Wicked (2024) dir. Jon M. Chu | Showgays: A Cinemusical Podcast

0:01 [Applause] [Music] and nobody in all of pod no co-host that there is or was is ever going to bring me down I hope you're happy we're doing we're doing um parody versions now that consulted about season five okaya welcome back to another episode of show gaze movie musical P of show gaze a c musical podcast the

0:48 podcast where we talk about C musicals of all kinds of all kinds which now that I feel like it's cin musical I feel more okay watching like a Sister Act watching a that's not specifically a movie musical you know what I mean y yep y even though it really hasn't changed something about it now feels like we've we've pressed the boundaries yeah you would not believe how many people after I've told them about this podcast have asked me to weigh in on specific films and its qualification as a movie musical it is something that the general population is genuinely interested in it's a question that everyone constantly asks I guess what are the what are the what are some good ones that they ask you about some good ones that they ask me about I feel like I've gotten Cabaret before which is like you have to be into musicals for that to be know does that

1:36 count was there a recent I feel like there was a recent like about like about an artist I got asked about the Bob Dylan one right now with Timmy sham I mean there's always there's always ones there was a couple years ago there was obviously the the Bohemian rap city one there was the was something like that yeah yeah yeah it was something like that I think that I got asked um and then uh uh sometimes I get old school old school ones like sound of music but that one's obviously yes what oh obviously yes that's obviously yes yeah who would think that's no I think was it or maybe I'm thinking of a different something else in that in that era I feel like I got a maybe somebody

2:21 was asking me if that was one that we've done because that I was like um yeah of course one time somebody just asked me if I'd ever seen Cabaret and I got like personally at the notion that I wouldn't have not only have I seen Cabaret but I've seen all that jazz thank you so much so I really know the Lord Andrew Andrew couldn't remember Bob fy's name he called him like Bob fle or something one time and so that's my favorite thing with him is just to like try to say different variations of Bob FY Bob one of those Robert FY things you know yeah yeah RJ how are you you're so quiet over here I'm so far away hey guys I'm doing great well maybe not great I'm doing okay what's WR what's wrong I'm

3:08 just really busy this week work's piling up we but next week is our uh last week of the year and then we'll get the week off after that so it's kind of like a rush on things but also I'm doing a web series for the ample verse next year so I'm trying to finish the script so that we can have a table read on Sunday this Sunday girl tell us about it RJ loves to work under a very intense time under pressure um it's about a YouTube mukbanger who mom mukbang is what people who like eat food on camera on camera who uh goes to a restaurant and falls in love with the cook that's there a and romance soor yeah it's a little

3:56 romcom um is it a is it a boy's love it is a boy's love from fans of BL to makers of BL fans to creators fans to creators fans to producers love it um and I just got uh back from the restaurant today that we're about to film that we're going to film in February that she gave me the okay and she's making all the food too so very excited that's great is it Filipino food yeah it's a local Filipino restaurant so very excited nice should we I I will ask Adam how he is but I want to know should we talk about our schedule uh plan oh yes yeah this yeah about how this release you might not see an episode after this episode ever because we're gonna be we're also taking

4:42 a year break until Wicked two I mean it makes we're intermission intermission right now the longest intermission there's ever been we decided I feel like did we talk about this a little bit on the podcast and then like intimate that we were going to have a conversation off pod yeah this is our yeah this is our Holiday Spectacular we wanted put something out for around the holidays if you need to save this for when you're with your family to get a little break we understand um and then we're going to take a little a little offseason break we've been doing this show for three years now without a break and I was saying to the boys both that I feel like we could all use a little bit of rest time but also I feel like with content sometimes online if I don't have an offseason with it I'll need to like create an offseason for myself because I'll get sick of listening to the same

5:27 stuff all the time so we're hoping it will a bit of absence makes the heart grow F situation for our listeners a little rest bit for the listeners it's time for you to catch up cuz I know there are a lot of people that see the movies but they don't get to see it so they like hold off on listening or they'll listen to a little bit and then hold off on watching so now's the perfect time spend the winter you know to watch those watch the movies that you were like should I watch this one now you can now you can now you can go back in our backlog and and uh catch up which means that the mailbox when we come back will be filled be filled stuff we're so excited for there to be some in the mailbox we do have two messages in the mailbox that I'll will read after I ask Adam how he's doing how he's doing oh I'm fine thank you for asking um does it

6:14 feel like something has changed Adam within you within you something is not the same is something not the same something's not the same I'm through with playing by the rules of someone else's game um no I'm fine um um C it's cold it's cold it's cold I feel like I still haven't figured out the heat situation our apartment what the what the correct heat to set it at is yeah 72 is like too cold but then 73 It'll like run a long time and then I'm like oh it's too hot now so I'm I'm schedule do you have a schedule option or it's just a no since we live in an attic too the insulation is not the best so I had

6:59 place in Madison that had the schedule thing but it was very annoying because you could only set it like it assumes that there were like four different temperatures you wanted it throughout the day and I was a grad student at home during covid and so I needed it to be the same all the time and to program my thermostat I had to like go through every single time in order to does that make sense yeah yeah yeah yeah that sounds like it was really hard for you Molly I feel that it was really hard for me and I really understand what you're going through with winter because um it was let me see what was the high today 70 um I can't see the high from today anymore but um it's going to be 64 tomorrow so I I really get it it's really cold yeah it's it's a lot to deal with over here and so

7:45 you know I know for you guys winter is kind of like just a cute little thing but like in San Diego it's really serious so um I think you should just think about we're we're really praying for you yeah prayers for us cuz doesn't the ocean like freeze over like doesn't the bay completely totally frozen over did you ice skate have you ice skated yet mm yeah we were tobing um wearing our toes you know Sal water is really famous for freezing really easily too right Andrew and I did have like a little bit of a spat over the question of like whether the ocean freezes over and then I realized that like for him freezes over is like there are chunks of ice throughout oh ocean and I was like frozen over to me it's like you can walk on it that turned out to be the you can have festivals on that little part of Minnesota that's like technically in

