Speaker 1: Happy holidays, virgins. Yes this is not a glitch. As
Speaker 1: a gift just for you, we are back in your
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Speaker 1: case you didn't get the memo, Rose and I brought
Speaker 1: the pod back this summer, but not on your usual
Speaker 1: podcasting platform. We are releasing weekly episodes exclusively on Patreon.
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Speaker 1: you miss us, we wanted to give you a little
Speaker 1: taste of what we're doing over there with that's right,
Speaker 1: our Wicked movie review episode. This is an hour and
Speaker 1: forty five minute episode where we discuss the amazing John M.
Speaker 1: Chew adaptation as super fans of the original musical, plus
Speaker 1: a little bonus conversation on Cole Escola's Broadway show Oh Mary,
Speaker 1: which Rose finally saw, and some nuanced critique one might
Speaker 1: say about the transsexual true crime Amelia Perez. Now, we're
Speaker 1: only doing this once. Okay, We're only dropping a podcast
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Speaker 1: one of our favorite movies of the year, The Substance.
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Speaker 1: hope you enjoy what is our gargantuan Wicked episode sneak
Speaker 1: preview directly from our Patreon patreon enjoy. She's Sheen, I'm.
Speaker 2: Me none, no name?
Speaker 1: What is your childhood? I am a cook?
Speaker 2: Shook girls, you.
Speaker 1: Know what's going down before us?
Speaker 3: So round Wicked Part one, Part two. Let us be glad. Okay,
Speaker 3: let us be glad. Let us be grateful that this
Speaker 3: time both MIC's are recording Amma's divas. We already recorded
Speaker 3: an hour and a half long Wicked recap episode yesterday
Speaker 3: yes only to discover that one of the mics had
Speaker 3: not been connected, so we had to fully scrap that
Speaker 3: episode and we are re recording today. But you know what,
Speaker 3: it's good. We our thoughts were kind of sprawled all
Speaker 3: over the place yesterday.
Speaker 1: Also very excitable, like we were kind of like the
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, I know a lot of times
Speaker 1: we record this podcast, we don't really like think about
Speaker 1: the audience, but we really were just kind of fanning out.
Speaker 3: You're like to triple checking me audio. I'm just making
Speaker 3: sure that yours is actually working.
Speaker 1: It is, But yeah, I feel like we have only
Speaker 1: uh more context and insight to gain by going for
Speaker 1: a round two of this discussions.
Speaker 3: And I even pulled out my Wicked mug. Oh I
Speaker 3: love it. I love So before we get in to Wicked,
Speaker 3: we're going to cover a few lingering things that two
Speaker 3: things specific yeah, two things specifically, two different sides of
Speaker 3: a queer theatrical spectrum. They're all they're all related somehow,
Speaker 3: And this time Fran is not going to spill any tea.
Speaker 3: It's not supposed to be said on the mic. Don't
Speaker 3: even don't even don't even have cover your mouth like
Speaker 3: when Kristen China with covered ari on his mouth and Wicked.
Speaker 3: Sorry spoilers, just what Yeah, we're talking about O. Mary.
Speaker 1: First, I did accidentally say something that I wasn't supposed
Speaker 1: to say, because you know, we're insiders, we're insider girlies.
Speaker 1: And uh, but yeah, Rose finally saw O Mary finally saw.
Speaker 1: I saw it like earlier this year. When you think about.
Speaker 3: Probably the last person in New York to see oh my,
Speaker 3: and I loved it. It's so brilliant. Cole Scola, who,
Speaker 3: if you don't know, wrote, directed, wrote, and stars in
Speaker 3: it as Mary Todd Lincoln. Mary Todd Lincoln, who is
Speaker 3: a Mary Todd Lincoln who is a drunk former cabaret
Speaker 3: star who's married to gay Abraham Lincoln and just wants
Speaker 3: to get back on the stage. It's just it's so
Speaker 3: fucking brilliant. I was so blown away by how like
Speaker 3: relentlessly funny. It was the fact that it never lets
Speaker 3: up for the entirety of its hour and a half
Speaker 3: runtime and only like escalates throughout, and the way that
Speaker 3: it captivated this theater full of people who like probably
Speaker 3: otherwise would have been seeing like The Lion King or whatever,
Speaker 3: you know, like a mainstream Broadway audience, and they were
Speaker 3: fucking living.
Speaker 1: Can I I want to ask, because like there are
Speaker 1: probably a lot of versions that like might.
Speaker 3: Never see the show but have heard all about it.
Speaker 1: You would be been hearing so much about the show
Speaker 1: when the curtain came up and you saw like the
Speaker 1: first scene or two. Was there anything about like the
Speaker 1: texture of the show that you were like, this was
Speaker 1: really surprising. I wasn't expecting this, not not really that
Speaker 1: it was surprising, because you know, I know Cole.
Speaker 3: I've known them for a long time at this point, so.
Speaker 1: You understand the comedic dissibility is very specific.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, I know Cole's you know, vibe and aesthetic,
Speaker 3: and I've seen them do so many different things, so
Speaker 3: that everything that is in A Mary makes so much
Speaker 3: sense because it's all pulling from Cole's long career, as
Speaker 3: you know, like an erstwhile New York Cabaret, Muse and Diva.
Speaker 1: Cole is very like a if you know, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of comedy girl and now every comedy many more people. No.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I wasn't surprised that I wasn't surprised necessarily
Speaker 3: by the content of it. I was just surprised, and
Speaker 3: I wasn't even surprised by how good it was. I
Speaker 3: was just so delighted to see what they've been doing
Speaker 3: for so long on this massive scale and get so
Speaker 3: much buy in from the audience. Well they wrote it
Speaker 3: like ten years ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, and it's it's I want to know
Speaker 1: what the fuck it took to get Broadway to buy
Speaker 1: into a really fucking crazy idea.
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's like, well had a really
Speaker 3: successful off Broadway, right, were right?
Speaker 1: Like, I think my one of the things that I
Speaker 1: was most enthralled about from the show is that it
Speaker 1: is as successful as it is because there's so many
Speaker 1: people that my look at what the show is made
Speaker 1: up of and be like, oh, that's so niche. It's
Speaker 1: like absurdist, it's very faggoty, very non bindary, you know whatever,
Speaker 1: like and I kind of loved that. It's a it
Speaker 1: is the best thing on Broadway. It will the most
Speaker 1: expensive thing. Yeah, it will sweep the Tony. It deserves,
Speaker 1: you know, the recognition it gets. And I just hope
Speaker 1: that like Broadway continues to like take risks like this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you watching the show, it's not in any
Speaker 3: way pandering to the mainstream Broadway audience. It's being exactly
Speaker 3: what it is. In this really like transgressive, hilarious way,
Speaker 3: and the fact that it has been so successful is
Speaker 3: by design of its humor, not by design of its pandering.
Speaker 1: Right, It's like it's like transgressive, but it's like also
Speaker 1: so stupid. It's like not interested in like it has
Speaker 1: no commentary whatsoever, like which I love. No serious there's
Speaker 1: no serious moment where you know, Mary Mary realizes yeah,
Speaker 1: like deals with her trauma, her addiction, Like.
Speaker 3: Oh, there's there's thing like that.
Speaker 1: And I, I mean the other another reason why I
Speaker 1: mean I I I think I said when we in
Speaker 1: our last record like that, it reminded me a little
Speaker 1: bit of like slave play, which is kind of like
Speaker 1: that's a silly that's like a really bizarre comparison, but
Speaker 1: like because they have nothing to do with each other.
Speaker 1: But I think what I was kind of thinking about
Speaker 1: is like how Jeremy O. Harris and Cola Scola are
Speaker 1: now both like it girls, and when has there ever
Speaker 1: been a play? Right girl?
Speaker 3: You know what I mean? Arthur Arthur Miller married married
Speaker 3: Marilyn Monroe. Right, yeah, yeah, I was, Yeah, That's what
Speaker 3: I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Though that's a long time ago, and it's kind of
Speaker 1: like I it makes me hopeful for the theater, especially
Speaker 1: since Hollywood is on the deep down decline, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, like they're making so much less less shit.
Speaker 1: I just I hope that people can I hope that
Speaker 1: Broadway producers can see novelty instead of things that are
Speaker 1: just like adapted existing ip I mean.
Speaker 3: Obviously linked Abraham link, it's like an existing i PA.
Speaker 3: But also I mean, I think you said yesterday that
Speaker 3: you know, Cole didn't do any research on Mary Todd
Speaker 3: Lincoln going into this, which I love. It really is
Speaker 3: just as if Countess Luanne was the first lady during
Speaker 3: at the end of the Civil War.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she she honestly she she would be she would
Speaker 1: have a great run as O Mary.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I I if you're not aware.
Speaker 1: Also, like there are snippets of of of Mary Todd
Speaker 1: Lincoln in this show that are like taken from Cole
Speaker 1: as a persona because Cole used to do cabaret. Cole
Speaker 1: is like sober, they're like just they're just funny ways
Speaker 1: that just Cole really bodied this performance. And oh my god,
Speaker 1: the finale.
Speaker 3: Finale is amazing for okay, spoilers for a Mary spoilers.
Speaker 2: Mary.
Speaker 3: The show ends with so Mary Todd Lincoln's gay huh been.
Speaker 3: Abraham Lincoln has tried to distract her with acting classes
Speaker 3: from John Wilkes Booth, who it turns out is his
Speaker 3: secret lover. And when Mary finds all this out, she
Speaker 3: is the one who shoots Abraham Lincoln and blames it
Speaker 3: on John Wilkes Booth. And then the show ends with
Speaker 3: this sort of like fever dream of a cabaret number
Speaker 3: with Mary Todd Lincoln doing She'll be coming around the
Speaker 3: Mountain when she comes low lo La. She was a
Speaker 3: show girl, and it's like very like Carol Channing. It
Speaker 3: is just like it's such a like a victory lap
Speaker 3: because the whole show, Mary Todd Lincoln has been talking
Speaker 3: about being a cabaret star, but until then it has
Speaker 3: resisted the impulse to have her actually do a musical number.
Speaker 3: And if you don't have that final number, like, the
Speaker 3: show is still incredible, Like it could have ended with
Speaker 3: her shooting Abraham Lincoln and it would have been fine, Yeah,
Speaker 3: But then Cole gets to come out and do this
Speaker 3: like essentially Encore a mashup, Yeah, and it's just so incredible.
Speaker 3: I love to see them getting their flowers. We will
Speaker 3: be you know, campaigning during Tony season.
Speaker 1: Did you ever did you ever google or like look
Speaker 1: at the Wikipedia for the lyrics of Copa Cabana.
Speaker 3: No, it was It's.
Speaker 1: Literally like the Lola the Showgirl. It's like it actually
Speaker 1: tells like a really we should look at it right now.
Speaker 1: It actually tells like a really dark and like sad
Speaker 1: story about like a show girl that is like, you know,
Speaker 1: she's like past her prime and she like won't leave
Speaker 1: the club, and she's like an alcohol It has like
Speaker 1: bizarre similarities to like the oh Mary story. I had
Speaker 1: never really listened to fucking Coba Cabana and thought, wow.
Speaker 3: Show girls are a dark entity. Yes, that's true. I'm
Speaker 3: excited for that, the Pamela Anderson movie, The Last show Girl. Oh,
Speaker 3: but I also feel like it might not be good. Well,
Speaker 3: which Copola.
Speaker 1: Is doing it again, I'm not Sophia not so fac Cobla,
Speaker 1: which I don't know. I've never seen any of her,
Speaker 1: I've never heard of her before. I'm sure no offense.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it will be bad.
Speaker 3: But yeah, so this so this was a very good
Speaker 3: theatrical experience. Let's talk about a very bad theatrical experience,
Speaker 3: which was you finally watched the second half of Amelia.
Speaker 1: Perez Amelia Perez, I feel like, I I mean, it's
Speaker 1: funny that we're talking about these back to back because
Speaker 1: something that like oh Mary is. Something that's really beautiful
Speaker 1: about the reception of oh Mary is that because it's
Speaker 1: just like a good motherfucking story. It like hasn't been
Speaker 1: relegated to like the LGBT like pride representation space, Like
Speaker 1: people aren't talking about it like in ways that are like, oh,
Speaker 1: like inclusivity is so important.
Speaker 3: It's like there's nothing tokenized about Cole or about no
Speaker 3: Meal's identity is so secondary to them just being an
Speaker 3: incredible creator. It doesn't show up like the text of
Speaker 3: non binary Noess does not that doesn't show up in
Speaker 3: the play at all. That's it's not like, I mean
Speaker 3: other than outside of that performance itself, but like it's
Speaker 3: not like a part of the narrative, and it hasn't
Speaker 3: really been part of the narrative of the marketing of
Speaker 3: the play, which is amazing.
Speaker 1: Like I love that it just gets to be itself.
Speaker 1: I think that that actually people that market things like
Speaker 1: don't ever want to give things with queer people in
Speaker 1: it a chance for it to actually just be a
Speaker 1: good story.
Speaker 3: I just find an audience based on its own.
Speaker 1: Merits, and Amelia Perez like did exactly that, which is
Speaker 1: like they they're just like, oh, trans trans trans trans
Speaker 1: you love it, don't you? Can Film Festival and Can
Speaker 1: Film Festival is.
Speaker 2: Like three awards for every single actress in this movie.
