West Side Story (2021) dir. Steven Spielberg | Showgays: A Movie Musical Podcast

0:00 you met Steven Spielberg backstage at Hamilton when you were in the the castle Yeah Yeah I'm an original company member of Hamilton he was signing the wall there's a wall out well it was Chris Jackson's dressing room you know here comes the general and he he wrote this is history Steven Spielberg but Stephen walked down the stairs and I said oh sir thank you for coming to our little skit and he said that's good that's good and and I just we just had a very brief conversation and then later on when we were making the movie he goes I actually remember meeting you and I was like I don't know how it wasn't passing and he said no I had a thought like I think I'm gonna make something with her and I was like

0:45 well that is wild and ESP anyone wow yeah that's the same thing he said to E.T did you know that when you met him you know that Spielberg he's also he's a great director but a very good actor I love that when you get the part you then ask Steven Spielberg if it's okay to do something I asked Steven Spielberg if I could still do my senior year musical which was Shrek The Musical you laughed Princess Fiona Princess Fiona over here it's fantastic musical Janine tesori who actually worked on West Side Story with us composed the music for Shrek and I was like Shuma but Stephen looked at me and he was like I produced the original Shrek of course you could do Shrek and I ended up doing it getting painted

1:30 green I look like I had jaundice for like three weeks after I did this show yeah I think we've got a picture of you pretty with her whole chest on a movie screen when we were shooting America in the very first version of this and uh we were at the end was there you I think you have a picture of this the the at the very end of America if some of you recall it the girls end up can we do real close the girls end up on the shoulder of the boy yeah I remember right okay what didn't count on George takiris and I is that during rehearsals we'd be wearing you like a t-shirt and I

2:16 would wear a cotton skirt and all that no problem then we get to this and George jakiris is wearing a sharkskin suit really slippery I'm wearing a silk pure silk dress really slippery together on top on top of that on top of that George's shoulders slope on top of that my ass is too big for that shoulder [Applause] [Laughter] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

3:05 thank you tonight tonight sleep well and when you dream to dream of me foreign [Music] first of all he's already crying just doing that little bit oh my God so the listeners we're not We're not gonna be if we recall back in the original run of this a logical episode today

3:51 um when we did the Mary Poppins episode I just kept saying this is really annoying to listen to because I just was talking about how much I loved that movie this is going to be similar in that I literally I think there are valid things that we will talk about in regards to like specific criticism of this film which I'm like eager to talk about but as like an art piece that stands alone as as art like I I don't know flop s thanks yeah wow wow welcome back well welcome back uh Molly and RJ thank you another week of I should I should say it now that we are actually recording this on December 20th it's not even Christmas yet um by the time this episode comes out it

4:37 will be we will be well into the official Awards season I thought you were going to say the next stage of the pandemic because it's also yeah well we are in season three of coronavirus yes so happy renewal everyone we got reneweds for our third season oh my God I don't know how I feel about her new haircut you know I have mixed feelings about the restyling yeah sometimes you know they like to do that abrupt change right away so you get used to it for the rest of the season yeah I think that's what they're doing for this season Omicron is the Rachel haircut of this year great everyone's gonna get it no we have to laugh we'll cry but Nicole Kidman just saved the theaters we come to the

5:23 theaters to laugh so or whatever RJ you put this you put this video on your Instagram of Adam watching the like pre-show and Nicole Kidman which I saw in person and I was like did Adam see this before West Side Story and he was so sad so no it's more like a weird gay Twitter has really taken it as like this is well here's the deal here's the drama this is culture they have re-cut it and now it is only 30 seconds as opposed to the original one minute so the original nickel the original version you show her like walking up to the

6:09 theater you sh like you get the whole her whole like monologue about Cinema as concept where in the new one there's like a lot cut out of it obviously to make it only 30 seconds and people are pissed I read that in one I don't know what movie it was for but in one screening of a movie people walked around with um uh pieces of paper and they had the script printed out for the AMC ad and like we're telling people like if you feel comfortable joining in along too much of allegiance to film it's like yeah I want to see like a musical Mondays version of this now where there's there's one guy who's like 45 years old and his whole deal is he does

6:55 the thing gets up and he does it yeah perfect it is perfect yeah okay uh Molly it is your turn to tell us the plot of uh West Side Story and this follows this follows new rules uh no snark uh permitted in the in the recap we are now trying our very hardest to not be snarky and actually try to recap the movie I think we should make the rule light snark yes is allowed if if needed but that it is more informational that it is smoking we have to lean informational great give me the go when you're ready

7:41 Molly whenever you're ready your time Starts Now West Side Story is a re-imagining of Romeo and Juliet with the capulets and Monty's recast as a Puerto Rican gang the Sharks versus white gang the Jets our lovers are Tony who is a co-founder of the Jazz who's recently been released from prison and is avoiding trouble and Maria who is a Puerto Rican immigrant whose older brother Bernardo leads the Sharks after a long period of unrest this is the gangs decide to settle their dispute with an all-out fight called a rumble Tony and Maria muted at dance and immediately fall which further exacerbates the gang tensions at the rumble Bernardo kills Coney's Tony's co-founder and close friends um

8:27 uh Tony kills Bernardo in Revenge Maria's devastated by this but ultimately she forgives Tony and they decide to run away together when Maria is detained by police she sends Bernard's girlfriend and her surrogate sister Anita to the drugstore that acts as a hangout for the Jets to tell Tony that Maria will be late to the meeting to run away the Jets then begin to sexually assault Anita and they are stopped by doc slash Valentina depending on which version we're talking about the drugstore owner who's been mentoring Tony in his Rehabilitation and in Revenge Anita passes on the message a false message that Maria was shot by Chino who's the Puerto Rican boy that her family wants her to be with Tony's devastated by this news so he wanders into the streets asking Chino to kill him too and just as Tony glimpses Maria Chino manages to shoot and kill him and