8:32 Canada and you have to like cross the you know what I'm talking about yeah the northern northern triangle yeah whatever that's called yeah yeah great um mail bang mail bang okay so the first was from Nicole shout out Nicole um she says we have two options for her birthday next year we did not include claims May's like you're picking my movies on May there's no option where we don't pick one of her picks it's just these are her options um Westside Story 1961 which did you two do that was that an original season you you I think you also watched no you also watched it as well didn't it yes because that was the first season when I was trying too hard um or let's see if M let's find out today if Molly made a closer I bet she didn't tell you right

9:19 now um or this is an interesting one Beauty and the Beast 2017 oh that is fascinating I mean it was one of the highest grossing uh live actions it's like was one of the highest grossing films of that year it made like 1.2 billion dollar I recall visiting Adam and R.J shortly after that film had been released and them sharing with me that they had a friend who said it was a perfect film which I think is is really something that's aged very well um that was Galaxy brain they were ahead of the time yeah Nicole says please sing Happy Birthday to me and she sent this uh on November 15th so she said happy early Thanksgiving which it's very sweet thank you Nicole thanks Nicole she didn't say anything about how great our show gaze episode was that came out that same day no she

10:06 didn't was that the show oh no I'm sorry show actually I think it came out a couple days later okay I think it came out on the 17th we are always onp we recorded on like the 14th yeah yeah um okay then we have an email from Lucas it is oh God it is sort of long because he um responded to RJ's call for listener nominees and he wrote for all of them oh okay okay wow best contemporary CNO so Lucas is is in your Camp Adam hey best classic Oliver worst contemporary so he broke that down even more mean girls worst classic I mean Fair though um I really I enjoyed myself but I also don't think it was a great film um worst classic Gigi

10:54 Best Director drag the little girls he also wrote G Fry's you um Best Director Jac Dei VI LEF who is that for though was that your name that was for no that was for um uh the umbrell of sh Umbrellas of sh sh he gave best performance to Peter Dinklage and sio I don't hate thatte it I don't hate it who appears in the film we will be discussing today yes well does he appear voes is he heard he's credited in the film we're discussing today best supporting Leland Palmer and all that jazz not mad about that either but despite giving Mean Girls worst contemporary did give the VIP MVP to Renee rap in her Powerhouse vocals yeah

11:40 oh yeah amazing um teaching award goes to Noodle teaching Willie the difference between a vow and a consent the Susan sag award John Waters direction of Crybaby I mean you know was that this season that was crybaby this season or was it last seas that was that was the Nicole pick oh yes how I forgot okay um Catholicism award goes to the 500 chocaholic monks um you know how I feel about that pict of catholism so um the dream sequence Awards Molly was ex don't forget Molly was extremely offended by was off so mad about it TR castol TR cast Molly um the dream sequence award goes to 50% of all that jazz the LI lipstick performance which actually I can't believe that we forgot about this one avanta and the truly off lip lipsync

12:28 mix Sexy And Mean Girls oh yeah I forgot about that performance we loved her in that so loved her in that should have should have gotten a shout out in the showes the best dubbed performance was Kathy green the young woman who dubbed the voice of Oliver Twist or Aussie Osborne as the voice of the green fairy oh that's so I forgot about Azie yeah wait he does Azie does Kylie know the green fairy he does the voice but Kylie's the face ofir oh my God I didn't realize that okay um then he talks about some lipsyncing musicals um which include 1981's Pennies from Heaven and more recently 2005's romance and cigarettes I don't know either one of those do you guys know those no I know All Dogs Go to Heaven I

13:14 that's a great film um both are surprisingly dark takes on the movie musical genre with all the actors lip syncing to Old tracks it's kind of a bizarre experience for musical fans but still worthy of your coverage very interesting now that we are a c musical podcast right yes the Rebrand D Lucas Lucas the was he the one that said that he brought up music we're not paying you by the way we're not you're not getting Royal get a dam scent if we're not getting a scent you're not getting a sent so if I hear anything I'm ready with a c to sit ready to mail out we're just we're just gonna have to spell cinam musical in a different way we're gonna add like a hidden I don't think Lucas was claiming that he invented the term I think okay well you never know keep keeping keeping our ponies in a row or something make an assumption here but

14:00 these grubby little gays you can't trust y okay um in the past while discussing Westside Story you posited a Steven Spielberg Guys and Dolls remake which you thought would need a cusher level rewrite do you have any thoughts on the recently announced remake from Rob Marshall he's done some good work I actually like his take on Little Mermaid but also some total trash I'm hopeful an updated script and some diverse casting can help it succeed I just hope it's not edited to death with con consonant choppy sorry constant choppy Cuts like nine we probably should also consider The Little Mermaid remake too oh yeah um how do I feel about a Rob mol's like can't wait Molly's like it's either Beauty and the Beast or

14:45 Little Mermaid we're not doing both that is what I'm saying yes we can do we can do one we can do one Disney Live Action remake per like three years would be my all I can do um I like Rob Marshall for the most part I feel like great Guys and Dolls hard to mess up really good really good uh Baseline content yeah maybe I don't know that the wink and Nod that's going to be needed to put on the the sexism in it will be appropriately winked and knotted but if he gets a good writer in there or like somebody to to make sure that there's a camp Waller Bridge doing get her to rewind it get her on there yes get her to be on it I want her to be um I want her to be

15:30 Nathan Detroit Detroit come on perfect perfect casting um I think I think Rob Marshall's fine I think you know who would do a great job with it is Kenny Ortega and I don't I I am an ironically saying that we love in this house this is a Kenny house this is a Kenny household obviously we won't apologize for it I think it would be good I think I I would want them to well I'm going to talk about it later but I I don't want them to feel like they have to update the music to sound current yes that would be the worst it should sounds like the 40 50 sound that like Jazzy brassy swingy sound that musical has um I think it could be good it really you have to have chemistry with the two if you don't