Speaker 2: Congratulations trends, Like I do think I think Zoe Saldana
Speaker 2: is good with what she has to work with.
Speaker 3: I think the actress who plays Amelia Perez is good
Speaker 3: in a fucking awful role. I mean, this whole movie
Speaker 3: and specifically Amelia Prez's story, which is the whole story
Speaker 3: is huge megaflop due to Kaka.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I have more to say about Carlo
Speaker 1: Sevia Guescom, but let's for the virgins, Like, let's give
Speaker 1: an overview of the plot.
Speaker 3: It's about a cartel leader who enlists the help of
Speaker 3: a lawyer to disappear from the world and transition in secret,
Speaker 3: fake her own death, and she comes back and wants
Speaker 3: to be with her family again, so she has them
Speaker 3: move in with her, and then she also starts this
Speaker 3: nonprofit organization to find the bodies of people all over
Speaker 3: who have been, you know, disappeared by the cartels and
Speaker 3: why is it a musical? And then she and at
Speaker 3: the end she dies and literally becomes a saint. They
Speaker 3: catch her, they carry a statue of her around, which
Speaker 3: is kind of like the I mean, the biggest problem
Speaker 3: of this movie for me is that it's just not good.
Speaker 3: But then the secondary issue is that it is such
Speaker 3: a dangerous depiction of transness because it shows why identity
Speaker 3: politics are so bad, and that it takes this evil
Speaker 3: person and says that by transitioning, transitioning is an inherently
Speaker 3: good act that absolves her of all the evil she's done,
Speaker 3: and it like totally plays into everything that people who
Speaker 3: hate trans people think about trans It's it is Kaitlyn Jenneral,
Speaker 3: it is Caitlin Jenner.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's really, it's really and and the thing is, like,
Speaker 1: all y'all, if you've read anything online about Amelia Press,
Speaker 1: that's like negative. Almost all of it is about transrepresentation.
Speaker 1: It's about the depiction of trans womanhood. It's about the
Speaker 1: bizarreity of it. It's about all these different things that
Speaker 1: they that are viewed as problematic. Let's just just you said,
Speaker 1: let's set all of that aside. Let's pretend that none
Speaker 1: of that criticism exists. Let's pretend the representation of transsness
Speaker 1: is perfect in this film. It's still a bad fucking movie.
Speaker 3: It's a bad movie. The music is bad, the music's terrible, nobody,
Speaker 3: the choreography isn't good. It's not a good story. It
Speaker 3: doesn't make sense why any of the characters are acting
Speaker 3: the way they do their desires. It doesn't look good. No,
Speaker 3: And so then on top of it, you add this
Speaker 3: really just like fuck ass portrayal of transness that the
Speaker 3: movie would not exist without the whole the movie only
Speaker 3: works based on this idea of this woman transitioning, and
Speaker 3: like the way it sensationalizes it, and you know what, honestly,
Speaker 3: if it had leaned into that more, Like I know,
Speaker 3: we've all probably seen the clip of the surgery number
Speaker 3: on Twitter, and like, if the whole movie had that energy,
Speaker 3: it might have been a better movie. Or if it
Speaker 3: had let Amelia Prez be the villain she should have
Speaker 3: been instead of making her a literal fucking martyr, yeah
Speaker 3: and saying that she was perfect, then maybe it would
Speaker 3: have been a better movie. But it's just not interested
Speaker 3: in doing that. If you like haven't seen the clip.
Speaker 3: It's like literally a song about vaginoplasty and they're singing like, uh,
Speaker 3: penis to vagina, man to woman. It's like it's unhinged.
Speaker 1: And for me, because I am who I am, I
Speaker 1: saw that clip and I was like, I'm really excited
Speaker 1: to see this movie. Like I was excited because I
Speaker 1: was like, this is either gonna be so bad it's good,
Speaker 1: or I'm gonna like find something.
Speaker 3: To like about it, and it was neither. It was neither.
Speaker 1: And like I and all that number specifically is totally
Speaker 1: completely different from the rest of the film, which is
Speaker 1: the rest of the film is really just like kind
Speaker 1: of straight true crime and.
Speaker 3: The true melodrama.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and to the point of like it's a bad movie,
Speaker 1: like the the crime. The plotting of the crime on
Speaker 1: a quality level is like law in Order. It's like
Speaker 1: it's not that good. It's it's not interesting. It's it's
Speaker 1: really really like like just it's you know, I don't
Speaker 1: even understand why I'm fucking Zoe's Heldonia is the protagonist
Speaker 1: of this film, as you said, like none of their
Speaker 1: stakes in the story makes sense. I don't understand why
Speaker 1: she even like wants to like commit to like helping
Speaker 1: this cartel leader transition.
Speaker 3: I mean I get that, because I don't think she
Speaker 3: does it for you know, like altruistic reasons. I think
Speaker 3: she does it because she is a lawyer in this
Speaker 3: really fucked up legal system and sees the people around her,
Speaker 3: you know, working with bad people and becoming really rich
Speaker 3: because of it, and so when the opportunity is presented
Speaker 3: to her, she just decides to run with it. I
Speaker 3: think what I have a bigger problem with is that
Speaker 3: somehow she and Amelia Perez become best friends, which either
Speaker 3: and because she is our point of view character, we're
Speaker 3: supposed to have this buy into her idea that Amelia
Speaker 3: Perez is this good, noble, self sacrificing woman, when in fact,
Speaker 3: all we do is see her make terrible choices that
Speaker 3: her people. And then I think, in my least favorite
Speaker 3: scene in the entire movie, so her so Amelia Perez's
Speaker 3: wife played by Selena Gomez, you know, moves into the
Speaker 3: home with her. You know, she's told that she's a
Speaker 3: cousin of her husband, and when she wants to leave
Speaker 3: to be with her, the man that she cheated with,
Speaker 3: Amelia like throws her down on the bed and gets
Speaker 3: on top of her and threatens her in a voice
Speaker 3: that is very clearly supposed to be masculine, and it's
Speaker 3: supposed to be her former self. She switches coming back,
Speaker 3: which is so disgusting because it is like trading on
Speaker 3: this idea that trans women have that kind of masculine
Speaker 3: violence in them and we're just shielding it with like
Speaker 3: dresses and makeup. And this movie is really invested in
Speaker 3: the idea that like Amelia pres and the cartel guy
Speaker 3: are two different people, and that in transitioning, this woman
Speaker 3: has been absolved of everything bad she's ever done, and
Speaker 3: yet she can slip back into that very masculine coded violence.
Speaker 3: It's just really weird. It's the you know, it's it's
Speaker 3: it's bad. The worst thing about it is that it's
Speaker 3: just a bad movie. And then everything else is just
Speaker 3: like shit topping, and it's it's like, and what's hard
Speaker 3: about that scene in particular, it's like you can tell
Speaker 3: she was directed that way. You could tell that the
Speaker 3: director who had literally no interest in like trans womanhood
Speaker 3: at all, was womanhood at all.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, no, was not interested in women like period,
Speaker 1: Like was fully just kind of like there there, this
Speaker 1: woman did not know who she was. She had, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, no redeeming qualities. And I think something that
Speaker 1: I for some reason I'm not seeing anywhere on the internet,
Speaker 1: but like I felt immediately is that she is like
Speaker 1: missus doubt fired, and like the the like well.
Speaker 3: She missus doubt fires herself.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, and the alignment yes, and the alignments between
Speaker 1: these two plots kind of bizarre, like they have the
Speaker 1: same problem where it's like Robin Williams when he becomes
Speaker 1: Missus Doubtfire, You're like, oh my god, he's the protagonist.
Speaker 1: He's good, Like he's like he's like absolved himself up
Speaker 1: everything he's done in as a prior, as a parent,
Speaker 1: prior to this moment, and in actuality he's the villain
Speaker 1: and he's violating a custody agreement. He's tricking and gaslighting
Speaker 1: his entire family. And Amelia Press is doing the same
Speaker 1: thing and yet like she's like a saint for it.
Speaker 1: She's a victim for some reason.
Speaker 3: But also we're still not We're still letting her use
Speaker 3: her new presentation as as deceit as a way to
Speaker 3: hoodwink her family.
Speaker 1: Yes, and also like it skips like over the entire
Speaker 1: transition by like four years, and I was like, where
Speaker 1: was the makeover montage again? Like come on, I like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm again. I'm stupid. I love misstu fhire.
Speaker 1: We love misstau fires. So when I heard the log
Speaker 1: line like Transcartel leader like trans like she she medically
Speaker 1: transitions and secret fakes her own death, I was like,
Speaker 1: love that, you know. I love ugly Betty. I love
Speaker 1: like really bizarre depictions of trans womanhood. I love trans villainy.
Speaker 1: I think that's interesting. I think that's the two point
Speaker 1: h of like how queerness can show up on screen
Speaker 1: instead of as like what we've always been, which is
Speaker 1: like these weird fables or these weird like morality kind
Speaker 1: of like lessons.
Speaker 3: And this movie kind of is a morality tale. It
Speaker 3: tries to be. It does have this element of being
Speaker 3: like a fable or a fairy tale to it, but
Speaker 3: it fails at it spectacularly. Yeah, but not but not interestingly.
Speaker 3: It's not an interesting failure. It's just a huge megaflop
Speaker 3: due to Kaka. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, you know who was the dud doo cock of
Speaker 1: this entire movie was Selena Gomez she I.
Speaker 3: Kept an eye out for Selena and I wish I
Speaker 3: had her.
Speaker 1: Her acting is so bad and her Spanish is so bad,
Speaker 1: and like she she I don't know why. I don't
Speaker 1: know why she was cast in this movie. It feels
Speaker 1: like star power first star power. I guess she knew
Speaker 1: that she could like buy her way into the Can,
Speaker 1: like I don't know if like I don't know anything
Speaker 1: about Can, I probably shouldn't allege that, but anyways, I
Speaker 1: I just I was constantly like having a hard time
Speaker 1: figuring out what the intent of the film was because
Speaker 1: I was hoping it would be like a good plot,
Speaker 1: and it really wasn't. It was meandering, It was there
Speaker 1: were so many different points of focus that were like
Speaker 1: I thought, the fact that she opens a charity is
Speaker 1: so confusing.
Speaker 3: It didn't. I didn't really.
Speaker 1: Get how it folded into the like the narrative as
Speaker 1: a whole, and why.
Speaker 3: I just I.
Speaker 1: Think what something that you had said prior when we
Speaker 1: talked about it was like that they should have just
Speaker 1: let her be a villain, like if they had just
Speaker 1: let her be evil, and post transition, she kept being evil,
Speaker 1: like she kept killing people.
Speaker 3: She kept being a Cartellian yes, like that would have
Speaker 3: been sickening.
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean and something else you also said was
Speaker 1: that it wanted to be Banano.
Speaker 3: It wanted, which is the perfect depiction of trans villainy.
Speaker 1: Next to Gea Gunn and the All Stars season of Drag.
Speaker 3: Race, those are the two.
Speaker 1: Like and Alexis Mead and oh of god, fuck yeah
Speaker 1: alexis Mead and ugly Betty.
Speaker 3: Amelia Press should have been Alexis Mead.
Speaker 1: That literally, I mean, yeah, that's why part of why
Speaker 1: I was so excited. But no, it was it didn't
Speaker 1: want to do that. It was it was an unfun movie,
Speaker 1: and it was a bad musical and you yes, and
Speaker 1: they were all bad singers. And and to to make
Speaker 1: a trans woman sing outside of her vocal register when
Speaker 1: the whole movie is supposed to be about transnis is transphobic,
Speaker 1: Like that's that was That's an awful thing to.
Speaker 3: Do to like Carlos Sophia. So you know what was
Speaker 3: a good musical. We have now reached the wicked portion
Speaker 3: of the recording. We love the transition there.
Speaker 1: Sorry, we're just making sure that we're gooding and we
Speaker 1: are love the audios working.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, first of all, we were originally going to
Speaker 3: do a Glicked episode, but all of us mutually were like,
Speaker 3: we have no interest in seeing Gladiator two this weekend.
Speaker 3: It was. It was mutual.
Speaker 1: However, Rose very bravely initiated it by calling me a
Speaker 1: few hours before we were supposed.
Speaker 3: To get up.
Speaker 1: I'm not feeling it, and I was like, I'm so
Speaker 1: glad you said that, because I just watched Gladiator one
Speaker 1: and you know, it was it was really the movie
Speaker 1: was fine, and Wicked is enough for us to fill
Speaker 1: a whole episode with.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so spoiler warning, you have been warned. We will
Speaker 3: be going in depth talking about Wicked part one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we will be responding to I think that a
Speaker 1: lot of y'all left things in the Patreon chat that
Speaker 1: you wanted us.
Speaker 3: To like talk about.
Speaker 1: We will be talking about all of that and more.
Speaker 3: We're gonna go through essentially like the movie kind of
Speaker 3: seen by seeing musical number my musical number. Yeah, yeah, number,
Speaker 3: my number are takes. But before we get there, I
Speaker 3: will say my my logline. You know, the lead of
Speaker 3: the story is I loved it. I loved it. I
Speaker 3: loved it so much. I think it I think it
Speaker 3: is as good a blockbuster version of the first act
Speaker 3: of Wicked the Musical could be, and I think it
Speaker 3: justified being split into two.