9:13 after a monologue about feeling hate and wishing to kill herself Maria follows The Ensemble off stage as they remove Tony's body and this becomes the first ever movie musical to earn not having a finale take that deer take that deer so three and a half minutes later uh that was the entire Club smooth as I can right now I wrote it out ahead of time what I love about okay two things that I love about this a co-founder just the term co-founders as if they're like CEO and CFO of of paper jets Incorporated um c um but then I also love that literally half of this is just like the last 15-20

9:58 minutes of the movie I know when I was writing it out I was like surely I should say more before the rumble happens but like the rumble is where the stuff actually happened really that like full stacked is just kind of set up yeah yeah yeah RJ what what do you know do you have any preconceived notions heading into 20 West Side Story parentheses 2021 director Steven Spielberg um I just knew that it was going to be a quote-unquote darker grittier adaptation I did not know how that would be like represent I just knew that that was like what we were describing it

10:44 um but I also had like there was that really bad adaptation on I don't think it was on Broadway I think it was on Off Broadway I want to say like two years ago as well it was last it was last year last year and it was bad it was it was like supposedly it was very bad because it was very like Heist Capital C concept and very like they made it brechtian to kind of show would just like really hit home some stuff but then in a way made it really like not in good taste like it was just really wasn't yeah wasn't there also a version where lin-manuel Miranda got commissioned to redo some of the lyrics in Spanish this is the same version that was the you were talking about that was the 2009

11:31 version yes that was the the latest run but I just knew that it was like a darker grittier version and wasn't really sure like how what that actually meant um so I really came into it pretty fresh I didn't the only thing that I had heard really before coming into it was that a lot of critics actually ended up liking it and what they than they thought so but can we back up more to like what's your relationship to West Side Story as a musical okay yeah I mean Adam asked me specific the way he phrased it was so specific so I was like yeah I understand previously that way but I'm curious I was trying to go beyond the boundaries of our script here okay now it's nothing I wrote the description

12:16 specifically okay I have a very emotional story of how I first came to West Side Story the first time I ever saw a West Side Story the movie was with Molly do you remember this I remember watching it in college but I didn't I don't remember you telling me it was your first time yeah we watched it in Simpson on your side uh no not your side the other side of the Somali side Molly side of the girls side the girls side of the four um we like use the like common area there because pretty much like our Learning Community owned or like was majority of that side the girls side at least so we just like took over and was like we're gonna make food and watch West Side Story this had to be first semester

13:02 it was first semester because you were not I was hanging out with Aaron and Annie um or I was talking to Eric on the phone or you were talking to me it was very important because I want to say it was like a weekend night so you probably were yeah it could have been the weekend I was seeing Billy Elliot no because that was fresh faces and Molly we're also busy that weekend getting into doing things that shall not be named on this podcast um but yeah that was my first time I actually watching the movie and I remember it I remember being like wow this is really good I was like shocked at how good it was and I want to say the only song that I really knew before was

13:50 um one hand one heart uh tonight I think pieces have went tonight and um somewhere uh because of everybody say it with me American Idol that's right in movie night for American Idol uh that was somewhere was like a go-to for a lot of like the the balladeers um and uh one hand one heart also um it's my favorite Motown group The balladeers the balladeers so I like new specific songs because I was like oh I know this is from a movie and that it's like very uh very much like meant to be like sung and performed so I was like okay cool so seeing it in context was really cool

14:36 like seeing somewhere in context was cool and seeing one hand one heart in like a plot was like oh cool movie music goes wow yeah so I I well uh I think I watched the movie for the first time in high school because my mom got me this like DVD pack of four movie musicals in like a set box and Adam why did she give you that because I'm gay wasn't that wasn't that remember when you came out she gave you like a set of movies no it was not that okay um but she did buy me a Coca-Cola canned pillow for coming out that did happen she just bought me things because she felt bad it doesn't matter anyway

15:22 um hi Mom she felt bad of how hard it's gonna be for the rest of your life so like here you go um so I watched it like for the first time in high school and I've never been in it um it's one of like the major ones that people do that I've never been in um because I'm famously not a dancer um I did see RJ and I saw the tour um in I think like 2016 or 20. yeah it was like we saw it in South Bend we saw it in South Bend I think it was 15 because we I think we were I want to say it was the summer after graduation um didn't you see it right yeah um we graduated in 2014 yeah so then it would have been summer 24. it wouldn't have been it wouldn't have been 2014

16:07 because we did not we moved to Florida no but I think we saw it right before we moved RJ you were right before I left no because we went home we went home to South Bend that one weekend uh before I left like during for my graduation party yeah I think it was then maybe I hope everyone is having feelings of being at a dinner with their parents so important to know the year yeah but I'm I'm right that's why I've also seen two Community Productions of this I saw one in South Bend and then one when we lived oh we did see a Florida production yes our friend uh played Maria and she was very she was incredible and that's

16:54 where it was and the end will end there uh and I I am of the opinion that this is probably the best musical theater score of all time like in all honesty I mean it's Bernstein so it's almost like you're cheating because he like has written Symphonies so it's hard to be like well are you sure lin-manuel doesn't stack up against Fern's teeth like I'm not trying to say anything about lin-manuel Miranda but it is that's like what but it seems like you're you know with your tone I think we know where you stand let's do it yeah yeah well no um so I but I love this story I love this movie I have never thought about it in any kind of what is this saying type of

17:40 way other than like the really obvious like 1961 movie version when you are like Natalie Wood is a Russian girl that's cute um and a lot of a lot of thick makeup on the Sharks let's say that but I've never thought about the conceptualization of this piece as being I mean it's obviously by white people but I've never like thought about it that way yeah um so that that is like a conversation we'll have later but I I love this movie I love the 1961 version I love the stand up stage adaptation I love this film I really like the story of West Side Story yet again Adam and I show contrast

