In the Heights (2021) dir. Jon M. Chu | Showgays: A Movie Musical Podcast

0:07 we get to have the top salsa dances in the world come represent New York style salsa on too salsa on two is a New York style of salsa that my father helped structure back in the 50s and 60s our ancestors weren't born here they came from all different parts of the Caribbean it's our job to literally represent and go hard in Canada we had the Dominicans and they had their folkloric dance the Mexicans which had their dance the Colombians which they're known for the calendar style so Carnaval was that one piece that we had to really represent each culture when the Spanish conquistadors went to Africa they took all these slaves and they allowed them to keep their music and out of their team a list of rhythms such as Cha-cha-cha mambo song refuse everything

0:55 so like even the song yeah so we mixed salsa with song in order for us to teach them we had to show them timing there's on one there's on two salsa on two lives in the Rhythm that the conga plays Bluetooth so this slap it dictates where to break forward and back I called her auntie for but you're probably thinking what kind of Asian is he he speaks such good English where are you from well do I have to explain to Chinese or too American it's kind of hard to maintain to keep my culture in name yeah reach for something greater I hope you're writing this down I'm gonna test you later our parents sacrifices for an

1:41 education this culture's got the pressure on the Asians of friends that started stepping up and picking up their midlife crisis catching up it's gotten that competitive to live with just enough and you played the role that lin-manuel played uh on when it was on Broadway did did you get nervous when he came to set or when you're like nah he was there all the time yeah it was it was good though yeah it was good that it was good to have him there like people always like yo did he give you advice or anything like yo he literally said nothing I mean like he was just like yo do your thing Papa like yo get after it you know like just tell the truth and um it's just it's almost like I heard him quoted saying that that the role was actually kind of meant for you even

2:28 though he wrote it for him he didn't know you at the time and you blew me away on this one man congratulations thank you thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] good juice Linda tell me something I don't know it's like the dirge version

3:24 after yes after all the after everyone left and no one said goodbye to them remember how that was a big moment for Carla I was like no one's saying goodbye no one wants to take the train to the Bronx Carla got done extremely dirty in this musical I I want to talk about it I can't wait because she we the entire time we kept just being like definitely we're gonna make as great as Carla and I want more I thought Japanese was Daniela oh yes Daniela sorry I'm mixing up Daniela who owns the salon and then Carla who is her lover her love question mark is that Dasha or Stephanie who plays

4:11 Stephanie okay gotcha Dasha is okay Daniela is the salon owner okay she got done dirty but I will wait to discuss that until the end it really is the end of the musical so I don't want to talk okay good good good welcome back to another thrilling episode where we discuss for longer than actual movie actual run time in the film but that's the challenge now we gotta get there yeah um we had a great run so I feel like Why Stop Now it's a it's a long boy though this one yeah boy it is a lengthy it is a lengthy boy um something I will never say again for the

4:59 rest of my life Molly how are you how are you doing I don't mean to ask you a question right while you're taking a sip of tea okay uh I'm doing pretty good I think I I hope that when y'all are listening to this the pandemic feels like it's um ebbed instead of flowed it seems like we're moving in that direction but I feel like I'm in a place right now where I haven't interacted socially with another human being in the same room for about two-ish months so struggling a little bit with that right now but I'm really hoping by the time this comes out I'll be having a ball of a time so looking forward to that what about you two looking people in the eyes in real time you know look giving a full up down because it's like oh that's what you look like below below chest I see

5:48 can't wait uh we're good we we just had a fight we just had a fight you saw the Molly witnessed just you know Hunters are jealous they were not privy yeah you'll have to join the patreon I think that is a strong word for what I just witnessed I think it was it was truly it was a tense and quiet moment it was it was just an older married couple yeah it's very bad which is the goal you know so that's and that's my swenito My Little Dream My Little Dream My Little Dream um things are well for me thank you for asking okay RJ your challenge this week is to

6:35 uh we say one minute but much like the run time of this podcast it'll probably go over there oh your challenge this week is too in a minute succinctly sum up for those who have not seen uh in the Heights John M chews in the Heights released in 2021 uh starting now okay in the Heights is a movie musical about the lives of a vibrant Latino community living in Washington Heights in New York the story centers around US Navy and his Bodega who dreams of leaving New York with his cousin Sunny to live in the Dominican Republic by the beach his Crush Vanessa also dreams of leaving the neighborhood to live downtown and pursue a fashion design career Kevin Rosario

7:20 who runs the taxi company and his daughter Nina who is on break from her first year in Stanford clash as they tackle making sacrifices for Nina uh because she's gonna be like the one who makes it out of Washington Heights by actually going and finishing College despite her hardships at a majority white environment and uh feeling like she doesn't have a community like she had back home with her family and her ex-boyfriend Benny other characters include Daniela a salon owner and her girlfriend uh Carla and Kuka a friend Kuka not girlfriend a local graffiti team named Pete a pirago man and abuela Claudia who has been the matriarch of the community the story tests the characters if they will fall to the many challenges that come their way like blackouts gentrification uh DACA and

8:07 even death or if they can achieve their dreams uh and survive as a community I love that you performed this as a monologue you did not read it to be like speedily uh telling the police but you were like as always I was I was reading it I was like this kid this isn't so short to be a minute and then I got halfway through and I was like oh no this is long it's like I immediately rushed the end brilliant job I really think that sums up uh the plot without you did a A plus job at not spoiling what happens at the end yeah I was trying to really like put in a mindset of like I want to give a plot summary that like would hook someone that could

8:54 want to watch it like I was when I I was actually challenging myself to write it down of like how do I yeah it's true he took like 15 minutes to write it last night I think I think this is one of the ones we would say go watch it right I I'm guessing we're all gonna say that so if you haven't seen it yet and you're interested and you don't want to go into it with full spoilers to take a pause go watch it first yeah because I think it but again like the classic uh musical format what are we really spoiling [Music] there's a small twist at the end that that you know if if you enjoy not knowing much then then go yeah yeah a small twist that the first time RJ and I watched it in the theaters he like