Speaker 1: Movies, which is crazy you would never think like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I totally agree. I think my I said, I feel
Speaker 1: like everybody making the Disney plus like live action remakes
Speaker 1: need to take notes from John and Chew as to
Speaker 1: how to do a mother how to do a motherfucking adaptation.
Speaker 1: I think my kind of thesis walking out of this movie,
Speaker 1: which we'll get into more later, is that John M.
Speaker 3: Chew took on the truly.
Speaker 1: Impossible task of adapting this show, which is in itself
Speaker 1: an adaptation of, outside of the Bible and religious texts,
Speaker 1: the most famous story ever told.
Speaker 3: Yes, like actually two different versions of it, because because
Speaker 3: Wicked the Musical is, Yes, it's an adaptation of the
Speaker 3: novel Wicked, The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch
Speaker 3: in the West by Gregory Maguire, but it's also and
Speaker 3: it's also an adaptation of the Wizard of Oz. But
Speaker 3: it's also really an adaptation of the Wizard of Oz
Speaker 3: the movie. And so this movie had to be all
Speaker 3: of those things and somehow manages to do them all
Speaker 3: extremely well, insanely well. And I'll say I went into
Speaker 3: this movie essentially with no expectations because I was so
Speaker 3: sure that this movie could never be what I have
Speaker 3: hoped it would be since I was fifteen.
Speaker 1: You were like, this is going to disappoint me. You
Speaker 1: said it many times on the podcast, like for years
Speaker 1: on Twitter.
Speaker 3: I was in essentially like an expectation deficit. And then
Speaker 3: this movie came in and so far exceeded what I
Speaker 3: could have even hoped it would be. Yeah, and like
Speaker 3: I was, really I was really blown away by it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like again, we'll like keep talking about this,
Speaker 1: but it's like the impossible task of adapting this in
Speaker 1: a perfect world. What you are doing is you're taking
Speaker 1: references and at times like kind of direct duplications of
Speaker 1: things we already really loved about the original stories of
Speaker 1: The Wizard of Oz and Wicked, sprinkling them into the
Speaker 1: narrative will then embellishing them for the updatedness of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four cinema and.
Speaker 3: For and for a different medium, yes, than the source material,
Speaker 3: and then creating novelty.
Speaker 1: I like actually creating like new parts of the world,
Speaker 1: which a lot of times are blasphemous, like if you
Speaker 1: do it the wrong way, right, but he I feel like,
Speaker 1: did it the right way every time. And I actually
Speaker 1: think that this was really really well illustrated in the
Speaker 1: overture because.
Speaker 3: When I'm holding my breast, because from the moment the
Speaker 3: overture started, I like I had this moment of like
Speaker 3: a computer glitching of realizing as I was hearing the
Speaker 3: score seeing the flying monkeys, I was like, oh, fuck,
Speaker 3: I'm watching the Wicked movie, right, I mean, it's real
Speaker 3: before you even see the monkeys girl, the original Wizard
Speaker 3: of Oz font yes, in the winning credits is so
Speaker 3: my look at my nipples, they're rock cards. And the
Speaker 3: overture of Wicket is already so incredible.
Speaker 1: But then you know, you see Dorothy holding the broom,
Speaker 1: and as the Munchkins like running through the field and
Speaker 1: the overture is playing, you hear like like a fraction
Speaker 1: of a melody from the original Wizard of Oz from
Speaker 1: like the Munchkin where it's like.
Speaker 3: It's like the witches, Yeah, yeah, is there. There are
Speaker 3: many melodic moments from the original movie that were woven
Speaker 3: into the score by Stephen Schwartz when he first wrote it,
Speaker 3: Like Defying Gravity kind of cribs a little bit from
Speaker 3: somewhere over the Rainbow. Yeah, there's so many There's so
Speaker 3: many references. And the thing that I loved about this
Speaker 3: movie is the people who made it are so clearly
Speaker 3: students of every piece of the source material and have
Speaker 3: paid this loving homage to it while making something that
Speaker 3: does really stand on its own. Yeah, while still giving
Speaker 3: the fans endless numbers of Easter eggs. You know, So
Speaker 3: No one mourns the Wicked. One of my favorite, one
Speaker 3: of my favorite moments on the whole movie.
Speaker 1: It was probably my favorite song. I think it was
Speaker 1: in the movie. I think it was my favorite song.
Speaker 3: Arianna Grande but Terra, as she was credited in the movie,
Speaker 3: is yeah, the woman, the actress that you are. You
Speaker 3: know what what Arianna has to do in this opening
Speaker 3: number is so difficult on the acting level, on the
Speaker 3: acting level because she has to come out as you know,
Speaker 3: this Glinda that we remember from the movie that we
Speaker 3: grew up watching and fulfill that part of it. But
Speaker 3: she also has to seed that she is a woman
Speaker 3: who is mourning her best friend and is putting the
Speaker 3: final nail in the coffin of her best friend's legacy
Speaker 3: and ensuring that she will forever be remembered as a villain,
Speaker 3: and that tension is on Arianna's face for the whole song,
Speaker 3: and she only lets it out in little moments, like
Speaker 3: I like a line in the song that I've never
Speaker 3: really paid attention to before, is like towards the end
Speaker 3: of No One Warns the Wicked, when Ariana sings she
Speaker 3: died alone, died, and then she throws the torch onto
Speaker 3: the effigy of the Wicked Witch of the West, and
Speaker 3: I was I was blown away. I couldn't I couldn't
Speaker 3: believe what I was seeing. And she manages to reference
Speaker 3: specifically Kristen China with and a lot of the other
Speaker 3: Glinda's who have come before, while still making it clear
Speaker 3: that this is her version of the character, like bringing
Speaker 3: her sensibility to it. I loved like when she's about
Speaker 3: to leave in her bubble and she like kicks the
Speaker 3: thing and she goes, well, I'm gonna go, oh I go.
Speaker 1: It's like sassy, It's like a little like well, it's
Speaker 1: a little like Kristen Weggs, Eliza Manelli.
Speaker 3: It's a little like whoa.
Speaker 1: But but you know, on the acting level, Like that's
Speaker 1: part of why this was my favorite song is like
Speaker 1: the complexity of how this character feels in this moment
Speaker 1: in time is so much deeper than what I saw
Speaker 1: in the stage adaptation growing up as a kid. I
Speaker 1: want to know if you disagree with this, but like
Speaker 1: it in this first number, it immediately justifies itself as
Speaker 1: as a film because when you, in my opinion, when
Speaker 1: you watch the original musical, you know the ending is
Speaker 1: supposed to be a gag. It's supposed to be a reveal.
Speaker 1: So so Glinda's like Glinda is actually is like her
Speaker 1: facade is completely up, Like you don't, Actually I didn't
Speaker 1: see the cracks in the facade in that moment because
Speaker 1: it's supposed to be kind of hidden from the audience
Speaker 1: so that you get the satisfaction of the reveal.
Speaker 3: But because I think, I think it say in the music, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it is in the music. That's true. That's true. It's
Speaker 3: in the music.
Speaker 1: But but regardless, like the fact that Ari, the fact
Speaker 1: that Aria has to be like a politic on the outside,
Speaker 1: like a politician in this world, basically making streamlining propaganda
Speaker 1: from Oz to make sure that everyone knows that Alphaba
Speaker 1: was the ould timate evil while inside having all of
Speaker 1: these complicated feelings about the fate of her friend and
Speaker 1: her part to play in that. And and I just
Speaker 1: did not really expect so much emotional complexity, so much
Speaker 1: from from jump, like so immediately, I I love, love
Speaker 1: love that she's like you could see on her face
Speaker 1: that she's the only one in the room that has
Speaker 1: the whole story.
Speaker 3: And and she'll never be able to tell it to anyone, no,
Speaker 3: because Alphabet in Act two of the musical specifically asks
Speaker 3: her not to clear her name because she understands the
Speaker 3: that that will just continue to cause this unrest in Oz.
Speaker 3: And I think that what this movie does really well
Speaker 3: is investigate the idea of not only what is it
Speaker 3: to be wicked, but what is it to be good?
Speaker 3: And we see Ariana wrestling with that from the very
Speaker 3: first moment of the film.
Speaker 1: I we have to come back to that. I could
Speaker 1: talk about that for thirty minutes, like because like the original,
Speaker 1: sorry I'm already going, But like the original, Wizard of
Speaker 1: Oz is this crystal clear depiction of good and evil.
Speaker 1: It's a very it's rudimentary Hollywood storytelling. One oh one.
Speaker 1: There are good people and there are evil people, and
Speaker 1: it's there's nothing more complicated than that, And what Wicked
Speaker 1: does in the book and then in the musical is say, oh,
Speaker 1: it's way more complicated than that, and the people that
Speaker 1: you thought were good are bad, and people you thought
Speaker 1: were bad might be good or maybe they're all this
Speaker 1: kind of you know, middle this this this nuanced thing
Speaker 1: and nobody's right.
Speaker 3: I thought that there was just.
Speaker 1: So much in that in that first moment, and when
Speaker 1: they I also love that when they told the backstory
Speaker 1: to Alphaba. I was talking to our friend Cherry James
Speaker 1: about this, who pointed this out to me that the
Speaker 1: fact that Alphaba was raised by a bear comes from
Speaker 1: the book, so like right away they're bringing things from
Speaker 1: the book in that had skipped the musical into the
Speaker 1: movie adaptation.
Speaker 3: And it's so important because I think you can you
Speaker 3: can listen to the Wicked soundtrack or have only seen
Speaker 3: the show once and forget that the whole reason that
Speaker 3: Alphaba becomes the Wicked Witch of the West is because
Speaker 3: she is an animal rights activist and an eco terrorist.
Speaker 3: From the very beginning of the movie, they are showing
Speaker 3: why she becomes such a staunch defender of the animals
Speaker 3: because when she was totally, you know, abandoned by her
Speaker 3: father because she was born green. The only people who
Speaker 3: showed her any sort of love and care were these
Speaker 3: animals and sort of her sister nessa Rose and I
Speaker 3: have beef with Yeah, I want to talk to her. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's interesting.
Speaker 1: Also, it's like this is plant like the bear raising
Speaker 1: Alphaba is I'm gonna be I'm going to be like
Speaker 1: annoyingly like analytical about like this in general. So if
Speaker 1: you're not into that, this is not the place for you.
Speaker 1: But like something that's I think I think will be
Speaker 1: even deepened by the Part two of this story is
Speaker 1: like a narrative on class and how animals exist in
Speaker 1: class within this society, and thinking about the bear as
Speaker 1: like a kind of like, you know, a caretaker for
Speaker 1: a wealthy governess.
Speaker 3: You know, from the very beginning, the only animals we
Speaker 3: see are you know, in domestic position, yes, serving humans, yes.
Speaker 1: And yet when Alphabe is raised in this world, like,
Speaker 1: animals are still a part of society, and that becomes
Speaker 1: less and less true by the time we get to
Speaker 1: like the meat of the story where they're grown up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just I'm so excited for more parts of the
Speaker 1: book to be put into the story.
Speaker 3: But we will. We will give our thoughts on what
Speaker 3: we think might be coming in part two. Yes, but
Speaker 3: for now, let's move on to Shizz Chizz, which I
Speaker 3: think we I think essentially like I didn't get why
Speaker 3: they had to enter on a boat, but then I
Speaker 3: was like, Okay, so this is clearly going to be
Speaker 3: a theme park ride and I will be there opening day.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's going to be stunning. And at Shiz
Speaker 3: we see one of my first problems with this movie,
Speaker 3: because I do have I have a couple. This is
Speaker 3: not this is a great movie I loved. I have
Speaker 3: a few things that I didn't like. One of them
Speaker 3: is the over exposed backlit lighting that is carried on
Speaker 3: throughout the movie and that everyone has been kind of
Speaker 3: complaining about on Twitter since we first saw the images
Speaker 3: and first teaser for this movie.
Speaker 1: And this is also something that the Virgins really wanted
Speaker 1: us to discuss.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's really exemplified, I think in the Shizz scenes,
Speaker 3: which are so kind of washed out and backlit. And
Speaker 3: it also I just don't know why so much of
Speaker 3: this movie takes place during the daytime and like really
Speaker 3: bright daytime, like it's it's it's the wizard and I
Speaker 3: it's popular, it's even defying gravity takes place during the day.
Speaker 1: I you know, I'm not like a good I don't
Speaker 1: think I have a great trust with worthiness on this topic,
Speaker 1: specifically because I am colorblind, but I think I could
Speaker 1: personally see things off with like the grading and like
Speaker 1: the contrast of the light. I like am perfectly happy
Speaker 1: that I'm fine with the fact that things are happening
Speaker 1: in the daytime, because to be honest, when things happen
Speaker 1: at night and movies, I'm like squinting.
Speaker 3: I'm like, what the fuck is happening in there? Like,
Speaker 3: you know, like it's like we can't find a happy
Speaker 3: medium between this overexposed like really like gray scale color
Speaker 3: grading and then like the final season of Game of
Speaker 3: Thrones where you can't see anything on screen and you
Speaker 3: have to turn the brightness on your TV up all
Speaker 3: the way.