16:16 have chemistry with the two lades do not make the movie yeah I really okay yeah chemistry keep the music and I really I need them to kind of almost keep the original lines and it's how you play it that makes it work instead of what I don't want is like a Disney girl boss moment fory girl boss you know what I mean like like let it be what it is and then like you can have a little bit of dryness in the performance to let us know like obviously we don't do this anymore but like don't rewrite it so that they're more empowered like don't don't give don't give Sarah don't give Sarah a a power Ballad of like I am my own woman or whatever speechless from Aladdin you don't need you don't need to add a scene so it passes the Beale test I don't we don't need that yeah um there's not that's not the only way to

17:02 do feminism and then he says well she has to she has to be she has to try to like own her own dress making shop and then the prince has to be Nathan Detroit has to be like you can't women can't own businesses here that's what je Bas would do um yeah and then finally I would love y'all to cover the star said would wannabe Camp catastrophe known as the prom on Netflix um yes we've gotten this request multiple times is called show gaze for a reason damn it um and then he and then he says James Cordon is a hate crime but I do want to point out that he he replaced the O and Cordon with a star as if it was a swear word um I'm sure you would get some fun content by digging into the niche theater jokes in the movie also the

17:47 savior of Cinema Nicole Kidman love and musical lover Keegan Michael Key are great in small roles we love Keegan we love Keegan I mean I don't think I realize Keegan was in that actually this would make our like fourth keing and Michael Key movie on this has to have a ke and Michael Key performance he I I've said it before I think that he is he is secretly behind the current Revival of musical theater that we're seeing right now he's pulling the strings I think he's pulling the strings um also Sly I want to hear youall rant about Ryan Murphy and his Glee Legacy which Molly once said was a stain on the American [Laughter] conscience I didn't remember I said that is going to be on your gravestone Molly it's going to say I want you to know that we saw this movie that we're talking about today Wicked in in at the Alamo Draft House I

18:35 don't know if you've ever been no but it's like it's like a d you dine in it's upscale they kick people out if they talk it's very serious but the Alamo will do this thing where they'll do like a half hour instead of like Maria manuno going to the movies whatever that thing that other movie theaters do they do like found footage compilation of like if it's a property that's known they'll do like here's all the times wizard of O is referenced in like pop culture throughout like history and it'll be like commercials for dolls or like little weird like minseries Clips or like a Japanese version blah BL so this is what we were getting they did a section where they did people different people singing Defying Gravity because this is like a pop culture staple at this point yeah and in it on the screen they did the not

19:22 the first or not the first time they did F gravity which was in the first season when Kurt and uh her and Rachel um auditioned to sing to find gravity and Kurt through the solo at the end anyway um apparently they redid it in the 100th episode of the show so they played that clip or just a portion of it um and then on the screen Alamo Draft House asserted that Glee was responsible for the Resurgence of Defying Gravity in the culture I was like I've never even said anything that crazy I said something less crazy which is that Glee led us to G fell but I would never assert something as crazy as Glee brought back to find Gravity from the dead wow it was never dead she was never dead she was

20:09 never dead she was never dead she had melted um so that was fun um yeah Molly thoughts on Glee anymore any more recent Notions you've had about Glee I haven't thought about Glee once since whenever the last time was we talked about it on this podcast great um so speaking of Ryan I will say that he was potentially going to be picked to direct this film so there they didn't pick him so yeah there's an alternate universe where he directed it and it is it's defin it's fully leam Michelle for sure oh wow oh wow wow wow wow oh wow wow wow what a film that would have been he did the manda's brothers thing and that was great and that is the kind of thing that I need him on I need him

20:56 on that and I need him not on this you know yeah yeah yeah this is too Earnest yeah I can't he can't do he can't he everything Ryan Murphy does has to be under I guess pose was different but he kind of more like produced pose as opposed to like he didn't really have like a speci hand on it necessarily but okay that's enough about Ryan Murphy um it's my turn okay Adam you have the daunting task to summarize Wicked part one this is not going to be under a minute I'm going to be very honest this is not be under a minute this is half of the and this is not going to be under a minute does everybody know that Wicked is a is a retelling prequel of Wizard of Oz let's make sure that the listeners are all aware of that before you get into the details of how well I start with the

21:43 word munchkin land so I think that should be a clue I I just want to make sure because I will tell you that I brought my 9-year-old nephew to see Wicked and we realized on the way there that he had never seen Wizard of Oz so there was a there was a need to quickly bring him up to speed he had a aess from cultural osmosis but he didn't know what happens in it and so I needed to tell him on the way there so I just want to make sure firstly if you're 9 years old you're too young to listening to this podcast but secondly true just give everybody that context before you get into the details all right munchkin land celebrates the Declaration of the death of Alaba the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda is asked about her former friendship with her the film is told as a flashback beginning in their time as Force roommates at shiz University where alaba's natural magical abilities give her a head uh head up

22:30 no whatever in what galinda had always wanted to be a sorceress however leg up leg up thank you that's an azian change I'm doing I'm doing fun aian phrases however alphaba isn't nearly as well liked as galinda owing to her green skin despite her also coming from a prominent family in Oz alphaba sister is wheelchair bound to Nessa rose wheelchair bound Nessa Rose who struggles with feeling independent and alphaba blames herself for this as her mother took home remedies to ensure the second daughter wouldn't end up green which disabled Nessa and led to her mother dying in child birth when Prince Fiero enrolls and urges everyone to go out to the cerb galinda invites Alaba with a black hat ensuring that she will be mocked Madame moral head of the sorcery Department arrives and tells ginda that she will be allowed to

23:15 receive lessons as well at alaba's request galinda joins alphaba in a dance upping her social credit they become friends but thing but the things oh things for talking animals continue to deteriorate in Oz alaba's favorite goat Professor is placed under arrest and she and Fier narrowly save a caged lion from a fate of not learning how to talk which ends with alphaba developing feelings for glinda's now boyfriend she's suddenly invited to meet the wizard in the Emerald City and Glinda and Glinda joins her but while alphaba initially thinks that the wizard can help solve their problems she eventually comes to discover that he is the one enacting them her disgust with the wizard and his Antics which include tricking alphaba into turning the monkey guards into winged creatures at their Terror lead her to denounce him and reject his offer of opportunity he and Madam moral set out set all of Oz against alphaba

