anyway, look, that's the thing.

[00:14:02] He's able to command whatever resources he wants, whatever talents he wants. And look, I love this movie that we're about to talk about. But even in the bad ones like Hook, there are sequences where you're like that are directed like musical number where you're like, holy shit.

[00:14:17] And the thing in Hook, there's the thing where they lead his hook up on a pillow and they're all going like hook, hook, hook. And like then he comes out and you're just like, this is mesmerizing. This is so well choreographed.

[00:14:29] The camera is exactly where it should be. Blah, blah, blah. The fucking opening of Temple of Dune where they do anything. The numbers is incredible. Right. So I feel like real, real heads have been waiting for Spielberg to make a musical forever.

[00:14:43] And he has always sort of said, look, I want to make one. I've waited to find the right thing. What's the right thing? And by his account, he just kind of kept on going back to West Side Story because I think

[00:14:52] it was a formative movie for him and a movie he shared with his father. Going back to the daddy issues, I think it left a really big imprint on him because it was like his dad's favorite movie and he had memories of seeing it with his father and

[00:15:05] his father caring about him, whatever. And then at some point, like maybe six or seven years ago, Fox buys the remake rights to West Side Story specifically for Spielberg. And I feel like everyone was like, why? Why? Why would Spielberg do this?

[00:15:24] I understand he wants to make a musical, but that feels like an odd choice. Is this really going to happen? He hires Tony Kushner to adapt it. People are like, that's interesting.

[00:15:32] And then as I remember, there was the thing he got pretty close to making was that Pope movie with Mark Rylance and Oscar Isaac. Yes, that is a movie that he and Tony and Tony Kushner had been working on basically

[00:15:48] since Lincoln, the Kush, the dankest screenwriter in Hollywood that was about this. It's about this sort of anti-Semitic incident that happened, right? Like it's this very interesting true story. It makes sense that they would be drawn to it. And I can't remember.

[00:16:08] Is it because they couldn't find the right kid? Exactly. That's exactly what it is. It's called kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara is what it's called. Right. But so here and I have this from A.O. Scott's profile of Kushner, which was recently the New York Times.

[00:16:22] Spielberg threw West Side Story to Kushner in 2014. Like when they were cracking this Vatican thing, you know, and it wasn't working out. He was like, what have you ever thought about like West Side Story? And Kushner Kushner apparently said he went home.

[00:16:39] He talked to Mark Harris, his husband, and was like, he's lost his mind. Like this is insane. He wants to do West Side Story. Not only does he want to remake a musical, which people just don't do because there

[00:16:51] just aren't that many musical movie musicals any made anymore. So remaking one. But like he wants to remake a best picture winning musical that has a very sort of ingrained like, you know, like every it's a very well known film, obviously. But you're right.

[00:17:08] 2014 is when Fox gets the right specifically because Spielberg has sort of mentioned that he was thinking about it. He throws it out to Kushner. It feels like one of these things in the rotation that it's like he's never actually gonna make that.

[00:17:22] They're trying to make the Pope movie. They can't find the kid. And then Indiana Jones five is announced. Right? And was he initially announced his making it or was that absolutely the thing that was supposed to happen, which is wild is Kushner developed a script.

[00:17:37] He was happy with it. He announced we're gonna make West Side Story. But you believe that as far as you can, because the Pope movie was announced and it didn't come about. There was Robo apocalypse and other things that he's gone as far as casting but never

[00:17:50] come to fruition. Right. So his thing was we want to cast age appropriate and, you know, a big angle of this movie, racially appropriate. We have to actually cast Latino actors for all of the sharks. So we're gonna have to do a really expansive casting search.

[00:18:09] So the thing he sort of announced was like, we're starting casting now. Then I'm gonna go film Indiana Jones five. And I think by the time Indiana Jones five is done, we will have located everyone for the whole cast. Right.

[00:18:23] So they start casting this very wide net for the movie, taking submissions from anyone and everyone trying to find all the kids. And then he's like, never mind, I'm not making Indiana Jones. I'm making West Side Story right now.

[00:18:36] Like it suddenly happened in this very Spielberg way incredibly quickly. Yes. And like he hasn't made a movie since Ready Player One. Right? Correct. He made the post after Ready Player One, but it came out before and that.

[00:18:50] And so it was just as you say, rather than him doing the kind of thing of, all right, I'll sneak X in while Y is preparing. He just he just yeah, he just jumped this. He just left the front of the line. Yeah. I don't know why.

[00:19:05] It was crazy. I mean, and you say like he hasn't made a movie since Ready Player One, but it's also long. Right. Yeah. Well, it's it's also like this movie was shot two years ago.

[00:19:13] It was this movie like it would have been a two year gap between movies. Now it's a three year gap because of the novel coronavirus. Right. And he's already shot, of course, his newest film, which will come out in 2022 called The Fableman's,

[00:19:28] which is literally his daddy issues movie where he's finally making the movie about his father. And his father just recently died. This movie is dedicated to him. His father died at the age of one hundred and three. Yeah. The man lived a life. Yeah.

[00:19:45] And he has this very did you watch the HBO Spielberg documentary, Griff? Yep. You know, he's got this very interesting relationship with his dad where they clearly kind of like came around to each other as adults and had a whole new sort of understanding of each

[00:19:59] other much late, right? Like sort of weird stuff in the divorce and all that. Yeah. Well, just to say quickly, the thing on HBO, the revelation in that documentary that I never understood before, which is like obviously the whole Spielberg thing is like abandoned by father,

[00:20:14] trauma of divorce that that's sort of the shadow that seems to loom over all the movies. That sort of Spielberg origin story. Right. Right. He thought his dad left his mom in a lurch. Right.

[00:20:24] What he later found out as an adult is that his mother fell in love with his father's best friend and he did not want the children to demonize her for breaking up the marriage. Yeah. He like took the bullet and was like, I don't know.

[00:20:40] I can't handle this. I'm leaving and let them think of him as the asshole so that she could retain like, I don't know, security. Absolutely. Especially because back in the day, it would be more unusual for a dad to get custody,

[00:20:57] you know, like, you know, like that's part of it. I mean, my it's yeah, it's a crazy story. And she was like, I want you to love your mother. And I this is my friend and I think he can be a good stepfather.

[00:21:07] I'll just let this be a functional family unit and let you villainize me, which is fascinating. It's fascinating. And also in the documentary, you see them together, him and Spielberg's mother, and they clearly have this very nice relationship.

[00:21:21] They like figured it all out later in life or whatever. It's wild. His mother also she died at like the age of 97. They're a long lived family. But he recently died. And it's just wild that Spielberg announced like, I'm going to make a film called the Blealbergs.

[00:21:36] It's about a Jewish family growing up in Arizona. And Seth Rogen is going to be in it. I'm like, uh, is this something you've been waiting to get out? Right. And I think Michelle Williams is his mom and Paul Dano is his dad. Paul Dano is his uncle.

[00:21:51] And sorry, Paul Dano is his dad and Rogan's uncle. Right. I assume Rogan is the sort of the lovable uncle. I don't I don't totally know. I think but I think you'd want to cast Rogan as a lovable guy.

[00:22:04] I mean, the other fascinating thing is he co-wrote this movie Fablemans with Pushner, which is the third time in his career he's written his own film. I believe Close Encounters in AI are the only other script credits he has. Right? Right. Yeah, I think so.

[00:22:19] I can't that's and that's a fact in my head. I'm not not can't totally confirm. It's so wild. I mean, I don't know about you, Griffin, but I'm pretty excited for that movie. I'm very excited for that movie.

[00:22:29] Now, the movie we're talking about today is West Side Story, a film that he improbably made. Sure. And that, I think, has I think once again, real heads have just been so excited. The prospect of Spielberg fucking musical numbers. This thing is going to be out of control.

[00:22:45] This is going to be a masterclass in blocking and camera movement and all of these things that he has always excelled at that are the cornerstone of the movie musical, which many, including myself, would argue is like when executed properly, the ultimate use of the form. Right.

[00:23:02] A hundred percent. Agreed. A hundred percent. Yep. Like a good movie musical is taking greatest advantage of everything that film can do in a lot of ways, or at least narrative film can do, let's say. Which is why it's so frustrating to watch movie musicals, especially recently, that

[00:23:20] like that kneecap themselves that cut into the action. Right. That are way too close. You're not seeing full bodies. You're not seeing ensembles and sharing the same frame. Yeah. I mean, this isn't a musical, but I was just thinking about this with Saturday Night Fever.

[00:23:36] I was listening to the rewatchables about it and we're apparently like Travolta did so much work learning to dance properly, you know, learning all these numbers. And then like he's looking at the dailies from the first sequence where the guy is

[00:23:48] cutting into his feet and cutting into right. And he's like, if you do this, I literally am quitting tomorrow. I will not show up. You must film me in whole. You must. I like I must be seen dancing. Yeah. Why would you do this?

[00:24:00] Like, and I do think a lot of directors are like, well, I want to emphasize their feet in this moment. I want to cut into like this person's face. And it's like you need to back off sometimes you need to anyway.

[00:24:11] Spielberg always felt like a person who would understand how to do that. Ironically, West Side Story is credited as being like the first musical to use editing expressionistically where the editing is sort of part of the dance of the movie.

[00:24:26] But you're still mostly dealing with big, wide, full body shots, groups of people. The cuts are just sort of on rhythm. It would be boring if you just had a stationary camera on a stick because then it's like, well, I'm just in a Broadway theater now.

[00:24:39] Like, obviously, you should do things. I was going to say West Side Story sort of creates that more or less. And then Fosse some decades later kind of like heightens that to a new degree where the editing is really part of the dance.

[00:24:54] And then I think the trickle down of Fosse has fucked a lot of movie musicals. I don't want to lay all the blame on him, but like many phenomenons, it's like someone doing something really radical really well gets misinterpreted by the wrong people and then

[00:25:07] gets diluted, diluted, diluted to the point where you just like watch all these musicals. I mean, I feel like there have been musicals in the last 10 years that you and I have liked to varying degrees.

[00:25:18] And even when we like one, we usually say like it's relatively good at not cutting too much. Right? Like you want to give it like faint praise. I mean, Baz Luhrmann, I love the man, but I do think, you know, Moulin Rouge is like

[00:25:33] edited within an inch of its life and it makes sense in Moulin Rouge because it's this sort of like heady MTV like mania thing. But again, right. People learn the wrong lessons from that. Cabaret Moulin Rouge, three great films that have fucked up things for everyone over the

[00:25:51] last 60 years. But I mean, that's look, it's a classic story of Hollywood, obviously, is the stuff that's influential is often good. But then I mean, Rob Marshall to me is, you know, a man who I'm sure is perfectly nice, who I consider like a grand enemy of cinema.

[00:26:07] Yeah. I mean, it's one of these things where you and I talk about every time he gets announced for some new hundred fifty million dollar Disney movie. We're like, this guy must be so nice.

[00:26:17] Must be the loveliest and he must run a good set, you know, and like he has directed four musicals, four movie musicals, Chicago, Nine, Into the Woods and Mary Poppins Returns. Yes. Three of them are terrific shows.

[00:26:33] One of them is Mary Poppins Returns, which is not a show but is is what it is. I think that those movies descend in quality. Who the fuck does that happen to? I know it's insane.

[00:26:45] I think Chicago has flaws, but I kind of like how he staged it. And then I think he learns all the wrong lessons from it. And then Nine is like pretty bad. But yeah, you know, kind of like they go ahead. Well, no, I didn't.

[00:26:58] Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. I just I had to come in and just say that we're forgetting a really important recent musical that I think needs to be mentioned, which is Cats. Ben, we will get to this.

[00:27:11] We're going to get to Cats and Les Mis. We'll get to that. Because for me, to me, that was like a transcendent experience. Cats. I love seeing it in the theaters.

[00:27:22] And it's really I feel like it's I feel like it should be included in the films you're mentioning. Ben, Ben, Ben, we're getting to it. Not necessarily ruining but having a big influence. Okay. We're getting to Cats. Cats is its own thing.

[00:27:33] Chronologically, Cats is important as like the last pre pandemic musical. Yeah, it's I would call it the last pre pandemic thing in a way. Kind of to really break through in any way. Like obviously it was unsuccessful, but the way it sort of like

[00:27:50] took hold of the culture in a moment, it was gaining steam already as a cult object, as a thing people would get drunk and watch. You got to get experiential experience. You have to go see Cats with people.

[00:28:02] You have to find the right level of inebriation and go to a place and experience it with friends and strangers. The frickin, you know, Alamo draft house was basically like that's that's 80 grand a month for us for the rest of our fucking life.

[00:28:16] People coming to see rowdy Cats screening. Yeah. And and then there was the novel coronavirus. But no, just to just as a quick anecdote. I went to see a rowdy Cats screening at Alamo like beginning of February, end of January, like right before everything went to shit.

[00:28:32] And friend of the podcast, Larry Owens was there. And I was like, Larry, are you introducing my rowdy Cats screening? And he was like, no, I'm introducing the other rowdy Cats screening. But my friends introducing your rowdy Cats screening. And this screening starts 10 minutes before.

[00:28:45] So I'm going to try to run in and catch her intro. They had like multiple screens doing rowdy Cats at the same time every weekend. Like rowdy Cats was ready to become fucking rocky horror, at least for a year or two.

[00:28:56] And then the theatrical movie going experience is fucking as you would say, David kneecap. Well, you know what? Maybe that is maybe that is the thing that will finally, you know, one day bring it back. Not not not, you know, we trust in vaccines. We love scientific breakthroughs.

[00:29:14] But then there'll be that one day where I almost like we're bringing back rowdy Cats screenings and it sells out in one minute. And we're like, oh shit. So roll this back for a moment, right?

[00:29:25] Nine when it came out, I was like, how could the guy who made Chicago fuck up this badly? And then I would argue as well into the woods and Mary Poppins are worse than nine in a certain way.

[00:29:35] They're all similar levels of bad into the woods, maybe has into the woods is such a good show. That's the thing that gets more watchable. And the performances are very good in it. But the filmmaking is horrendous. The filmmaking is pretty bad.

[00:29:49] And also beyond like his fucking editing of this stuff, like, you know, the sets are a little lame. I don't know. It's just like kind of lame. I've only seen it once. Mary Poppins Returns is a movie some people stick up for.

[00:30:02] Yeah, I don't really get it either. There are things in it where I'm like, okay, I get that you like that. But I do think the musical numbers are out now bad, especially the big ones like, you know, group ones.

[00:30:16] And I like, I don't know, man, I put that on like some Christmas. It was on frickin whatever, Disney, whatever, you know, being like, okay, maybe and like 10 minutes in, I was like, get this. I'm bored. I'm bummed out. Like, yes, I don't want to this.

[00:30:31] It's a bummer. I find it lame ass shit. Very annoying. And I'm so in the tank for Mary Poppins. It is a thing that like good lady. She's a good lady. And she's a pretty good babysitter as well. When you consider what she had to work with.