9:41 gasped when he realized the actual he like did not see it coming and I was like oh did we're talking about different uh we're to I I am referring to the story he's telling the kids on the beach RJ thought they were actually on a beach there is no frame story there's no frame delay okay okay the audience is the children the audience yes it's just now be just telling us yeah so it was one of those things where film directors are deeply uncomfortable with somebody directly addressing a camera so they're like they have to be talking to a person somehow that's in the movie and they

10:26 decided to do it that way gotcha and they just really wanted a free trip to Dominican Republic they they were like we got an expense one trip which I don't blame them so my relationship to in the Heights is I um was on a trip to New York in the summer of 2010. we saw four shows we saw promises promises with uh Sean Hayes and Kristen Chenoweth we saw Phantom of the Opera and it's a thousand year run we saw um La Cage with the Kelsey Grammar La Cage that was on Broadway the Revival the cage the cage

11:11 and uh we saw this this was our tkts booth um this was our get up early subscribe and save this was your go to the booth find out what cheap tickets were available and we I knew that the show had won the Tony for best musical and it was like an option and I was like I pushed for it and I was like I think we should see in the Heights so we went and saw it it was great um I saw it with uh Corbin blue as as us Navi and he was really good yeah um genuinely really good um and he was also very kind because I staged doored and he oh he was very sweet and gracious did he sign your basketball yeah I didn't bring a basketball

11:59 unfortunately can you put that in your suitcase I I well my head wasn't in the game um off season off season but um I I think the show is really good but I didn't I like listened to it maybe a few times but it wasn't a show that I was like oh I can like re-listen to it because I think I my brain doesn't work in this musical theater format really except for like specific songs like I can't do a full album but I can do like I can pick like pieces of this or Hamilton or whatever um but I think the show is good and I like this movie so that's where I stand Molly I'm saving RJ for last because he's gonna be very dramatic about it Molly how do you feel about this film

12:46 how do you feel about this sorry just right into it Molly what is your date yeah Molly what is your relationship previously before we watched this film mine might be a tad dramatic because my biggest memory is RJ making me listen to the album and me not liking it very much and feeling bad I don't remember this Molly where are we going I don't remember where but I feel quite confident that we were on the L unless or maybe like a bus or I don't know if they ever like Unity did they chart buses for us or anything so I think what we did we did a retreat yes on the drive back you made me listen to last five years so maybe on the drive there I made

13:32 you listen to In the Heights maybe because that's funny because I don't remember making you listen for the last five years so let's assume it's the same trip in which we didn't influence each other in any way um I just remember you being like so excited and me being like this seems fine and like not really putting all that into it and feeling bad that I wanted to be friends with you but I was not yeah that Retreat is where I got Henry who is now a giant plant with many offsprings take a picture of it let's show you his yeah um he's you're Henry's still alive oh man he's going strong we've got Hank Henrietta we've got all of his children around it's great um anyway back tonight so I remember that and then also I believe it was Haley Knutson was who is a freshman we

14:18 were a senior in college she did the song Breathe for her like what was that called The Freshman showcase something like that yeah and it was a great performance and I would like really loved that song so that's the one song from this musical that I super like and I will like nerd out and go look up performances of various Broadway actresses at like 54 Below and like other reviews just doing that song because I think that song's great other than that I don't really have I didn't have any idea really of what the plot was and I didn't really have much of a relationship with the with the music at all yeah I feel like this is my like your West Side Story your maybe your Mary Poppins because so I um in high school was when I like first

15:04 started listening to like musical like Broadway musical uh that was like my introduction to it because I did theater for the first time and stopped like in high school and people were like recommending me any different shows to listen to and I was like performing like uh spoken word poetry uh for speech and debate as like a program and uh my coach my speech and debate coach was like I think you need to like get kind of like the Cadence and like how fast this needs to be it's almost like rapping so maybe you should listen to uh this musical called in the Heights which I really love and I was like okay cool so she made me listen to it and I like immediately like just fell into it and I

15:49 was like this is amazing I I want to know more I think I was also just like connecting to the like immigrant like story about it because like I was still like uh I was I still had my immigrant status at the time because I was just like maybe like three four years in America so I was like oh wow this is crazy and then like I just went into a deep dive like going through all of YouTube watching all the videos watching the Tony performance um so that's kind of how I got into it what song did they do at the Tony's 96 000 they did 96 000. yeah I was trying to remember yeah and then uh when I uh got to college and went to Loyola uh sophomore year they did a I not a tour I think it was like the Chicago like not residency but like the Chicago

16:37 production yeah production so that was my first and only time seeing it live and I literally cried from curtain to curtain like oh my God the music Started they're like and I was like oh my God I have been waiting years to see this happen in real time so it's it's probably up there with all of like probably I would say it's probably my favorite musical of all time that's fair so it's listen it's not a bad musical to pick favorite music of all time yeah I kind of wish I liked it more than I do I I wish that I shared your passion for it RJ and I I see objectively things about it that are good but I also think some of it there were moments where I was listening and I was like the same guy

17:23 who wrote Hamilton did this yes that's the thing it's like this is clearly his first musical yeah like that's just because he wrote it like even when he was back in uh College like he had been working on wow he would have been working on this for I think for years like doing different workshops and stuff well why don't I tell you all about it oh [Music] famously lin-manuel Miranda who is just ubiquitous in culture at this point um can't can't get away not look at him yeah he's everywhere he did the museum

18:09 lyrics for this show uh and the book is by Kiara Alegria two days Alegria we're gonna take a guess she also she wrote Water By The Spoonful which is a very good play that I think won the Pulitzer or something like that I learned in my research which is awesome she also wrote the screenplay for the movie too so um great uh uh it he originally like started writing it he had the idea for it after he was a performance of rent that he saw at 17 years old and then like it gave him like the inspiration of like what if I did this about like people in like my community where I live because famously lin-manuel is like from New York