Speaker 1: And a big reason that people online were mad about
Speaker 1: it is because when the first images of the Munchkin
Speaker 1: Land were like leaked online or whatever, you see the
Speaker 1: technic color, and then that technic color is kind of
Speaker 1: like washed a little bit muted in the movie, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of like the whole like the the
Speaker 1: one of the most novel, if not the most novel,
Speaker 1: thing about the original Wizard of Oz. And why it's
Speaker 1: one of the most famous, why it's the most famous
Speaker 1: story over ever told, is because it represented this crossroads
Speaker 1: in Hollywood from black and white into technicolor.
Speaker 3: I mean the moment where I you know, I was
Speaker 3: watching the Original Wizard of Oz movie earlier this week
Speaker 3: and it still gags me every time when Dorothy opens
Speaker 3: the door into muncheon Land and it suddenly is in technicolor,
Speaker 3: and the color is beautiful. It's so beautiful to this.
Speaker 1: Day, and like and like the thing is, those were
Speaker 1: old cameras. Those are old ass cameras.
Speaker 3: We have the technology, yes, but.
Speaker 1: And so so part I was like a little back
Speaker 1: and forth on this because I personally.
Speaker 3: Am not I would. I would, This is.
Speaker 1: Very twenty four of me, But I actually would rather
Speaker 1: something have a kind of point of view in the
Speaker 1: in the enema, in the editing of the cinema and
Speaker 1: the enema, then to watch something that is like garishly colorful.
Speaker 1: I think a lot. This is an insane thing to
Speaker 1: bring up, but I think a lot about when I
Speaker 1: first watched Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland and how a
Speaker 1: disgusting movie. A disgusting movie. And I thought the color
Speaker 1: and the animation is so it's disgusting.
Speaker 3: It's a huge CGI slop. It's like that meme of
Speaker 3: name one thing in this photo. Yeah, that is what those.
Speaker 1: Movies are so like, I don't know, Like part of
Speaker 1: me feels like if they had gone full out color
Speaker 1: with the maximum extent of technology that they had, maybe
Speaker 1: I would have felt like this was too as you
Speaker 1: might say, Marvel, you know, to CGI to updated.
Speaker 3: I do appreciate that so much of this was practically
Speaker 3: built that the CGI is I wouldn't say it's used sparingly,
Speaker 3: but it's used as much as it needs to be used. Yes,
Speaker 3: and no more. But the overexposure is one of my
Speaker 3: few problems with the movie, but it really did not
Speaker 3: disrupt my enjoyment of it. Another easter egg that you spotted.
Speaker 3: Oh so in this opening scene, you know, Elphaba's coming in.
Speaker 3: Her sister gets like taken away from her. Also, nessa
Speaker 3: Rose has huge tips, huge go her and then Alpaba
Speaker 3: uses her powers in this sort of uncontrollable way and
Speaker 3: a carving of the wizard is knocked off and you
Speaker 3: see underneath it that there is an older carving of
Speaker 3: a bunch of sentient animals, which is showing that animals
Speaker 3: have always been these, you know, like really important members
Speaker 3: of Ozzie and society, but in the era of the Wizard,
Speaker 3: they have been pushed to the margin.
Speaker 1: And cast it over erased. Yeah, there's there's I like,
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to rewatch it because I feel like
Speaker 1: the John im Chew of it all and the world building.
Speaker 1: It's like every single frame has so much in it,
Speaker 1: and that's just like one of those moments.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Then we get to my other one of my
Speaker 3: other ripes with this film, which is Michelle Yoh wow, wow,
Speaker 3: look wow. Michelle Yo is an amazing actress, and I
Speaker 3: will say that some of her choices I don't necessarily
Speaker 3: disagree with. I think that she really sells how sinister
Speaker 3: Madam Morble is, and she does that by really taking
Speaker 3: the character down, making her slower and more menacing. And
Speaker 3: that's really good except for the fact that Madam Morble
Speaker 3: is supposed to be this county diva character she supposed
Speaker 3: we can't she supposed to be can't be. She is
Speaker 3: a character that is performing for the people in the
Speaker 3: back of the house, and that was not what Michelle
Speaker 3: Yo was doing. And I just think it was a
Speaker 3: real missed opportunity to cast someone sickening like Cherrilee Ralph
Speaker 3: who played Madam Morble on Broadway. I think it would
Speaker 3: have been so fun to have a different kind of
Speaker 3: deva in that role, because her moments that she really
Speaker 3: needs to hit, like her speech to Elfha about the
Speaker 3: beginning of the wizard and I, or her you know,
Speaker 3: delivery of you know, this wicked Witch, like those moments
Speaker 3: were very lackluster for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so so I did. I did I personally, and
Speaker 1: this is honestly one of the few things we disagree
Speaker 1: on when it comes to a wicked But like I
Speaker 1: did not come out of the film with that take
Speaker 1: on Michelle Yo. Like I I'm I'm a little bit
Speaker 1: of a stand I kind of think Michelle Yo can
Speaker 1: be in anything, and I.
Speaker 3: Would like it.
Speaker 1: I also personally feel like Madam Morble I was I
Speaker 1: didn't have never cared about this character before. And because
Speaker 1: Michelle Michelle Yo is like an Academy Award winning actress,
Speaker 1: like she lends a flesh to Madam Morble that in
Speaker 1: my opinion wasn't there before.
Speaker 3: And I enjoyed that.
Speaker 1: And I also personally like, I'm not gonna complain about
Speaker 1: like non singer singing, like the kind of talk singing.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna complain about it. It was like forty seconds,
Speaker 3: like but you need those forty sec Yeah, yeah, but
Speaker 3: like she was, she was singing as good as Jeff Goldbloom.
Speaker 3: In my opinion, I think Jeff Goldbloom brings his innate
Speaker 3: Jeff goldbloomness to the part, and I don't think. I
Speaker 3: think Michelle Ye what she brought. Michelle Michelle Yo was
Speaker 3: playing Madam Morble as like Marjorie Taylor Green, and I
Speaker 3: wanted her to and I wanted her to be Sarah Palin.
Speaker 1: That's well, no, that well, okay, Marjorie Taylor Green is
Speaker 1: also a little campy. But but I see what you're saying.
Speaker 1: I definitely feel, you know, John and Chuo like kind
Speaker 1: of Michelle Yo kind of said no when when she
Speaker 1: was first off of the part, she was like, I
Speaker 1: don't know how to do this, I can't do this,
Speaker 1: and John, she was right, she was like, no, no.
Speaker 3: I know you can. I think it was wrong.
Speaker 1: I think that she'll just be in like ever project
Speaker 1: he ever does. Honestly, I I personally liked what she
Speaker 1: gave the film, but I one hundred percent agree as
Speaker 1: you've explained it, I personally am I'm inching toward your
Speaker 1: slide in the fact that she definitely is in a
Speaker 1: slightly different movie. She's she she gives more realism.
Speaker 3: It's a very restrained performance. It's just a Morrible's supposed
Speaker 3: to be over the top. She is. She is supposed
Speaker 3: to be the wicked witch that she is making Alphabet
Speaker 3: out to Lida.
Speaker 1: Really, oh, that's really smart. Did you ever see like
Speaker 1: the lists of people that like auditioned for every y
Speaker 1: because Cherylie Ralph did audition.
Speaker 3: J Loo was what, my god, I'm so sorry, Well.
Speaker 1: Virgins, I hope they didn't like fry your ears right now,
Speaker 1: But like.
Speaker 3: Jlo, that was crazy.
Speaker 1: That's crazy crazy, And also like, that's not a rule.
Speaker 3: That doesn't seem like a role Jaylo would ever go for.
Speaker 3: I kind of want to see it. She would have been.
Speaker 3: I want to see her tape. Okay, we got to
Speaker 3: keep this moving forward. So I mean, I'm in no rush.
Speaker 3: Are you in a rush?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: But I just want to talk about the Wizard and
Speaker 3: I right, which is a really it is?
Speaker 1: This is so if no one warns the wicked is
Speaker 1: when like Ari is here the Wizard and I is
Speaker 1: when Cynthia is here.
Speaker 3: And I have to say, you know, we've talked about
Speaker 3: Cynthia over the past couple of months on this podcast.
Speaker 3: She has been kind of annoying in the press. I know,
Speaker 3: the whole my is your pussy green thing was really
Speaker 3: you know, kind of it definitely soured me towards her.
Speaker 3: But even though we should just for journalistic integrity, the
Speaker 3: Virgins should know that. Cynthia has since walked back those
Speaker 3: comments and said, I, you know, maybe I should have
Speaker 3: talked to my group chat first, but I think what
Speaker 3: I was, what I felt about Cynthia was like all
Speaker 3: of that aside. I knew she had an amazing voice.
Speaker 3: I love that performance of pursoning Alphie at the Kennedy
Speaker 3: Center Honors from last year. I think top ten best
Speaker 3: YouTube links. I think she's incredibly talented. I thought she
Speaker 3: was going to be fine. I thought she was going
Speaker 3: to come in be fully serviceable and really know more
Speaker 3: than that, and she proved me so wrong. From her
Speaker 3: first song. I was absolutely spellbound, pun intended, breath taking
Speaker 3: by her and the Wizard and I and not even
Speaker 3: just because of how good she sounded. It was actually
Speaker 3: sometimes in spite of how good she sounded, because she
Speaker 3: took every every chance to really show us Alphaba's like
Speaker 3: deep insecurity and she but she also showed a side
Speaker 3: of her that was really like playful and hopeful. And
Speaker 3: we talked a bit about this yesterday that you sort
Speaker 3: of had this feeling that she was almost too innocent
Speaker 3: in this first movie. I think she kind of needs
Speaker 3: to be so that we to really sell her journey
Speaker 3: into who she will become. But she is at her
Speaker 3: softest in this number when she's thinking about this potential
Speaker 3: future in which she gets degraenified. And I love the
Speaker 3: moment where she is like playing with the colored glass
Speaker 3: and it spins and for a moment like the colors
Speaker 3: like cancel out her skin and we see kind of
Speaker 3: like what she wants. And it's so heartbreaking, because I mean,
Speaker 3: this song has always been heartbreaking because there's I want,
Speaker 3: It's the I Want song, and there's so many direct
Speaker 3: allusions to who she will become. So happy, I'm so happy,
Speaker 3: I can melt a celebration through it alls that's all
Speaker 3: to do with me, and you know where this character
Speaker 3: is going to end up, but it's she so powerfully
Speaker 3: makes you root for her. And that moment, like I
Speaker 3: love at the very end, when she's on that cliff
Speaker 3: looking out over the desert and right before her final note,
Speaker 3: the like music stops and it becomes very quiet, and
Speaker 3: you really like sit with this character and feel her
Speaker 3: desire so badly, and that is such a credit to
Speaker 3: Cynthia's performance.
Speaker 1: One hundred and ten percent. So I also walked into
Speaker 1: the film with doubts about Cynthia for different reasons, though
Speaker 1: that were solely based on the trailer, which I think
Speaker 1: the clips of Cynthia's acting performance, her facial expressions were.
Speaker 1: I just there were things about the fractions of what
Speaker 1: we saw that felt hollow or they felt like they
Speaker 1: were there, weren't choices, they weren't like bodied. I also
Speaker 1: like walked into this film as an urenator, so like
Speaker 1: the scales were kind of tipped and in my viewing,
Speaker 1: in my preconception of like what the movie could be,
Speaker 1: and just as you said, they were completely proven wrong.
Speaker 1: I aside from the fact that Okay, did you notice
Speaker 1: that Cynthia would not stop doing the fucking bear smile.
Speaker 3: It was she kept doing the like like this, like
Speaker 3: you were just kidding. But I like the corner of
Speaker 3: her mouth going upwards, the Mona.
Speaker 1: Lisa smile constantly constantly bringing up one corner of her mouth. Anyways,
Speaker 1: that's a little silly thing what Cynthia.
Speaker 3: Does well she does I think she kind of sings
Speaker 3: out of the side of her mouth a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah maybe, yeah, yeah, but yeah, that smart was so
Speaker 1: it was constant throughout the film. You please watch out
Speaker 1: for it if you go see it. But you know
Speaker 1: something that I the way Cynthia proved it wrong to me,
Speaker 1: just as you said, is like in this song. In
Speaker 1: every song she sings in this movie, she shows off
Speaker 1: her ability as an actorial singer, Like as a musical
Speaker 1: a musical theater actress has a completely different task than
Speaker 1: just someone who can fucking belt right. And Cynthia's acting
Speaker 1: within the songs, the emotional actorial quality of her singing,
Speaker 1: it was like better acting even than when she was
Speaker 1: in dialogue.
Speaker 3: A lot of the time, like and she looked sickening,
Speaker 3: so Alphaba's look she like comes in wearing like head
Speaker 3: to toe like Archival issimi Aki. Yes, the huntiest boots
Speaker 3: I've ever seen, Yes, Kanti Kunty Hunty. I would wear
Speaker 3: her nails when she the outfit that she wears when
Speaker 3: she has like the long bray down down the middle
Speaker 3: of her back like that, I would wear that outfit
Speaker 3: head to toe. I would low key wear everything she
Speaker 3: wore in this movie, everything she wants except her really
Speaker 3: ugly nightgown.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and the next song on the like innocence thing.