[00:30:45] I agree with that. I think she's an underrated babysitter, actually. Anyway, Rob Marshall is now making The Little Mermaid. He his reign of terror will never be ended. He's doing another one. Yep. Now what's Hamilton obviously explodes and I think reinvigorates a sort of cultural love

[00:31:02] for the movie musical, especially with a younger generation, right? I think musicals have sort of like caught hold again a little bit. Greatest Showman makes a metric assload of money has continued to be this sort of evergreen record sales thing. And then they'd fucking do the album.

[00:31:22] That's like Greatest Showman reimagined where they cover all the songs with pop stars and like the Kelly Clarkson never enough or wherever is like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Always forget about that. That's what I'm saying. Can't let him sneak by. No.

[00:31:36] And that's like everyone was like, why are they letting Jackman do this? Is this his blank check for like finishing up Wolverine? Right. The story was that the production was like a fucking mess. They had to shut down four times. He got cancer in the middle of it.

[00:31:50] They brought on different people to try to rewrite and redirect the movie and reedit the movie. It comes out. It bombs opening weekend. And everyone's just like, this is like as we thought, right? You know, it gets pretty bad reviews. It opens, you know, 10 million dollars.

[00:32:04] And everyone's like, uh-huh. Yeah, of course. He did a PT Barnum musical. Who gives a shit about that? And then the next weekend it goes up 15% and people are like, huh, that's weird.

[00:32:15] And the greatest showman had a run that sort of we haven't seen the likes of since like Big Fat Greek Wedding or Titanic, where it just stayed stable every single week for like four months. It had. Yeah, it did.

[00:32:29] Look, I think the greatest showman is a good time. And I think the songs are pretty bad. And I think the presentation of PT Barnum's life is maybe a little varnished in that movie. I don't know. I think it might be sanding off some of his rough edges.

[00:32:49] No, the animals loved being there in a way that movie feels like like Seven Brides or for Seven Brothers or something where you're like, this thing is like objectionable, but I can't deny it's got my toes tapping.

[00:33:01] You know, you're like, these aren't legendary numbers, but it fucking works. And why did they make a musical with this subject matter? But I don't know. I have a grin on my face. So I think that that supercharges everything again. Right? Well, yeah. Yeah.

[00:33:15] Mamma Mia, obviously, that's a mommy. It does well. The second Mamma Mia fucking rips. Les Mis did well. I think what the only musicals to get Best Picture nominations in the last whatever it's been 15 years are or 20 years are Chicago and Les Mis.

[00:33:36] I think none of the other ones have connected Oscar wise. Maybe I'm forgetting one. Obviously, Moulin Rouge got one. That's that's at this point more than 20 years ago. That's 20 years. So that was pre Chicago.

[00:33:46] I was saying just Chicago winning Best Picture made everyone think like, does this go back to being like Oscar bait? Les Mis might be it. Yeah. I mean, the other big look, I'm looking at a sort of.

[00:33:59] I mean, you can list all the belly flops of like producers. Rock of Ages. But, you know, Hairspray was a hairspray rips. Great, great movie, in my opinion. Right? Yes. No, I. I dislike the Travolta performance immensely. It makes me uncomfortable.

[00:34:14] I think everything else in that movie is great. I think everything else in that movie is great. And I say this from a very unbiased opinion. I think Les Mis is a really bad movie. Agreed. But it does.

[00:34:29] The show is good enough that you're sort of with it. It's the fucking same thing as Into the Woods. And you're like, there's some really good performances in this. It kind of carries. But I think in both cases, the directors are. Oh, well, La La Land. Griffin was.

[00:34:44] Oh, of course. Of course. Motherfucker. Yes. But that's another one. Not only for Best Picture, almost. Yeah. Makes a ton of money. So it's just like. Huge hit. Right. There was the wave post Chicago where no other musicals were connecting.

[00:34:59] And then the last five years there's been an influx. There's been a rise again. And I think Greatest Showman above all else was just like, fuck, it's open season. All of this to say in this 2021 year of our Lord, we've had Dear Evan Hansen,

[00:35:17] In the Heights and West Side Story. You're forgetting two other great musicals. Live action? Live action. The other two great musicals that came out this year. Actually three if you include Tick Tick Boom, which I guess you should. Oh, sure. Okay. Tick Tick Boom on Netflix. Yeah.

[00:35:34] But yeah, it's on Netflix. But you're forgetting Annette. Of course. Sorry. And you're forgetting a little movie called Girl Boss Cinderella, my friend. That's right. She's a girl boss now. She's going to have her own business making dresses. I think is the plot of that favorite movie of 2021.

[00:35:52] Not a good movie. No, no. But a movie with many musical numbers. Obviously it's mostly a jukebox musical with a couple original songs is kind of how they did it. But yes, what you're trying to say, Griffin, is that all of these movies have underwhelmed

[00:36:07] at the box office, not with critics by and large, although Cinderella underwhelmed with critics. But they have not connected with audiences. Now is it maybe a little unfair that, you know, the year of the movie musical was the year of the novel coronavirus? Perhaps. Yes, probably. Yes.

[00:36:23] Good to see those movies with a lot of people. Yeah. And I do think a thing you worded it very, very well on Twitter of all places recently. I love to word things well on Twitter. Better than wording things badly.

[00:36:40] But it really is like, you know, the movies that are doing well, almost exclusively are franchise movies that primarily play to boys 17 to 32 or whatever. Young people who feel invincible. Probably one of the best age groups. Wouldn't you say? Good age. Especially when you focus on the whites.

[00:37:02] But I think I think above all else, also the other factor here we have to say is like movies where people are afraid of being spoiled online if they don't see them right away.

[00:37:14] I do think that's a huge thing driving movie going is the kinds of movies where, A, we've been conditioned to believe that these are the movies that you need to see on a big screen.

[00:37:24] Other movies can be watched at home, but you need to see Black Widow on a big screen with surround sound and all the accoutrements. But B, you don't want to have to fucking mute words on Twitter and log out of Facebook for a week. No, no, for sure.

[00:37:39] Yeah. And obviously younger people are more plugged into social media anyway, so they're also more afraid of social media for that reason. And but you're right. But yeah, no, I mean, yeah, carry it. Finish your point.

[00:37:50] No, but like something in the Heights was expected to be a huge crossover hit. And then it just sort of belly flops and people can't figure it out. But as time has gone, it's clear that it's just like most movies aren't getting people back to the theater.

[00:38:05] And the musical in particular is a film that's supposed to be experienced with like a fucking cheering crowd. Yeah. And also these movies are made for families and yeah, just older people are not back in droves.

[00:38:16] I've had conversations with older people in my life, not my mother who loves to go to the movies, but a lot of other older people in my life were like, oh, well, I can just wait to see, you know,

[00:38:25] who have been fairly satisfied to just wait for it to be on TV anyway, because what do they care? Right. You know, like there is the vibe I get and I'll be like, oh, you know, it's good to go to the movies. Come on, you know, right.

[00:38:38] And they're like, look, and the thing that you and I text about, I cannot cast any aspersions on anyone who does not feel safe going to the theater because we all have fucking different limits right now in the world makes no sense.

[00:38:50] Well, and also you live in different places, you know, absolutely. It's one thing to go to the movie theater in New York and another thing to go somewhere else. Yeah, absolutely. But I also do think it's interesting the people who like only think it's worth going for these

[00:39:03] three very narrow movies, like the people who only went to the theaters to see the three Marvel movies this year or whatever the fuck, you know, and everything else they can sort of wait for.

[00:39:14] And look, I once again, do not bemoan anyone who just feels more safe waiting to watch in the comfort of their home. The thing that you and I text about late nights is just like, how is this going to affect the

[00:39:27] pipeline of what gets made and how quickly and to what severity? Because the fact of the matter is the only movies that are actually getting people to theaters in numbers are the humongous mega tentpole blockbusters.

[00:39:42] And even so, those movies are not making enough money to justify the insane amounts of money they cost to make and market. They're making as like Black Widow is making as much as West Side Story should have made.

[00:39:56] And and Black Widow should be making twice or three times that amount in terms of the business model. I don't fucking know. The point is, this movie comes out and open to 10 million dollars, pretty much the same

[00:40:07] number that In the Heights open to better than Dear Evan Hansen. It is this bizarre fact to go full circle to what you were pointing out, Ben, that Cats was seen as a giant bomb, despite becoming obviously a beloved sort of cultural reclaimed object almost immediately.

[00:40:24] And what I texted you the other day was, and we will see this is coming out this episode in Weekend Two of West Side Story. People are kind of holding their breath and going, is there any chance it does a great a showman? Does it just not dip?

[00:40:35] Does it stay steady throughout the holidays? Do families finally go out to see it? I don't know. But there's a good chance that the three studio movie musicals that were released theatrically in 2021 will all undergross Cats. Yeah, I mean, again, there is a pandemic.

[00:40:51] Well, I'm not judging them. That's part of the soup. That is part of the soup of what I'm saying. I'm not condemning their box office performance outside of the pandemic. Also, Cats is at the Winter Garden Theater, as we all remember from the ad.

[00:41:08] You know, one of the most successful musicals ever made. Yeah. People just kind of had their knives out for In the Heights, and I feel bad for In the Heights because it's a good movie. And everyone was mad at Lin-Manuel Miranda. I don't even know.

[00:41:20] I can't even remember why. Whatever. Everyone was just sort of like sick of him. That movie is pretty good. I wish it had made more money because everyone kind of tags it with like, yeah. And look, I like John Chu.

[00:41:33] I do think this movie kind of puts him to shame on that front where it's like, John Chu, I'm like, did a good job. And this does a much better job with just with the aesthetics of filming big musical sequences.

[00:41:43] But I still think In the Heights is pretty good. Look, we're 45 minutes into the episode. We should start digging into the meat of the movie. But all this context, I think, is important.

[00:41:50] I just want to say that with In the Heights, I think there was that feeling of this is going to be the thing that gets people back into the theaters based on just the joy of movie going, right?

[00:42:02] Not it's a franchise where people have been waiting for the next installment. But like, man, how great is it going to be to see In the Heights with a crowd and a big screen?

[00:42:09] I think a lot of the fucking film Twitter in the film community and critics and everyone were sort of writing their reviews and their takes based on that idea of like, because especially critic screenings were happening and had been happening since before the pandemic

[00:42:21] when the movie was originally supposed to come out. And people were like, this thing just plays magically with a crowd. And then it comes out and it just sort of belly flopped.

[00:42:27] And then I think there was the feeling of like, is West Side Story going to be able to succeed where In the Heights didn't? David, you went to a critic screening. I feel like all the responses I read from the first wave of people seeing it at critic

[00:42:40] screenings, at premieres, at what have you, were like, levitational. Like people I think were just so relieved that this movie was good, that Spielberg was in good form, that they felt like it kind of argued its own existence, that you have a couple lightning in a bottle performances.

[00:42:54] And people are like, this thing's just kind of fucking magical. And then people don't really go. We live in New York City, where I imagine the movie is doing better than any other city in America.

[00:43:07] Like I was just looking at Fandango with Ben and most screenings in New York were sold out opening weekend. And I saw people posting online like, I live in Chicago, here's my Fandango and it would

[00:43:19] be like two seats sold out for evening performance at the Best Theater in the center of town. We went to see it at IMAX on Sunday afternoon, 2.30 opening weekend. I would say it was 98 percent sold out.

[00:43:32] Like there were some empty seats in the first two rows, but the rest of the theater was packed. It's the biggest Lincoln Square. And I would say our audience was respectful. Well, I don't I don't fucking care about your fucking audience.

[00:43:45] It sounds like they're a bunch of nerds. I'm just telling you, like, I think it was respectful. It did not feel like there was a ton of energy going on there. I would say the only moment is when when they're the movies in Lincoln Square that you kind

[00:44:00] of got like some kind of audible response from the audience because it's in the place they are. Correct. You would hear people like try to start a clap that wouldn't really take. Yeah. And then there was applause at the end of the movie.

[00:44:16] But I like I don't know. I'm just I'm I'm curious. This is the thing I want to throw out to you, David. I do feel like you had a baby. There's still a pandemic. You're like exclusively going to see movies on the job, right?

[00:44:34] Like you you have not paid to go see a movie at a theater with the general audience in the last year. No, I have. But rarely, very couple of times. Rarely. Not that often. Rarely.

[00:44:46] And I think most critics I know are in similar positions where it's just like, well, I want to make these things count. I want to be strategic. I'll go to the screenings and whatever. I think critics screenings have hotter audiences now than like any public showing.

[00:45:02] I'm not saying that movies are getting great. I mean, let me talk because you're talking about my screening and my screening had like 10 people in it. There was no energy whatsoever. OK, because I did not go to the premiere.

[00:45:13] What you're talking about is the film premiered at Jazz at Lincoln Center the night before I saw it. And I'm sure that was a hot fucking screening because that had everyone in the house. Everyone's all jazzed up for the yada, yada, yada.

[00:45:27] I did not want to go that night. I can't remember why I was. Oh yeah, I just I couldn't go that night. So I went the next morning to the sort of backup screening for Critic Circle members.

[00:45:40] No one was it was me, Jordan Hoppen, Richard Lawson, 10 other people. It was silent. There was one old guy laughing at some stuff and I appreciated that guy. Whoever he was, shout out to him. I couldn't quite figure make out who it was.

[00:45:54] But no, there was no energy in my I was not like this is not like a Sundance fever situation where like I walk out of there. I sat there. The movie started. I like just immediately I was like, oh, he's he did it. I can't believe it.

[00:46:08] And I was so happy the whole movie. I have seen it twice since on my fucking television. I burst into tears twice watching it on TV. Having. Wow. Yes, at two specific shots at literally shot making. Can you tell us the person? Absolutely.

[00:46:24] I can tell you the shot. Is it when the chains and they throw all the weapons together? Is that the no, but that rules you out? That rules that rules. No, that's what I started.

[00:46:33] Balling in the gym when he's when they scream Mambo and the camera cranes out like really fast and suddenly everyone disperses into their groups, into like, you know, into the full dance. I just like I just it's electrified. It is electrified.

[00:46:51] And the second is during America, which is a great number, obviously. Yes. Where they sort of close to the end of the number where they do it move where they are hopping.

[00:47:02] The boys and girls are hopping on the curb and like sort of jumping back and forth and clapping like they're, you know, it's sort of like I was just like this is I can't believe how good this is.

[00:47:13] Like, I especially since I love the original West Side Story movie, I've seen it like a billion times. It's sort of like a on rotation type movie. My whole childhood, my mom loves West Side Story, blah, blah, blah. You know, and so I love that movie.

[00:47:26] I got I got plenty of love in my heart for OG WSS. And I still just like I can't. Oh, it's so good. Like, that's like that's my reaction. The sort of shivery delight at seeing I mean, there's so many other sequences I love, too.

[00:47:43] I'm just saying those are the two that made me cry with happiness. I was happy at other stuff. OK, if I if I can respond, I'm not accusing you of having a souped up reaction, grading it on a curve.

[00:47:55] I just I feel like what I'm trying to point out is. I think there's an incredibly great disconnect now because of how few people are going to theaters and like critics and people who are attending film festivals are obviously the most passionate people about this.