18:57 um and is like I think his parents are immigrants I could be wrong um what a crazy full circle Daphne Ruben Vega who was in the original rant and now I don't know if he that was the red he I don't know if he saw that but it was the Broadway one but yeah um but the he works that he toiled on it for a while he wrote a draft in college it was like an 80-minute one-act thing and then people like loved it were like you should like try to make this a thing so he worked on it for like four four or five years yeah and then it finally premiered in Connecticut at the Eugene O'Neill theater center in Waterford

19:44 um and it did like a little stint there I was just gonna say lin-manuel was born in New York and it doesn't say if his parents were immigrants but he said he spent some of his childhood and teens in Puerto Rico with his grandparents so it sounds like he has at least one part of a family where his grandparents generation lived in Puerto Rico so yeah so anyway so the show after Waterford it uh premiered on Broadway in 2007 it moved to Broadway in 2008. it won the Tony for best musical um and it won the Tony for best original score it won the Tony for choreography and orchestration and then it was like nominated for literally everything else uh it was nominated for best book it was nominated for best performance by

20:30 leading actor best performance by featured actor best performance by featured actress best Direction best Scenic Design best costume design best lighting design but sound design like anything it could be nominated for was nominated for this is clearly the precursor to the Hamilton sweeping the Tonys in 2000 and what is that 17 I think 2006 2016. it gives that energy other than that there wasn't like a lot of uh stuff I found like it just kind of like seems like it had like a clean shot to like he created it people thought it was great he added like a lot of the stuff he added was just more like salsa and Hip-Hop or like freestyle rap influence into it from the original like 80 minute

21:17 version that he did in college and that's I think what people really like at this point really associate with like his his style his style of musical theater um so it is cool that like he just he knew what his like thing was from such an early age yeah it's like validating he must have felt very validated that like this is a not only like my me telling like an accurate story of like what my community or like where I grew up in but also like my voice my style and everyone was like yeah this is great this this is the future yeah yeah I encountered some background that I think is probably adding to the red story although it's like a slightly different origin story but it's like his his story

22:05 about why he felt really motivated to write a musical that was like all latinx characters or Latino characters um so he says he said in an interview in 2015 that in high school he was directing West Side Story it sounds like at the same time that the musical Cape man was coming out on Broadway have y'all ever heard of Cape man what is no he's like a superhero it was this huge flop which so I'll tell you the specifics of the second but basically I guess that it was being marketed as like it's going to be the great Brown moment in musical theater and then but it was no I don't think it was that I think that was Miranda's like recount I don't think that it was like literally

22:52 for this thing of like oh like finally there's going to be this representation but then it was again a story about gang members in the 50s and he was like so again that's the only representation exclusively gangsters in the 50s okay so Kate man was a musical it was a collaboration between Paul Simon of Simon and Garfunkel Simon sorry sorry I'm sorry I guess Simon and Garfunkel with Nobel Laureate Derek Wolcott and it's the story of Salvador Agron who is a Puerto rican-american gang member who in 1959 killed two teenage boys he was supposed to have a rumble with an Irish American gang called the Norseman and basically like there were these other teenagers in the park and they

23:37 just like mistook them for the rival gang members and so he killed two people that like were unrelated but he is famous because he was 16 when he was sentenced for this and he was the youngest person ever in New York state to be sent to death row but then he was later it was later changed to a life sentence and then later he actually got released so he was not actually executed for his crimes but that's why he was um famous and he apparently wore a cape when the murders happened is why it's called Cape man it's not clear to me if that was like a thing he did regularly or if he just like happened to be wearing a cape on the day that he murdered two people um but anyway that was a wild Wikipedia Rabbit Hole I will say I was running out of time I read Wikipedia this time um but um

24:23 exclusively but I was like so enthralled there was just like this one reference to it in an interview and I was like I need to know everything about the musical caveman now this is amazing to like make caveman the movie yeah reclaimed Cape man Hamill Hamill's Cape man yeah Hamilton eyes caveman so critics at the time for the musical they praised the songs choreography the set design um their biggest criticism was levied at the book um they said it was like too simplistic like a little too Sakura and sweet and pretty oversimplified [Music] which when you read the Wikipedia summary of the musical and its plot

25:10 there are a lot of elements going yeah there's a lot of plot in this show for a show that has as many songs as it does like there's a lot of stuff going on but I will say I saw it and I was like 18 and I had had no preconceived notion of what it was and I understood don't understand what's going on but there have been many notable Productions around the world uh the first uh off huh the first International production was in Manila oh so I thought you'd like that um there was also there have also been Productions in Panama City in Panama Sao Paulo and Brazil in the West End Tokyo Melbourne Australia in Vancouver in Seoul South Korea in Lima is it Lima

25:57 Peru it's Lima Peru right it's Lima Ohio if you're a geek it's Lima and beans alone in Germany nyborg in Denmark Saltillo I didn't even look that one up uh I think it was I'm not even gonna guess and then there has been officially one full fledge to Spanish-speaking production done in America um that was like okayed by lin-manuel and that was in DC and it wasn't like the dis the DC's version of like the Tonys or like the Chicago Jeff's like it won oh it was like a local production it was like it was like a regional theater

26:42 yeah because I do know that he also brought I think it was during the tour or something but he did bring it to Puerto Rico too in the Heights like he they performed there too so it was after Hurricane Maria and it was like for like fundraising yeah and he like redid the role I will add to notable production my friend Victor directed a black box production of in the Heights in New York uh after he graduated college so there you go notable production notable production in the Heights in the in a black box that's that's pretty not only you want to talk