Speaker 1: So I've like, just like I've been thinking a lot
Speaker 1: about what what I've what I kind of wanted from
Speaker 1: both of these characters walking into the film, And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, I had said to you, like Cynthia's Alpha
Speaker 1: Ba in this movie is very interior. It's very, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, restrained at times. There's a purity to Alpha
Speaker 1: Ba that is like it kind of sits in what
Speaker 1: I would describe as victimhood, and there's this kind of
Speaker 1: like there's this demurity honestly that that that that Cynthia
Speaker 1: brings to Alpha Ba. And I think part of and
Speaker 1: I feel like I had originally like that was kind
Speaker 1: of a critique I had. It was a critique I
Speaker 1: made against Cynthia's like portrayal of Alphaba. But like, honestly
Speaker 1: in our conversations, I think what I'm really realizing is Ari.
Speaker 1: And we'll talk about this more. But Ari built on
Speaker 1: a Christian Chennai performance did a ton more than just that.
Speaker 1: But like she kind of built on a foundation. Cynthia,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, did not build on Idina didn't have to.
Speaker 3: No, Adina's Alphaba is much more snarky, sarcastic, sarcastic. She's
Speaker 3: very much like emo girl.
Speaker 1: Yes, And I think I maybe I think that's what
Speaker 1: it was, is I kind of wanted the emo well
Speaker 1: emo girl in a hard edges kind of way, like
Speaker 1: I almost wanted Elfha, but to have maybe not more
Speaker 1: agency because that's not the point of this this act,
Speaker 1: but like more assertion that she knows she's the smartest
Speaker 1: person in the room and that society has not caught
Speaker 1: up to that. But you, you, you really I think
Speaker 1: pivoted me in understanding that you have to have this
Speaker 1: arc in the character, you have to have the before
Speaker 1: to get out.
Speaker 3: To see her as this vulnerable, hopeful person who even
Speaker 3: though she has been beaten down and subjugated her entire
Speaker 3: life so far, by her family, by the people she
Speaker 3: lived with. When she's presented with this opportunity, she does
Speaker 3: let herself believe in it, yes and not, and it
Speaker 3: makes her inevitable fall or rise, divine gravity like that
Speaker 3: much more powerful and heartbreaking. And that's really shown off
Speaker 3: in What Is This Feeling? Honey? You see their two
Speaker 3: performances collide. I love one. Is This Feeling? Is one
Speaker 3: of the standout numbers in this movie for me. I
Speaker 3: love the The choreography was very stompy, stop the musical,
Speaker 3: Stop the musicals which I've seen on Broadway. It's like
Speaker 3: very like Matilda the Music Hall. It's like we are
Speaker 3: revolting children. There lots of just like stomping on the
Speaker 3: ground with your feet. I like that, honestly, I've always
Speaker 3: it was a definite choice, so it gave it, gave
Speaker 3: it a style. We also get to see Bowen eat
Speaker 3: an eight count up in this number. We forgot to
Speaker 3: mention Fanny and Fanny and Dooley, Fanny and COOCHI I
Speaker 3: can't remember the other one's name. Fanny is yeah.
Speaker 1: But the two best friends are characters taken from the
Speaker 1: book that weren't in the original musical, so the characters
Speaker 1: taken from the book as Glinda's kind of like bitchy sidekicks.
Speaker 1: Fanny was a girl in the book and they turned
Speaker 1: her into a gay man because duh. But yeah, no, this,
Speaker 1: this song is such a sleigh. I loved everything about it.
Speaker 3: And also this Glinda and Alphaba have never been gayer
Speaker 3: than they are in this movie. And from this number,
Speaker 3: like the chemistry and the repressed homosexual longing is so
Speaker 3: evident and it's so fun and I just love this number.
Speaker 3: I think I.
Speaker 1: Can't remember if we talked about this in our like
Speaker 1: a virgin like Wizard of Oz Wicked episode, But when
Speaker 1: I watched Wicked or when I even as an adult,
Speaker 1: I am stupid. I like literally never picked up on
Speaker 1: the lesbian subtext ever.
Speaker 3: That's crazy. Yeah, yeah, I'm pretty sure I was reading
Speaker 3: Glinda Alphabe fan fiction when I was, you know, fourteen.
Speaker 1: You were the first person to inform me of the
Speaker 1: Gelfy ship shipping fandom that I think, I feel personally
Speaker 1: like the film does such a better job of deepening
Speaker 1: the connection between these two characters in a way that
Speaker 1: is like sapphic, in a way that is like platonically romantic,
Speaker 1: but who knows how long it'll stay platonic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because this movie is about many things. One of
Speaker 3: them is compet Yeah, about these these women like thinking
Speaker 3: they need to force themselves into you know, heterosexual desire.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, right, yeah, compulsory head, I didn't realize what
Speaker 1: you're saying. Now I understand you're talking about compulsory heterosexuality,
Speaker 1: which I love because, like I I remember, like as
Speaker 1: a kid, like watching Wicked and being like like Fierro
Speaker 1: and Bach are like not interesting, like in my opinion, honestly,
Speaker 1: the way the musical is written, like the fact that
Speaker 1: you know, the the you know, whoever winds up with
Speaker 1: Fierro and whoever winds up with Bach, it's like such
Speaker 1: a throwaway, like it's you know, because these two women
Speaker 1: don't care about the men.
Speaker 3: They care about each other.
Speaker 1: They don't care about the men at Fierarro.
Speaker 3: Fierro is really just something for them to fight over.
Speaker 3: He is like an externalization of the tension between them. Yeah,
Speaker 3: because they are more important to each other than these
Speaker 3: men are.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, and and in that also like they the
Speaker 1: men I think are more interesting and that this love
Speaker 1: triangle kind of there's like a cuckolding kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Like I saw someone on Twitter say that Fierro is
Speaker 1: like challengers ing like Glenda and Helpaba, which I think
Speaker 1: is really funny.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I also, well, we got to talk about Bach before
Speaker 1: we talk about Fiero.
Speaker 3: How did you feel about SpongeBob? I think he's so ugly.
Speaker 1: Cherry was also talking about how you know, you get
Speaker 1: just like a touch of SpongeBob in some of these vocals.
Speaker 3: You get a little bit of.
Speaker 1: Like Nasa, he's oh, Nasa, he's nasty.
Speaker 3: I think he's hot. You just think that because he
Speaker 3: looks trans massed.
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not as sham. I'm I'm not proud
Speaker 1: to be saying this. I when Ari like home wrecked
Speaker 1: this man.
Speaker 3: She did not. That has we have moved on from
Speaker 3: that narrative, right right, Sorry, she did not a home
Speaker 3: wrecked Sorry sorry, what what did she do?
Speaker 1: Then? No?
Speaker 3: And that's not me challenging. I'm like, actually, this fell
Speaker 3: in love while he was already in the middle of
Speaker 3: leaving his wife, and he made the decision. I think
Speaker 3: the timing was bad, but she she did not home.
Speaker 1: Wreck Yeah, thank you for correcting, because I wasn't paying
Speaker 1: enough attention to the tabloid, the tabloid of it all
Speaker 1: enough to actually grasp the details. However, my point is
Speaker 1: like this man was meme to death, and I remember
Speaker 1: seeing all of these photos and being like, that's the
Speaker 1: ugliest man I've ever seen, And then when he showed
Speaker 1: up on screen, I was like, I want to sit
Speaker 1: on your face so bad. I thought he was so cute.
Speaker 1: I thought he was I would. I was more attracted
Speaker 1: to him than I was.
Speaker 3: You should be you should be in jail. Okay, you
Speaker 3: know who I was more attracted to than either of them.
Speaker 3: Doctor Dilman shot up. Something Bad was the moment that
Speaker 3: I had pre selected as when I was going to
Speaker 3: pee during this movie, and I'm so glad I didn't.
Speaker 3: I held my p and in fact I didn't really
Speaker 3: have to pee, and I'm glad I didn't because Something Bad,
Speaker 3: I think is so much better in this movie than
Speaker 3: it is in the show. Because by having the animals
Speaker 3: there meeting with doctor Dilmant and singing, elf, what's Alphabe's
Speaker 3: part in the musical? You understand the stakes of you know,
Speaker 3: the like kind of the a plot of this movie,
Speaker 3: which is you know the tension between the animals and
Speaker 3: the wizard and AUSI and society. And also doctor Diloman
Speaker 3: is fucking cute. Yeah, and his with his little spectacles
Speaker 3: and his sweater and like all the little gadgets that
Speaker 3: are like set up for him like to use, like
Speaker 3: how he pours his teapot with his hoos.
Speaker 1: Yeah like he yeah he, And I mean Peter Dinklage
Speaker 1: like as an actor, like lends such an astuteness, like
Speaker 1: a prestige to this character, and the stakes of this
Speaker 1: character are so important to Alphaba and like the engine
Speaker 1: of the rest of the film. So I just I
Speaker 1: love you know, how he was done. I would much
Speaker 1: rather this is crazy, but I would much rather watch
Speaker 1: a cgi animal than like an actor dressed up as
Speaker 1: a goat, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Like sorry, I do think it still could have been
Speaker 3: a Dina Manzell playing to doctor Dilman, but we will,
Speaker 3: we will get to her. Also love that just like
Speaker 3: in like the kind of like.
Speaker 1: Uh social hierarchy of this like school and Alphaba as
Speaker 1: like kind of the the underdog, the one that's like
Speaker 1: hated by everyone, like the loser.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And what is and what is a loser at
Speaker 3: school to.
Speaker 1: Do but like make friends with your history teacher.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 1: That is exactly how this story goes.
Speaker 3: And then Alpha believes doctor Dilman's and runs into someone
Speaker 3: in the woods. A new bombshell has entered the villa,
Speaker 3: and that is Biero, played by Jonathan Bailey.
Speaker 1: And his first action on screen is jumping off a
Speaker 1: horse mounting a horse in the craziest way. He he
Speaker 1: he like put if you if He literally like plants
Speaker 1: his hands on the horse and launches off of it
Speaker 1: like a fucking rockhead, like like legs back.
Speaker 3: Nobody gets off of a horse like this. There's no
Speaker 3: reason for him to get off a horse of it.
Speaker 3: I like him to get off of me like that,
Speaker 3: or onto me like that. I have I have never
Speaker 3: needed to eat someone's ass more that I have needed
Speaker 3: to eat Jonathan Bailey, as Fiera's asked, I have always
Speaker 3: seen the vision with him. But there is just something
Speaker 3: about a gay guy playing romantically in a musical. It
Speaker 3: just it always hits right.
Speaker 1: Your your tweet really distilled the history very well from
Speaker 1: y Honestly, Rose said that this is this, this is
Speaker 1: a lineage, it's a legacy, it's a legacy for a
Speaker 1: gay man to play a sexy heterosexual romantically in a
Speaker 1: Broadway musical because there are virtually no straight men in
Speaker 1: musical theater. And of course that's like how he is sexy.
Speaker 1: He is sexy because he is attractive to all genders.
Speaker 1: And John m cho I don't know who made the choice,
Speaker 1: whether it was like Jonathan Bailey or John m Chow,
Speaker 1: but like they made this character distinctly bisexual, and I
Speaker 1: mean distinctly is maybe it's not explicit, but but he.
Speaker 3: Has so he flirts with all genders.
Speaker 1: He has vibes with multiple genders, even if it's just
Speaker 1: like a second on screen.
Speaker 3: And like in the press tour there was like Fierro's bisexual.
Speaker 3: Fierro's bisexual.
Speaker 1: I was like, shut the fuck up. Like I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I was like, don't do that.
Speaker 3: Unless they're gonna show Fierro's sucking box clit in the movie.
Speaker 1: But the thing is like he but I like, after
Speaker 1: seeing the movie, I was like he was by and
Speaker 1: that made his character more interesting. Like he is like
Speaker 1: the the original, the original portrayal of Fierro, He's kind
Speaker 1: of just this like Jock. He's like a dumb yeah,
Speaker 1: and he's really with a heart of gold, and he's
Speaker 1: a cog in the in the machine of the plot.
Speaker 1: He's he's not, he's a little inconsequential and and and
Speaker 1: Jonathan Bailey's fierro like insists on something a little more
Speaker 1: his He does apparently all of his own stunts. Like
Speaker 1: there's a moment in Dancing Through Life where he literally
Speaker 1: like steps on two books and then slides the books together,
Speaker 1: and like he literally did that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the way he uses his body was incredible. He
Speaker 3: was so commanding and sexy and like boyishly charming. His
Speaker 3: voice sounded great. I mean, the whole Dancing through Life
Speaker 3: number was so fun. Although again, like it was so backlit,
Speaker 3: and yeah, I wish it hadn't been. But I thought
Speaker 3: the parkore was really cool.
Speaker 1: The cylindrical like kind of there's we we get a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot more kind of steam the kind
Speaker 1: of steam punkification of Wicked in this.
Speaker 3: Scene, which I appreciated because it does give Oz a
Speaker 3: very distinct style and makes it feel like a very
Speaker 3: specific world that's different from other fantasy worlds like this,
Speaker 3: you know, integration of technology and fantasy elements, Like it
Speaker 3: has a very distinct visual style.
Speaker 1: And that visual style, the choice to make it like
Speaker 1: a little steampunk is like textual, Like like the original
Speaker 1: original Wizard of Oz has so many themes that that
Speaker 1: translate to America in the Industrial Revolution and the apex
Speaker 1: of technology and an industry that is kind of overtaking
Speaker 1: a munchkin land that is overtaking farmers that's overtaking like
Speaker 1: you know, people that live in rural areas. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: the machine like sets and props I think were just
Speaker 1: enough to give us something that was like true to
Speaker 1: the original story while still being completely new and twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four.