18:27 for not liking liking Tori very much at all um I've never found it to be a very interesting show I don't understand why people love the music so much it's all just fine to me um so I would say I actively find the 60s movie boring honestly I don't remember when I first watched it it's one of those things that's in the category of like Musical musical movies that I watched as a kid but I couldn't tell you what age or like the first time I watched it just kind of remember always having it as something we could watch just like how much you and your mom love to meet me in St Louis Musical [Laughter]

19:14 Frida did text me after the Meet Me In St Louis episode to say that she's never even seen it all the way through so we don't know where my memories and she looks it came from whose mother were you watching that movie I don't know um anyway yeah so I find the 60s movie pretty boring I watched I remember my high school theater director had done the show years before I was a student there and we watched a recording of our high school doing it in a theater class I took with her I don't remember what we were watching for but it was clearly a show like one of the Productions she was proudest of that she had done at my high school um so it's just been like around forever and I've never really understood why people care about it so much also my memory from college related to this is

20:00 that I had this problem freshman year where I would tell the same story many times in a row because I was meeting so many people I would forget who I'd already said things to and so one of my things with West Side Story is I've never cared about Tony and Maria and I remember that was something that I said in front of you too like three times in a row and Adam had to be like stop telling us that like our group in college kept doing that like all the time yeah I remember it was the first few weeks you're like oh give everyone every piece of information about me because that's out they're all new yeah I do remember you saying when we when I watched that for the first time I do remember you saying um that you like you weren't a fan of it

20:45 and I was like okay let's well let's see what it's about and I didn't remember being like Oh like oh that was amazing but I just remember being like wow that was very good but I also at the time was watching a lot of older movies because I had never really did like growing up because I remember also seeing Janet Lee yes I watched psycho for the first time at at Simpson too like I don't remember when it was but I remember watching it at our listeners RJ was doing something stabbing motion with his hands together on a door what is this I was waving through a window yeah that's what I was doing I do remember I feel like we should also mention there was a brief moment in time where our College was

21:31 going to do a side story like our head yeah the head of our department that is really wanted to do and they were really pushing for us to do it but just editing it up couldn't getting the rights because of the tour because of the tour that happened in 2014. uh and then we did instead they were like yeah I maybe we shouldn't do a show that has uh that doesn't know what it's saying stop stop stop stop stop we have two we can't we can't we'll save that little bit for uh we'll set up here's what I will say in case she ever listens to this I remember Louisa was like why is it okay for us to do West Side Story and girl you were right at the time I was like I don't know I don't think it's a big deal you were so right and I'm sorry I never

22:17 doubted you oh yeah yeah I yeah I remember that was the thing we would just always joke up joke about it of like huh we how many we don't have in we can't uh but yeah so it could have been we could have all and we could have been it I feel like I would have been a Chino I think we've talked about it like who could oh you look so much like every version of Chino I've ever seen which is interesting because I I'm trying to remember if the original movie was like that's how they cast Chino I was like very dorky um because I feel like they don't in the versions We saw on stage Dorky's not the I wouldn't say he's like as dorky as the new version yeah but he's definitely

23:03 like quiet Square yeah he's also I believe white yeah so I think this is what would have happened most of the cast and I feel like I would have if we did it I would have been a Chino type A Chino and then um Adam would be Doc obviously if it was gonna be our senior show Adam would absolutely have been done I would have been so and he would have been so mad well at least the racist show we did instead gave you guys better Parts they actually would have made me they would have made me krupke I would have been the stage manager yes thank you thank you Molly Molly said I'm sending your call times 24 hours before rehearsal

23:50 [Music] so let's talk about the original where this where this thing hold this whole thing started so West Side Story I feel like I got a lot of information about the origin the origins of like the original musical because it's like in the in the pantheon of musicals it is like so regarded so I feel like I should like give a little bit of backstory as to like how it all came together so the original concept um was brought up in 1947 and it was originally conceived as something called East Side Story and it was going to be a

24:36 story about um Irish Catholic uh gang of Irish Catholics versus uh a gang of Jews or like two families technically um yeah I will say I saw different reports on whether they were actually going to be gangs or if it was just families that didn't like each other because of their religion yeah and it was supposed to be set in like Eastern Easter Passover like that time um but they kind of at the time they turned away from doing it because it there were other plays that had been made at the time that kind of were about similar themes so they decided not to do it um so the creators uh are of West Side Story are Jerome Robbins who is a renowned choreographer at the time um he did like King and I Gypsy Fiddler there's a bunch of stuff he did Leonard

25:23 Bernstein was the composer he's he wrote three Symphonies he wrote Candide on the town and the scored on the waterfront um Arthur Lawrence who uh uh did the book wrote the book for the musical um who also he wrote the book for Gypsy he wrote the screenplay for The Way We Were he wrote the book for La Casio fall um those are like the three creators and supposedly they like had a discussion on Fire Island like that's that's the con where that's where the conversation started which is very funny to me because they're all gay um so uh in 1955 uh Lawrence uh Arthur Lawrence has introduced to Stephen Sondheim

26:09 um and approaches him about possibly writing the lyrics to um West Side Story or whatever the piece is called at this time um but Sondheim was trying to start like his own career he had this musical called serenade that like wasn't doing really well nobody really wanted to do it um but at a similar time there were like these Mexican-American Chicano turf wars on the streets of LA and um Jerome Robbins was out there who and he was doing the choreography for the movie version of The King and I and then Laura Arthur Lawrence was out there because I think he was writing a screenplay at the time and so they kind of were talking about