[00:48:13] And so you're seeing things with crowds that are like so happy. I'm not talking about you. I'm not talking about specific movie. I'm just talking about more of a general thing right now where I feel like the people at these screenings, I'm jealous. I'm jealous.

[00:48:28] I'm jealous mostly that I don't get to fucking go to them. OK, here we go. Jealousy rears its green eyes. But I mean, I've heard from lots of people who love this movie or like, you know, it's not just critics. One of my friends went to see it.

[00:48:42] They flipped out about it. You know, it's not just that. And it's not just about this movie. It's just that like I miss that fucking energy at a theater. I feel like the only time I felt it maybe this entire year was the stupid fucking end

[00:48:57] credits thing at the end of Venom, which depressed me. That's the one thing that I mean, a rise out of people. I right. I certainly watched a theater go ballistic at that. And I was sort of like, yeah, I remember.

[00:49:10] Look, I'll say I just saw Spider-Man colon no way home. Probably going to blow the fucking doors off of every theater in America, which. Right. I saw it with a press crowd that was enthusiastic, but I would say maybe not rocking.

[00:49:24] And I was like, I can imagine this with a sort of midnight fan crowd really freaking out. That might be fun. But there's a moment in that movie that made me cry and like maybe cry in the way or else

[00:49:36] kind of like, I can't believe that got me like, you know, you know, so it was a little annoyed rose like that was that's really pandering to me. But I was also like, oh, you know, it worked.

[00:49:46] Is it when J. Jonah Jameson says, get me pictures of Spider-Man? I cannot wait to tell you what moment it is. I bet I'm not sure you'll be able to guess Griff, but I bet you might. It's not it's not like some tiny moment.

[00:49:57] It's a big moment, you know, but it's sort of a meta moment, I guess. I can imagine, you know, it's part of the metaverse is. Yeah, well, Mark Zuckerberg shows up and he just really convincingly pitches a whatever it is.

[00:50:15] I don't even know what it is, whatever it is he's doing now taking over our brains. I just I miss movies other than Marvel movies being able to get that kind of energy from a crowd and even if they weren't humongous blockbusters, I feel like spoiled New York

[00:50:33] good film culture used to be able to get that sort of thing. And I don't blame it on anything or anyone. I once again understand why people want to stay home, but it's a fucking bummer.

[00:50:46] All of this to say, I was very primed to just fucking love this movie. Ben and I saw we were both very hung over and dealing with a covid scare. So that perhaps affected our headspace. May well have sure. May well have.

[00:51:01] But I was like, this audience is going to get me fucking amped up. I think this movie is very good. I did not get the levitational thing I was hoping for. This is the thing you're just mad you didn't get the, you know. Well, correct.

[00:51:16] And I don't know if I have any complaints about it, although I will say there was the one question bringing through my head the entire time that I know is going to make you really angry, which is probably why I've spent 50 minutes winding up to this question.

[00:51:27] What's the question? I still don't totally understand why he wanted to make West Side Story specifically. Versus what? Because it seems to him that it's just like it's just one of those things that he's had in his head his entire life.

[00:51:41] I think it's the closest he has to an answer. I think he wouldn't have made anything else as well. I guess I get that. That makes sense. You know, it's like he's been kind of as a kid imagining a West Side Story movie or what?

[00:51:56] You know, because that was like the musical for him when he was a kid. So that's just that's the one he gets to do. This is what I guess sort of interesting for me that I sort of kept on wrestling with. This movie felt to me.

[00:52:12] The thing you've reminded me of the most, weirdly, and as much as I love the movie, I'm about to say I will objectively admit that this is more successful. But it reminded me a lot of Peter Jackson's King Kong, where it's like not a reinterpretation at all.

[00:52:30] It is a filmmaker making a sort of like tribute and unpacking of a movie that has rung in their head for decades. Right? Because it's like it's not like this whole time I've been wondering, and obviously when the first trailer came out, it sort of dispelled this.

[00:52:46] But it's like, is he going to reinterpret this in some way? Does he have some big angle on this? And it's like, no, he's very much not just readapting West Side Story. He's not making a new version of the stage musical West Side Story.

[00:53:00] He's making a movie about the Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise West Side Story. Not about the meta way, but I think this movie is an unpacking of that film in the same way that like Peter Jackson's King Kong is about the Cooper King Kong and not a

[00:53:17] reinterpretation like the Dino De Laurentiis movie. There are things he does differently here, obviously, but I feel like this movie is so indebted to the other time West Side Story has been done on film.

[00:53:29] Of course it is, but a lot of the changes this movie makes are restoring it to the original Broadway production. So it's a little bit the thing about remaking West Side Story. There's a lot of people, why would you remake West Side Story?

[00:53:40] But yes, obviously it is one of as much as iconic as it is. It is the movie musical most demanding. I love West Side Story. I put it on probably a month ago, just sort of, I think after Sondheim died.

[00:53:54] I've been rewatching it the last couple of nights. Yeah. In prep, I have it in very high definition. I love the movie. I love so much about it. I think the opening 15 minutes or like, you know, in conversation for like best opening of a movie ever.

[00:54:07] I think it looks so good. It is distracting to watch it in high definition. The brown face. It's insane. Yes, yes, that is true. It's really upset. It's 4K on iTunes. They haven't released it in 4K on physical media, but I've been watching the 4K as well.

[00:54:20] Yes, it is. You can just see that they're wearing really, really thick makeup and you're just like Jesus, obviously you always knew Natalie Wood is not Puerto Rico, but like you're just like, whoa, boy, this is different than like watching it on VHS.

[00:54:33] That is obviously number one reason to remake the movie or rather to do a new West Side Story movie. Do a new West Side Story. Exactly. There's as hallowed a classic as it is. But that's almost the distinction for me is like remaking West Side Story versus doing

[00:54:52] a new West Side Story film. The other thing is you've had two productions in the last 10 years that sort of reinterpreted the material and a lot of that was an attempt to add. Sure, but the main driving thrust of both those productions was can we add more cultural

[00:55:09] authenticity to the depiction of Puerto Rican people? So the 2009 one, which was better, that had Lin-Manuel Miranda's involvement and they tried to add some Spanish lyrics and it just wasn't, it just, it was one of those kind of noble effort things that just did not totally gel.

[00:55:29] And then the Ivo Van Hove version is very aggressive in its changes. It removes the fun songs because this is serious, folks. And it turns the, it has Anita get raped. It has like police brutality playing out on a big projector like while officer Krupke is

[00:55:50] it does a lot of stuff where you're like, very interesting, entirely unsuccessful as a piece of entertainment. Like, you know, you've lost the thread. Yeah, I saw that show as well.

[00:56:01] And I would say like even just another element, David, is the they had a lot of like handheld camera work on stage that was then being projected. Being shown on the projector. Right? Yeah.

[00:56:14] And it was so distracting, you know, but like and then even stylistically, it just wasn't successful. It took you out of it more than anything else. No, I mean, and I think the obvious stupid way to approach making a new West Side Story

[00:56:30] is to do something like that, right? Like I think most filmmakers and Spielberg's credit that he wasn't tempted by this would go like, what if you made it really realistic? What if you set it in a present day or do a total revamp? Right. Yeah.

[00:56:43] Some, some, some very yeah, exactly. Right. To more explicitly comment on the fucking culture and take it out of heightened musical land. But this is a movie that still has a credit for Jerome Robbins for the original choreography in it. Like this is very much a movie.

[00:56:57] No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm sorry. No, this movie has new choreography by Justin Peck. It credits Jerome Robbins, I think to be nice. It says original choreography by Jerome Robbins. Does it does. But the choreography in this movie is not by Jerome Robbins.

[00:57:12] David, I am not implying. I'm not implying that they copied the choreography. I'm just saying this movie is in such direct dialogue with that original film that even if it is just an honorific, they are saying like we have to tip our hat to the choreography

[00:57:26] that we're riffing on. It's tipping the hat. I believe there are a couple of moments where they are in homage nostalgically reflecting his choreography because a lot of the, a lot of people were like, you can't do the West

[00:57:38] Side Story without the Jerome Robbins choreography, but they did. It is fully original choreography, but it is in the same vocabulary. Will you give me that? Well, it's yeah, it's dancing. I'm saying they're doing similar. It's a similar movement.

[00:57:52] I mean, this is I'm not saying this is criticism. It's me trying to like wrestle with this movie in a way which is very much as I said, exploring the film of West Side Story, even though a lot of the textual changes are bringing it

[00:58:05] back to the original stage version. Tony Kushner is a very smart man. I would cry. I'm going to venture one of our best living clever fella dramatic writers, right? He's good writer. Ben's laughing. Ben spends giggling on token. Yeah, no, it wasn't.

[00:58:26] Giggling was Ben was hitting the bong. Give me five minutes. He was sipping some weed as Michael Douglas would say in Wonder Boy. Um, but and I think he has so, you know, he's he's being lobbed the challenge you're talking

[00:58:40] about, which is, you know, find a way to thread this needle to to pay homage to to be still set in the 50s. But you know, but also update, you know, but and he has, by the way, an incredible A.O.

[00:58:54] Scott piece on Tony Kushner, New York Times a couple weeks ago that mostly talks about him wrestling with what he could add to this material and all that. David, go on. He has this brilliant concept to directly address the fact that the land being fought

[00:59:08] over that the turf in West Side Story is is is doomed. It's it's it's set for it's the Upper West Side. It's it's what they you know, the old Lincoln Square area that's going to be bulldozed.

[00:59:20] It slums, you know, they called it San Juan Hill back in the day. It was a big Puerto Rican neighborhood and it's going to be turned into Lincoln Center, the lovely music and movie complex that all New Yorkers enjoy.

[00:59:32] Yada, yada, you know, like it's it's just gentrifying and it's, you know, blah, blah, blah. I think that's such a clever way. I agree. Of kind of, you know, recontextualizing it without, you know, updating the timeline or anything like that.

[00:59:50] Whatever it is, the first 15, 20 minutes of the movie for me were the highlight. I just felt so much fucking power in obviously them riffing on the opening, which, as you said,

[00:59:59] the opening of West Side Story and just sort of like the sound and movement of it is so iconic and they're doing new things with Spielberg at the peak of his powers into that Corey Stahl

[01:00:07] scene. I was like this movie is fucking playing with fire like it's it's incredible. Good. I mean, obviously, the beginning of West Side Story rules. The original one rules to it's so audacious and both to have these tough guys and they're tough.

[01:00:24] You know, they're mean. These are juvenile delinquents. These jets, you know, parade down the street and then start like doing ballet twirls and still somehow feel threatening and aggressive and impressive and masculine, you know, like so good.

[01:00:40] I was going to say as an overall thing, that is the area in which I think this film is most successful in terms of what Spielberg is adding that was not there is I think they

[01:00:50] are dangerous in this movie in a way they are not in the original film. I think in the original film you understand dramatically they are coded as dangerous, but but in all senses, in performance, in direction and framing and all of that, you do actually feel

[01:01:05] the sense of danger. And I think the stakes of violence in this movie in a way they could not get across in the original. And it's an interesting measure of very heightened theatrical style with him finding the right elements to imbue with a certain sense of

[01:01:17] realism. The Jets are a white gang, you know, like it's it's quite a thing to depict in 2021. They're not they're not like an Italian gang or like they're just white. They're like they're

[01:01:29] white kids. That's that's all that's tying them together. And like it's it I think it's wise for Kushner and Spielberg to sort of give you more menace from that, like both from their actions,

[01:01:43] but also just like their attitudes. Like, you know, it doesn't mean they can't sing and dance for us. It just but like I mean, Mike Feist, who plays Riff, it's so I love Russ Tamblyn in the

[01:01:53] original. He rules. He's he's a great dancer. You know, he's he's he's awesome. But but yeah, Mike Feist really there's something nails that kind of wiry manic kind of energy. Like it's

[01:02:05] he's really, really, really cool in the movie. It is it is a mesmerizing performance. I saw him in Dear Evan Hansen years ago on Off-Broadway. Does he play the friend in that? David nodded

[01:02:18] to Bragg. OK, he plays the dead kid. OK. And it was one of those performances. He only has one big number, Sincerely Me, which is a good number. And Dear Evan Hansen, which the first act is

[01:02:28] pretty good, in my opinion. David says as he takes a sip of ice coffee. But but it was he was one of those performers where you're like, that guy kind of was great. Like that's kind of not what I would

[01:02:41] how I would think you'd play that role. Like that was interesting. And he got a Tony nomination and you were like, oh, watch out for that kid. And obviously Spielberg, you know, has a great

[01:02:51] the guy's kind of famous for his casting. He's made some discoveries. He's he's got a really good eye for actors. And this movie really shows that off, I would say. He's he's mostly cast it very

[01:03:01] well. He just he has a fascinating look and he's got an energy that's really slippery and hard to pin down. And as you said, it just feels like he's not playing things how you would think to

[01:03:13] play them, expect them to be played. And the energy kind of is unsettling in a good way. Can I read you a thing I found that I found pretty striking? Yeah. So this was, you know, the last whatever

[01:03:24] years of Roger Ebert's life, he would do the great movies entries. Yes, of course. On his website. Loved him doing that. Right. And he would elevate movies to this is now officially part of the great

[01:03:35] movies pantheon. And he would sort of write a new, less of a review, more of an essay. Right. Sometimes he's reaffirming a classic. Sometimes he'd be going back to something he had

[01:03:45] panned it back in the day and he'd be like, you know what, with retrospect, blah, blah, blah. Right. Which is look, it's one of the things I love the most about Ebert. You know, he always

[01:03:53] said, I have no interest in being consistent and he wouldn't hold himself to the opinions he had years earlier and he would let them grow and evolve and change planes, trains and automobiles and

[01:04:02] Groundhog Day are two movies that he ultimately put in the great movies pantheon that he sort of like shrugged when they first came out. And he'd sort of like admit, like, I watch this with my

[01:04:10] family every fucking year. This thing just works. It has grown for me. It gets better. I share it with people. But this I just want to read this block from his great movies entry on West Side

[01:04:21] Story. Right. Which he writes in 2004. He's obviously not a working film critic at the time he sees the movie. But, you know, it's a film that I think probably left some impression on

[01:04:33] when he was young. He writes. So the dancing is remarkable and several of the songs have proven themselves by the coming standards. And there are moments of startling power and truth. West Side Story remains a landmark of musical history. But if the drama had been as edgy

[01:04:48] as the choreography, if the lead performances had matched Moreno's fierce concentration, if the gangs had been more dangerous and less like bad boy Archie's and Jugheads, if the ending had delivered on the pathos and tragedy of the original,

[01:05:00] there's no telling what might have resulted. Which is interesting. I find that block very interesting because it's sort of acknowledging like no one is disputing the weird power this movie has, not just in sort of how revolutionary it was, but there's just kind of magic captured

[01:05:18] within it. Right. And energy, a concentration of style and ideas, all these sorts of things. Even though there are these obvious problems, the two lead performances don't work. You have horrible brown face. Some of its laugh, like all this sort of shit. Right.