Speaker 3: The Ozdus ballroom sequence was like I think in some
Speaker 3: ways is the emotional core of the movie, you know,
Speaker 3: like putting aside how fun it is with like the
Speaker 3: animals playing the instruments and stuff. When Alphaba comes in,
Speaker 3: she has been tricked into coming by Glinda, and so
Speaker 3: she does this dance to sort of prove that she's
Speaker 3: like above it. But what Glinda realizes, what Glinda at
Speaker 3: this point, what she realizes is that she actually is
Speaker 3: not above it, and she really does care. And I
Speaker 3: think it's that more than the fact that Alphaba has
Speaker 3: like done this favor for her with getting her into
Speaker 3: Madam Morble's class that like finally bridges the divide between them.
Speaker 3: And the moment where they're dancing and Glinda wipes the
Speaker 3: tears off of Elviba's cheek is so beautiful, and you know,
Speaker 3: they sell this relationship so well, and I think it's
Speaker 3: I think it's really easy to watch the musical and
Speaker 3: like take for granted that you know where these characters
Speaker 3: are going to end up, and like you can, I
Speaker 3: think actors can fall into the trap of playing the
Speaker 3: future and not the present. But we really see their
Speaker 3: relationship changing and crystallizing in this moment and that is
Speaker 3: solely because of their talent as actresses.
Speaker 1: Yes, like they're full they're going full Meisner, Like the
Speaker 1: connection is crazy between them. You can you can see that,
Speaker 1: like when Cynthia cries in this in this moment and
Speaker 1: in a scene that is like sometimes a little if
Speaker 1: you like watch a musical, like it's a little silly,
Speaker 1: like the choreo is like a little silly, and they
Speaker 1: totally sell it to you. They sell what is like
Speaker 1: a really critical turn in their relationship when they kind
Speaker 1: of realize what if not what they have in common
Speaker 1: at least what they what they like about each other,
Speaker 1: what they empathispathize about each other. How they've like, how
Speaker 1: they kind of wordlessly bridge a divide.
Speaker 3: It's and they're they're so beautiful. They're each also making
Speaker 3: a concession, like Alphaba is conceding like she's making she's
Speaker 3: allowing herself to be vulnerable elf. Glinda is allowing herself
Speaker 3: to be silly or stupid or like lame, you know,
Speaker 3: in the eyes of their classmates. And they're really meeting
Speaker 3: in the middle in this moment where they're doing something that, like,
Speaker 3: on its face, is really hokey, this kind of goofy
Speaker 3: interpretive dance, but it's about so much more than that,
Speaker 3: and I think it's so beautiful when everyone around them
Speaker 3: starts like, oh, doing the dance with them, So you know,
Speaker 3: I love that analysis. It's just really lovely. And then
Speaker 3: it leads into you know, another high point of the film.
Speaker 1: Oh wait, wait, wait, I'm so sorry. I have to
Speaker 1: go back real quick, because I completely forgot that the
Speaker 1: animals like play the instruments in the Ozdesk ballroom service
Speaker 1: workers exactly, and also like the Ozdesk ballroom in this
Speaker 1: world is kind of like an underground club.
Speaker 3: So it's under the river.
Speaker 1: So of course in this underground like you know, DIY
Speaker 1: party venue, queer cafe. Yeah, we have animals who have
Speaker 1: been outcast from society as like the primary entertainment, the orchestration,
Speaker 1: and the reason that this space is fun is like
Speaker 1: because of the animals, which is so fucking cool.
Speaker 3: And you know they've got like a talking sloth sucking
Speaker 3: dick in the bathroom.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for like fifteen bucks of fifteen bucks a minute.
Speaker 1: No I I and I have to say, I have
Speaker 1: to call you in here because in this film there
Speaker 1: is the engine, the ethos of alpha. But and why
Speaker 1: she makes the choices she make have a lot to
Speaker 1: do with are up against a social construct of animals
Speaker 1: should be seen and not heard. And that is exactly
Speaker 1: the commentary in a movie called Catstone Dance. Girl, Can
Speaker 1: you help me understand why it's okay in this movie
Speaker 1: and it's not okay and that movie because both are
Speaker 1: about it's.
Speaker 3: A good movie and that is a bad movie. Both
Speaker 3: are about class doing this with you again, Catstone Dance
Speaker 3: is simply a bad movie.
Speaker 1: One of the things I'll say about or rather something
Speaker 1: that that I think the Ozdest Ballroom crystallized for me,
Speaker 1: at least talking about when you were talking about like,
Speaker 1: you know this movie totally just watching this justified you know,
Speaker 1: a two part film, like we get so many scenes,
Speaker 1: you get to take so much more time, and like
Speaker 1: the Ozdest Ballroom scene, like the choreo, it's so slow,
Speaker 1: and I don't think we would have gotten that like
Speaker 1: emotional Catharsis if we didn't have as much time as
Speaker 1: we had in that scene.
Speaker 3: Yes, and yes, And my other major problem with this
Speaker 3: film minor problem, minor problem, but maybe my biggest of
Speaker 3: the minor problems is that it uz drag on a bit,
Speaker 3: especially in this middle section. It kind of SAgs. And
Speaker 3: it's not that I would cut any scene specifically, it's
Speaker 3: just that I think it should have been tightened up
Speaker 3: so much more, because like at the end of every
Speaker 3: musical number, there's like a five to ten second pause
Speaker 3: for people in the theater to clap, and you don't
Speaker 3: need that in a movie.
Speaker 1: I didn't even realize that, but that's probably because I
Speaker 1: was clapping and.
Speaker 3: It just doesn't have the pace that a musical does,
Speaker 3: because in a musical you have to keep the audience
Speaker 3: engaged every second, otherwise they will lose their suspension of
Speaker 3: disbelief that they are buying into to be watching this
Speaker 3: happening on stage, and I think some of that energy
Speaker 3: should have been brought to the film. So the pacing
Speaker 3: was off for me. I really felt the two hour
Speaker 3: and forty minute runtime. But did you be I didn't,
Speaker 3: you did. But it's a it's a it's a minor gripe.
Speaker 3: And now we get to another high point of the film.
Speaker 3: This is Ariana Grande's magnum opis magnum obis her Oscar
Speaker 3: and submission clip. I will say it Golden Globe winner
Speaker 3: and Oscar nominee, not winner nominee, Ariana Grande.
Speaker 1: I popular h I actually think if we look at
Speaker 1: what happened to Chicago, if we look at what happened
Speaker 1: in Dream Girls, I actually really think she could win it.
Speaker 1: I think that both of their nominations for for the
Speaker 1: Oscars are secured a locked, but I do think ari
Speaker 1: could win that.
Speaker 3: She certainly has the campaign power because this is the
Speaker 3: biggest movie and they will put so much money into campaigning,
Speaker 3: and it's it is the it is the movie of
Speaker 3: the year.
Speaker 1: Like I think it's I think I personally feel like
Speaker 1: it will be bigger than Gladiator, like by by marginally,
Speaker 1: but like I think that people are going to be
Speaker 1: talking about Wicked a lot longer than they're going to
Speaker 1: be talking about Gladiator.
Speaker 3: I just I don't see her winning an Oscar for it.
Speaker 3: Maybe for part two, who knows. But Popular, Popular or
Speaker 3: was so perfect. It really was the moment when Ariana
Speaker 3: stopped referencing the Glinda's who had come before her and
Speaker 3: made the role her own. She in this movie. There's
Speaker 3: not a second that she's on screen that she's not
Speaker 3: using her time, that she is not fully invested in
Speaker 3: the character, that she's not making really intentional choices, that
Speaker 3: she's not active and activated, you know, like her comedy,
Speaker 3: like every little line read. I love the moment of
Speaker 3: when she like she delivers when Alphabet says popular and
Speaker 3: arian and that goes right right, yes, so good. Yeah,
Speaker 3: all of her movement, like her jumping onto the chandelier
Speaker 3: or jumping onto the balcony, Yes, her high kicks, Yes, incredible,
Speaker 3: Like she's like she's using every inch of her body
Speaker 3: of her you know, like magnetic charisma. And it really
Speaker 3: proves why it was so right to have a pop
Speaker 3: star play this character.
Speaker 1: Yes, there's even I can't remember what riff it is,
Speaker 1: but there's a there's a moment where she goes like
Speaker 1: a little like she does like a second long kind
Speaker 1: of Ari riff, or it's not even it's an Ari riff,
Speaker 1: but it's like a pop riff, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Like, Yeah, I don't mind the rifts so much in
Speaker 3: this song, but I think in the movie as a whole,
Speaker 3: there was a little too much riffing.
Speaker 1: Which I disagree with. I warmly welcomed all of the riffing.
Speaker 1: I not a novel thing to say. Ari was to
Speaker 1: me the most captivating performance in this film. I, as
Speaker 1: you said, could not take my eyes off of her.
Speaker 1: The entire film Popular is a perfect exemplification of that.
Speaker 1: And in in and outside of this song, she is
Speaker 1: doing this beautiful like amalgamation of of of what is
Speaker 1: a Kristin Chenowitz Glinda like giving us minor like like
Speaker 1: she gives us the perfect like she's a beautiful vocal
Speaker 1: impression as she does, a beautiful vocal impression of Kristin
Speaker 1: sprinkled throughout the performance, but not be labored. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: it's like.
Speaker 3: Used, So I wouldn't say it's more an homage than
Speaker 3: an impression, right, Yes, it's an homage.
Speaker 1: But also if you know Ari, like she is that girl,
Speaker 1: Like she saw this musical when she was ten years
Speaker 1: old and it imprinted on her. And when she was ten,
Speaker 1: that was when she started preparing for this role.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean. It's a lifetime. It's a
Speaker 3: role of a lifetime.
Speaker 1: And it really shows throughout the film in this and
Speaker 1: in this song that she was able to perfectly balance
Speaker 1: what was an homage to Kristin Chennowitz Glinda enmeshed with Ari,
Speaker 1: who is a true genuine theater faggot with a capital F,
Speaker 1: like she is in her own private life going through
Speaker 1: a rack of clothes and going you know like she
Speaker 1: she does that, she is that girl. So we get
Speaker 1: a little Christian and then we get a little Ari,
Speaker 1: and then we get a little bit of this secret
Speaker 1: third thing, which is her going right Like there's this hyperactivity.
Speaker 1: There's a kind of like when you expect Glinta, when
Speaker 1: you expect Glinta to zig, she's zags right Like, she's weird.
Speaker 1: She's kind of wacky. She the way she kind of
Speaker 1: like juts out her leg, or when she like throws
Speaker 1: herself on the bed and does that funny dramatic thing,
Speaker 1: or like I'm also thinking about do you remember like
Speaker 1: inshes like right before she accidentally volunteers to be Alphaba's roommate,
Speaker 1: when like she spotted.
Speaker 3: Like scurrying behind the scene and.
Speaker 1: You hear her a little heels cluck, like those are choice, Like,
Speaker 1: those are beautiful choices between the directing and ari that.
Speaker 1: I just I was so I could not take my eyes.
Speaker 3: Off of her. No one could have played this part
Speaker 3: but her, I agree. Sorry, not Lady Gaga. Not No
Speaker 3: Gaga was supposed to be Alphaba. Oh right, we're right.
Speaker 3: Wait there was Amanda Seyfred was right in the running,
Speaker 3: and that would have been great. I think she's a
Speaker 3: little too old. I read like Katy Perry auditioned. That's
Speaker 3: crazy crazy, it is not a woman's.
Speaker 1: But yeah, she she she proved everything about herself in
Speaker 1: this song. I just I will, I will not stop
Speaker 1: listening to it. When I was a kid, this was
Speaker 1: my favorite song in the musical.
Speaker 3: It wasn't mine, but it like almost is in the movie.
Speaker 3: So I think of popular is the part of the
Speaker 3: movie that SAgs a little bit for me, Like from
Speaker 3: popular to one short day, I like, it's like I
Speaker 3: don't remember much from it, which is how I know,
Speaker 3: like it wasn't imprinting on me a lot. Although I
Speaker 3: did really like the scene in Doctor Dylman's classroom, how
Speaker 3: they changed that from the stage musical in which it's
Speaker 3: just done through lighting in a choreography, and instead here
Speaker 3: they bring in the poppies, which Alphabet uses to make
Speaker 3: everyone fall asleep, which is obviously a nod to the
Speaker 3: original film.
Speaker 1: And that's quickly followed by another easter egg, which is
Speaker 1: when Alphabet gets on the bike and she's miss gulching yes,
Speaker 1: and they put the lion cub who is going to
Speaker 1: be the cowardly lion into the basket and the and
Speaker 1: and the lion like pokes out of the basket in
Speaker 1: the exact same way.
Speaker 3: And they also even use a little bit of the
Speaker 3: do Do in the score. Oh my god, it's a
Speaker 3: very very like subtle moment. The scene between Fear and Albaba.
Speaker 3: I thought Jonathan Bailey and Cynthia Rievo had great chemistry.
Speaker 1: Which is honestly, you would not I was not ready
Speaker 1: to believe in that no offense. But yeah, no, I
Speaker 1: I really you you you said previous that I'm not
Speaker 1: that Girl is kind of a dud of a song.