27:29 about feeling like a community yeah yeah fire fire uh fire what is it Island no no maximum occupancy in a black box is like 70 and oh yeah that's your cat that's your cast so yeah anyway uh there is a if you want to RJ there are a few videos of Lynn at the Manila oh like opening night and he comes out and like he says a little something during the curtain call that's very sweet and it's crazy because he's so young yeah like yeah it's Bonkers um he was back when he had his like short hair

28:16 um truly just a wild time um but you want to know what's more wild than the musical the movie [Laughter] so the movie is directed by gem Chu who is most famous probably for uh crazy Rich Asians which we stand uh the streamplay again is by the book writer uh I'm not gonna try to say their name again um it is produced by lin-manuel uh as well as Scott Sanders Anthony Bergman and Mara Jacobs it stars Anthony Ramos as usnavi Corey Hawkins as Benny Leslie Grace as Nina I'm gonna do this for

29:02 memory Melissa Barrera as Vanessa [Music] Vega as Daniella Gregory Diaz the fourth as that must be sunny the fourth yeah the young one uh and Jimmy Smith's is Kevin Kevin his name is Kevin Kevin Rosario yeah I don't like that name write down what What actors like which characters I had just a screenshot I do a peek behind the curtain he does the screenshot of the side panel on Wikipedia and I know that I'm making a

29:49 suggestion no I think it's fun um cinematography is by Alice Brooks edited by Myron kerstein uh uh and the production companies uh 5 000 Broadway Productions Barrio girl Productions I like that one uh it was distributed by Warner Brothers we'll get into how that happened and it was officially released on June 10th 2021 so um we were still in season one of the pandemic if you all remember this was before Miss Delta and definitely before Miss Omicron um this is when we were feeling safe enough to go to a movie theater [Music] Folly here in Chicago we were like oh

30:36 can't wait to plan Market Days and prize um the running time it is 143 minutes so just know that um its budget was 55 million dollars and unfortunately it's box office is 43.9 and I'm gonna make you even more sad variety estimates that in order to break even this movie had to make 200 million dollars wow wow so they are in the hole in the yeah in the Heights in the hole yeah um oh no another one of these like it's

31:22 it feels like West Side Story again where it's like beloved by critics audience members have give it a really high satisfaction rating like multiple people say they would recommend it to people commercially a flap which is just a real bummer and there was this thing I was reading where people were saying obviously like the pandemic um some people said like it's also because it was on HBO Max for free at the same time well if you had a subscription then it was free um so that could have skewed the numbers I was reading something that was saying because it's so long there were only there are only so many showings a theater can do in a day of this movie because it is such a long film it's not like a tight 90. it's obviously much longer and then um there were 25 of movie theaters in

32:08 the country were still closed when this came out and many theaters were still doing social distancing so they only had limited like seating capacities so there's definitely a lot of things working against it for sure I I've had a stretch here now I've not seen great in that circumstance about seeing a musical that has like so many people in it and they're like all having such a good time in a lot of the numbers but there's also something kind of depressing about it and I sort of wonder if we like just didn't have the appetite for like let's see a bunch of people celebrating and I think I mean watching the movie you can clearly tell the way it was packaged the way the shots are shot this

32:56 was meant to be like a big summer blockbuster yeah everyone go out and see it with your friends and family I would also say that at the time that this movie came out which was like early June they had just really like officially the vaccine was like available to everybody over the age of 18. yeah like it was like a fit like a full it's happening it's here it's real so on that level I think there was like this appetite for like this is the movie that's gonna bring people back to the movie theaters and I think that it was still I just think the estimates of what is happening in the pandemic are

33:42 still really wonky in regards to like specific genres of films I am gonna bring up I haven't done this for a while but I do want to point out the top five movies in that opening weekend because I think it's a really good especially during the pandemic when June of 2021 literally feels like it was eight and a half years ago yeah um I would just like to point out the other movies that were in the theater at the time so number five that weekend was Cruella Disney's Cruella uh number four was Peter Rabbit II The Runaway a classic we all know and love with our fave James Corden with our fave James Corden uh number three was The Conjuring the devil made me do it number two was

34:30 in the Heights and number one was a quiet place part two okay so the horror fans we're eating all right are ready to go back to the movie Yes children yeah ready to go back to the movie theater I mean like I guess we also need to be like racism is a possibility right I mean the two musicals are heavily uh Latino and there could just be enough people who feel like that not mine not I mean could be open hostility but also like that's not for me if I'm not Latino I assume I won't enjoy that for some reason or something yeah that's it's possible don't like to thinking but it's truth I always do wonder you know how they were

35:16 originally supposed to release like Hamilton in the theaters like before the pandemic that was like the idea and then they were like actually we'll do it on Disney plus well that was supposed to happen so I always think about like if the pandemic hadn't happened I want to know what that would have been because yeah the numbers would have been yeah it would have been why like so many people anyway this has nothing to do with Hamilton but it's just a weird thing I think it does we have to talk about Hamilton we talk about this musical I not talk about Hamilton this is the last time we'll be saying the word Hamilton during this entire podcast um in 2008 so this movie so the musical wins the Tonys and oh wait okay fine

36:01 so in 2008 Universal Pictures is like we're making in the Heights we're gonna release in 2011. Kenny Ortega the director of High School Musical is going to direct this film and we are searching for a bankable star AKA JLo or Shakira in my mind I am thinking JLo as usnavi right star Benny yeah oh no what is J.Lo Isabella I want to reiterate both of those options unless they are going to play Daniela is bad yeah yeah both of them are way too old to be playing either Vanessa or Nina it's too bad that JLo is the age she is

36:50 because she could have been an amazing Vanessa I think in the 90s maybe I don't know I don't know exactly how old she is but like if she were age appropriate it would be great but yeah that doesn't make any sense it was 50 when Hustlers came out yes okay so anyway just wild so that doesn't end up happening I don't know if you knew that that movie didn't happen um so in 2016 it's announced that lin-manuel and Harvey Weinstein are going to co-produce and it's going to be made by the Weinstein Company I don't know if you heard but something happened with Harvey Weinstein so that also did not happen so the rights were then auctioned to WB and like WB did this whole like in order