26:55 like what if it was about like gangs in kind of this what if they were like two rival gangs and then but Arthur Lawrence felt more comfortable writing about Puerto Rico and Harlem than about like Mexican Americans and like the LA territory can I add to that portion because I did some research on this as well so San Juan Hill which is the neighborhood that was cleared to build Lincoln Center which is it's made clear in this movie so apparently the the original musical the stage version they were really clearly like it's somewhere on the west side but we're not gonna be more specific than that and the Robbins was like I don't want it to be too specific but for the film they had to physically film somewhere and they chose San Juan Hill because it was it was in the act of

27:40 being demolished at the time so there just like were a bunch of empty buildings which made it really easy to film there but that's actually a historically black neighborhood and so it's really now it's become this really weird part of the Canon where like the 60s film kind of made it there but it doesn't really make any sense that it'd be Puerto Ricans and ethnic whites fighting over this yeah black neighborhood essentially um and so the author of I was an article from Timothy Noah at the new Republic and he was saying that um he thought that it was really based on the Zoot Suit Riots which I think is what kind of what you were referencing which if you're not familiar zoot suits where things were by a Mexican-American petruchos um I think that word's right I wrote it

28:26 down yeah Patricia's um who so they wore these big these suits with these really big pants and that was against the regulations and the War era in terms of fabric use and so GIS they like got into scuffles with GIS and they ended up having six days of violence of these Mexican-American men and GIS kind of going back and forth with each other and so apparently it was this sort of rip from the headlines everyone knew about that and then they kind of transported it to New York which was having a big influx of Puerto Ricans but this like specific thing of like white gangs and Puerto Rican gangs is like not really not really part of New York's history so much it's kind of like lifting the story from Los Angeles just putting it in the city that they're

29:11 they're all more comfortable in so I thought that was interesting that is is interesting and I'm sure we'll get more into like in the story of like now it's heralded as like this is like a story about Puerto Rico like Puerto Rico uh Pride you know and like but it's funny that like yeah the inspiration may not have been directly from that it was but like it's a product of the original story that like now it's heralded as like us a story about Puerto Rico in Puerto Ricans in New York it's fascinating that being said though I would like to say that uh teen gangs as like a concept were just on the rise in major cities yes in general because teen culture was like that's when it was cementing as like a

29:57 thing because there was like this was like the idyllic 50s LOLOL yeah where like no there was no like War technically being fought um because no one really counts the Korean War unfortunately um but so they were like it wasn't like boys were like turning 18 and then being like shipped off like it was like in the the greatest Generation quote unquote so you had all this like extra time and that there had been no structure before and uh there's or there's no structure now in da da yeah it sounds like that was like a big thing on the on the mind of like cultured liberal people at the time and I have a cool stat to back that up in FBI report would later assert that juvenile court cases increased 220

30:44 between 1941 and 1957 which is the year that West Side Story premiered that's crazy coincidentally uh Bernstein and Lawrence had both been blacklisted um because of uh they were believed to be Communists Reds yeah and Jerome Robbins had actually aided the house on American Activities Committee but they all still ended up working together which I think is really kind of crazy because he like helped he helped McCarthy that's wild okay do you know who like started the whole like first one to McCarthy and was like I got some Communists to report it was Ginger Rogers mother cool wow great that was the Karen behind Karen Rogers so obviously it's based on

31:33 or it pulls its themes from Romeo and Juliet uh they took out Rosalind and um the parents uh and then they got rid of Juliet's or I should say Maria's like fake death and then uh suicide at the end um they invented slang terms um so that they wouldn't it wouldn't feel too of a specific moment they added krupke for comedy and act two deer uh G officer krupke in act two uh for comedy bits they moved one hand one heart to make way for tonight because they were gonna make one hand one heart the balcony scene but it was too pure um and then Arthur Lawrence thought the lyrics of America and I feel pretty were too witty but they kept them in anyway

32:20 which is smart because you because it's on time um so all the producers backed out but Steven Sondheim brought in Hal Prince uh who funded the uh production against the advice of his like Mentor at the time um and then they originally wanted James Dean for Tony but he had died uh cheetah Rivera played Anita in the original production um and then just like heading up to it there were there was just it was like when you read the whole Wikipedia page it's kind of just like all these things of like why it shouldn't have worked so like people were saying like nobody can sing augmented Sports which is like a specific musical term for Maria I just

33:09 met a girl named Maria um which is clearly not difficult uh no not that it's not difficult let me let me be clear I'm not saying I can be Tony I'm just saying it's not the impossible task that it was made to seem um they said the Main Music was too rangy for pop music uh or for popular like musical theater at the time um you shouldn't end act one with two dead bodies on the stage and the curtain falling on them um and then there was like this whole idea that it was impossible to cast because it demanded it was the most dancing that had like ever happened for a Musical on Broadway um and so they were like there was this whole

33:55 thing that was like we could find singers who like weren't that good at dancers and we could find some dancers who weren't that good of singers and if you could find both of them they were really bad actors so like the idea of a triple threat did not exist at this time uh bfas hadn't hadn't been invented yet um BF face hadn't been uh yeah created in a lab in in Ann Arbor Michigan yet so um and then Columbia Records initially passed on making a cast recording because they thought the music was too depressing which is like it's it's really funny that this is now it's just this is yeah it's a Criterion selection right it is

34:40 again the in the pantheon it is like up in the top Echelon so after tryouts Bernstein ended up moving his lyrics credit because during the tryouts Stevens on him was just credited as co- co-writer for the lyrics um so Bernstein ended up removing his lyrics credit um to give Sondheim like do as what he did since Bernstein was getting the music composing credit anyway and then Jerome Robbins wanted it conceived by credit um basically so he could make any change at whim and then by the time the show ended up opening none of his collaborators were speaking to him because they were so tired which all just sounds like very catty Queen Queenie gays all just like very very at