[01:05:31] He's saying, like, this is great. I'm giving it a capital G. Great. But there are these obvious things where you have to ask a hugely flawed movie. Right. If they had been able to make this work, would this be the greatest film ever made?

[01:05:42] And it almost feels like the things he lists are a checklist of the things that Spielberg was trying to do with this movie. Like, if you ask yourself, what is Spielberg adding to this

[01:05:51] soup? It's almost exactly those specific things. I would argue and I imagine this is going to be a somewhat contentious sidebar of our thing. He got one of the two leads right. I think he certainly succeeded in getting the danger into the text. I agree. Yeah.

[01:06:06] I think the ending does have a lot of pathos and tragedy. Definitely. Yeah. Well, what's the thing you thought he missed? I don't I don't know. I don't know. And it's also like, look, I want to see this a second

[01:06:19] time really badly. Because once again, I think this is very good. I have no criticisms of this, maybe aside from Tony, which we'll talk about. But yeah, well, yeah, I mean, I think I think

[01:06:30] Tony is a fair criticism. Although it's kind of it is a classic West Side Story criticism. He is he's the toughest character. That is why I said of a stiff Tony and not Ansel because I have problems

[01:06:42] with Ansel that we'll get to. But I also just feel like Tony himself is perhaps an evergreen problem with any version of this material, as my wife would say about Romeo and Juliet.

[01:06:52] You know, Romeo is not the best character. No, you know, it's just it's just a tough character in any in any version of the show. Sure. It is a reason, though, if Spielberg is going to come

[01:07:05] back around to this material 60 years after it's been done at this iconic level. That's a thing I want him to find a solve for. I don't hold it against him that he didn't.

[01:07:15] Yeah, it's not like I think he phoned that in. It's just that I think that is the one thing. Whatever. We'll talk about Tony. We'll talk about everyone else. I mean, no offense to him. Well, you know what? Some offense to him. Richard Beamer, like stinks

[01:07:30] in West Side Story. The original he's he and he didn't even do the singing either. So like he's he's bringing nothing. He has said, I hated being in it. I hated playing like a bland leading

[01:07:40] man. Yeah. Which is weird because like that's all Hollywood ever asked of him until he was like fucking on Twin Peaks. Interestingly, I saw that he was on set. Rachel Ziegler, who obviously

[01:07:52] plays Maria in this movie, has you know, she's posted lots of like Instagrams from the set. You know, Richard Beamer was on set, you know, palling around and giving him notes. And so I guess his relationship with the movie is not completely sour.

[01:08:05] Sure. But it must have been. I don't know. It's sort of interesting that, you know, he's around, obviously. I assume maybe Russ Tamblyn showed up. He's still around. Yeah. I mean, and Natalie Wood is obviously like grossly miscast in that movie.

[01:08:17] She is. But she's not as bad. She's it's not a great performance. But and obviously she's not singing, but she's all right. She's more miscast. Yeah, but better. She's a better actor. You know, point. And was just such a compelling screen presence.

[01:08:35] Yeah. Yeah. But she's like when you see Natalie Wood in like Splendor in the Grass or Inside Daisy Clover, you know, you're like, oh, shit, like, wow, she's a really good actor. We see him West Side Story like she's OK. You've seen that movie. What's it called?

[01:08:49] Love with a Perfect Stranger. Never seen Love with the Perfect. Love with the Proper Stranger. Oh, thank you. The Steve McQueen movie. Correct. That's that's a fascinating movie that she's very, very good. That's like gritty, right? Like for the early 60s, like, yeah,

[01:09:03] that's an abortion or something. It's all about an abortion. The title of the movie is Love with the Proper Stranger. I always get the title wrong because the actual title is so fucking strange. Yes, it's it's like a weird relationship

[01:09:20] dramedy centered around a an abortion from a one night stand that is oddly light. And Steve McQueen playing comedy and Natalie Wood got an Oscar nomination for it. It's very good. Anyway, Natalie Wood was a very good actor. I think, as I said, first 20 minutes this movie

[01:09:38] is cooking with gas for me. Right. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Oh, man. The crane shots, the sets, the way that he's showing the landscape, it's dusty as hell. It fucking rules. You like you like a sort of bulldoze slum, Ben, right? Yes. Like empty buildings.

[01:09:59] You could dance around in bricks. You can throw 100 percent. That is what the original is missing. It's missing dust. That's what makes it fucking gritty. They're dirty as hell. They have scabs on their arms. David, the original is very bright and beautiful and colorful.

[01:10:18] Not that this movie lacks color, but, you know, it's very abstract almost. Yes. Yes. Opening really good. The movie kind of drops for me a bit. The second Ansel is introduced and then picks up again when Zegler is introduced.

[01:10:37] I mean, she's right. And we can unpack this more now. But I do think. It's a weird fucking thing. And it's just these like ephemeral things that are hard to quantify

[01:10:49] that have nothing to do with crap and have to do with luck and timing and all of that as as sort of bland as as Bremer is and as miscast as what is. Maybe it's just the era,

[01:11:03] the time, the filmmaking style working in concert, the acting styles that were prevalent in the day. I buy the chemistry between the two of them more in the original film as just a very earnest sort

[01:11:17] of superficial energy based depiction of young love that I think is effective enough to float the rest of the movie, especially onto the supporting performances that are far more interesting and buoyed, obviously, by these songs that weren't even sung by them,

[01:11:32] but that are so undeniable. I think in a way, because Zegler is so good, it fucks up Tony even more. You mean just because he's kind of blowing him off the screen because he's just OK and you're sort of like. Right. And she's doing this sort of like

[01:11:52] transcendent classic movie star performance and like owning close ups in a way you haven't seen in forever. And just like seeing the shit out of these numbers that the whole thing we're going to

[01:12:02] have to rest on the chemistry, the young love magic between these two people being so undeniable that it floats you across murders and strife and numbers and all this sort of shit. And like by

[01:12:15] the end. And I think I think their meeting is the scene that works the best. I think the stuff at the dance is the stuff that works the best. But even when you get to like Tonight Tonight, which

[01:12:24] is I agree as well, my favorite number in this show. I did feel the balloon deflate a little bit where I'm just like, I'm not totally in on the two of them being in love with each other.

[01:12:36] Well, I mean, it's the Romeo and Juliet problem again. You're just going to have to buy that these two fall madly in love with each other. And one night by the next night, they're one of them

[01:12:46] is dead. Like it's obviously, you know, I love the way he does tonight in this movie. I love the number. I think it's I'm mostly just speaking to what I think is a lack of tangible chemistry between the two of them. And David, the thing you're saying about

[01:13:05] like you have to just buy into the fact that all this can happen over the course of a day and the love is so undeniable and whatever. It's one of those things that was a lot easier to sell in 1961

[01:13:14] when you're doing a far more heightened movie. You're not trying to imbue it with a greater sense of social realism. You just go like, well, it's a musical. That's what happens. Sure. The more you have the realism, right? Right. The harder it is to take the musical

[01:13:26] elements seriously. I get that Disney musicals were 75 minutes long and didn't have psychological depth. It was a lot easier for them to go like and you fall in love at first sight and you're

[01:13:35] married right away, you know, and it's like the Kushner of it then sets me up to expect, if not demand more out of the emotional realism of the relationship, which is still just dealt

[01:13:48] with in a kind of musical poppy love kind of way. And she look whenever she's looking at him, I'm fucking buying it. She's so good. It's an incredibly impressive performance. But it's also just like supernatural, not supernatural like the CW show. I mean, like, it's very natural.

[01:14:06] Luminous, just, you know, camera loves her, you know, just exuding personality. Correct. I mean, look, we were, you know, let's talk about Ansel Elgort. The thing with him is I feel like he has always been a very polarizing performer. Right. Would you agree with that?

[01:14:23] Uh huh. I was introduced to him in 2014. I would say he was in three movies. He was in Divergent, Divergent, which he is a supporting role in my memory. Right. He was in the movie,

[01:14:36] he was in the fault in our stars, which that's his break out to fame. Yeah. And he was in a little film called Men, Women and Children, which we all forget. And so I saw the latter two. I didn't see

[01:14:47] Divergent saying I remember it was this very squishy faced kind of teen actor. Very, very, you know, men, women and children is a lot of crying memory and children like his Tumblr gets deleted or whatever. And it's a whole fucking world of warcraft. Yeah. Fucking D.Nor shut

[01:15:05] down his server or whatever. That's one of those movies that like you describe it exactly. It's like, oh, well, you know, Dean Norris shuts down his world of warcraft. He starts crying and you're

[01:15:15] like, I'm sorry, this was this is a film in theaters. You're just I when I explain this way to people, they truly think I'm pranking them where I'm like Jason Reitman made a very serious

[01:15:25] Oscar bait drama about how the Internet is evil featuring early performances from Ansel Elgort, Timothy Chalamet, Chalamet's in that boy. Fucking obviously Travis Tope, of course, Caitlyn Dever. And then the adults are Jennifer Garner, Judy Greer, Dean Norris, Adam Sandler,

[01:15:47] Rosemary DeWitt. And it's narrated by Emma Thompson. And they're like, you just you made that up. This is a psyop. It's a bananas movie, a truly bananas movie. But anyway. And like so I thought of him as this very squishy, squishy, squishy, like just like,

[01:16:02] you know, like sure. This is very squishy teen and then squishy brooding, squishy brooding, but, you know, soft brooding, right? Like definitely a definitely not as tough as whatever. I don't

[01:16:15] know what who I mean, apart from Chalamet, who are the other actors of his genre? Who should I be comparing him to? I mean, I'm so bad at keeping this in my head. Like who are young hot actors?

[01:16:25] Look, I feel like we've talked about many times on this podcast, movies that are undone by a by a BBP of a boring boy problem. Right. A lot of these films, when they demand a leading man under

[01:16:36] the age of 25, you have these guys who are being put up who like have the look and they have the energy, but they're not compelling. And Hollywood is so committed to making them work. And, you

[01:16:50] know, it's these are roles, big things. Right. But these are roles where, like, you know, a young John Cusack is discovered not because he's obvious poster babe, but because he's got some

[01:16:59] off kilter energy. Michael J. Fox. I mean, all these guys who used to get these roles who had real personality here. Here are some people, I guess. Lucas Hedges, obviously, that's a there's

[01:17:10] a young actor. Look, Lucas Hedges is incredible. I think it's probably the best of his generation. He has, whether it's by choice or not, he's not really done the big the big route. Yes, he's he's

[01:17:21] Satan drums. You've got Tom Holland who's been in a few movies that fella. Right. Who is an actor that I like, but I'm getting a little bored of. Sure. And Cherry was a bit of a warning sign.

[01:17:34] Oh, he's a snooze and a half that that boy. I mean, it's so you have to remember how fucking exciting he was in Civil War where you were just like, holy shit, is this guy charismatic?

[01:17:47] I can't wait to watch a whole fucking movie of him. Right. And obviously he has like the impossible and he has lost city of Z. He's like, you know, worked with some good directors and

[01:17:56] done some more heavyweight drama stuff. And then it just feels like he's gotten boring over the last five years. He's just not really branched. You know, you got like guys like. Yeah, I mean,

[01:18:06] I'm looking I'm Googling like young actors and I'm you know, Will Poulter is an actor I really like, but he has totally figured out that he's good at playing weirdos. Right. He's a character actor. Not he's a character actor. Right. We're sort of talking about the leading men.

[01:18:19] Barry Keegan, same vibe. Nick Robinson. But yes. No, David. Nick Robinson is a great example of someone who's just like capable. Nick Robinson is someone if you squint, you're like, is that Ansel Elgort? No offense to Nick Robinson. I'm just saying they both have that look.

[01:18:36] He's capable. He's got a very pretty face. It's it's just there's not enough there to drive him. Right. And I was speaking of driving to get back on to answer. Yeah, he was in a film called Baby Driver. Yes. A film that you love.

[01:18:52] A film I think is great. I think other people think is OK to bad. Some people like it. I kind of feel like it's got a mixed shrug. I think it's a watchable shrug. And but, you know,

[01:19:03] when people have been asking me, like, why the hell is Elgort in this? You know, forgetting the controversy that embroiled him later that we will discuss like, you know, that obviously have imposed shooting this movie. I'm like, look, like it or not,

[01:19:16] Baby Driver is an audition for this kind of a movie. Yeah. Like yeah. And beyond the fact that I liked it, it was a very, very huge success considering it had no, you know, IP and, you

[01:19:30] know, like for a twenty seventeen action film dropped in the middle of the summer, like making fricking hundreds of millions. You know, it was kind of like, oh, shit. Like so. Absolutely.

[01:19:39] And he's the titular role. It has big stars in the supporting cast. But as you said, that movie is like an argument for his ability. It's all about his movement and the way he holds the camera's eye

[01:19:52] and all that. And when you look at this movie, which has a wonderful cast of no star, you know, basically all people who are Broadway performers, who are unknowns, all that kind of stuff.

[01:20:04] I have to imagine there was some interest in maybe having one name in the cast. Like, right. You know, like so maybe that's why they went for making Tony a known quantity. I don't know. And you're like this guy ostensibly sings and dances a little bit.

[01:20:20] No, sure. He went to LaGuardia. He can you know, he's a good dancer. He's I think he's dancing in this movie is very impressive. You know, Isa Gonzalez, who's also in Baby Driver,

[01:20:30] she was considered for Maria. Right. She's pretty old. I mean, she's thirty one years old. She's doing great. But, you know, that would have been they wanted young people in this movie. Yes. Yes.

[01:20:40] No, I look I get why they cast him from that angle. And I do think people at cultural memories are so short that they forget that it's like, yeah, fucking Baby Driver was a

[01:20:51] big ass hit and Hollywood was ready to test him out and other shit. And I mean, look, I know this is a thing I'm about to say. And I guarantee you six people on the Reddit are going to say Griffin

[01:21:02] said this. I know no one ever said this, but I remember because he had been one of the names thrown around for Han Solo and everyone was like fucking why a dystopian. Right. Right. Romance

[01:21:14] novel fucking mushy face boy. We don't want him playing Han Solo. Alden gets the part. The movie fucking goes off the rails and then Baby Driver comes out like a month after. Am I wrong? Am

[01:21:26] I? That sounds like a year. I'm trying to remember. It comes out a year after what? After Solo? What's that before Solo? Right. Solo comes out a year after Baby Driver. Sorry. That's what I

[01:21:38] meant to say. Yeah. I feel like walking out of Baby Driver because Solo's a year away, but Lord and Miller had just gotten fired off of it, if I remember correctly, when it comes out and everyone

[01:21:50] was talking about the movie being a disaster. I feel like immediately after Baby Driver, people were like, they should just cast him. He should have just been Han Solo. Ansel should have been Han Solo. Baby Driver shows that he's just he's stable enough. He's got sturdy shoulders, whatever.