24:02 declaring her the Wicked Witch of the West as Glinda rejects alaba's request to join her due to her cowardice and adherence to the status quo alphaba ends the film alone publicly standing in opposition to the wizard as all of Oz demands her murder I will say I believe the preferred ter minutes I believe the preferred term is wheelchair user but I appreciate that you got a lot of information into that well it was a longer than a minute summary I don't know how could possibly get people the relevant information any shorter than that RJ and I when we talk about bl's on our Channel we discuss them as either we put them on a matrix and on one access is like is it made for gay people or is it made for straight people but then the other access is is it plot driven or is

24:48 it character driven and a lot of the times in BL just like in Romance it's always character driven yeah say plot this is a plot this is a plot show like yes there are character beats and the characters do go on Journeys and I would say the second act is more of a character Journey but the First Act is so plot set it sets the there's so much table setting that I was like I can't skip any of this and earlier I didn't I didn't even have Nessa Rose in there but then I was like this whole technically all of this starts because she dies so right well yeah I mean I think firstly it's it's based on a book and the purpose of that book was telling all this backstory and secondly I realized as we watched it I feel like we recently critiqued prequels that are very like and then it sets up this and then it sets up this and then it sets up this

25:34 and that is very much Wicked although I feel like Wicked kind of started that Trend so I'm less annoyed by it in Wicked because I feel like this is kind of the thing that made everybody want to do that kind of prequel um but it is like every little detail other than the one thing I did not love was the like picking the color of the road I was like we get you don't have to explain why the the road is yellow but like a lot of these little details are play into like what we know as The Wizard of Oz and it does wrap up in a satisfying way in the second part that we will wait a year to see so it is important and maybe we won't cover it on this podcast who knows um great okay I'll go first what is your relationship Adam Wicked and I go back oh boy do we go back um so this

26:24 musical I had started listening to it probably in 2004 would be my guess 2003 2004 when the original Broadway cast album came out and I had like learned it then I read the book at the tender age of 12 which I don't think a 12-year-old can't read it but I definitely think not I'm not even going to talk about the appropriateness for children which whatever but there's definitely like I didn't understand politically at all what this is talking about there's no way like I want to reread it now with everything like it being back in the culture in such a prominent way like I want to reread it because it is such a political book yeah and boy does it feel timely uh that I am like oh I'm interested to see like what his ruminations on you know fascism is

27:11 fascism not yeah s tag did not not Camp Maguire didn't know on fascism so I read the book and then um RJ this was the time when my mom was like the senior Warden at our church and she we had talk about how she like was very busy oh okay my mom had to like my mom was that lead like person at our church at like con congregant person who like is head of the chapter or whatever and then we at the same time found out that our priests had been like extorting money from the CH like had been embezzling funds from the church my so my mom was the one who was like going through like boxes of receipts and records and da d da and doing all this like to prove the case to BL so it was very hard it was a very hard time so the church the congregation

27:59 ended up actually buying mom and I tickets to go see Wicked because it had just opened in Chicago um the the Chicago run that ran for four years at the Oriental what it was then called the Oriental Theater wow um so we went and saw so that was my first time I've never seen it in New York I've never seen it the gerswin um but uh yeah we so I saw it in probably it had to be like 2005 is when I saw it it's my guess um and it was great or whatever and then um I also my brother-in-law had bought like on eBay I think that someone was selling like a bunch of like de like burned DVDs of like uh illegal like bootleg copies of

28:44 the show so I had like three or four different casts doing Wicked which was so crazy I didn't really watch them because they were all like on 2004 cam quarters so like the quality was garbage B but like it I I definitely had one of the ones I had was Christen Chen's last performance wow and her if you've seen the show she has the bit where she turns the frock into a beautiful ball gown or whatever and Kristen just like did an improv routine for like five minutes like she just like extended it out for so long and the audience like lost their minds I do remember that I didn't really I took you I've seen it like a couple more times since then I think I've seen it like in total four times wow um but I it's not my I mean it like

29:32 had a very special place in my heart especially like that eighth grade era when you're kind of discovering musical theater and like more of like they're not just songs but it's more like you have graduated from Disney musicals to like things with themes yeah um so you feel like a little more adult so it was like that and it was like Phantom and rent and kind of all like the standards of that time and then um yeah then I didn't really ever think about it until like they were making the movie again and I was like I remember hearing stuff about the movie being made and there had been talks about this movie made for like a decade now at this point so then when they finally cast Cynthia and Ariana I was like H maybe we'll see d d da and then I just I watched the movie and like the movie started the Overture

30:17 starts and I like started crying and I was like I was I guess I was surprised cuz I it's not my favorite show but I was like oh I think it's just like it's a nostalgic I remember listening to the show so much as a kid like I wore my CD out and so I was like oh and I think like it's a great it's I think it's a very good movie I did enjoy the movie a lot and I think the show is good I'm not one of these like Wicked is bad I don't I think that's silly but um I I was like way more moved about finally like seeing it on the big screen than I thought I was going to be but I I really was like every song I was like oh my God it's happen like every song I couldn't believe it was like finally coming to in front of my eyes so um that's my

31:03 relationship I want to say I feel that Wicked is objectively good and its problem is only that it's become too Normie I think it is in the Andrew lyd Weber category of like it's not if you're a musical theater person it's not cool for Wicked to be your favorite because it's too popular but there's nothing actually wrong with the show I think the reputation of it is based only on well everybody knows Wicked so it's like it's like too normal to pick that as your favorite it feels like our American Mega musical like it feels like our version of what the Claud Michelle shamberg um like what is the producer's name you know you got it right ham Michael what Micha The Big Cameron Michael produ Cameron MC is a drag drag