35:29 each other's throats which is very funny to me um Sondheim did not do any of the music even though some of it has like been reported that maybe he had more influence than he did he didn't the only musical Edition that he has is the course of Something's coming um and then at the Tony's it was nominated for best musical best featured actress in a musical uh Carol Lawrence who played Maria which is very strange because featured actress now is like the supporting actress category so it's weird that they're considering Maria the supporting it who is yeah you know what I mean that's weird right I think it's weird I mean I guess you could say Anita but but Maria clearly has more songs right yeah unless they're just saying like

36:15 because it's not about Maria because it follows Tony more than technically it follows Maria I guess well then it's gonna be featured for every female role in musical theater well that's you're not wrong uh best costume it was nominated for best costume design and best conductor and musical director um but it only one two it won best choreography and best uh Scenic Design um the musical that it lost to was for best musical was say it with me The Music Man just like I think if the Tony's had it if the Tony board had a chance to redo a Tony I think that is the one that they would be like not that the music man is bad I want to be very clear but I think

37:00 it's as a very funny now as someone who would die for The Music Man Adam as someone who's been in it three times um I do love music I think they made the right decision cool okay but let's talk about the movie so the this movie this where specifically today going to focus on this 2021 version we are probably going to talk about the 61 version from time to time but that is that what we are focusing on today so mostly because RJ and I did not watch it uh it is directed by Steven Spielberg the screenplay is written by Tony Kushner it is produced by Steven Spielberg Christy

37:47 makosko Krieger and Kevin McCallum and also not listed here but uh Rita Moreno was also a executive producer uh it stars Ansel Elgort as Tony it stars Ariana Dubose as Anita David Alvarez as Bernardo Mike Faye is it faced fast I don't know I don't know how to say his last name but he plays spouse he plays riff Rita Moreno plays Valentina and Rachel zegler plays Maria uh in her in the credit being and introducing Rachel zeckler uh the cinematography is by Janus Kaminski and it is edited by Michael Khan and

38:33 Sarah broshar the music obviously is by Leonard Bernstein production companies are amblin entertainment and tsg entertainment amblin being Steven Spielberg's production company uh and it was distributed by 20th century Studios which is owned by Walt Disney Studios uh uh it was released it went wide December 10th but its Premiere was November 29th the Lincoln Center which is very funny which is very funny um the running time is 156 minutes uh but I have no complaints so I will not be saying anything here uh uh the languages are both English and Spanish which is not usually something I make note of but it is noteworthy in this context

39:19 um the budget was a hundred million dollars and unfortunately it's current box office is only 27.5 million dollars I read a statistic that in order to break even simply because of like how much they had to spend on marketing and stuff this movie needs to make 300 million dollars which is it probably will not oh man is going to be considered most likely unless it has like a really big like greatest showman type like surge during like award season um this is probably going to be a flop which is wild when you watch this movie because it is very well made uh uh so um the development of this film started in

40:05 2014 uh and Kushner wrote the script in 2017. there's a quote from Steven Spielberg that says I've always wanted to make a musical not like Moulin Rouge though an old-fashioned conservative musical like West Side Story or Singing in the Rain I've been looking for one for 20 years I just need something that excites me David Alvarez this is the only thing I want to talk about really quickly David Alvarez who plays Bernardo he is one of the three original Billy Elliots in Billy Elliot and I was like so I'm gonna probably watch him be Billy later uh what a amazingly multi-talented performer because to play Billy Elliot have so such great dancing skills yeah the fact that he could do that when he was I don't know probably 12 or whatever

40:50 yeah and then he has the acting and the singing I guess Bernard doesn't sing a ton but like he was so good I'll I'll spoil my opinion everyone in this movie was so good I don't like this musical and I loved this movie it was so good yeah uh yeah people were waiting 40 whole minutes to wait and see if Molly did like this movie or not the last thing I ever listens for is just my opinions I will tell you Molly the people that have vocally told us what they thought of the new show has always been like I love Molly Molly's great thank you for adding her and we're recording this in December so like the Oscars or the Academy Awards haven't like announced their nominations yet the

41:35 sags haven't announced like other bits it's like about to drop because this is coming at the end of January so it's in the next two weeks or so um so what I will read you is the list of awards for the Critics Choice Awards and the Golden Globes those are the two that I chose um and what they are nominated for so for the Golden Globes it is nominated for Best Picture musical comedy best actress in a motion picture comedy musical for Rachel zegler best supporting actress in a motion picture for Ariane de bose and best director for a motion picture for Steven Spielberg and then for the Critics Choice Awards it's summoned for Best Picture best supporting actress for Ariana and for Rita Moreno best young performer for Rachel zegler best acting Ensemble for the entire cast Best Director best addicted screenplay for Tony Kushner best cinematography for

42:22 Janice Kaminsky uh best production design for Adam stockhausen and Rita Rina D'Angelo uh best added editing for Sarah broshar and Michael Khan and best costume designer for Paul tayswell so it it is it's racking up at the Critics Choice it is tied for the most nominations along with Belfast which is the Kenneth Branagh kind of his the Oscars movie of the year yeah all right let's Dive In [Music]

43:10 foreign it was fine yeah I just thought it was okay just really low stakes the entire time you know okay no this is how we have to start I have to talk about how the obviously the original production of West Side Story does not set it as it's just this General Upper West Side yeah it does not have a specific place the 1961 version they kind of tied it to a place but even that it's not specific like nobody knows if unless you're like from New York yeah maybe if you're a New Yorker you recognize specific streets or whatever but as a non-new Yorker to me it's just building yeah but like the idea of setting this film where the first shot the first shot is you are coming up on

43:58 the construction site of what is going to be the the Lincoln Center a huge like city arts project like funded by tax money but is also like evicting people from their home so that they can make way for this like cultural important center basically already sets your Stakes so high because it immediately defines why these people are so worried about their what they what you want what what people will say like is their Turf like where their area that they are very protective of they're so protective of it because like obviously they won't they want to say it's theirs or whatever but also because the bigger threat of this thing coming