37:37 to get like to win over lin-manuel basically they like built a set of like piragua carts and like a Barrio abario like on their back lot and like had him come out and we're like we're so excited to do this they had like performers dance to the music like they were like selling the whole thing so they set the budget at 55 million dollars so I do think that's very interesting that like Warner Brothers was like fighting and gunning for this one it is currently nominated for uh best soundtrack at the Grammys for best soundtrack accompanying a visual Media or something like that I don't know the Grammy has a weird weird categories

38:22 um and then Anthony Ramos who is usabi again uh he was nominated for best actor in a musical comedy at the Golden Globes but he did not win um but Andrew Garfield one Andrew Garfield did win for another lin-manuel Miranda Joy so the the the LMC just ice and Kanto happens and won the golden gourd for best animated Victor and Manuel lin-manuel directed Tick Tick boom is that his involvement okay that's right cool yeah I feel like if I were lin-manuel Miranda I would never write another Broadway musical right because like yeah you can't top Hamilton he's probably getting better money in Hollywood

39:09 absolutely that was my contribution to Broadway I will be writing Disney music for the rest of my life that's what I was and you know what and you know what he will make Bank the kids love it the kids love everybody's talking about Bruno everybody is talking I literally listened to it three times on the drive hey everybody episode and also is familiar with that contact that was a layered joke y'all layers I think you'll be surprised to know that our audience ship is that Venn diagram they are those ogres ogres have layers

39:56 um the only fun fact that I wanted to like call out was that in the Heights and West Side Story were both filmed in New York at the exact same time to the point that they were filmed like blocks apart from each other and at one point uh one of the catering trucks for West Side is in this film supposedly oh I don't know if that's actually true but that's what John M Chu says um and then lin-manuel Miranda who had uh which we talked about at the time when we did the episode but we he did the Spanish translations for the Revival of West Side Story he like snuck over onto the West Side set and watched Maria get filmed all through were they like during these

40:43 filming so that sounds like a fun crowd to be around I also just imagined the idea of like living in these blocks at the time and being like I would just be filming out my window I would be like hello here I am with my neighbor professional Nike on camera I feel like you would have like tried to learn the choreography and see if you could just sneak into the back of one of the days yeah it'd be very easy to do I feel like it in the Heights a little harder a little harder yeah yeah you gotta get some vintage dresses on um so yeah so that's all my uh fascinating fun facts about this movie I can't wait to talk about it there's a lot to discuss so let's Dive

41:30 Right In [Music] RJ where do you want to start because I think I'm Gonna Let You Lead our discussion too wow okay well I think oh there's so many your options are okay you're gonna struggle with this so your options are we can go beat by beat through the film which I don't recommend I don't want to do that going on in this movie we could go uh relationship by relationship or we can go through themes of the movie which I think is probably your best bet yeah

42:15 let's do themes but I do want to ask Molly did you read the original plot of the Broadway so I only my only context was like it's about Washington Heights I obviously saw the like colorism um scandals when the or controversy when it first when the movie first came out but I did not have any idea of what the plot would be okay because I will say like as we go into themes but I I just want to say that like there are a lot of departures from the original uh Source material the the book The Book of the show um not necessarily like some omissions like in like story lines like characters being dropped off and and reorganizing

43:03 how things happen to I think like fit uh what they want the Arc of the movie to be and then also like deeper looks into certain characters so like some background like uh just for example like um Vanessa in the show you don't know that she's like an aspiring fashion person and that she okay I don't think that's true because I read the Wikipedia page it says she wants to be a fashionist well she's not she didn't she's not designing overnight like this is my newest that I was inspired by the the the rags yes she wasn't like actively sewing or whatever um so there's just like a lot of like I

43:49 think deeper dives into some of the characters that aren't in the book of the play but are in the screenplay so we'll get through them as they I think as we pepper along the combo I would say that this movie is one of those movie one of those movie musicals that is it's not wildly different like it's still in the heights yeah but it is they have changed enough elements that it is like a departure from the musical in enough like I I don't think it's like bad what they've done but it's just like this is not a one to one so like seeing this is not the same as like being like well then I don't need to go see like my local production of first of all go

44:35 support local theater second of all uh they're it's just a little different like Vanessa are not the main couple in initial yeah it's Benny and Nina who is like the couple you follow the whole show are is this Navi still the protagonist would you say it's just that his relationship's not as important or would you say he's not the protagonist he would I would say he's the it's such an on the show I think is such an ensemble piece um that I would say he probably is the protagonist but only because he's like narrating the world of the neighborhood to the audience like he's explaining who everybody is basically yeah

45:21 to him before everybody it's his decision of whether or not he's gonna go to the Dr at the end is that the like last change that a character goes through in the musical yes okay but at the end Vanessa does leave or like she does move away um and it's like not yeah and it's not clear if they like there's no child there's no child circumstances [Laughter] Harry Potter dies because he's a horcrux that is what happens at the end of in the Heights uh yeah so the so the story of usnavi is

46:07 that he wants to go to the Dr to he's buying his father's old bar so his father owned a bar in the Dr before they moved to New York he's he's buying it it's like now kind of in Ruins and he's been saving for and he's trying to get abuela and sunny to come with him and then but by the end of the at the very end Vanessa and Pete the graffiti guy convince him to stay and so like that's what happens and the twist we were talking about before is that throughout the movie we see him talking to these kids on the beach and like telling them the story of Washington Heights so you think that he is in the Dr and I wrote in my notes when I was watching it I was like this is weird that they're like spoiling what his choice is going to be because he's like on the beach um but then you find out at the end that it's actually that Pete has done a mural