31:51 queen famous musical theater produc producer Broadway producer bodybuilder and Dr Queen C Michaels absolutely yeah it feels like our it's like our it was like our big runaway Mega Musical that wasn't Disney that wasn't yeah that was a Beauty and the Beast for Lion King yeah y i I mostly because we're not really gonna talk about the stage musical I just want to go back to Molly's point that the show is good I do think it I do think Wicked is good but I do I do think it's like a I think the second act is weak I think it like wraps up things really e like quickly in the second act and like it's very short Act is just so much stronger than act two in the show um but those are like I think the general complaints most people have about like if you're actually like

32:36 objectively saying like what what you think is wrong with necessarily the show and the pacing and everything I feel like almost every musical people think that the First Act is better than the second act so although I'm a second act of into the woods apologist I think it's really good so abely well I think I mean I think second acts are I think endings are always harder to write than like openings like you have all the world at your fingertips at the beginning and then you have to like sprad the needle perfectly yeah also like potentially the greatest musical theater song of all time ends the First Act of wicked so giving my opinions a little bit barely but yeah yeah totally okay um Molly so I first found out about Wicked I think around the same time as you did Adam I was in sixth or seventh grade because I remember that one of my friends from middle school she went to I

33:23 know if she went to Chicago or New York but she went somewhere with her family and saw it and came back with the CD and was like like let me tell you about this I think she got I think she got a sweatshirt that said like shiz University or something like that and we she like she played the songs for us and whatever so I got into the music and everything first and then she was so cool cuz she saw it um and then in high school my mom took me and a friend to go see it and it I think I referenced this before it was the only Musical that I have ever gone to with my mother where she fell asleep in the theater while it was happening um I think it might have been which part this is what I need to know yeah I think if it's a if it's a Sentimental Man I she was right she was right for falling asleep then I think it might have been I'm not that girl okay I mean I think I think it's much better in the film but all of a

34:08 sudden the tempo changes you know and it makes it lovs you it LS you I would say like Wicked has has remained for me since then solidly it's like it's like in the top 10 but at the bottom of the top 10 for me it's not a particular favorite but it's like objectively good and I would recommend it to most people it is it is absolutely Musical that if somebody was like here's the 10 things that there are in New York what should I see I would put it on the list of you know do that way um so I don't have like really strong feelings about it but I like it I'm for it I was excited they were making a movie for it um I did as I said I was going to bring Andrew he was down to see it but he does have wrestless led leg syndrome and so he was like that's a long time for me to be sitting down um so then I took another person who was not able to sit still for

34:55 that long which was my nine-year-old nephew um so we would not have done well in the draft house because it was too long for him um but he managed to get through it and he did start asking me how much longer it was going to be during I'm not that girl so there's something about my family and that song not happening oh but funny enough I like that song a lot because I did a musical theater Camp one time also around Middle School where uh it was like a pasti so we like worked with the teaching artist to like make a story and then we took songs from lots of different musicals and put it in there and so I remember it was some scene where we were like waitresses that like were in love with a guy who's a customer and we sang that song as part of that little pasti so I knew that I I know that song from that I I liked performing at one time so I like

35:41 that song um yeah he asked me during that song how much longer it was and it was I think another hour left of the film like all right well I I saw it twice and the when I looked when I was like the minute that song ended I was like I just need to know cuz there's really only two really big songs left I need to know how much more there is and it's 50 minutes when I'm not that girl to her battlecry is 50 minutes to be to be fair he did say that when they went to Oz then it kind of picked up for him and it makes obviously you're a nine-year-old boy like the pining Love Song is going to be the least interesting part of the whole thing to you um I don't know man I mean I get why F's in there but part of me feels like we should just cut that whole plot line to be honest and I cannot believe I went into this being like it's 2 hours and 40 minutes it must be they added a bunch of

36:28 stuff nope no no it's not 2 hours and 40 minutes on stage though is it on stage no no it's like two I don't know how long maybe two and a half with a 15 intermission the total thing is two and a half with 15 okay well it's longer than the stage show we're going to get into what we think happened how it how it's so much longer but anyway um it was really fun as I said he did not know the plot of Wizard of O so I had to explain too quickly in the car because I remembered that it was going to start with the wi Witch of the West death and I was like oh you're need to understand what's going on there but I explained to him about Dorothy melting her and then we get out of the movie and he's like well I'm really upset that Dorothy's gonna melt her and then I like had to think about I was like well this wasn't written assuming that you wouldn't have

37:15 the second act when you first see it so I was like do I spoil for him what happen in act two because it's not really like against the artist's intent if I do that but also I don't want to ruin his experience we have to spoiler alert this episode because yeah because I'm wor I was gonna like try not to talk about the second act of the show because that's not what's happening in this in this film obviously but I we might there might be times where we talk about it so this is your spoiler alert if you don't know what happens in Wicked you've never seen it you've never listened to it that's F and you want to like be fully green when you go see act or part two next year I would say just come back and listen to this next year yeah um so I what I settled on was I just said oh I don't want to say too much but like

38:00 maybe you find out there's more to the story and then he was kind of happy with that so I didn't like explain it to him but I did feel like that is a little it's a little bit of a weird especially the length of time between the two parts coming out yeah I don't know it does something kind of weird to the story of it um but he was really excited about it and and came home and was like telling his family all about what happens in it and stuff so that was really sweet I did also try to explain to him the Cameo of Adena Manzel and Chris Chen with in the car at home and he was so confused he was like so they were in The Wizard of Oz and I was like no they were not in The Wizard of Oz they were in they did it it was a play and then they were in the play and they were playing alpab bu Linda and he's like so they were those roles they were the actors in the play and I was like yes and he was like like they were actors in this movie it was like he was because they were then