44:45 down the pike is like heading straight for them and they're not they're just like trying to grab on to whatever power they can before everything in their lives is like completely undone and I just thought the idea of like focusing in on this specific moment in this specific neighborhood and especially in New York in Manhattan where each each City Block almost is like its own complete like town like you go like six blocks in New York City and you're in a completely new area like people have full lives and don't ever leave like their burrow like and that's just like a real part of like living in New York and I I just think it's like so cool to like tie it to a specific moment in

45:31 this way yeah I feel like historical context that I did research and I also because Kushner in one of the articles I read where they interviewed him was kind of like I live in Lincoln Center apartment so that was really interesting to me and I was like well now it just sounds like you put it where you live so you didn't have to go anywhere you're like oh I'll just make it yeah you're like oh I know where that is um but I understand there's like precedent for it but I found the visuals of they're literally fighting over Rubble yeah like I know in the 61 version like I said they they said it there because there were lots of empty buildings but I feel like the 61 version even when they are in a real set it feels like kind of soundstagey to me so

46:16 to me the buildings and the 61 version are like empty because it's a movie and and I don't think I ever put together like this is a crumbling place but it's so clear in this new version and you have such a sense of like these young men are fighting to be the most important part of the least important part of the world yeah like like it's so unimportant ultimately the thing that they're fighting over and it has this time limit on it that it's not going to be there for very long and yet they put their literal lives on the line for it I thought that was great there was also a sense of like the way it tied into the end because I think like as the movie progressed there were a couple of like more interior scenes where it did feel like more like a lively New York

47:02 like experience but that the moments at the end where it really was just on a Barren Rubble like and there were obviously other scenes that utilized that kind of like Barren uh location so like cool was was in a dance that was basically like on like a thing that's like falling apart basically and then also at the end it did kind of feel like there was like a sense of like a Greek tragedy where it's like this is just the rubble that has been left in Troy and like the people are just like grasping on the little bit of like Humanity that they have because like everything is gonna end soon yeah the end sequence happening with this literally right behind the shooting is like the construction site and all of

47:48 this like Demolition and to set the end of like Tony's life and the end of this story on this literal backdrop of like the end of it of an era basically the end of a location the end of like uh many people's like lives and who they are and where they grew up and their families and like it's so I I I definitely hear your point about like San Juan Hill and I didn't know that and that's super interesting but like I did I did like that it was like the city decided to make I mean the city decided to make like a location for art for rich people to go spend money to see

48:33 art and so we have to evict all these like poor people to make way for it and it's just like and yeah and certainly that happened for real it's just that I guess I guess I have this mixed feeling of like in a way it is a history that musical theater people should account for because Lincoln Center was built like for us so to speak right like it was built to do musicals like this to do this big Productions but it also feels a little like inserting ourselves as self-important at the same time to me so that's why it's like oh I do want to acknowledge this but are we also like claiming that we're more important than we are in some way I think that's why I have a mixed feeling but I think that's that's kind of why like it already set a tone for me as I was starting the movie that like okay there's at least like

49:20 there were decisions made as to what type of story they want to tell and it's going to be from a point of view that it already set me in that like okay this is what I'm gonna expect in the movie so right the the other thing too about this movie is like it's it's directed by Steven Spielberg it's it's screenplays by Tony Kushner here it's just people who are so confident in what they are able to achieve that you don't have any kind of like Half Baked ideas in here like everything is so fleshed out and like it's very nice to see we're not questioning like is this director's first movie has they have they worked on anything before like the yeah uh episodes we've done in the past yeah it's a very cohesive vision

50:06 for sure and then while we're talking about World building I felt like there were there were so many choices in just the first number that did such a good job of World building more so to me than the 60s movie ever did so the specific that I loved is that there's a scene where the Jets go up to a Puerto Rican business and take off the sign and there's a sign that says like it says something Irish O'Reilly's Auto Parts name yeah and I was like immediately more information that I ever got in the 60s version of like I guess it's kind of implied but like this was the white neighborhood and now there's a bunch of Puerto Rican immigrants and the demographics are shifting really quickly and that's what these boys are responding to and I was like this one small visual moment gave us all that

50:51 information and I love the fact that too so they go and they like to face the mural the the Puerto Rican mural and the people in the neighborhood send the Sharks to go defend the mural and you have this sense of like a whole Community around them that to me is not there in the 60s movie and that of course the Sharks believe that what they're doing is like ethical and Justified because they're viewed by their Community as defending their territory and and like making the space that these white boys won't allow them right and so I felt like I loved that they added that as well of like they're not just doing this because they're uh what's the word for it white men they're not white men they're not just like men

51:37 who don't have a purpose yeah they're it's not game they're actively it's not like a gang culture where it's like or like leaning into the the stereotypes of like what would be a gang like back in the day right and I think what gets what we get in ankle number of like being eaten up by the system or whatever like that's kind of we see the perspective of the Jets we're like they don't have anything else to do with their anger yeah but for the Sharks there's much more of a community element to what they're doing which the Sharks do not get enough screen time in any way weeks ago so I was happy with adding that although I wish somehow they could have added more stuff for the Sharks overall yeah I think like the dynamic of the Jets and the Sharks was one of the

52:24 things that we like I took as a really good takeaway of Tony kushner's book just like really like enhancing the the movie because like they really make it clear that the Jets are acting in a way that because they are like degenerate like even like uh the sergeant he's even saying like people people that used to live here that are you are rich now and can live in suburbs but like you you specifically choose to stay here because you like are quote unquote like you know like you don't try to try to like succeed like everyone else does so you're stuck here you're in this position um and then in comparison yeah the the

53:12 the sharks are like a full thriving Community like they have business like every business in this neighborhood is run by by Puerto Ricans like it is very Lively and like it's just it's very it's very clear like how they've set up the two Dynamics which is like really kind of like heightens the whole Stakes even more and I think none no song in this film more so is exemplary of the community that they are trying to set this world in than America and by moving America from a song in which the original and the 1961 version they happen in the middle of the night on the roof of Maria and or I'm sorry uh