Speaker 3: It's a it's a bit of a snooze. It was
Speaker 3: in the musical, so I'm fine with it being that
Speaker 3: in the movie, and Diynthia made that song so much
Speaker 3: better in my opinion. It's a it's a bit of
Speaker 3: a skip for me. Wow, But it always has been,
Speaker 3: so I don't think it's the fault of the movie.
Speaker 1: But the thing is, tell me that when you were
Speaker 1: not a teeny little baby, you would not like sit
Speaker 1: alone in your room and think Hen's touch.
Speaker 3: I didn't. It's not in silence. It's not also the
Speaker 3: song that really hits I actually I actually prefer Glinda's
Speaker 3: reprise of it in act too. Oh interesting, Okay. Then
Speaker 3: we then Alphaba and Glinda go to the Emerald City
Speaker 3: and we go into you know, the final act of
Speaker 3: the movie, which I think the like the last forty
Speaker 3: minutes of this movie are like brilliant. It's Stune Ralli
Speaker 3: King from start to finish. I love the design of
Speaker 3: the Emerald City. It really is like visually different from
Speaker 3: anywhere else we've seen it's so much more green. It's
Speaker 3: so much more like tac dial Well, It's different.
Speaker 1: Instead of it being the monochromatic Emerald City, it's like
Speaker 1: many different shades of green and then like a pop
Speaker 1: of yellow, a pop of blue like it. It feels
Speaker 1: more lived in, and it also feels like the book. Honestly,
Speaker 1: it feels like like old school in a really good way.
Speaker 3: One Short Day has always been one of my favorite
Speaker 3: numbers from the show, and it was turned up to
Speaker 3: a hundred because so I knew. Of course, going into this,
Speaker 3: I was sure that aDNA Menzel and Kristin China With
Speaker 3: were going to have some sort of cameo in this movie,
Speaker 3: and I even thought this was likely the place where
Speaker 3: it would be oh wow, But I did not think
Speaker 3: that they were going to have full roles and like
Speaker 3: a whole new song written by Stephen Schwartz, written by
Speaker 3: Stephen Schwartz, who also has a cameo in the film
Speaker 3: as the guard Well says the Wizard will see you now.
Speaker 3: And also there's a cameo from Winnie Holtzman, who wrote
Speaker 3: the book of the show and helped write the screenplay
Speaker 3: of the movie. She is the woman in the crowd
Speaker 3: who says like, oh he could read the grimmery, he
Speaker 3: must be a wizard. But the Kristin adena cameo. When
Speaker 3: they came out, I screamed in the theater. I also
Speaker 3: squealed yeah. And they were so good. They were so funny.
Speaker 3: They're playing off the dynamic that they had in the
Speaker 3: original show where Kristin is like the scene stealer. She's
Speaker 3: like really fun. Any adenas like a little more like
Speaker 3: serious and cunty. I loved Adna's yeah moment.
Speaker 1: I so it is such seopled fan service. I'll, I
Speaker 1: know this is so un fun. But like this this
Speaker 1: part of the film, I don't I don't want to
Speaker 1: change it. I don't want to edit it. I don't
Speaker 1: want to take it out. But it was like totally separate,
Speaker 1: like they are Idna and Kristin, like they were not characters,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: But that's fine to me.
Speaker 1: But I but I almost will it's so meta, but
Speaker 1: I well, yeah, I like that their their function in
Speaker 1: this is to literally be a part of the Ossian propaganda, right,
Speaker 1: the erasure of a mythology, uh, the rasure of the
Speaker 1: the of like why the wizard? How the Wizard came
Speaker 1: into power. There's also another easter egg in their original
Speaker 1: in their new song where uh, Jeff Goldbloom says oh
Speaker 1: o maha, which is like where the Reserve is from, right, and.
Speaker 3: We get to see each of them with their new counterpart,
Speaker 3: which is beautiful. But the handover the mouth, it's so funny.
Speaker 3: It's like it's ridiculous, and like, I will agree, it
Speaker 3: does take you out of the movie a little bit,
Speaker 3: but it's in a way that I want to be
Speaker 3: taken out of the movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think for for us, for the consumers that
Speaker 1: we are, Like there are people that are seeing this
Speaker 1: movie that have never seen Wicked. There are people online
Speaker 1: that didn't know Wicked was a musical, like that's great,
Speaker 1: that's crazy.
Speaker 3: That's crazy to me, And I'm like, what the fuck
Speaker 3: are you talking like the Wizard of Are you dumb?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean I'd be curious to know how other people,
Speaker 1: like people that are not die hard Wicked or Broadway
Speaker 1: Stands like feel about that cameo.
Speaker 3: I think it's so obvious, like there might as well
Speaker 3: be a neon sign hanging upon that says this is
Speaker 3: a cameo. Y.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which sorry to back to this cameo, but for
Speaker 1: me and I have to be fucking real with you,
Speaker 1: Stephen Schwartz was the doo doo kaka of this movie.
Speaker 1: I was infuriated, infuriated because I you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: a standstand I didn't realize it was Stephen Schwartz. No
Speaker 1: one told me, I don't know what this man looks like.
Speaker 3: I don't care.
Speaker 1: So when you have a banger of a song, the
Speaker 1: most extravagant maximalist, Baslerminian like vision of the Emerald City
Speaker 1: coming to a climax, giving us these beautiful moments with
Speaker 1: like Christian and Idina and then coming to a close
Speaker 1: in the original soundtrack where someone says the Wizard will
Speaker 1: see you now, and yet it's Stephen Schwartz, just hollowly
Speaker 1: kind of saying the Wizard will see you now.
Speaker 3: And I loved it, and I'm sorry, but.
Speaker 1: He he had the privilege of playing a character who
Speaker 1: is a queen in like the original Wizard of Oz,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like the the gatekeeper with
Speaker 1: the kind of broom for a mustache.
Speaker 3: Who was played by the actor who plays the worst.
Speaker 1: Right girla like he's such a zany can't be a
Speaker 1: like unforgettable part of that film, and Steven's.
Speaker 3: Wortze just kind of threw it away, and I opinion,
Speaker 3: I thought he was great whatever. I was happy to
Speaker 3: see him kindly disagree. So then Alphaba and Glinda meet
Speaker 3: the Wizard, which you know, the final skip, the final skip,
Speaker 3: Sentimental Man, this song sucks. That is when you should
Speaker 3: go for your pee break. I think this soley is
Speaker 3: the song kind of boring. But then there's a whole
Speaker 3: like dance break after where the Wizard like does kind
Speaker 3: of a soft shoe routine. And then also there's this
Speaker 3: whole bit where he's like showing them his plans for
Speaker 3: what will be the yellow Brick road. This is when
Speaker 3: you pee during the movie.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, this, I think this is the worst song.
Speaker 1: I mean, I didn't not enjoy. I still enjoy myself
Speaker 1: because I love Jeff Golbloom, but yeah, I think that
Speaker 1: more than something bad, more than I'm not that girl.
Speaker 1: I think Sentimental Man is like so like not interesting.
Speaker 3: But then after that, the scene where Madame Morrible comes in,
Speaker 3: Alphabe gets the Grimmery, which literally looks like a children's book.
Speaker 3: It's like giving good night Moon.
Speaker 1: It's very origami, but that's like just steampunk it all.
Speaker 3: She there there is this like herculean task which in
Speaker 3: the span of like a two to three minute scene,
Speaker 3: Alphabet has to realize that that the Wizard is a fraud,
Speaker 3: realize what he's doing to the animals, lose all of
Speaker 3: the hope she's ever had for her future.
Speaker 1: Her entire life completely changing.
Speaker 3: And then decide to become this rebel anarchist. And it
Speaker 3: is a tall order for a very short scene. But
Speaker 3: I think Cynthia Arrivo does a really good job acting
Speaker 3: that journey, and you were there with her on every
Speaker 3: step of the way, and you understand how she gets
Speaker 3: from point A to point B, which I think is
Speaker 3: a very tall order. It's devastating.
Speaker 1: Like this scene for me is like why I'm like
Speaker 1: she has the nom like she is the alphaba, like
Speaker 1: it is. It is like the stakes of it are
Speaker 1: carried by her and we haven't even gotten to defying
Speaker 1: gravity yet.
Speaker 3: Like it's so devastated.
Speaker 1: And also like the I love how growth, the growth,
Speaker 1: how grotesque the transformation of the monkeys was, because in
Speaker 1: the original Wizard of Oz, the monkeys are supposed to
Speaker 1: be are the are horrifying. I was terrified of them
Speaker 1: as a child, like and when they're like, you know,
Speaker 1: in pursuit of her and breaking through the windows, like
Speaker 1: it's horror, it's a horror, like it's really really good.
Speaker 3: I also think this this is where, like this leaning
Speaker 3: into defining gravity is where we really see that tension
Speaker 3: of what I brought up earlier, which is we're not
Speaker 3: just examining what it is to be wicked, we're examining
Speaker 3: what it is to be good. And we see how
Speaker 3: Glinda is so like tied to the system, tied to power,
Speaker 3: that even though she has seen hard evidence that what
Speaker 3: the people are doing is wrong, she still thinks that
Speaker 3: to be aligned with what is perceived as good is
Speaker 3: the same thing as actually being good.
Speaker 1: Oh that is wow. I love the way you put that.
Speaker 1: That's like, but it's the beating heart of the story.
Speaker 1: It's this story, as you said, of like the activist
Speaker 1: versus the institutionalist right and the institutionalist and the activists
Speaker 1: both kind of having like this perilous relationship to what
Speaker 1: they they previously believed in what they believe now and
Speaker 1: the choices they then make and and then eventually split in.
Speaker 3: Having it's like and the realizations, you know. So now
Speaker 3: we're at divine gravity, the final sequence of the movie,
Speaker 3: and it's so heartbreaking because you have in this moment
Speaker 3: these two women who love each other so much, maybe
Speaker 3: just as friends, maybe not I think, I think not,
Speaker 3: these two women who love each other. One of them
Speaker 3: wants to disrupt the system. One of them wants to
Speaker 3: uphold it.
Speaker 1: And you see, maybe not even wants to, but just
Speaker 1: like this is what she she has no choice but
Speaker 1: to hold the system. And Alphaba asked Glinda to come
Speaker 1: with her, and you see, not not necessarily that Glinda
Speaker 1: wants to, but that she wants to want to. Yes,
Speaker 1: she because they are both in this moment discovering what
Speaker 1: is at the core of them. Alphabet which is that
Speaker 1: she will not stand for injustice and she is finally
Speaker 1: going to accept this outcast role that has been forced
Speaker 1: upon her whole life, and it's finally going to be
Speaker 1: to do something that she believes is right. And Glinda,
Speaker 1: which is that she understands that she will never be
Speaker 1: able to let go of her desire to be seen
Speaker 1: as right, even if that's diametrically opposed to what actually
Speaker 1: is right to do.
Speaker 3: Yes, they're each discovering this inner truth of themselves that
Speaker 3: they learn puts them forever at odds with each other.
Speaker 3: And it's so heartbreaking and beautiful and they both play
Speaker 3: it so well. Literally, like they're standing at the tower
Speaker 3: at the top of this the Wizard's Tower, and Alphabe
Speaker 3: is looking Aglinda and saying.
Speaker 1: Together, we could be bad bitches. And just as you said,
Speaker 1: like it, I personally like my original. When I first
Speaker 1: watched the musical, I thought it was much It was
Speaker 1: not as complex as what how is portrayed here.
Speaker 3: It was just like.
Speaker 1: Glinda chooses to be an institutionalist. What Ari does in
Speaker 1: this scene is do exactly what you said. She wants
Speaker 1: to want it. You can see how embattled she is inside.
Speaker 1: You can see that she wants so badly to support
Speaker 1: her friend, and yet she's not programmed that way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's it's not how she was raised. And I loved also,
Speaker 1: like I can't remember if this was in the original
Speaker 1: musical or not, but like Albaba asks her, she asked,
Speaker 1: she pops the question essentially, and Glinda doesn't. Like, let's
Speaker 1: scissor on this broomshead and Glinda doesn't answer the question.
Speaker 1: Deflects and then like makes a fashion choice for Alba
Speaker 1: the cap yeah, which is like exactly what her character
Speaker 1: should do. It's it's so amazing.
Speaker 3: So the defying gravity sequence is a lot longer in
Speaker 3: the movie than it is in the show, as it
Speaker 3: should be, and as it should be, the stakes are
Speaker 3: really ramped up. They give it. They they do sort
Speaker 3: of marvel fy it in a way with the whole
Speaker 3: hot Air Balloons sequence, not in a bad way. Not
Speaker 3: in a bad way, because I do understand, because you again,
Speaker 3: like it's justifying this being the end of a movie
Speaker 3: and it's twenty twenty four. The stakes have to be
Speaker 3: higher than they are in the stage show for you
Speaker 3: to feel like this real sense of closure that will
Speaker 3: get you through the next year until we get Wicked
Speaker 3: Part two. So I think that was the right choice
Speaker 3: to make. I think it works. I love, love the
Speaker 3: choice to have Alphaba jump out the window with her
Speaker 3: broom and fall for the cape to like she gets
Speaker 3: tangled in the cape and yeah, for her to fall,
Speaker 3: and I like that she sees her younger self. I
Speaker 3: think it could have been a more brief glimpse. I
Speaker 3: don't think it needed to be this extended moment. It
Speaker 3: was maybe like ten to fifteen seconds too long. The
Speaker 3: fact that she reaches out and to herself and imbues
Speaker 3: that lyric it's me with a meaning that it has
Speaker 3: never had before in any production of Wicked, feeling that
Speaker 3: she is feeling her and her child choosing herself, and
Speaker 3: that is how she finds her power and finally ascends
Speaker 3: and devis gravity. And then we get her hovering in
Speaker 3: the air, her Kate billowing out up behind her in
Speaker 3: this direct homage to the stage musical. It's so fucking cool.