38:46 acting as actors in the movie it was too many layers he could not understand these women were yeah so it was a good time it was a good time I I think I push him a little too far on the timing but otherwise it was fun to be able to take a kid to go see it RJ I as we know from the show I came into musical theater very late in life in high school late bloomer very late bloomer so late so late so it but I in eighth grade that was when I like got into rent and one of the first musicals that I was like picking songs like I was just picking songs from different musicals like get tast of everything I did pick out Wicked Divine gravity um well you

39:32 felt something in your like Filipino Soul yeah I was like to that huge number huge belt yeah it was define gravity what is this feeling and popular obviously like the three very po popular songs of act one so those were the ones that I like picked out and then when I got more into musical theater in high school that's when I listened to the full soundtrack but would always still just gravitate those three songs um and then I remember I think it's still on Facebook in like a private video but I'm pretty sure my friends and I did what is this feeling um we were not out by the way let's I just want to preface that okay well in your head you weren't out but I'm sure in my head yes it was here yeah absolutely um was it a full drag or it

40:18 was just you no we were we were uh we were backstage for our Christmas con choir our Men's Choir Christmas concert And We snuck away to the like the speech and debate room because that's where we hung out before we it was time to go and just did just lip lipsing to different musical so we did that we did it's all over from dream girls like and it's on a it's on my Facebook so if if anyone wants to hack it it's right there listen here's your challenge can you find this video um and then it wasn't until I was in Orlando when the tour came though I finally saw the show so I had never seen the show fully I want to say this like 20 what 17 16 17 maybe 18 actually somewhere yeah somewhere there and that was my first time ever watching the show

41:04 and I remember being like Oh it's like a full production like it's like full like I don't know I didn't know what I I have no idea what I was expecting I've seen CS other I don't know what other music would like what other this music calls for nothing less than a full production I feel I just didn't expect it just really stripped down minimal I didn't expect so much I think like special effects I didn't expect a lot of like like set ma like stage magic which I was like they're witches I should have um because I had only seen like the bootleg clips of like what is this feeling obviously um popular even like define gravity I knew that she flies um but I didn't know like to what extent or whatever blah blah

41:50 blah and so it finally clicked and I was like oh and then then I had no idea what happened in act two like literally I really never really know he just asked me like last week he was like wait so does dillamond become the Cowardly Lion and I was like what that's not part of the lore that is set up that animals turn into other animals no it's very clear wow anyway all right um I was like yeah does boach turned into the the flying monkeys and I was like no the flying monkeys became the fly flying monkeys I was like oh okay um but I also I mean like it's in a place where I'm like because I know how much Adam is such a nerd for it like such a loser nerd for Wicked my god um that it's fun to kind of be like

42:37 what happens I owned the grimy they had like a like a production book called The grimy and I owned it as like a kid yeah I think I think that probably everyone knew going into this that Adam was going to be the most into this musical that's that's a fair assumption and I remember remember the musical theater compilations that went viral on like Facebook and YouTube um like around that same time too I remember the main one for Wicked was the what is the it's in act two but it's the like what is this chanting I don't even know what I'm reading of the different alphabets doing that that that's funny I didn't I don't think I Deed from No Good Deed um yeah oh I realized I didn't say I think mine was also a national tour I'm pretty sure I saw it in Minneapolis so it must have been a national tour so I guess none of us have seen it on Broadway

43:25 on and it is in like I was cuz I was very into this recent trip we had when we went to New York I was very into like comparing the different houses cuz I finally it we saw enough shows in one trip that we got to see the differences in the Broadway houses yeah so it's at the Gershwin Theater which is like I think the biggest or second biggest house it has like 1,00 seats um which is big for Broadway is the is where Gypsy is that the biggest no but it's it's up there that has like 1,700 where Phantom used to play Phantom yeah the Majestic um so anyway I just wanted to mention that cuz uh I think that's helped its have a run for as long as it has it's in such a a lot of tickets they can sell it's still currently running and it has been 21 years okay yeah 21 years yeah it's crazy

44:13 um okay so let's talk about so okay if you want to listen to us discuss the history of the wonderful Wizard of Oz by El Frank bom please visit our the whz episode where I talk about it there NeverEnding source of musical content if you would like to listen to me talk about the history of The Wizard of Oz from 1939 please visit our what Wizard of Oz episode or you can wait until later this season where we redo that episode that episode so I'm going to start talking about the history of this with the book Wicked The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West released in 1995 by Gregory Maguire so Gregory McGuire was a children's uh author children's book author prior to this book and and um I was watching this thing that was talking

44:59 about how he during like Desert Storm Desert Storm and at not something I was expecting to come up at this nope Desert Storm and also the do you know the the boulder murder in the UK the kid who got like nine-year-old that got or maybe he was like five he got like stabbed by like a nine-year-old and a 12-year-old in the 90s do you know about this it's horrifying it's horrifying it's literally one of like the grizzli murders in Rec like UK history and people still like do not I might have heard something about it okay um so these these things going on the big one was the murder but it led him to the question of um he has a quote that says everyone was asking how could these boys

45:45 be so villainous were they born evil or were there circumstances that push them towards behaving like that it propelled me back to the question of evil that bevils anybody raised Catholic y we're back Molly we're back we're back we found a way to connect every musical to Catholicism I did just look it up it was two 10-year-old boys killed a 2-year-old boy so even worse even worse so then I have another quote from him um it's if everyone was always calling you a bad name how much of that would you internalize how much of that would you say all right go ahead I'll be everything that you call me because I have no capacity to change your minds anyway so why bother by whose standards should I live so with this framework of being curious about the the way evil exists and if people are wicked or

46:31 people are evil or if they have they develop evil Tendencies right this is where he turned to uh the Wicked Witch of the West because obviously her name her titular name is Wicked Witch of the West but he says that the rest of the characters in The Wizard wonderful Wizard of Oz by El Frank bomb are not traditional fairy tale tropes like they're kind of unique American it's I mean it really the wonderful Wiz ofas is really seen as like the true American fairy tale that's kind of its own thing it doesn't really come from any kind of European history yeah except for the witch the Witch Is angry and scary and has a big nose and she lives in a castle and it's like kind of very traditional in that way yeah so he used that imagery plus the 1939 film