53:57 Bernardo and Anita's like apartment and it's like just between like the group of sharks girls or the group of sharks and their girlfriends um and to being like an encompassing like neighborhood musical number set in the middle of the day when people are like out working their lives I it's so uh and also like the lyrics of of America are so good like I just love how it's it is true it's just fair witty it's very witty Stephen Sondheim was very witty yeah and I I just think it's like a shining pillar of musically you have bra long as you stay on your

54:44 [Music] own shoes everywhere Grime in America organized crime in America terrible time in America you forget okay go on I do yeah I love that number it's it is my favorite number in the musical in any version and it was so good there were like maybe 15 people in my theater Max because I saw it on a Thursday night Midway through the run like not not a big showing and there were like golf claps after America because it felt like we can't just let that go unacknowledged even though we're

55:30 this tiny group of people like something has to happen now we watched it opening night and it was around like probably like 50 maybe 20 people in that theater maybe less actually but you could tell it was like musical theater people and like latinx people people got a clap yes like during the credit everyone was like we are aware of the stakes and why this is important we are here to like live in the moment of this experience so I mean obviously the people in this musical are specifically Puerto Rican so probably say that mostly but I've seen a lot of pushback in the last year especially to that term as being perceived as like coming from Outsiders and being sort of like a version of cultural imperialism so I'm

56:16 gonna try to say Latin or Latino if it was talking about a mixed gender group because I believe that's what the community prefers but I understand that also the impetus behind latinx so just for listeners we might use all three of those words yeah we're doing our best to be respectful I also know that like the term latinx is also a lot of uh gender non-conforming like uh people in the community like Community will also use that and and you know it's it's an evolving term and it's it's evolving so we may be using multiple yeah once I think like yeah for the most part like yeah I feel like for the most part we've said Puerto Ricans too just to be clear to like well yeah it is more specific

57:01 here yeah um I actually I think that leads us to a good conversation about um language in this film Steven Spielberg made a deliberate choice to not subtitle the Spanish in this film so in the lin-manuel kind of rewrites that happened for the 2009 production that was on Broadway um they changed a lot of the s uh scenes that were just between people who would speak Spanish to each other to be just Spanish speaking only scenes music too and in the music too and so I feel pretty was entirely in Spanish and uh a boy like that was a entirely in Spanish and then part way

57:47 through the Run they switch they reverted back to English for a lot of because I think there was a lot of pushback based on like white people and white audiences not being able to understand to some to some extent I think I get it because I think with the song specifically like I don't know if it's it's very hard I under yeah yeah what I guess if if I had never seen West Side Story a boy like that you might miss some critical yeah factual information I feel pretty I don't know what you're missing it's just people panicking that they they don't know every word that's coming out of somebody's mouth I will say with the language because it's in a media

58:35 because it's in a movie format there are multiple factors that go into like those specific scenes where you pick up what they're saying even though you you may not understand Spanish like the the scenes at home like you can tell like what the conversation is about like you can tell because you're up close rather than in a Broadway musical where you're you know like you're singing to the back of the road like back at the theater when you're up close like that you feel like what they're saying even though you don't understand what they're saying so because you can read like even the subtleties of like facial expressions yeah you can obviously redone yeah camera easier at least than the theater yeah I wanted to ask RJ if you feel like you can speak to this maybe you don't feel like you can so in the movie there

59:21 were scenes where it felt like maybe 50 50 in the home scenes where they would sometimes be speaking Spanish and sometimes English and I always wonder when I see that because I grew up in a single language household and so every my experience with speaking another language is only like I am now practicing this language and and because I don't know it very well I have to like focus on like okay we're just doing French now or whatever the language is RJ because I know you had more of a mixed language experience is is that accurate because I feel like a lot of a lot of media does this of like a combo of languages to help the whole audience get what's happening so is that really a thing people do or is that just like a thing we've decided you can do to try to

1:00:07 put in another language I will say like realistically it would be a single language home so like my family only speaks Filipino when we are at home but I do know that in the movie because Anita's character is like I am going to be the person that's like we're assimilating we are speaking in English even though like in that first scene of them in the kitchen she'd definitely like heavy hands it like because Bernardo and and Maria just keep speaking Spanish because also like their brother and sister they grow up together so it's like they're always going to be doing that her being there to kind of always be like uh you have to speak English and like this is Adam's point when in in the movie too that like multiple characters do that so like uh krupke and the

1:00:53 sergeant will do that in like a disciplinarian way like because there are those factors I think like it makes sense and the story wise that like they are being forced to like have to switch back and forth a lot in the Anita scene and at first I was like why is she doing this and then it led into America and her talking about how excited she used to live in New York and I was like okay now I get that you're telling me something about the character but I'm pretty sure there was a scene before the Anita scene where it was like Bernardo or something yeah it was like yeah before they went to the dance and I was like why are they throwing in English phrases like yeah yeah just make this make the scene I like that's like the biggest advantage of this being a movie is that you could just put subtitles on your screen if you're worried we're not gonna get it so

1:01:40 I wasn't sure I wasn't in love with every way that they did the language mixing thing because I didn't quite buy that they would be that hybrid I do think that like that's so funny I do think like if they did start out and like you watched it fresher than I did but I do think if they did start out fully fully Spanish and like either Anita's the one that's like hey hey hey hey hey stop like at the first moment then maybe but yeah I do I I guess I just like I was suspending my disbelief because I knew that like I knew the stakes of like having to speak in English but yeah I do I do get your point the I think that's always the tricky part about any sort of like trying to tell stories about like two