46:54 inside of the bodega of the beach and that he's telling it in the in the bodega in New York it's just that it they through movie Magic made it look like they were on an actual Beach um but they were just in the bodega in New York and he is with Vanessa and they have a child together and that's like the final shot is there happy little family happy little fam yeah I and also like some notable I mean we can start here probably like some notable differences in the plot too is that the paciense happens in act one um and abuela the the conclusion of the song is that she wins the lottery ticket so it's not necessarily about like should I keep going try to live or

47:41 should I like it's my time I should die spoiler alert I guess to abuela dies and that kind of erupts the whole fabric of the community um it becomes more about like I have literally worked all my life my parents have worked all my life and this is the first time that like I have been given like a a gift like this and so she's like unsure like what to do with it and so that is the money that it doesn't have that goal to begin with yeah he finds out at the end of Act One during the week he wants to go back to the Dr he already knows he has expressed that opinion but it's never like been a

48:27 reality oh yes it was the lottery ticket that Abuelo was like we are splitting this evenly you me and sunny so you can go back to Dr and and yeah um I'm so scared I'm so sorry we have to talk about I'm so if you promise me we will talk about posi ncafe later yes then I will move on yeah but if we're not gonna talk about it I have to no we'll talk about it later I think it deserves its own conversation I think it deserves it so podcast I'm not even I'm not even kidding I was gonna I have a series of complaints about how the lottery ticket is handled in the musical so I would be fine talking about Placencia Ife now if because is there anything to talk about with so it's not

49:14 moving to the Dr vanessa wants to be a fashion designer and move downtown that's their plot and the lottery ticket is what sort of moves it forward so like is there anything we need to talk about with those two before we get into any lottery ticket in the movie it was re it's revealed later on like it's like a gift after abuela dies uh halfway through the movie that it's like a gift for us Navi and I also want to say that I called it um in the show because it happens earlier um it becomes is it crazy to be an adult and hear 96 000 and be like it's really not that much money like okay it is a lot of I'm not saying

49:59 it's not a lot of money yes but but like oh like 0.2 million dollar lottery who's Navi does say like he can't quit your job with that and also I love that he was like also like half of that is going to taxes and I was like this Navi does financial literacy absolutely I love it uh but yeah so that was but yeah the discussion of the amount of money and the choices they make around it I feel like it's kind of funny my biggest piece of complaint about this movie oh but can I say one thing to if we're still kind of setting up who's Nabi yeah the joke of his name is that on the like on their way into the U.S his dad saw a boat that said U.S Navy and was like I'm gonna name my son that and that's how he got his name and I definitely this whole time because I knew enough about the

50:45 musical to know that was the main character's name was like I'm really uncultured that I've never heard of a person that she's not me before I was like yeah that Nancy is really weird to me but like I've obviously that's like a bad reflection on me that I'm not familiar with what I'm sure is very common Latino names oh no but yeah the lottery like it happened so much faster in the show that like that is the revealed already and like the like the rest of the Town knows like at least sunny osnavi and abuela knows about it and then it's in Carnaval del Barrio in the show version he announces the abuela won the lottery the lottery and so he's leaving so that's kind of

51:30 how it's announced which is kind of how the movie is too that is yeah I would say the circumstances around him leaving is just different I would say the biggest if I could summarize the difference between the musical and the movie is that the musical some emphasizes all of its like conflict is relationship based okay whereas like the movie makes it like actual tangible conflict of like the dreamer thing and the like like a lot of it has to do with like then getting the money at the end like allows all this every more so than like the movie or the show where it's just because yeah we need to talk about our feelings I would describe the movie as about a series of people in the

52:16 neighborhood who all have dreams that they're trying to accomplish and it's them pursuing those dreams and the relationships ships yeah relationships especially the Romantic relationships feel very secondary to those dreams it's sort of like they will only um they like they only exist to serve us as long as they're not in conflict with our dreams although it's kind of like it felt like the way the movie ended was like Nina and Benny are kind of gonna put their relationship kind of to the side because Nina has to go to school right now but they're not gonna break up anymore they were broken up when they started they get back together but they're like but we're gonna be long distance and then that they decided to have uznavi and Vanessa and be the ones that decide to put their relationship above their dreams which I then kind of didn't like I was like I just feel like

53:04 you've told me how much how much uznavis dreamed of this like since he was a chat like this was his dad's dream to go back and repurchase the bar and all this stuff and yeah Vanessa had worked so hard to like get her apartment downtown and I was sort of like I just don't know that you've sold it to me enough that like this relationship is better than what those dreams were when I've seen you pursue those dreams so passionately throughout the rest of the musical so I I ended up not really liking the fact that they got together and I suspected it was just that they were like well we can't have both but I didn't really like that choice so that's interesting that they don't necessarily end up together or it's not clear in the stage yeah I do think that it's like the sh definitely the conflict between the two of or that their kind of

53:49 main goal is that I disagree with Molly completely by the way I I think the usnavi and Vanessa are in this are the same in the way that like their dreams is to get away from this like they you know US Navy has always felt like this was just something to kind of hold him over but now he's like about to turn 30 and he still runs his Bodega and then Vanessa's the same way she never got to like actually pursue her fashion design career because she's been just trying to like make ends meet working at the salon um and I I always took it as that like they're both realizing that their dreams can like change or that their dreams can not change but they're they can still

54:34 achieve their dreams in where they are it has like a they're they're able to like realize the what is real and and like can be like this is a new dream now or like they they're able to like see that the dream their dreams can still happen well and I like the idea of like what's essential about their dream does it actually require them to leave in order to get it that is Navi is is like fulfilling his father's dream in a way and Vanessa is able to do her fashion design I like that idea Adam tell me why you so hardly disagree with me no I I mean that was pretty much all it was just I I I like what I really respond to with this movie is the fact that the idea of calling them little dreams

55:21 as opposed to like the classic like capital D dreams that are like of Disney films which is like I want to do this big thing where it's like I just want to do this small thing and make this part of like the line that they keep replaying is the um best days of my life no the small no no look [Laughter] the iconic line when they say 90s whatever the lyrics