47:19 in which she's green because in the original book The Wicked Witch of the West is not green so he took those two mashed them together to create Wicked The Life and Times of the wicked witch the West no oh my God Molly I'm so happy you're not on social media because all of social media is just like here are some things you didn't know about the wicked wish of the West and it's just all of these like she was not originally green blah blah blah blah blah it's mean doing this it's Adam literally doing it but like everyone's repeating the same facts um yeah social media sucks that's why I'm off of it everyone stop doing this to your brains just listen to the podcast just listen to our podcast and nothing else so he he said he wanted to use the Charles Dickens style of like expansion in order to take the uh stock stock

48:06 villains a stock villain from children's literature and like really delve into the full story what sticken stories are expansions of existing meaning like there's like it's about like there's like a bunch of themes that he's playing with in terms of like societal blah blah blah blah blah yeah an examination um so deenan deenan and also really long it's a 600 page book it's very long that he certainly took from Dickens yeah and I think it's I think it so it it takes place over the course of like six five or I think it's five timelines in alaba's life it jumps every time it jumps forward it jumps forward seven years so it's her like born as a kid and then you go to shiz and then she has like an affair with Fiero later and then she like joins a Convent which I think is very interesting and

48:52 then she ends up dying with him sister Alaba so the only real things that are taken and used for the show are that her name is alphaba her and ginda were roommates oh interesting um Fiero is a character but he is not he is not the same he is a prince but he is like a winky Prince so he like he's like dark skinned and he has like tattoos on his body and so like he's also ostracized like it's not his Oz Maguire's Oz is not a oh everyone's Harmon all humans are harmoniously living together and they just hate alphab there are still like class differences like there's still like they look down on each other in different like race prob

49:38 like it's not utopian right um so uh a lot of it is sanitized for the musical to obviously be able to condense it into a two and half hour product there's no way to take a 600 page book and really do that effectively right and so they also cuz ginda really only is in like the second part of the story and then she comes back when Dorothy finally shows up and it's like they've seen each other now for the first time in years but that's that's kind of it they do not have this long like it's not about their friendship and their wonderful like girls to each other and they're just like gal Pals paling around like it's not that is not the story of wicked um and so when they were making the musical they like focused in on those themes

50:24 instead of all the other complicated you know animal orgies that happen in the book are is the animals losing the ability to speak a part of the book they are being like imprisoned and killed so dilam in the book is murdered Madam moral is killed oh alphaba does die from the water because she's allergic to watera um it's very serious in it's it's incredibly it's incredibly serious in the book and it sounds like it was written for it was written for adults so you were saying you read it was not quite for a 12-year-old okay yeah no so this will move now we'll talk about Wicked the untold story of The Witches of Oz which is the full title of Wicked the musical music and lyrics by Steven Schwarz book by Winnie Holtzman uh it

51:12 premiered um in 2003 on Broadway after a tryy out in San Francisco uh its first US tour was in 2005 it added a second US tour in 2009 which is still running today debuted on the west end in 2006 and then it's had three UK Ireland tours and then multiple International performances I know there's been Brazil there's been Korea there's been Germany there's been name a country it's been there yeah uh it did not win the Tony for best musical this is like the big upset Avenue Q beat Wicked this year um there's a lot of you can look on YouTube and find a bunch of like people video essays about this topic it's very political as to why Avenue Q was chosen and this Avenue Q beating Wicked

51:58 actually led to the Tony committee changing the way that shows can um uh use funds in order to like campaign so there were changes that came from this because I think people were so shocked at this huge upset but Stephen Schwarz read this book and thought it was like he could see a dram dramatic vision of it for the sage and he reached out to Mark Platt who was with universal pictures at the time who Ben's dad who had the right and Universal had the rights to the book and so he pitched him a musical version instead of the film version which was going to be produced by Demi Moore that was the original idea which is crazy the substance star of the substance Dem Mo Golden Globe nominee Demi Moore Demi

52:46 Demi um so they moved to a a musical version which is what we have today after the tryy out in San Francisco they went through three months of rewrites in order to finalize the book and everything and get it to where it is now and um Winnie both Winnie and Stephen have said that that was invaluable they had to do that in order to fix all the problems that they had realized during the triy out which is why you do triy outs and then you don't go from immediately from try out to Broadway in like two weeks yeah which shows do more frequently nowadays yeah unless you're a hit the biggest problem that critics had in San Francisco was they were like oh it's just it's just Christen chenowith being incredible because he wrote it for Christen chenowith he wrote that entire role for her and then Adena came in late

53:33 Stephanie J black was the original reader and she did the she did the San Francisco triy out I think she did the San Francisco try maybe she didn't actually um but then Dena Manzel came in and so they had to like bump up like how important like to make it clear that it's like it is alha story at the end of the day yeah uh even though Kristen's great in this yeah and then the other thing I want to talk about is that there are Steven Schwarz does not usually use this this is more of an Angelo Weber thing that we've talked about before but in um Wicked he uses musical Le Mo Le motifs light motifs light motifs thank you uh and then the one I wanted to mention was the unlimited theme so when she goes unlimited my future is so that is those are the same notes from

54:21 unlimited to my future that whole phrase is somewhere over the rainbow it's the same notes with a different Rhythm and obviously different chords underneath the joke being that it's only seven notes apparently when it's eight notes is when people come and say oh You' you've stolen like it's the eighth note in like um in lawsuits is where people will be like oh this is where you've actually stolen our blah blah blah blah blah so he was like haha it's just seven of the eight notes la la also would it not like fall under fair use as a parody of the I mean it's it's commentary on The Wizard of so I feel like he would have a good case but anyway avoid avoid the legal system that makes sense yeah Rita let us know let us know about law yeah she's she's deep in