1:02:27 cultures because like one of my favorite movies the farewell was pretty much all in Chinese and like any time they only spoke English was to be like so that way your grandma won't understand because she can't speak English you know like it was also like there's always like a a method behind like having to use that Tech they always have to like justify it and I I felt like they Justified this one in enough to be like it's a movie musical like this is enough rules but you'll you get the gist and we can keep them we can keep going so Steven Spielberg's reasoning for not including subtitles was his quote was like he didn't want to give English the power over like he didn't want to a seed to English being the default that we should all like know English yeah so in that

1:03:15 regard I think I don't know I I really liked the mix of like Spanish English I did too um but I'm also a person who like knows the story well enough that like the entire scene could have been in Spanish that's true and you're you're like experience it in a different way because you're like oh I'm because I know what they're saying I am just focused on like the performance itself you also I'm just gonna read Americans for a second you all know some Spanish I mean I never took Spanish but I can watch a scene in Spanish and I'll get some keywords out of it like people's panic when they don't know a language word for word is so excessive it's a musical there's not gonna be anything important that anyone says probably at all

1:04:03 you're gonna figure out something we'll figure it out I will say like watching English speak Spanish in this country yeah watching the movie I fully felt that of like maybe I am more fluent than I thought I was because I was like I'm pretty much holding on to most of this so I was like it reminded me of um RJ watches this uh Filipino Chef who makes like videos on YouTube and he flips between Tagalog and English like every other sentence and it's so funny to me because just I think it's really I don't know I think it's really funny um but that's what they were writing I just finished watching money Heist so I've also just been consuming Spanish-speaking media recently maybe that's why I'm feeling confident I didn't know that was everyone watch

1:04:48 money Heist yeah I didn't know that was Spanish yes it's from Spain wow it's set in Spain RJ talked about a little bit of my my thoughts on characters asking other characters or requesting other characters speak English and I thought the brilliant you brilliantly use it in three different ways so there are three main characters who tell other characters to only speak English one is Anita and we've already discussed that it's based on her wanting to assimilate to the American culture and I think that's that's gen from from other podcasts I've listened to who had uh uh Spanish-speaking reviewers they were saying like that is like an actual thing that there is always the one person in the family who was like no practice your

1:05:33 span or practice your English practice English but the crop key uses it in a way where he like he I he just doesn't understand Spanish so he's using it in like a I I cannot understand what you're saying if you do not speak in English but the sergeant is very interesting because there is a scene the scene where he comes to ask to question Maria about uh uh the the the two deaths and you realize that he is translating what they are saying so he speaks Spanish so that he knows what they're saying but he is using it in a in a way of like asserting his power and dominance over the two women before him and I thought that

1:06:19 specific Nuance was so important and tells you so much about the power structure of like the The Authority in the in the neighborhood and where they lie and like I just I really liked the ways in which characters you can have three people say the same thing but each of them can be saying in entirely different ways and what they mean so I I thought that was great I mean we could go either way we already talking about Anita might as well talk about Anita oh my God might as well talk about our antibose as I would say I think she truly shines I I feel like she is the standout in the movie which yeah when I say that I'm

1:07:06 like but other people did really well too like but I I truly feel like also like as a as a movie they're also like pushing that like she is the star I think probably because like you know like the legacy of this role like uh like Rita Moreno won the Oscar for this role so like there is that sense of like we are passing a baton to her that like she will be the new kind of like uh person to like carry the movie but also like Anita is such an interesting character like she has to go through so much in act two like in one like in just like once in a night in one night yeah that like I felt like in this movie I really felt the the the the struggle of like trying to

1:07:53 like keep it with everything but also like trying to stay strong so that she doesn't kind of like end up another victim again and I like that they showed us her seeing the dead body and then we're really following her along to like see her journey into docs basically Anita I think has one of the hardest the actor who whatever actress plays Anita in any production of West Side Story ever has the hardest job in the show because she has to make the turn in a boy like that work she has to start a three-minute song yeah where she hates this man this man and by the end of the song she has to embrace the idea that Maria

1:08:39 is doing this out of love yeah and like you have to believe it as the audience and I think again I love this movie so I'm willing I know that I am willing to go along on that ride and I'm willing to ask what is asked of me as the audience member but I do think Ariana Dubose in this role and in that scene specifically I was very impressed with the way that it ended she was not like acquiescing to Maria and being like it's okay like you're forgiven but the way that it was like um just I don't know it was like this understanding this strong understanding

1:09:24 but like still ending that scene by like being upset but by being like there's nothing I can do to affect her like change how she views this situation um I get I resigned acceptance I guess if I want to say that I just I was so impressed by every scene she was in but like specifically that one and then the assault scene as well I thought yeah boy like that who killed your problem forget that boy and find another your own kind stick to your own a boy like that will give you sorrow you'll meet another way to model Why Not Your Own Kind stick to your own

1:10:10 [Music] who cares cannot laugh a boy who cares has no heart and he's never mind time [Music] I would say that she met my expectations because she was in schmidu and I loved that and I got so hyped when I realized I know yeah yeah so I was like I feel like I was already a fan before I even walked in and then I was like she's doing everything I was hoping she would do in this movie and it's great famously the bullet in Hamilton yeah I thought um Emily

1:10:56 ham no and my hand says the girlfriend Hamilton but no so there's a woman named Emily something she is in relationship with Debbie Diggs and she's in um the Umbrella Academy she played Angela is that right who's this Angelica she played Angelica in like a later run of Hamilton like after Renee Elise Goldsberry had left and I thought that she had been the bullet because she also has like an afro and I was like oh I just like have seen the pictures of the bullets I assume it's the same person and I knew that she had been in Hamilton and so um I was really excited but I was like no okay wait now I actually know who was the bullet yeah it's this person I just remembered when the Hamilton uh

1:11:44 film version came out in on Disney plus and Twitter was like screen capping at the end because like all the Ensemble members got like a title card a credit card and when Ariana came out as the bullet like people on Twitter were like

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