Speaker 3: It's so powerful. The defying gravity has like there's like
Speaker 3: four different moments where it ends, and it kind of
Speaker 3: keeps going. I really like the chase scene with the
Speaker 3: monkeys and that she's sort of like she is able
Speaker 3: to use like the propulsion of the monkeys to like
Speaker 3: take out the guards, Like there's a reason why this
Speaker 3: is happening. She's not just hovering and flying around for
Speaker 3: the drama of it, even though she is like, oh yeah,
Speaker 3: they make it have a purpose in the story. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: She she comes down like she when she's like, you know,
Speaker 1: if you care to find me, look to the motherfucking
Speaker 1: Western sky and you think she's proved her point because
Speaker 1: she flies off and she sings some more, and she goes,
Speaker 1: let me just turn this car around and make the
Speaker 1: point one more motherfucking time.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 1: It's I was kind of giggling because she does kind
Speaker 1: of do like two or three like laps that way,
Speaker 1: but every single time, because the song has so many crescendos,
Speaker 1: so satisfying, it feels like that the encore. It feels
Speaker 1: like an encore. It feels like a big, huge fuck
Speaker 1: you to everything that she has like withstood up into
Speaker 1: this moment, which is exactly what the song is supposed
Speaker 1: to feel like. And just as you said, the homage
Speaker 1: to the original musical, the expansion of the cape and
Speaker 1: to that perfect triangle in that like like uh kind
Speaker 1: of like menacing orangey cloud kind of like sun like
Speaker 1: you know, the sunscape. Like it was so beautiful. It's
Speaker 1: a frame in film to stand the test of time
Speaker 1: for so long.
Speaker 3: My god, I was gagged. I gagged. And then the
Speaker 3: movie ends with Alphaba zooming away. We have a year
Speaker 3: before part two comes out. I need to see the
Speaker 3: movie five more times. I'm seeing it again tomorrow. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm so excited. Well, I really really loved it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it was stunning. Okay, Part two, here's some of my
Speaker 3: predictions for the sequel. I think what they will do
Speaker 3: to build the story out is, well, what I'm hoping
Speaker 3: for is I really want an extension of the whole
Speaker 3: Wicked Witch of the the Wicked Witch of the East sequence.
Speaker 3: I did not love Nessa Rose in this movie. We
Speaker 3: didn't really talk about her much, but I think it's fine.
Speaker 3: She was kind of a snooze. That is a song
Speaker 3: that was that is not on the Wicked soundtrack because
Speaker 3: it's kind of like more of a refrain in the musical.
Speaker 3: What is it? Actually, don't know? It the Wicked Witch
Speaker 3: of the East. So it's the whole sequence where Alpha
Speaker 3: becomes Nessa Rose uses the Grimmery to put the spell
Speaker 3: on back that makes his heart stop. Oh and Alpha
Speaker 3: but turns him into the Tan Man, and all the
Speaker 3: while Nessa Rose sings this song The Wicked Witch of
Speaker 3: the East about how she's become this like tyrant, a dictate,
Speaker 3: a dictator in munchkin Land. So I hope we get
Speaker 3: more of that.
Speaker 1: Well, also, like it's worth saying, like I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I obviously kept being like, what if Ali
Speaker 1: Stoker was in this role. But like, I the thing
Speaker 1: about Nessa in the original musical, like she's such an afterthought,
Speaker 1: there's never any time spent with the character. She's really
Speaker 1: a cog in the plot, and I she wasn't in
Speaker 1: this film, but but she Yeah, just you said, there's
Speaker 1: a real opportunity for her to be a real bitch,
Speaker 1: and I'm that would be so much fun, especially since
Speaker 1: she has such an important part in the lore of
Speaker 1: the very original story.
Speaker 3: But what I think we'll mostly see in Part two.
Speaker 3: What I'm expecting is because Part two essentially runs concurrently
Speaker 3: with the plot of The Wizard of Oz, I think
Speaker 3: we'll see more direct references and homages to that story.
Speaker 3: Maybe we'll see Dorothy Moore, because she's not in the show,
Speaker 3: She's really only featured as a silhouette and a voice
Speaker 3: off screen. In the book Wicked, she has a slightly
Speaker 3: more of a presence, Like she does have a couple
Speaker 3: scenes with Alphaba in which she is like really trying
Speaker 3: to apologize for killing Nessro's I did not know that.
Speaker 3: So that's my prediction. I think we'll see more stuff
Speaker 3: directly lifted from either the book or the Wizard of
Speaker 3: Oz to build out that story. We also know we're
Speaker 3: getting two original songs, two new songs that Stephen Schwartz
Speaker 3: has written. I would guests, more cameos. Maybe we'll get
Speaker 3: in Orbert lyobuts moment. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I So for the visions that are unaware, I think
Speaker 1: you're the one that told me this that the second
Speaker 1: act is kind of famously like lackluster.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it has. It has some bangers I love, Thank goodness. Uh,
Speaker 3: their bridges you cross, you didn't know you cross them
Speaker 3: to you cross is maybe maybe my favorite like line
Speaker 3: of music on the whole show. No good Deed is
Speaker 3: like really great and uh, as long as your mind
Speaker 3: is really sexy and sensual for good it is going
Speaker 3: to have us all you know weeping. Yeah, I well.
Speaker 1: And also if the virsions don't know, it's like it's
Speaker 1: a in the musical, it's a big time jump, so
Speaker 1: it jumps years and years and and all of this
Speaker 1: kind of ossy and propaganda has been disseminated, and like
Speaker 1: Munchkin Lenen, everybody has been like, you know, brainwash, brainwashed whatever,
Speaker 1: like just mediafied into believing that Alpha but is the
Speaker 1: ultimate evil public enemy number one. Glinda is this politician
Speaker 1: in service of that message. Fierro is like the head
Speaker 1: of the guard in pursuit of this like mass witch hunt.
Speaker 1: It's a dystopia and it's it's all of the darkness
Speaker 1: of the original Gregory Maguire's story that I think enriches
Speaker 1: so much of of of Yeah, what it's gonna what's
Speaker 1: gonna happen?
Speaker 3: Who knows, Maybe we'll get a sex scene, Maybe we'll
Speaker 3: see if alphabus pussy is green.
Speaker 1: Well the as long what is that as long as
Speaker 1: as long as your isn't that a sex sce a
Speaker 1: sex scene?
Speaker 3: I mean it's a love scene. Well there's they're they're
Speaker 3: like hooking up in a forest. And you said, I
Speaker 3: think we discussed the see and at the end she
Speaker 3: goes for the first time, I feel.
Speaker 1: Wicked, right, I think you said this in our Wizard
Speaker 1: of Oz episode of your But like the sex scenes
Speaker 1: in the book are like kind of eclipsed. It's nothing graphic, right,
Speaker 1: but there's no it's but apparently this is where like
Speaker 1: the intersex thing, Like, yeah, it's like from Fiera's perspective,
Speaker 1: he like has some commentary about Alphaba's like genitalia. He
Speaker 1: sees something between her. There's literally like two or three
Speaker 1: references in the book.
Speaker 3: I think when he says like he sees like a
Speaker 3: scar hor something might have been removed.
Speaker 1: What Like that's crazy. Well because like from the very beginning.
Speaker 3: I was actually listening to the first chapter of the
Speaker 3: Wicked audiobook recently, and in the first chapter in the prologue,
Speaker 3: the Witch is like following, you know, like the the
Speaker 3: Fabulous four around and they're all kind of like gossiping
Speaker 3: about her, and they're like, I've heard that she is
Speaker 3: a hermaphrodite. I heard she was she's with a married man.
Speaker 3: I heard she is a married man.
Speaker 1: What.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they transvestigate her, they do. They transvestigate her.
Speaker 1: That's I also didn't know that in the book, Glinda
Speaker 1: and Alphabet kiss.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It's so oh sapphic wow. I mean Gregor Gregory
Speaker 3: maguire is gay and so like the books are very gay.
Speaker 3: I love that. I've never read the book. I think
Speaker 3: I might have to. It's very dense. I read it
Speaker 3: for the first time when I was in middle school,
Speaker 3: and like I didn't even know that it was becoming
Speaker 3: a musical. I just saw it in a bookstore and
Speaker 3: I saw the Witch on the cover and was like,
Speaker 3: I need to read that because the Wizard of Oz
Speaker 3: was like my favorite thing in the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I would love to see more more
Speaker 1: built out in the I was gonna say animal rights activism,
Speaker 1: but like just the the social narrative like in this story.
Speaker 1: I would love to see more.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would love to see Alfa but actually doing
Speaker 3: something like I would love to see her because in
Speaker 3: the in the book, she when she has this relationship
Speaker 3: with Fierro, she has become this sort of like underground
Speaker 3: eco terrorist who they like somewhere in the Emerald City.
Speaker 3: I think, so maybe we'll see more of like her
Speaker 3: activist journey. I would love for her to bomb. And
Speaker 3: there's also a part where Madam Morrible dies in the
Speaker 3: book and then Alphabe like bludgeons her dead body.
Speaker 2: What.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I cannot wait to read this. I yeah, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I hope it. I mean, they could only
Speaker 1: be so dark.
Speaker 3: You reminded me.
Speaker 1: Yesterday that the Children's It has to be PG in
Speaker 1: order for them to make the maximum amount of money.
Speaker 1: But it is like a really dark like this is
Speaker 1: the latter half is a really dark part of the story.
Speaker 1: I'm really curious like your theories on Dorothy, like what
Speaker 1: you like. So I was like actually thinking about it
Speaker 1: on the bike right here, and yesterday you were like,
Speaker 1: I think it could be like a sickening cameo, or
Speaker 1: maybe it'll just be the back of her head. There
Speaker 1: is there's like a tease photo of like you know,
Speaker 1: the back of the four like in front of Oz.
Speaker 1: I am thinking that because this will be probably the
Speaker 1: highest grossing movie of the year, that it will absolutely
Speaker 1: be a star like I think Dorothy will be played
Speaker 1: by a star. And then this is my prediction, they
Speaker 1: are going to announce that John M. Chew is adapting
Speaker 1: The Wizard of Us.
Speaker 3: I don't want that to happen.
Speaker 1: I think that is what's happened with Perfection. No, you
Speaker 1: really can't, but I think that that is what's happening.
Speaker 3: That should not happen. I agree with you.
Speaker 1: Unless no, unless their Wizard of Oz is PG. Thirteen
Speaker 1: because the Frank L.
Speaker 3: Baum story is bomb L L. Frank Baumb It's dark
Speaker 3: as fuck. Like it's dark if you want, but if
Speaker 3: you want a dark adaptation, watch Return to Oz. It
Speaker 3: already exists.
Speaker 1: Did you also see that Mombi was mentioned in this.
Speaker 3: That's one of the professors.
Speaker 1: That's crazy, like need a momby cameo.
Speaker 3: Wow, So how long?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: How long? Recordings? Having a long time? Holy fuck? An
Speaker 3: hour and forty four minutes. Honestly, y'all, this this is
Speaker 3: longer than what we recorded yesterday. You're welcome, and it's
Speaker 3: better and it's better, yeah, really better. We hope that
Speaker 3: you liked this very thorough analysis of Wicked. I'm sure
Speaker 3: that as we both maybe see it again, keep listening
Speaker 3: to the soundtrack, we will have more thoughts. I would
Speaker 3: imagine that we'll get a trailer for part two, probably
Speaker 3: at the Oscars. That's when the trailer for part one
Speaker 3: came out this past year. Oh but I'm sure, like
Speaker 3: I'm sure that by the end of the year we'll
Speaker 3: see some like official first look images. It's insane to
Speaker 3: think about, but it's a year away. We have a
Speaker 3: year long intermission. I'm gonna pee for the whole thing.
Speaker 1: You will start peeing now and you won't stop next November.
Speaker 3: I am gagged.
Speaker 1: Virgins. Please get in the comments, get in the chat,
Speaker 1: tell us everything. This is our this is the most
Speaker 1: important episode we have made the like a virgin Patreon
Speaker 1: thus far.
Speaker 3: Okay, so we recorded this twice for you for you
Speaker 3: and I have fun, had so much. I mean, I
Speaker 3: talk about we good first, Like I said, I was
Speaker 3: going to talk about it, but I'm too tired. Like
Speaker 3: I could get into a whole other.
Speaker 1: Section where we're talking about like constructions of class in
Speaker 1: the original like l frank Baum, Wizard of Oz and
Speaker 1: how they've like been brought into like they skipped the
Speaker 1: musical and are maybe being looped back into this wicked story.
Speaker 1: But you know, maybe we'll have follow ups next episode.
Speaker 3: Until then or if you carefund me looks in the
Speaker 3: Western Side