56:14 that you have to assert your dignity in small ways that like emphasis of like just small things are like over time those are the big things that matter those like small bits that pile on each other which I think also I liked that they were like small dreams because those are the ones that sometimes feel because they're your daily thing I don't know I don't know exactly what I'm saying but I think there's very famously I I like to Trail off at the end of my class um someone once said someone once said and it was me um but I I just like the uh the that

56:59 like they're all like tangible dreams that they have and that they like can skew them enough that they're still getting there like they're still achieving their dream while also like acquiring other like gifts that they're like maybe like blocking off because they're so focused on right I have to get out I gotta get out of this town yeah she's got She's Gotta sell the land to the to the cheetah Mall company yeah Cinematic Universe our audience to get spoiled on that but I think we have to talk about the

57:44 cheetah mileage when Daniela was an angel this entire time oh my God [Laughter] the musical's about dreams and I love it I hate it at the end that uh they stopped him when he like had cleaned out his apartment and like I assume found a new renter for the bodega space and whatever he was like on his way to the airport and they were like and I was like this is so too late he's put a deposit down he like this is not how anything someone else has signed a lease for his apartment where is he gonna lit I just I know it's like it's like drama but I can stress out so much because I get so stressed about those sorts of things in my life like I'm

58:32 probably gonna move in July and I've already started packing certain things in boxes because like I find that whole process so stressful and the idea that I'm like on my way to move to another country and someone's like one more thing I hate it one more thing I have a bottle of champagne okay can I just I just have to talk about the laundry you know when he finds he finds this lottery ticket this can even 96 000 and then he calls like a convenience store to say when do you close so we know he's gonna go cash in that ticket and then his Crush Vanessa shows up at the door with a bottle of champagne to thank him for uh this is also where I feel Danielle I got done dirty but I don't

59:17 want to get too off track to thank him and I say [ __ ] you open that door you say Vanessa great to see you let's take a walk together while I go pick up my 96 000 I know you like her I know it's been a misconnection and you want to show her that she's a priority here but like it's 96 000 there is no one I like enough in this world that I would want them to not take me with them to the convenience store to go pick up that cash right now it's an insane decision in an insane decision let's walk and talk I will say I agree with you if there was a if there if I had a piece of paper that was like I'm

1:00:03 getting even if it was like 16 1600 dollars like even that amount I would be like I need to go collect this money I don't know if there's an expiration on it like I need to go get the money so I 96 000 I'm putting off this conversation and then and then the next day cousin who he's worked with this whole time and he wanted to bring him to the Dr he learned he can't bring Sunny to the Dr because Sunny is a dreamer and so he doesn't have paper so he can't leave the country and come back and he goes to the lawyer and he's like here's a lottery ticket to pay for his legal case and then put whatever's left in a fund for him in the lawyer's like

1:00:48 yeah like totally unorthodox but okay and and I was like uznavi says I have to just give you the ticket because my my plane leaves tomorrow and I don't or maybe even today or something so he did Miss he missed the story he never got to this during a flight can be expensive but I'm pretty sure it's less than ninety six thousand dollars so I think maybe you could rebook your flight just to take a couple extra days to sort that out is my feeling on the matter I feel like I feel like you could probably afford a new ticket if you've just won ninety six thousand dollars you know what I mean I I'm on I fully agree 100 um I think that's why the idea that

1:01:36 there is a specific payoff by making the lottery kind of like the deus ex machina like that'll kind of help clear up a lot of different things and solutions or at least provide the path for people but yeah there it ends up being like there's a lot of holes in like okay people know what the realities are when you have that much money so like there are solutions that you can do I don't know yeah like I that was kind of my issue of like there better be a good payoff by saving the sir the reveal of the lottery ticket to the end because in the show kind of going back to the conversation of the show is based more on the relationships the the like 11 o'clock like reveal is abuela dying so they

1:02:22 really save that till the end that like that is the reason she doesn't die until after the the uh bar yeah the dance oh after the bar okay um so okay so she doesn't die in the blackout the blackout happens at the same point but she doesn't die there she does technically die during the blackout because the blackout is multiple days she dies on like day three of the blackout oh okay interesting so that's why like yeah the shifting of like what gets revealed where is interesting but I think we'll get more into the notable differences but like it's it's a clear decision that like the movie is telling a different story yeah why do you think they did change it I think the inclusion

1:03:08 of the dreamer like is not a dreamer right this is fully added to the movie yeah um and I think in order to have that have the emotional beats that it needs to have and also it has to I love that they I do actually like that they intertwine the Neenah storyline into the dreamer in that she like because of this whole situation that's her impetus to like go back to college and like finish or like try again I should say and in order to like make all that happen I think they had to like rework the order of how everything else happens in the show

1:03:54 yeah because like giving giving Sunny the entire like all of the money going to sunny sunny is like much more meaningful than if they had all three I mean like all three split yeah if that makes sense I kind of wanted the lawyer to be like I'll do it pro bono I did kind of want that to happen but he was like I'll take I'll take that he seemed like he was struggling though so I he wasn't like sure he was like in the community and stuff um so let's maybe could we now talk about pesciense because I feel like I'm a little unclear in the musical as to like why it sounds like RJ you were saying that she's like conflicted about what to do about the lottery ticket or something

1:04:39 could you explain that more to me yeah so the story the song it kind of happens around the same time um it's like before uh it's her like first song it's her first song so it's after 96 000 before the blackout before the blackout before the club before the dinner dinner before the dinner with like celebrating Nina or Nina's return so it was always kind of like built up as like it's revealed that abuela won the lottery ticket and kind of like figuring out like how to what to do with not responsibility but what to do or just like the reason the