[01:22:05] They should just hire this guy. He looks more like Harrison Ford. So he was very much a guy who was being part of the big conversations at that point in time. And that's pretty much, you know, he they

[01:22:16] cast him in 2018. Yeah. Yeah. Right. But I still remember when he was cast. A lot of people rolling their eyes just because it's like, enough Ansel. Yes, he was cast in 2018. I think he was the first

[01:22:28] person cast, announced at least. Yes. Right. Because he's probably not, you know, he's not like Spielberg saw whatever a thousand Maria's, you know, with a big star. They're not going to do

[01:22:40] that. So. So, yeah. And then the movie is made and then after the movie is made, he is accused of sexual assault on Twitter, you know, like in the middle of the pen. It was June 2020. And so and

[01:22:53] then that cast like crazy shadow, a number of incredibly credible accusations backed up by text and all this sort of shit. He undeniably seems like a big ass creep to me. There was a profile

[01:23:06] on him, I forget where when Baby Driver was about to come out, that was just him talking about how much he loved being famous and they couldn't really get him talk about. He was very online.

[01:23:15] If you remember, he was very online and he wasn't that interested in talking about like the craft of acting or anything. He was just like, how fucking great is this? I'm in a limo right now.

[01:23:24] People are giving me free clothes. I get to do four talk shows today. Like he was just so caught up in the whole thing of it. I think his parents come from an arts background, like his father's

[01:23:34] a photographer. Correct. Correct. But he was just like, I just really want to be famous. I just love girls liking me and all this sort of shit. And in a way that is often the downfall,

[01:23:45] the undoing of these narcissists is like suddenly you have all this attention and you have a social media account and you just go like the fucking Internet to that. Can I just try to sleep with

[01:23:55] everyone? I mean, look, I right. He's been, like you say, fairly credibly accused. He has said, look, I was in this relationship, but I didn't. You know, he denied any assault. It's this weird limbo thing where he's basically since that gone silent. Right. Like he's deleted

[01:24:17] all his socials. He is not. It's not like he's been he has not done any like one on one interviews for this movie, but he has been around. He was at the premiere. He's on the press tour. You know,

[01:24:27] he's in groups answering questions. And he did a couple of TV appearances. Right. You know, like and it's just kind of feels like I don't know who, but like it was just kind of like just fucking,

[01:24:40] you know, do what's asked of you. And then also the movie gets enough. The movie gets pushed back a year because of the pandemic. So there's 18 months between the allegations in the movie coming out, in which time he does like no other work. Right. He's

[01:24:55] supposed to do the Tokyo Vice show with Michael Mann. Oh, Max, that another thing that he booked right. Yeah, I don't. Right. I don't know if they've shot all of that and they're sitting on

[01:25:05] it, if they finished half of it. I don't know what the fuck is going on there. Other than that, this is the first time he's been in anything since The Goldfinch. Bad, which is 2019. And

[01:25:17] he's in some announced in a Brian Helgland movie called Finest Kind with Jake Gyllenhaal, which who knows if that happens. But his career seems to be in limbo. It very felt like

[01:25:29] very much felt like it was a don't ask, don't tell situation. Even the marketing of the movie, they're not putting his name above the title. He's sort of shadowed on the poster. Yeah,

[01:25:38] he's not in the trailer much. OK, that's the whole thing where they're like, look, we're not. Obviously, we can't reshoot. This isn't a fucking of course, a plumber thing. There's no way you

[01:25:46] could redo the movie. Let's just say that quickly, because I feel like people have been asking this for 18 months and fundamentally with the way Spielberg works and also with the fact that this is a fucking musical, there was no way to replace him without reshooting 70 percent of the

[01:26:02] movie. This is not something that you could sort of piecemeal like Christopher Plummer. You'd have to go beyond that. You'd have to rebuild the sets and stuff. It was it's it's impossible. Anyway,

[01:26:12] they essentially would have had to swallow the whole film and go like we're making it over a second time. I think people don't understand a between the way they're really Scott works, but also like the fucking Getty character barely leaves one location. He only interacts with two

[01:26:29] other characters. It happened because it was doable. And if it wasn't doable, they would have had to swallow that pill to, you know, all of the money in the world. Right. I love Wrigley Scott,

[01:26:40] but he he works really fast and he's less deliberate in his shot sequencing at this point in his career than Spielberg is, who's building entire complex sequences around like long camera movements and big sets and all this sort of shit. It was just impossible.

[01:26:55] It was impossible to replace him without throwing out the entire movie, essentially. So that's just out of the question. And it just felt like they kept a lid on him. You know, Zegler, everyone else very online. Spielberg does interviews about other shit,

[01:27:06] whatever. And then the week the movie is coming out, they finally have Ansel doing some press. He goes to the premiere. I still feel like he's been speaking by less than the rest of the cast

[01:27:15] publicly. But I think there was this hope from some people, a very understandable hope that they would just not include him in publicity at all. And that would be the sort of like silent

[01:27:26] acknowledgement of we do not condone this guy. Right. That they didn't. Well, look, I can't speak to that. I mean, it's just this weird situation of where he's like, I deny it. The tweets all

[01:27:36] disappeared. There's no you know, like there's been nothing else. So it's just kind of like. Once again, the allegations are super credible. I believe them. But it's it all makes it weird

[01:27:46] to go in watching this movie where it's like now the Internet is so upset that like he fucking is seemingly being supported by the film, which I don't think he is. I think, by the way, it's a

[01:28:01] problem. They are just sort of like, you know, dealing with this best they can, I guess. I also don't say this in any defense of whatever, but it's like movie contracts are so weird and complicated

[01:28:14] that there are oftentimes things where it's like if you don't invite him to the premiere, you have to pay him this amount of money or they have the grounds to sue you or whatever the fuck

[01:28:23] it is. Right. Whatever the fuck it is. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But all that having been said, you go in watching the movie with a lot of baggage on him where it's like,

[01:28:32] here's a guy who I think has really connected on screen once in the times I've seen him. And now I dislike him as a person. And it's sort of this albatross around the movie's neck. And it's like, I want him to be good in this.

[01:28:48] Want the movie to be good. You want everything about the movie to be good. Right. Right. And I think when he came on, it's like, I don't think he's bad in it, but I don't think he's tapped into something in the same way that almost everyone else on

[01:29:03] this cast has. There's things where I get it with him. Like, he does kind of have the look of the era. Totally. So I get that. He just kind of looks like a 50s kid in the right way.

[01:29:19] And he's tall and he's obviously quite graceful. He's good at moving, which is sort of crucial. I don't mind his voice. He's got this sort of croony voice, is how I would put it.

[01:29:30] Sure. It's not great. And everyone else on the show kind of sounds like an angel. Absolutely. And like Larry Kurt, if you guys ever want to listen to the original Broadway recording,

[01:29:40] this obviously is a character that you can really belt it. Someone with an amazing voice that rules. I say the baby driver thing to say, I've always been more positive with him as a screen presence

[01:29:59] than I think some are. I mean, like the Goldfinch sucked. I don't know if that's on him because that movie is just sort of leaden, but he's not good in that. So it's not like I'm like, I'm looking

[01:30:11] here, David. Here's his entire film career. OK, Harry Divergent, Fault in Our Stars, Men, Women, and Children, The Divergent Series Insurgent. I'm not counting it on credit cameo in Paper Towns. The Divergent Series Allegiant. Allegiant. Just call it Allegiant. Yes. Baby Driver.

[01:30:30] And then here's a run of movies that don't exist. November Criminals. Jonathan, Billionaire's Boys Club, which is a movie that sat on the shelf for a long time because of Kevin Spacey. And

[01:30:43] then it's the Goldfinch of West Side Story. That's his entire film career. He's pretty much only played leading men outside of a few supporting performances in big movies. But it's hard to argue that any of those performances really work outside of Baby

[01:30:59] Driver as a movie star work and Fault in Our Stars successfully as a teen heartthrob vehicle. Uh, yeah. So, you know, I think there's I I love this movie so much. So maybe that's why

[01:31:10] I just think he's fine in it. And some people are more. I think he's all right. I don't know. He's the least interesting element. And Tony is probably the least interesting element. It's also just everyone else is is playing at such a high level.

[01:31:24] And there's there's this kind of like the fact that everyone else in this is sort of like unknown. This is their first movie or they're mostly a Broadway person who hasn't had this big of a showcase or whatever. It feels like everyone else is doing very selfless work,

[01:31:37] right? Like these are just people who fucking love the craft of acting and dancing and singing, and they're just giving themselves over to the machinery of this larger movie and in the process producing star performances with that ineffable, hard to pin down magical element that transcends

[01:31:52] through the camera. It doesn't. Right. And it feels like Ansel's the only one who's coming into this with a sense of like, here's who I am as a movie star, you know? Yeah. Which which is

[01:32:03] not necessarily what this movie needs. I kept on doing the thought experiment in my head because I mean, you went through the list of the other guys of this generation, right? We're like, who

[01:32:14] say you have to have a name? Who who's the name? Who do you? Well, OK, so I mean, Lucas Hedges and Shalomay can both sing. These three guys are all roughly of the same age.

[01:32:23] Shalomay went to what you would call LaGuardia as well. Much like Ansel. Right. And I'm like, I think Shalomay would be awful. I mean, no offense to the guy, but that's the thought

[01:32:35] experiment I was doing where I'm like, the reason Shalomay has had so much success as a leading man is because like compare him to his fucking generation. He's so clearly interesting and

[01:32:44] unique and has a vibe that is hard to pin down and is multi talented, could work in different genres and styles or whatever. There's a reason he has this value as as a young leading man.

[01:32:58] But I don't think he's the right pick for this. And he's too modern. He picks roles that make sense for him. He's very good at it. He's been very good about that.

[01:33:07] Obviously, he has more clout than any of these actors. He's a big name. He's got a huge fan base. But so that helps with his picking roles. But he's picked very smartly. And when he's in something like Dune, you're like, oh, you found a blockbuster

[01:33:20] size thing that makes sense for you. That's that's great. And look, everyone's fucking like clowning on it. But like if Shalomay is going to do a big budget fucking family movie, Wonka is the right pick for him. It is absolutely yes. I mean, who knows?

[01:33:35] And who knows? Maybe it'll be good. Doing a Paul King Wonka musical on paper is at least the type of big budget movie star thing he should do that matches his persona. Hedges, I think. Hedges would work. I don't either. I think he's too sensitive.

[01:33:50] Yeah, he's such a sweetie pie. And I don't like him as much when he plays harder, you know, like tougher characters. Like I didn't totally vibe with him in Ben is Back. I mean, that movie didn't totally work for me. I didn't. He's all right in mid 90s.

[01:34:10] Like, but oh, I just think he's very good in that. But but I do think part of that is that it's sort of a put on like everyone's seeing exactly this guy. Right. Exactly. That's the thing. He's phony, but it's it works. But he's he's good as a

[01:34:24] sweetie pie. Like, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I don't you know, maybe he's a good actor. So like he's a good actor. I check it out. I don't know. I agree in terms of iconography

[01:34:34] and souls like what you want. But I just think I think the movie falters. Maybe it is. It's what I said before, that it's just that there's an imbalance now that like before Bremmer was bad

[01:34:44] and Wood was miscast. So they were both at the same level. And you can just buy their love as a superficial thing at a time where stories are painted with broader brush strokes and let the

[01:34:54] colorful characters on the side take you away. And now it's like you have Zegler doing exactly what you fucking want out of this role and like giving like a goose bumps like hairs on the back

[01:35:04] of the neck performance when she's given the chance to run with the ball. And then when the scenes are resting on like, look at the fucking love of these two kids. I'm willing to buy it

[01:35:13] happens that quickly. They throw everything away for it. You know, it transforms the world in a day, all that sort of shit. But it's just like it's it's an imbalanced match, you know? Sure. Just doesn't bother me as much. But yeah, it's fair.

[01:35:29] It bothered me in that I wanted to care more, if that makes sense. Like, when it was Jets versus Shark scenes, when it's her with Bernardo or with Anita, like I was feeling

[01:35:42] the juice. And then when it would rest on the two of them and I'm a fucking sap and I'm an easy lay, especially for like teen romance shit. I think it's very easy for me to get butterflies on this shit.

[01:35:54] Combined with movie musical, these numbers that are so undeniable and I just the central romance did not connect for me on that level. Uh, sure. That's fair. I really like their romance in the first. I like the dance.

[01:36:08] I think they got a lot of chemistry. I like the dance. The dance is the scene where I think it works. And I like the tonight number. I like him pressing his face up against the bars and trying

[01:36:17] to figure out how to get around the fire. Like all the physicality of that scene really works for me. And then I think he's really good and cool. I just love what they do with cool.

[01:36:26] Cool is a weird number. Like, yeah, it's not like I go number through number here. Sure. Fine. Okay. So the first number is the opening number where the jets are causing trouble. They're dancing around, they're stealing paint cans. They're messing with the neighborhood.

[01:36:44] They're being dicks. They get in a rumble with a scuffle with the sharks. You see more things too. I just want to say, I love there's like a little tiny thing in the opening

[01:36:57] where they go to a bar, they take a sign that's kind of covering up what you basically see. It used to be an Irish pub. Sure. Again, I think just like building out the universe really quickly.

[01:37:12] Yeah. That number in the original movie is not like emphasizing that they're really victimizing a neighborhood. Whereas this number really kind of underlines that they are causing trouble in a Puerto Rican neighborhood, basically. Right. Which is all. Yeah. It's classic Spielberg.

[01:37:31] Table setting, visual storytelling, just super fucking elegant shit. That whole opening of going from the billboard to the rubble of what will be Lincoln Center and just sort of floating over it and hearing the doo doo. And like as you build the guys coming out

[01:37:47] of this, I mean, all this shit's fucking great. Ten out of ten. No complaints. You got this scene with Officer Shrink played by Corey Stoll. Another scene that I think is great and immediately going like, I see what Kushner's adding here. Right. Kind of doing the Kushner

[01:38:03] thesis statement at talking about where he is like, you guys are the last of the can't do Caucasians. You know, he's sort of like both mocking the Jets and also being like, look,

[01:38:13] I can help you out. I'm still like a figure of authority who can like, you know, who does not. He doesn't seem like especially sympathetic to the Puerto Ricans. They sing La Borinquena, the sort of anthem. I like that they sing the Puerto Rican, the sharks

[01:38:28] sing that before Jet Song before the original like before like it's sort of a clever little poke in the eye to have them actually get to sing first. And then you have Jet Song. You have Mike

[01:38:39] Feist as Riff doing this sort of the first song is Jet Song. When you're a jet, you're a jet all the way. All that you're tapping into the thing that makes doing this movie today most potent,

[01:38:50] which is this thing that is unfortunately still at the forefront of our cultural dialogue, which is like the people at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder all being taught to hate each other and fight each other. Absolutely right. Absolutely. In a way where they refuse to acknowledge the

[01:39:11] commonalities of their suffering, their shared experience, and instead are getting riled up by people who could not have less to do with or understanding of their life. Also, the territory they're fighting for is literally in ruins around that. They live amongst rubble. It's like absurd.