55:06 the musical copyright um system so yeah I figured so now we'll talk about Wicked the film directed by this is wicked part one by the way John m2u screenplay by Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox based on Wicked produced by Mark plat and David Stone starring Cynthia arivo as alphaba the Wicked Witch of the West Ariana Grande buttera her full name as Glinda or Glinda depending on which part of the movie you're in Jonathan Bailey plays Prince Fiero Ethan Slater is Bach the munchkin boow and yang plays Fanny Marissa bod is Nessa Rose Peter Dinklage is Dr Dillan Michelle yo is madam Morel and Jeff Goldblum is the wizard cinematography is by Alice Brooks edited by myON Kirin the music uh additional scoring is by John Powell and Steven

55:51 Schwarz production companies Universal Pictures and Mark plat Productions distributed by Universal Pictures it was released on November 22nd 2024 its running time is 160 long minutes and its budget was $150 million and so far it has made $465.00 million wow hit not surprised not surprised at all a smash it did Smash right smash records on that first weekend smash records on the first weekend I think it's like the biggest grossing movie musical right or something of all time I think it be Chicago yeah not adjusted for inflation obviously yeah yeah okay um so I didn't really get a bunch of like production stuff cuz I don't actually find it that interesting this is been oh you're right nothing interesting happened during the production of this there were no

56:38 scandals or scandals pieces of we want to talk about that I mean we can talk about I talk about it oh my God okay well this movie has been so supposed to come out for like [ __ ] years now it was originally announced in like 2016 that they were going to release it and then it just kept getting delayed and delayed delayed for a bunch of different reasons obviously Co was one of them the other one was uh the actor the actor's strike from um 2020 was that last year was that 2022 that delayed it as well uh I think it was last year well it's about to be 2025 so oh [ __ ] 2022 might be right 2023 I don't whenever the actress strike was you all remember we were all there striking along with them picking that was last year that was remember I remember seeing uh there was a sag after

57:23 one here in Chicago too I I was listening to an episode of a podcast and Cynthia REO was on and she was saying that the last scene they had to shoot for this [ __ ] movie was Defying Gravity and they had to Halt production before she could finish it and so she was like I had to sit because it was like a five month strike five or six month strike and so she was like I just had to sit with alphaba in my body for like f i mean this is very actor speak by the way normal people don't talk like this but she was like I just had to sit and live with alphaba for like five extra months while I waited to like do the biggest number in the show which is like genuinely crazy um so this movie yeah uh cats took the original release Spot It was supposed to release in 2019 so and and cats gave us Co

58:13 um um the other things I had are just like ref things that happen in the movie I just have like trivia things oh we can talk about casting Glenda it could have been Amanda cyphon or Renee rap Fiero could have been Nick Jonas or Joe Jonas which I think is funny that both of them auditioned for this and then Alaba could have been Lady Gaga Jesse J or leam Michelle oh I'm so glad I'm so glad it's Cyn am I allowed to talk about it now you can talk about it now okay okay so moms um if you don't know in the course of making this film Arian Grande and Ethan Slater who plays only straight man on the set the only straight man on set had an affair they were both married to other people at the time AR Grande had married they she married for like a few

58:58 years to a guy she met during Co and he had been married he was somewhat recently married but to his like high school sweetheart who had been with for like 10 years and they had a baby together they had just had a baby they had just had a baby so it was crazy also Ariana and Grande's ex-husband was like a very conventionally attractive um real estate agent and Ethan Slater played SpongeBob on Broadway there a lot of not very flattering pictures of him out there on the internet being very nerdy and whatever and people could not get over the J position between these two men and the the one that she chose to have an affair with look I think that that's a little bit overstated like I don't think he's a badl looking person but like no I don't think so either but this hair in this movie is not helping him I mean he plays he plays these very

59:44 like dorky characters um and not badl looking versus Ariana Grande is still there's a big step in between those two of's a wide dir wide wide dir um so it was bananas when this happened it was such big news and then she put out an album that is the only pop album that I have listened to multiple times all the way through it's so good yeah not sweeter sweeter was the sorry this is Eternal Sunshine Eternal Sunshine um yes yes and I usually when like a pop diva puts out an album I listen to like the top tracks or whatever I have listened to this whole thing multiple times through and it is it is an album about how she was not happy with her ex and she is not sorry for having this affair

1:00:29 and honestly it slaps and so uh I recommend the clue that Donald Trump was going to be reelected we know we're in our selfish era as a country we're not going to apologize for our wrongs anymore um and I did forget when all this happened when it was happening I was like well at least it won't be weird in the movie because like I remembered that Bach got with Nessa Rose and I was like oh yeah I guess that like they they whatever I forgot that the reason that Bak gets with Nessa Rose is because he's in love with Glenda and is like I'll do anything you say and then she tells him to go ask out Nessa Rose as a way to like get him away that scene was so uncomfortable for me personally that was the longest scene in the entire movie it that probably added the extra two hours of the M yeah

1:01:15 yeah that was it we found the run time that scene it was just it was the amount of time it took them to to film that scene yeah so it was it was bananas that when this happened and it was honestly probably good PR for the film I think I think it came out in enough time long ago enough that the cycle of talking about it had ended if it had come out like a month before this movie came out we would still be in the middle of discussing like is Ariana Grande a bad person which was like genuinely the conversation but I'm glad it did not it would have been exhausting if it was listen this [ __ ] press tour was already exhaust with two of theming each and and I'm AAL theater person and I

1:02:01 thought it was ex I mean I'm glad that it wasn't like we're canceling Ariana Grande so now we can't go see this movie I mean I'm against infidelity but I also don't think we need to like never engage an art made by somebody who's treated on their spouse um and I think but I think it was like I think it kind of got people hyped for the fact that there would be a wicked movie and then there was a there was like a pause where we didn't think about it and then the wicked movie came out so I do think like probably it was useful if you were a producer of this film you probably weren't that mad about that whole Affair that's all I'm saying totally totally other than the complaints that I heard that people working on the film were like this was really annoying to deal with so in that way actually probably wouldn't like it now this is where I

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