1:05:25 song is called passion CFE is because she is working and toiled and like had patience and faith her entire life and is finally being like rewarded for it it's like the feeling that the song gives you in the musical whereas in this stunning interpretation of this song I I will not I am not shy to say that I think this is like one of the best filmed songs in musical movie musical history like I just think the way she performs it the decisions they make of like going through her life in like dance and like by using the old style trains that they like rented from

1:06:11 the New York Transit Museum and like all of these things and then ending it in that uh in that pedestrian tunnel in the 119th like subway station with the like lights that flash red white and blue because that's the flag for Puerto Rico Cuba and America like every decision that this song does when the like she's holding on to the pole and the poll becomes like a beam of light I just the whole song gives me chills and there's I I don't I I have no words to express how much it like when I first saw it in the theater like I was like uncontrollably sobbing because I was like this is incredible yeah and obviously the movie

1:06:59 it's positioned that it is more abuela having patience of Faith her entire life but like the the question at the end is should I basically like keep going or have I done enough or like have I done what I yeah like have I done enough to kind of like be able to leave yeah I think is what it was trying to to go for I also think like the idea of like her having this like thought it's more it felt more to me like her last question of like should I stay should I go was more like have I been enough to this community

1:07:46 have I done all that I can to like lead them through like their next part of their lives and it's just I just think her performance is incredible I think she sounds amazing I think the costuming and the choreography is so artistic and like beautiful and I I like literally have chills all over my body thinking about it I just I'm putting the song in I'm putting the song in right now [Music] and as I say these words my heart's about to break

1:08:34 what do you do when your dreams come true I spend my life inheriting dreams from you I made it through I survived I did it no do I leave or stay [Music] all right Mama okay [Music] [Applause] [Music]

1:09:19 [Applause] [Music] so yeah that's passion safe cool well he's like I thought it was fine I mean I do think as you were describing it it made me think about the like debates people have about whether you should really on HBO when they first come out or if like you really do need to go to a theater to see it and I feel like part of it may be that like none of them numbers hit me quite as hard because I was just like watching it on my not all that particularly big living room TV you know what I mean like I wonder I did really like the choreography and

1:10:05 everything but I just didn't feel like pulled into it in the way you're describing and I wonder if I was like in an actual theater if it would have picked yeah I also the other thing I just want to say about the way they chose to like do this song and their interpretation of this song is like they went with the every song in this movie has a concept and I think it's like really cool that like it's a it's a really great way of being like they're singing these songs in the world but also we're not in the world at the moment there's like this magical realism aspect of this film that I think is like really cool um and the one for this is like obviously she's about to die so they just went with the theme of like her she's telling her life story so what if she is doing the thing that they say

1:10:51 like happens at the end of your life where you just have your whole life flash before your eyes and the whole sequence is just like ever it just like follows the trajectory of her life like while she's on the subway and I I think the subway is a beautiful metaphor of like one place to another and then like finally coming from underground up to above like leaving going from below a pie I can't I have to stop talking I sound like an insane person so I'm going to stop talking I will say I do agree that like this was a very good this was one of the best like visual representations of a song for like a movie Musical that I had seen in in a long time and I do agree I think seeing it in the theater where you are

1:11:38 engrossed and it's all black in that moment I think well it definitely gives that same feeling like at a theater I feel like like seeing it live or being in the moment I do feel like yeah that it really made the most of being on film and like all the things you can do that you can't do in a theater when it's in film the way the dancer is like coming and out and the subway like the realism of the actual subway cars and everything I will say the one thing that I didn't love about this as like an adaptation is that every once in a while they'll do like actual like animation kind of thing so the two times where yes I noticed that where it was in Vanessa song where then we see the like fabric coming up off the wind or not the windows the buildings which I thought I don't know I thought

1:12:24 it looked a little cheesy didn't I didn't love it there and then in 96 000 they have some cool like people are kind of talking about their dreams for what they would do with this amount of money and then they'll like kind of draw it almost like on their hands and I just was like I just think we need a little bit more of this for it to be an established partnering when it was like I don't know there's a difference between something like pescience where like it's clearly magical realism but it's still like things that could that could literally happen in the world you could be on a subway train there could be dancers around you like it could happen on a stage I guess maybe it's the difference versus like animation is like it couldn't happen even on a state like it doesn't it's totally devoted divorced in real world and I was like it's crazy

1:13:09 enough of it yeah yeah yeah you are not talking about I think the craze I do agree with the 96 000 one that's the one that's the one thing in this movie that's the one it felt very like teacher visual aid like it's only the beginning of that song and then once they get into the Busby Berkeley like shot from overheads swimming pool sequence I'm all in oh yeah 100 in um I really like the fabric coming off the walls because I I don't I I like it but the one that I think is like interesting that you don't point out which I think is the most glaring like this is not real is the like uh them dancing on the side of the building see that no it's funny because that to me is like also a little bit of like that's a little more in the realm of

1:13:55 theater where like someone could yeah harness or something I don't know but like the fabric is like so I think it's also that the fabric are like to me very lame colors and patterns and that secret like it felt like they needed a fashion expert they should have hired Our Friend Martin to like come in I'm like well to be consult on the fashion no because I felt like those Fabrics were like very chintzy like I didn't like the factory they were all just like solid all the fabric she's been using has been from dunksters and Rags so I think but like it's her dream versions like a little more subtle and like sophisticated or whatever and then like her clothes she makes at the end I think are frankly kind of ugly like I just think that they could have used there were there are certainly some

1:14:41 design students in New York that they could have hired as consultants to be like it's something that actually looks like an interest it because like oh I I noticed I noticed graffiti rag seems like it's such a such a like tropey like obvious it feels like a very obvious it feels like something that I would think of which is like means it's not something an actual fashion designer would think you know what I mean because I have like no training or experience in that and it was like find something more interesting that seems like the the number one thing if someone was like find inspiration from the city you would be like cool graffiti right graffiti yeah yeah they should have had an episode of Project Runway and it would have been like designers for your

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