[01:39:32] You know, it really is absurd that that we know looming ahead, it was going to have all wealthy, you know, people moving in and taking over the neighborhood. Right, this is the end of San Juan Hill. It's the end of a neighborhood, not like, yeah, 100%. And

[01:39:50] you can read up on how Lincoln Center was built. Obviously, like a lot of these things, the government maybe basically muscled in on land and called it a slum and use that as an excuse to

[01:39:59] bulldoze it. Like, you know, this happens a lot in the history of urban development. I'm fully jazzed at this point. I'm like, so on board. I feel like I see what he's doing. And then and then we cut to fucking Ansel with Rita Moreno.

[01:40:14] So then the next number is something's coming a great number. The last number I think written for West Side Story when Sondheim was like, I don't fucking get Tony. What's his what? Why is why

[01:40:24] does he do anything? This is not a real character. And so they add a sort of I want song for him. This is the I want song, like basically to define like this guy's a little different from the other

[01:40:36] jets. Like he's sort of, you know, a little more introspective and maybe interiority, you know, change. Yeah, no. What's so funny, David? I can't stop laughing just thinking about it. No, just obviously there's been so much written of Sondheim in the last month since he passed and

[01:40:53] sort of relitigate. But even before his death that like he's at this moment where he's being culturally reevaluated because of the new West Side Story, because of his role as a character

[01:41:04] in Tick, Tick, Boom that he's like sort of he was at the forefront of people's minds. Weirdly, Criterion just released the the whatchamacallit company cast recording thing, which had been out

[01:41:16] of circulation for a while anyway, that like he always right. West Side Story was a job for hire for him. It was kind of like a thing he did under the gun to like make his name. He never loved it.

[01:41:30] He viewed it as sort of like over eager work on his own part, overly clever, trying too hard to impress. And yet it's like the one thing of his that lasts cinematically. He is not he's not a

[01:41:47] guy who's been done right by his film adaptations, despite being a guy who like loves film and wrote his own movie and all of that sort of shit. Like that West Side Story is this thing that like

[01:41:57] there's 60 years between that him becoming legendary on Broadway and then it getting remade. And in the 60 years in between those two, he never had an adaptation properly work for him. Right. And he's he's very he's critical of West Side Story. He knows it's good.

[01:42:17] He doesn't like it. Yeah, he you know, he knows it's fucking West Side Story. It's not like he's like, I mean, that thing's a piece of shit, you know, but yeah, he's he's sort of it's just it's

[01:42:29] the most unabashedly kind of classic Broadway thing he was ever involved with. And I think a lot of those elements are like stuff that he later pushed back against and built upon and twisted around. And so when he when you think about West Side Story, he's like,

[01:42:41] why do these kids fall in love? What? Get out of here. You know, he's yeah. And that was sort of show offy that the lyrics are too clever. I mean, like I read something recently. Why would they talk this way? They wouldn't talk that way.

[01:42:54] I'm just trying to impress people. I wish I would take it down a notch. Yeah. Yeah. So I think this number is fine. I think it's well done. Sure. I feel as as I like to say, a little air out of the balloon at this moment because you're

[01:43:08] just like, OK, here's the guy who's delivering a six when everyone else at this movie is at a 10. And now here's a number that's just about him, you know? Sure. It's sort of it's just right. It's how you introduce him.

[01:43:23] And you are being introduced to this new character, Valentina, who is an update on the character, Doc, the pharmacist played by Rita Moreno, who is the original Anita in the original film,

[01:43:34] not on Broadway. She was Anita on Broadway, who which is another idea that I think is clever, like another, you know, Kushner update supposedly suggested by Mark Harris.

[01:43:46] You know, I think it's clever. I think it's she's very sweet in the movie. It's a it's a sort of a sort of a full performance. Like I thought when I heard, oh, it'll be a little cameo.

[01:43:55] She'll have like one scene where she'll be Dick Van Dyke and Mary Poppins return. Yeah. You know, but but I really like her. She's she's very the scene where she's teaching him Spanish is like very well done. Obviously, the later scenes are powerful, too. But, you know,

[01:44:08] look, Rita Moreno is great. And it's like we have so few people left from that era of Hollywood. And Lord knows she's in her 90s and she's one of the last people still standing. But when you have

[01:44:20] someone who just has that kind of like classic Hollywood glow to them, it's it's impossible to replicate. You know, I also just think as old actors are so fascinating when people reach like, you know, your sixth, seventh decade of performing and it just becomes so unforced and

[01:44:44] natural, you know, they're able to sort of like lend that weight so offhandedly. It's I always find a very compelling. I totally agree. I think she's great. I love to see her. I think it's unlikely, but if she wins another Oscar for West Side Story,

[01:44:59] it will be kind of hilarious. After this is the gym, the dance in the gym, which is just electrifying. In my opinion, obviously, that's Leonard Bernstein's time to time to shine. You have all these different dance numbers that are so cool. But I love her.

[01:45:18] I love Spielberg's idea of, you know, kind of color coding, like kind of giving the jets and, you know, those kids, the jet girls, like the kind of bluey, greeny clothes, giving the sharks

[01:45:33] more like red, yellow. Right. Like, you know, nothing crazy, but just sort of like making the mixing and then the separating like feel so like pop so well. Do you not like the gym? Background. No, no. I like the gym. This is your background. You're Zoom right now.

[01:45:49] I was just going to say it's becoming very clear that one of us has seen this movie three times and two of us saw this movie once two days ago or whatever.

[01:45:58] Shout out Rebecca Bolnus, friend of the show, is in this movie. I have not been able to spot her yet. I believe she was in the gym scene and I believe she was in a different suit and extra

[01:46:08] because she is a Latinx person who can who can dance, who can dance. And yeah, I meant to ask her if she spotted herself and I'm not sure. But anyway, yeah, this is this is my favorite. I mean, it's my favorite in any West Side Story

[01:46:24] is the is the gym. It's so cool. Were you about to say something about the about the gym, the dance? Yeah, I was going to say that it is like, is it with the most dancing, like the biggest ensemble throughout the whole movie, would you say?

[01:46:44] Yes. I'm asking most people. Yeah, I would think so. Compared to in America where they're out on the street. I'm trying to figure out that similar size, you know, similar size at the end of America.

[01:46:58] They're all there's like more people at, you know, like there's sort of crowd builds in America. But the gym sequence, it's also a lot of people in a contained space. It's really cool to see how he

[01:47:08] uses that. It's really cool. The way the choreography is having them all mixed together, like you're saying, like the colors, but just everyone is so OK. We haven't said this yet. And we're almost two hours in. Everybody in this movie is hot, hot, hot. Like everyone is just

[01:47:26] like, oh, my God, you are gorgeous. And I'd love to even just like we got to start going through some of these like members of the Jets and the Sharks, like, you know, the kind of just like

[01:47:38] side characters. But I just want to say that. And I also just want to say the dancing is so physical and like intense. It like man in the gym. I just like I want to rewatch it, David,

[01:47:49] just to see how hard everyone is going. Yeah, I definitely want to rewatch this. And there's just so much going on. I think it's clear that you have been able to parse specifics in the craft more than we have where the first viewing is a little bit overwhelming.

[01:48:05] Not a bad way, you know, but you're just getting taken away by everything. It's I mean, absolutely. I I just was I could not every time he cut to a wide and then held.

[01:48:16] I was just like, just just on my knees. Thank you. Yeah, it's just what I want. It's just, you know, anyway, but that whole we and we should mention before then you have this

[01:48:26] great scene with Maria, Bernardo and Anita in their apartment. And Chino comes in the sort of like nice boy who's taking Maria to the dance. They sort of layer him in a little bit more.

[01:48:37] He's the person who shoots Tony. Spoiler alert. But I feel like they do a slightly better job having him be a real character in this. But I'm good. Yeah. And he's he's really good.

[01:48:46] I want to shout him out. Actually, what's his name? It's Jose Andres Rivera. I think this is Chino. Josh Andres Rivera. Sorry. OK. And, you know, in that scene, you see how much Spanish they're speaking. Spielberg, as usual, does not subtitle.

[01:49:03] He doesn't subtitle in Amistad either. People sort of forget about that. Like it's it's a trick he's pulled before. I think it's always clever because you know what they're saying. Like, you know, you get it. Obviously, there's there's detail you're losing. But sure. Like if you can't speak

[01:49:17] Spanish, but like it is kind of just powerful to watch. You know, you have Anita occasionally going like English, English. Come on. We have to learn, which is usually the trick that movies pull where

[01:49:27] they're like one character be like, we should speak English. So we are learning English and then no one speaks Spanish ever again. And instead they mostly ignore her, you know, or they'll sort

[01:49:36] of speak in both languages. Yeah. I also I like that they emphasize that Anita I mean, so the Maria and Bernardo do not have a particularly good relationship. No, it's not like they're.

[01:49:46] But like Bernardo has this very sort of like macho, you know, you need to behave like, you know, you're a troublemaker. You know, he's he's not really that nice to her. And and he's not very

[01:49:59] respectful of her independence. And it's so clever to cast Ziegler, who's so small. She's so petite and, you know, cute. You know, she's she's little. She's what she was probably 18 or 19 when they

[01:50:11] made this. Right. She was 17 when they cast her 18 when they made it. Yeah. And so, like, you know, because the craziest thing in West Side Story and it's in Romeo and Juliet is that she sleeps with

[01:50:24] Tony after he's murdered her brother. Yes. Which is, you know, Juliet sleeps with Romeo after he kills Tybalt. Like but, you know, like an hour after. Yeah. Like right. His blood is basically

[01:50:37] on his clothes. And like, you know, I just it's nothing. It's not like too super pointed. I just noted in every viewing like they just there's not a lot of love between them. Sure. Anyway. Anyway,

[01:50:50] it's interesting. Anyway, so after the gym, well, at the gym is when they see each other. You know, you got they they both walk into key lights and look at each other. Sidebar, you know, the funny

[01:50:59] thing about Rachel Ziegler's IMDb page, right? Is it that the George Lucas talk show is on it? What is it? Well, so up until a week ago when this movie finally came out, I believe she only

[01:51:11] had three credits on her IMDb page and they were three appearances on the George Lucas talk show because she had been like anointed this next big star. But this movie has been on a shelf

[01:51:20] because of covid where it's like West Side Story, Shazam 2 and Snow White. We're all like coming soon. They're all announced or in production or whatever. Right. And then her only like active released work was three appearances on the George Lucas talk show. Right now it's been

[01:51:37] stuffed up with like, oh, live with Kelly and Ryan and the Drew Barrymore. Now it's all fucked up. We had 100 percent of her released. Not only has she been on the show twice, right? Is it only

[01:51:48] twice? I thought I think it's only twice. I'm seeing twice, but she's also has a very special thanks credit for a different episode or no for us. I know she has a very special thanks credit

[01:51:58] and she has a music credit for performing Ray's theme. Did she sing Ray's theme on the show? Correct. Correct. I should watch the Rachel Ziegler George Lucas talk show episode. Yeah, you should. I mean, she's she is going to be part of the George Lucas talk show official

[01:52:13] soundtrack album coming soon to vinyl. Great. Sounds good. Can't wait. That sounds like something Connor would do. Yep. And all the IMDb credits for different things on the show is very much Patrick's bit. But but yes, she fucking she rules in this movie so hard. She's so good.

[01:52:33] She's so sweet. She's so sort of fierce when needed. She's like luminous. She's just you know, right. It's just that kind of like, well, just how how is she this good at holding a close up,

[01:52:47] you know, and not just a close up, but like a big ass close up in a big fucking Spielberg movie dealing with one of the most legendary pieces of American musical theater ever. Like and she's

[01:53:00] really sort of standing her ground and holding her own. And yeah, yeah. And then Ansel's OK. And you know, I think he's I mean, I think he's good. I feel so weird with this stuff. You know,

[01:53:15] I actually like his performance. I don't know. I think it's like a bare minimum performance. I, I was ready to give him credit because I wanted to like his performance. And you don't want to be the annoying person who's like, well, I hate him. But, you know,

[01:53:28] as I knew he was bad about any, you know, well, cancel. We know, like it becomes about all the time. And it's like there there's obviously there is work that is permanently marred by realizations of people's private lives. But there also is increasingly as we do a show

[01:53:45] that's about the fucking film history, both, you know, recent and distant that like there are things you have to extricate at certain points in time, not by choice, where you're just like this still works. I know I don't like this person, but what they're doing here,

[01:53:59] what they contributed to this is still affected. And I certainly was ready to be able to say his performance worked for me, despite the fact that I don't like him as a dude. Sure. I understand.

[01:54:11] Right. I his performance works for me. OK, yeah, it works for me. What can I look? I think it was bare minimum for me and I wanted a little more. Speaking of the next number is Maria. Just met a girl named Maria. I really like that. My favorite

[01:54:25] thing about the staging of this number. He's walking through he's leaving the school, obviously the gym. He's walking through like a parking lot and you see a janitor pushing like a mop behind

[01:54:37] him. Yes. And the janitor kind of rolls his eyes like there's sort of this little like the janitor is like, you know, there's a kid every weekend who just met a girl named Maria or whatever.

[01:54:45] You don't have to be like, right. Like where it's just like it's like clever little like, you know, look, it to Tony. This is the first time this has ever happened to him. But obviously,

[01:54:56] you know, these are children basically. Sure. Sure. And and yes. What do you think? I mean, Maria is a sweet song. It's that I would say it's one of the corny or so I like

[01:55:07] it's a nice song. You know, I'm not going to look at the fucking broken record here, but it's just like it's another number that's just Ansel, which means it's a it's a dip in energy.

[01:55:17] OK, right, right, right. We're on the record there. OK, we're on the broken record in the original movie. They break up in the musical and Maria is followed by tonight in the original movie.

[01:55:29] They break it up with America. I think they were just sort of with the thinking of like, well, the love song shouldn't be back to back. But here they restore it to the original. So

[01:55:38] he basically just walks to her. I love that set. The kind of alley set with the fire escape where she's like, you know, basically has a spotlight on her. The poster laundry. Yeah. So fucking good.

[01:55:51] Yeah. And I mean, this movie has an incredible balance of using real streets of New York City and incredible sets integrated very well with each other. It was all filmed in New York and New

[01:56:02] Jersey. A lot of it, you know, not a nice location shooting a lot of like upper Manhattan. You can see I think Harlem Flatlands, Brooklyn, Patterson, New Jersey, where they did outdoor sets. Yeah. And they did. Right. And they did indoor Stiner Studios. Yeah. Stiner Studios. Right.

[01:56:21] Which is great. I love that they did that, you know, because it wasn't the original one was shot in Los Angeles, except for some location stuff in New York. But it was sure. But the

[01:56:30] original is such a studio like those sets are so cool. Yes. Yeah. The bright color walls and all that. Anyway, we talked about tonight. What's the next number? The next number, Griffin? America. It's a little number called America. That's my favorite number.

[01:56:47] It's a pretty great number. You know, it's a pretty good one. Yeah. It's also like, you know, the first screenings of this movie and people come out and they're naming all the performances. And I saw so much shit spotlighting Ariana DeBose

[01:57:04] that I'm sitting there waiting like, when is she going to pop off? You know, because she's been in the movie at this point, but kind of just off at the fringes. This number is so much fucking fun. It's just like infectious.

[01:57:17] It's totally. She is fantastic. Yeah, she's pretty phenomenal. Yeah. She is a Broadway person. I believe made her debut as a so you think you can dance competitor back. Oh, interesting.

[01:57:31] Okay. She was in Bring It On. She was in Motown. She was in Pippin. She was in Hamilton. And she was in A Bronx Tale. Don't forget that they made a musical out of A Bronx Tale. You

[01:57:42] can never forget. She was nominated for a Tony Award for playing Donna Summer and Summer, the Donna Summer musical. Damn right she was. I wish I'd seen Summer, the Donna Summer musical. And she also is in like Shemeka Doon and The Prawn, neither of which I've seen.

[01:57:59] But I think she a lot of people who saw Shemeka Doon said she was kind of one of the most fun elements of Shemeka Doon. Man, she played the bullet in Hamilton. She did. She did. She did. She played the bullet. Yeah.

[01:58:12] She's one of the dancers in one of the ensemble. Yeah. Yep. Anyway, she's great. America is great. It's another fucking lightning in a bottle thing where you're watching her really like go like,

[01:58:25] okay, now it's my movie. But it's yeah, I mean, I don't know. It's look all the obvious shit. It's hard not to repeat yourself. It's just like, I love watching big wide shots of people.

[01:58:37] Big wide shots of people moving really well with bright colors in real environments or real practical sets. The colors are wonderful. I like that he builds it so like that. I mean,

[01:58:50] it's so you know, she sings her little opening on the fire escape and then she walked down the stairs. They do that thing where they let the build up play out for one more round while everyone

[01:59:01] is gathering around her. Then she hits the streets and then like three of them sing the first bar, six of them sing the second bar, nine of them like they keep adding girls coming in onto the

[01:59:11] street and then the boys burst it like it's so perfectly staged. It is incredible. I have seen it three times. I'm realizing now that it's just sort of like written in my brain. Did anyone notice

[01:59:23] the big shark? The guy, the really big tall guy on the sharks. You mean Jaws? You mean. Fuck. What was that cartoon with the sharks talk, Griffin? Wait, so Jabba Joe? Sure. You know, come on. What was the cartoon? No, like,

[01:59:42] come on, Griffin. Not Jack. A nine. No, it was like a 90 sort of teenage ninja turtles rip off. It's literally based on like fruit snacks. It's free charts. Free charts show based on face. They made the fruit snacks first. They were like,

[02:00:00] these characters got legs. Literally pretty cool. It would be pretty cool if all the sharks in this movie were just street charts. Yeah, super extreme. That's the kind of radical take I want to have on the material that that round man mound of pounds

[02:00:18] slam. Oh, Ben, are you thinking of a specific character? I'm sorry. I'm not. I can't remember the big shark that you're talking about. Well, sound off in the comments. He's chonky. You can't

[02:00:32] miss him. He's just sort of like, aha. He's my favorite. He's just like, so he's like such a big presence, but it's like his dancing is incredible. That's all. I like, I like Ben

[02:00:43] saying you can't miss him to the person who's seen the movie three times and has the shot sequencing committed to memory. There's a lot of, there's a lot of boys in the, in each gang.

[02:00:53] I'm still, I'm still getting them down. I'm not mocking you. I'm saying Ben is always going to be able to spot a big boy in a film, even if he's deep in the background. Yeah. You know,

[02:01:02] in the, in the Broadway musical Hadestown, which is a wonderful show, one of the ensemble is this fucking massive guy. Like he sticks out. He's much taller than anyone else. He's like six,

[02:01:15] seven. His name is Timothy Hughes. And there's not a lot of dancers in Hadestown. So you're like, you're watching four dancers and one like Goliath basically do all this stuff together. And he became this kind of people were like, who, who's that? Who's the big boy. Who's like,

[02:01:30] like, you know, be like, you're sort of a minor internet star. So it can be good to be the big boy in the ensemble. Sometimes it's good to be the big boy. Yeah. America. It's great. It's,

[02:01:40] and I think they do a good job. You know, it's such, it's a controversial number because especially in the original, it's the most, you know, it's got this sort of edge to it of like, oh, well,

[02:01:50] you know, Puerto Rico would a shithole. Right. You know, it's got this kind of like, she's very derogatory and they, they have kind of like trimmed and sanded the lyrics over the years

[02:01:59] to, to, to get her, you know, to make it a less hostile number in that way. And they've added, you know, Bernardos, you know, counter arguments and they like, you know what I mean? Like it's so

[02:02:10] good now. Sure. But you also have the way it comes back around at the end of the movie. Yeah, absolutely. Her fucking shit talking this broken country. We live. Yeah. It's shit country. Anyway, after that, which is so good, you've got G officer Krupke,

[02:02:27] which rules the way he stages it again. So good in, in the, in doing it in the police, uh, whatever the, uh, the precinct and, um, man, my, my boy, Diesel is proof. He is so good.

[02:02:46] Um, yes. Uh, diesel. You like diesel? That guy does rule. Yeah. And there's just like good fucking character comedy here. You know, he finds all these fun little bits for them to do. Exactly. They've all got like a good, like they, yeah, they all got like different physicality

[02:03:03] that they can bring to it. Yeah. Um, yeah. I mean, it's fun. Those boys. Yeah. They're there. You'd, you'd think it was weird like to, to sort of, sort of root for these guys sometimes and be

[02:03:18] disgusted by the mother. Like, how do you manage that? Right. Like, how do you have sympathy for these kids and hate them and like, understand that they're violent and all, you know, I don't know.

[02:03:28] And like, I just think that obviously you're suspending your disbelief a little bit because it's a musical, but it's also just, they're very charismatic performers. No, that's the thing. I think he pulls off very well, especially considering as I was saying before, I do think he makes them

[02:03:41] feel actually dangerous before, you know, in the original movie, there may be likable at the expense of ever being seen as threatening. Uh, and then you have one hand, one heart, you know,

[02:03:50] always the most treacly, uh, number. I like that he sets it at the cloisters. It just makes it more interesting. Sure. Sure. It just like, it's literally cause it's such a slow number. So

[02:04:00] especially in a movie, it can be a little, you know, kind of like you're tapping the, you know, it's nice. One hand, one heart is fine, but it's like their little make-believe wedding number. But

[02:04:11] I don't know. Don't you like the cloisters? Give it up for the cloisters, Griffin. I do. Look, I, I just, I, I, I, I love the cloister. I love the way this movie uses New York.

[02:04:27] Right. It's just the longer the movie goes on, I think especially post, uh, cool and the rumble and everything, what we're about to get to, it just becomes so much about the two of them as it

[02:04:42] needs to be. And I was just so much more interested in like the rivalry between the gangs and the weird tension and chemistry there than anytime Tony Maria or together. Um, absolutely. Uh, the next number is cool. This is fairly, this has been sort of like

[02:05:04] somewhat drastically changed because, um, in the, uh, original movie it's done after Riff is dead and Ice sings it and he's telling the other jets to play it cool. And it's more about that. And here it's been entirely restaged. They're doing it out sort of in the,

[02:05:23] you know, in the yard, like in this sort of like on the docks, like, right. Like by the water and this sort of crumbling, uh, dock or whatever it is. Right. You know what would, and they have

[02:05:34] it be this dance between Tony and Riff over the gun that Riff has just bought, you know, and like, about like, let's try not to ask, you know, Tony's trying to mitigate, like, let's not escalate.

[02:05:45] And like Riff is much more angry and they like actually just like visualize this through dance. Um, and it's sort of like they're fighting, but they're also kind of in love with each other.

[02:05:56] There's this very strong energy between Tony and Riff throughout like this weird kind of like Riff is like a spurned lover in a way. Like he's kind of like why he still loves Tony. He's

[02:06:06] obviously kind of obsessed with him, but he's also sort of like, why are you not with me anymore? Like, why are you, what happened to you, man? You used to be beautiful. You know,

[02:06:15] this is the thing though. I think fucking Ansel is less effective at selling romantic chemistry than he is at any other type of chemistry because I find his dynamic with Rita Moreno kind of

[02:06:31] touching. I find these scenes with Riff pretty charged in a good way. Uh, even with the, the, with the sharks, with Bernardo. I it's yeah. Yeah. Uh, it's interesting considering he made his bones being this fucking heartthrob in this romance movie, but you know, the Faulkner stars,

[02:06:51] it's like, I guess they have chemistry. It's so he's just, I mean, I don't like that movie that much. I don't know how you feel about the Faulkner stars, but it's effective. Like you get, it's not

[02:07:04] like you watch it, you know, you get it. And you're like, I can see why this connected with young people, obviously. But whatever, I guess it's just like, he can sell it more as a teen and

[02:07:15] as a grown, but they're, I don't know. They aren't supposed to be teens. I don't know. I mean, it's just a lot of crying. I guess he's a better crier than he is a lover.

[02:07:24] I think his best scene in the movie is, is reacting to the quote unquote news that Maria has been shot. I think he's actually very good there. I agree with that. I've, and I've talked to other

[02:07:38] critics who are like, I don't think he sold that moment. I'm like, I do. I think he's good at that. I mean, and it did remind me of his reaction to getting his fucking world of Warcraft character

[02:07:47] deleted. Right. I was like, right. He was, he was always pretty good at the sort of like total teen devastation thing. And there it is. I think it's like appropriately melodramatic and embarrassing. Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah. A hundred percent. He's right. He's he's, he's it's,

[02:08:03] it's over for him in that moment. Uh, anyway, after that you have the quintet, the tonight quintet, you're cutting between the jets, the sharks getting their chains and their bats ready. Ben

[02:08:17] Anita in church, you know, excited to be kissed. You got Tony and Maria excited to be in love. You got, you know, you got, it's all, it's all very good. David Sims excited for Tony and Maria

[02:08:29] to kiss. Yes. Kiss, kiss more kissing. I like that. Maria kisses Tony in this by the way that she, she kind of, it is weird that they do truly caught to you during this number, just sitting

[02:08:40] in a screening room next to Jordan Hoffman saying like tonight, tonight they'll kiss on screen tonight and you're waving your arms around. So good. This leads to the rumble, uh, which is set

[02:08:53] in this warehouse filled with salt and it's got that, uh, that, um, that shot that they kind of emphasize in the trailer that feels like one of those shots Steven Spielberg sat in his head for a fucking generation of like the shadows crisscrossing, like entering from either side

[02:09:11] that I think is so clever. Like, right. Like it's like, these are the same people in a way. And yet it's so frightening and you know, like they're intermingling and yet they're

[02:09:21] also opposed. It's so, it's so cool. Yeah. Uh, I, I love, you know, again, I love the original movie. I think the knife fight sequence is very devoid of grit. You know, it really is just feels like

[02:09:34] them dancing. The knives kind of come out of nowhere and it just, you know, like, I think obviously this is a much, this feels more brutal. They're, they're really, you know, beating each

[02:09:42] other up and it's nastier and it's, it's, it's harsher and right. You know? Yeah. Yeah. It's not just like, yeah, I think once again, the gang stuff is most successful in this movie in terms

[02:09:54] of the new life he brings to it. Um, and then I feel pretty, uh, the sort of counterbalance to that the Maria doesn't know yet that her world is falling apart. She's so happy. Uh, you know,

[02:10:10] what do you think of, I feel pretty set and gimbals. Sure. You got Ziegler dancing around with mannequins and all that. Where, where is it set in the original movie again? Where is it set

[02:10:23] in the original musical? That's a good question. I don't really, she just like, it's just like in her apartment, isn't it? Okay. It's, it's, it's a lot less dynamic from what I remember.

[02:10:35] No, I think being in the store gives it a lot of fun. Uh, I guess it's just, yeah, it's just like an Anita sort of seamstress warehouse, you know? And like, so she's got clothes that she can drape

[02:10:48] around her and dance around and all that. But it's, it's not like the, the gimbals thing is cool. Like having all those really cool, like tableaus of like a life she wants that she's not going to,

[02:10:59] you know, be able to go with Tony. They're just more bid opportunities. And also the tension of like, they're supposed to be working, you know, like it's fun if you can have a musical number,

[02:11:10] have a game behind it like that. Totally, totally. A little, a little something. Yeah. And then you have somewhere, obviously in the original show, that's part of like a ballet. They did as they love to do. They did like a ballet, uh, right. Where somewhere sort of sung

[02:11:26] by no one in particular in the movie, the original movie, it's sung by Tony. Um, and in this movie, it is sung by Valentina, by Rita Moreno, which, you know, obviously she's not the singer. She was

[02:11:40] when she was young, but it's this sort of sweet muted moment. Uh, I don't know. Did you, was this effective for you? Uh, Ehrlich who I got in a fight with was sort of like, I think Tony needs

[02:11:52] that because like, I think he needs the, like, you know, he needs one more big emotional number. He can defend himself. I'm not, I don't want to speak for him, but you know, like he was sort of making

[02:12:00] that argument and I was like, I don't know if we need more Tony at a certain point. You know, like I, I like giving Valentina the stage. Well, that's the problem. I, I think you're both right

[02:12:10] in that, like it, it should be Tony in a movie where Tony is clicking, but with the movie they have, you're better off giving it to a performer who's connecting more. And also, you know, she's,

[02:12:24] it's used in this metaphorical way of like, she's dreaming of a nicer world, right? Like she's sort of like, she's someone who married a white man. She's, she's Puerto Rican doc. Yeah. Doc himself,

[02:12:36] the now dearly departed doc. And like, right. Like, so she's just sort of like trying to imagine a better place, you know, uh, the movie is 60 years after the original, there's still a lot of bad shit that, that unfortunately feels reflected by the, you know, like, right. Like

[02:12:52] I get it. I get it thematically. Wait a second, David, are you saying that the world is bad? That everything's terrible? Yeah. Yeah. There's some stuff. Um, and, uh, okay. Um, and then you

[02:13:08] have a boy like that slash. I have a love, this sort of Anita and Maria duel where, you know, obviously Anita is mad that Maria is still with Tony. Yeah. Maria is like, look, I fucking love

[02:13:22] the guy. What can I tell you? What are you going to do? Kids and their love? Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, it's by all means she should be getting rejecting Tony. He killed her brother. Right.

[02:13:36] I mean, he's already come through the window at this point. Does he do it right after the sequence? No, it's before this is the whole thing. Anita sees them together. Right. And she's like,

[02:13:45] I can't believe you're letting this man, you know, like that you're sticking with this guy. Right. And she's in love with him. Yeah. And she convinces Anita and then, and Anita is convinced enough to go, you know, to docs to go to see Valentina and to set Tony,

[02:14:00] you know, to tell Tony, like, look, she'll meet you tonight and you guys can fucking go off into the great blue yonder. And then obviously her mind is changed by the jets, you know,

[02:14:09] attacking her, the jets, the jets turning on her and being horrible. And that sequence is very chilling and, you know, Anita to Bose is so good in it. And yeah. And, and Marino's Rita Marino coming out and being like, you're a bunch of fucking rapists. Like, you know,

[02:14:25] I've known you all since you were boys and you're like being just utterly brutal about them. And that's pretty much the last you see of the jets. They just sort of slink off. Like,

[02:14:35] it's not like, you know, there's nothing more like for to, to, to sort of sweeten the thing here. It's, it's, it's just sort of, you know, it's all, it's all darkness. Yeah. And I think, you know, Marino didn't interview somewhere, the entertainment week or something talking about,

[02:14:52] well, thank you. Five comedy points, but just how surreal it was to a be on the set of a West Side Story movie again, 60 years later and B be playing this scene from a different angle.

[02:15:06] Now being the one who has to save the character that she most famously played, you know? Absolutely. It is, it is so interesting. You feel that energy in her performance. Yeah, totally. Totally. It's, it's good. The ending is very powerful. I mean,

[02:15:23] it's partly that Zegler such a goddamn star. Yeah. And like, you know, because the ending is really that thing where she's pointing the gun at everyone and like, you know, it's supposed to be, it's the moment where everyone realizes what fools they've been and all that.

[02:15:36] Sure. But yeah, I, I agree fully. Yeah. Good movie. Sad. Yeah. Ending's very sad. I forgot how much of a tone this movie is throwing on Juliet, baby. I mean, I'm already seeing people

[02:15:50] and we can get to this at the box office game now, but I'm already seeing people question whether it's going to have the legs. People think it will with word of mouth and whatever,

[02:15:58] because it is a movie that doesn't leave you walking out of the theater being like, fuck yes. Like I know people like you are like, fuck yes. Spielberg. But I know that general audiences, right? Unless you're feeling invested in Spielberg pulling this off,

[02:16:13] it is an ending that leaves you feeling a little rattle. A hundred percent. It's this very solemn ending. The credits are sought. They're lovely, but like they're solemn. You're definitely walking out of there being like,

[02:16:25] wow. You know? Right. You know, it's right. You're not walking out there going, this is the greatest show. What is the, you know what? The last number of the greatest showman I think is from now on,

[02:16:35] which I do think is pretty fun. That's the one where he's like backwards, Zac Efron. He's like, it's the one we're gonna right. Yeah. Forever from now on. This is the greatest show. Yeah. That's what he's like. That's right. I love that. Also, never enough

[02:16:52] when he goes, this is the greatest show is never enough. I don't know. Right. Yeah. Maybe I should rewatch the greatest showman. Yeah. I'm feeling like I want to watch a bullshit movie, but it fucking worked. I don't know. I mean, it's like,

[02:17:08] look, I'm going to watch this a second time. We're ending this year off on these episodes that are like first reaction episodes, but you've obviously had more time to chew on these movies

[02:17:17] than I have. And you're even getting a couple extra days in on me for matrix magic. Eyes are green with envy, but like, unlike something like band data, Benedetta where I was like, okay, I think this rules. I definitely want to see this a second

[02:17:32] time. There's more for me to chew on, but I'm like getting the attended effect of this movie. There's the X factor was something like Spielberg doing West Side Story where I'm like, whether or

[02:17:45] not it's fair that I'm putting this on it, I'm not just looking to it with like, I'm going to sit here and try to like parse the craft and admire what he's doing. I'm sitting there and hoping

[02:17:56] I'm going to fucking love it. You know? Sure. High expectations. It's tough, especially in a bummer time. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I'm also like just dead inside now. It's one of those. Oh, you're singing. I'm really broken, permanently broken. Griffin's been pushing this permanently

[02:18:16] broken narrative. David doesn't fix Griffin 2022 hashtag fix Griffin 2022. David keeps stitching never cursed inside all of my clothing. Yeah, I know. Inside all of your baseball caps and your Toy Story shirts and your, I don't know. I was trying to think of Griffin. All right, let's

[02:18:33] play the box office game because we do need to wrap up. Okay. Yeah. It opened to $10 million. Not good. It opened to $10 million. Hopefully it will have some legs. I don't think it's going

[02:18:42] to have like greatest showman legs, but everything's kind of had legs like Ghostbusters. Afterlife is sort of continuing to clean up, you know, in pandemic sense, like it's had pretty nice legs. Partly obviously and not a new lot of new movies are not coming. You know, it's been

[02:18:58] fairly quiet post Thanksgiving. And like the problem is that West Side Story's second weekend is going up against No Way Home, which is going to make a fortune. Right. And then past Christmases, you'd have the halo effect of like, well,

[02:19:13] Avatar sold out the trickle down benefits, Sherlock Holmes. Fine. Let's go see West Side Story. Right. Totally. Right. There's the part of me that questions like, are people, people just already bought their Spider-Man tickets two weeks ago. And if they can't get

[02:19:29] in to see Spider-Man, they're waiting to see Spider-Man rather than going to the theater and saying what else is playing. There's less foot traffic right now. Right. I think perhaps, whereas movie going felt like a thing, if families are all locked up with each other,

[02:19:42] not locked down, but locked up with each other in a non lockdown era, day three, everyone's sick of each other. You're like, I don't know. Let's just go fucking see a movie. What's a thing that

[02:19:51] everyone can enjoy? That's a time when West Side Story explodes. I wonder if just behaviorally people are more in a position to be like, what's on fucking Netflix? What's the new thing? What

[02:20:01] do we watch rather than feeling like you have to get out of the house to go do that? But I don't know. I would love nothing more than to be pleasantly surprised. But it opened to an anemic number one, 10 million dollars. Right. What's number two? It's another musical.

[02:20:15] Encanto. Encanto. Still need to watch that. What's it up to now? 71 million dollars. Doing all right. I was talking about this with my dad last night where he was like, well,

[02:20:26] the only things that are doing well are like kids movies and animated movies. And I was like, no, I mean, it's things that skew younger, but the actual like family films have all been underperforming relative. Like Encanto is doing OK, but certainly not robust Disney musical numbers.

[02:20:46] And nothing's come close to making 100 million. Encanto is coming close-ish, but it probably won't. We'll see. I have been surprised in a way because obviously everything's so depressed for little kids movies and how quote unquote it's doing well. Also because like I just feel like

[02:21:07] Disney didn't dump it exactly, but I do feel like they push it out with less fanfare. I would. And obviously it's not based on anything. It's a total, you know, so like,

[02:21:15] and you know, and it doesn't seem like it's concept is the easiest set. Like it's not like some very high concept thing. Yeah. So it's doing all right. It's doing all right. It also feels

[02:21:25] like they kind of gave it a theatrical release that more than anything functions as a promotion for it's going to be on Disney plus Christmas Day. Like they've just kept on redirecting things back

[02:21:35] to that of like, but it'll be on in 30 days. Christmas Day, you can watch it with the whole family. And I probably will. Then Katie Rich has told me she really likes it. She's watched a

[02:21:44] bunch. Her kids really like it. OK, that's what I was going to ask. Charlie likes it. In fact, she was like, I've used all my like press screening. You get a certain number of

[02:21:54] views or whatever. She's like, should I ask Disney for more because Charlie wants more Encanto? Anyway, number three at the box office, Griffin, your favorite film of the year. My favorite film of the year. Disingenuous as Ghostbusters Afterlife. That's right.

[02:22:08] Number four at the box office. I mean, this is very similar to the Benedict Denim obviously is my favorite film of the year. And I was like, did they re-release for those who wish me dead? Is it now finally making a mark?

[02:22:19] Can't wait for that to clean up at your blankies. Number four, big adult drama. How's the Gooch Gooch Goochy Gooch? Look, that's one of the crazy Goochies that gives me a little bit of hope, you know? I mean, obviously it is a an adult drama that

[02:22:37] appeals to younger viewers. It's got Lady Gaga in it. It's got Adam Driver. It's it's big and bold and silly. And so that's probably part of why it's doing a little better. And still going to lose money, but it's performing relatively well based.

[02:22:50] You know, everyone talks about losing money, but I got some news for you, Griffin. These studios, these major corporations, they're doing all right. They're fine. David, look, I'm I'm not sweating them at all. I'm sweating them going, well,

[02:23:05] we're not going to make something like that ever again. Well, they're going to have to make something. I yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They do. OK. Number five at the box office. Your favorite movie of the year. It's another favorite movie. No,

[02:23:20] you actually like this movie, as do I. We talked about it last week. It turns out episode. It's Eternals hanging around, still hanging. It's made. It's made one hundred sixty one million dollars now is no way home going to make that in its

[02:23:33] opening weekend, probably. Yes, maybe in its opening day. Maybe not that good. But but but, you know, as much as Eternals disappointed it had in the middle of a pandemic, it has quietly just

[02:23:47] kind of snuck to four hundred million worldwide like that is a Disney that is a Marvel flop. If that makes you know, is a Marvel flop in a pandemic still is just sort of like an easy

[02:23:58] four hundred plus. Right. So, yeah. And then, yeah, you got welcome to Raccoon City, the Resident Evil movie, which I need to watch. You've got Clifford. You might be the only person in America who speaks of welcome to Raccoon City with that amount of urgency. You've got Christmas

[02:24:18] with the chosen colon, the messengers, which we got into before you got to. And you've got America's favorite Venom. Let there be carnage. New releases this week, national champions, whatever that is, that STX movie. You've got Red Rocket Griffith. You seen Red Rocket?

[02:24:37] I have not. It's funny that it feels like licorice pizza has somehow absorbed all the quote unquote problematic discourse that everyone was earmarking for Red Rocket. Right. Licorice pizza where the 15 year old boy gets one kiss. Red Rocket, the movie where

[02:24:55] a much older man sees a 17 year old girl is like, I want to make porn with you. Strategically. And that's the main story. I just feel like for the last six months, everyone's been like, oh, boy, I'm not looking forward to the discourse about Red Rocket. And

[02:25:09] I'm like, this is an actual fact, David. I went to see licorice pizza for a second time last night. I went to the bathroom. There were three people maybe around our age walking out of Red Rocket.

[02:25:23] OK. And they walk by a poster of licorice pizza and they're like, isn't this the movie where like a 35 year old grooms a 15 year old? Like systematically, like deliberately like praise on. And I was like, you just saw Red Rocket. Look, they're both good movies in my opinion.

[02:25:44] I'm looking forward to watching Red Rocket. You're allowed to play in transgressive spaces. But yeah, Red Rocket is about a harmful person. Yeah. Yes. It's a it's a much darker movie. It's very good in my opinion.

[02:25:58] I'm sure we'll fucking get into this in our blankies award episode because I can't even imagine what the discourse is going to feel like three months from now. But watching licorice

[02:26:05] pizza a second time to to call her predatory when he is the one making advances at all times, you cannot like that. They kiss at the end of the movie. That is completely valid.

[02:26:16] But it's not like she is. The aggressor in a single scene, Esther interviewed Alana Heim yesterday and she said, like, what do you think happens after the end of the movie? Like, you know, like after after there is a running and she's like, I think that immediately

[02:26:35] Cooper Hoffman like pulls me down by mistake or so where I fall and I'm mad at him and we don't talk for a week. And it just goes on like that forever. She's like, that's my take. Like, it's just constant, like bickering slash. You're all right. Yeah.

[02:26:49] Yeah. Look, we'll talk about this three months from now. This is our West Side Story episode. Mm hmm. Excited to see it again. Steven Spielberg last one of the year. Last episode of the year.

[02:27:02] Yeah, this is the last. Right. That's right. Because we're going dark next week. It's Christmas time. Mm hmm. And then we'll be back in the new year to talk about a little movie called

[02:27:10] The Matrix Resurrections, a film that you need to drop off the zoom right now so you can go see. Wait. Oh, my God. Hold on, though. Guys, are you do you hear that in the distance? But what is it? It's like a bell

[02:27:23] ringing, but it sounds stretched out almost as if it were slow. Rings are usually much faster than that. I don't. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. It's another year. Slow Christmas. Oh, boy. OK. And then this is a placeholder where I'll later put in the actual stuff,

[02:27:43] information about it. But I'm laying down. I don't feel good. So, yeah, that was me. I was just on the couch. Wasn't feeling good. So a few days ago, I'm feeling better now. I'm feeling extra good because it's slow Christmas

[02:28:01] day. Those of you who don't remember last year, I started my annual tradition putting out a compilation of slow holiday music. You can find the link to the album in the episode notes. Eleven tracks is slow goodness. We have some really great contributors.

[02:28:25] Want to shout out to Jim Shorts, Sarah Greenwell. She covered the chipmunk song Christmas. Don't be late. Country band Jason Hawk Harris dudes got a pedal steel guitar player on the song. We got a track from Sad 13 solo project for Sadie Dupuis from Speedy Ortiz.

[02:28:48] Andrew Bryant, Ian Ferguson. Excited about this, guys. It's it's slow as hell. David, I want you to know there was sort of an unofficial listening party for slow Christmas recently, and I got to hear some tracks. I don't want to spoil things for people,

[02:29:09] but, you know, volume one was mostly a work of editing. Yeah. Right. You're slowing down things in post. This is really a holistic work of production. He has he has had people play

[02:29:22] Christmas music slowly. This is not digital tinkering. This is this is slow from the ground up. I'm so excited. Slow Christmas one, you know, huge hit. It came out of nowhere, though.

[02:29:38] It was a surprise. Right. No one we didn't know about like right. We didn't know what to expect. But this one, it's got the burden of the second album. Yeah. Huge expectations on its shoulders.

[02:29:51] I, I can't wait. Well, and I can see what the complaints are going to be already. And I don't think they're fair. People are going to say it's too star driven. It has too many big names attached.

[02:30:02] People will be right. Flummoxed when they see some of the collaborators on this album. But I think it's great. I think it's I think it's a better work. I honestly think it's a

[02:30:11] stronger work than volume one. And I'm excited for people to hear it. So excited. Yeah. So check it out. Take us out. Look, folks, thank you for listening this entire stupid, horrible year.

[02:30:28] I beg of you, please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media. A.J. McKeon, Alex Baron for our editing. J.J. Burge and Nick Lariano for our research.

[02:30:41] All people who joined the blank check family in twenty twenty one. And love you. The show better and it made our lives easier. And I am eternally grateful. And I love all of them. Our old dear

[02:30:51] friends Pat Rounds and Joe Bowen for our artwork. Our old dear friends, Lee Montgomery, the great American novel for our theme song. You can find their new album extremely loud and incredibly

[02:31:02] online wherever albums are found after you listen to Slow Christmas Volume two. Go to blankies.red.com for some real nerdy shit. You can go to our Shopify page where we have the discounted talking

[02:31:17] the walk twenty twenty shirts and fifth anniversary shirts. Price to move, baby. And tune in next week for nothing. There's absolutely nothing. Give us one week off, please. That's all we ask of you.

[02:31:33] And then we'll be back in in January with the Matrix Resurrection. Maybe you've heard of it. And then Jane Campion. We're going camping, folks. And as always. I'm going to try to get one good snap on microphone. OK, I want like one snap that register.

[02:31:56] Can you guys hear any of those or any of those coming through? I hear them. They're pretty dull. They're kind of dull. Yeah, a little bit. That one. You got it. You got it. That was like that. The last one was good. I think I was.

[02:32:11] OK, all right. We're good. Don't start doing it, Ben, because then you're gonna make me look worse. OK, ready? Yeah.