‘Wicked’ Is a Sensation. But Is It Good? Plus: The Top Five 21st Century Musicals.

Sean is joined by Juliet Litman to discuss another highly anticipated 2024 release in Jon M. Chu’s ‘Wicked.’ They unpack their very mixed feelings (1:07), hypothesize why this movie is such a big hit (41:30), and forecast its Oscar chances by asking whether it could really win Best Picture (50:37). Then, they both rank their top five favorite musicals from the 21st century (58:58). Finally, Sean is joined by writer and director Malcolm Washington to discuss his new film, ‘The Piano Lesson.’ They talk about coming from a Hollywood family, what he hoped to attempt when given the chance to make this film, and turning August Wilson’s stage play into a bold cinematic experience (1:26:57). Host: Sean Fennessey Guest: Juliet Litman and Malcolm Washington Audio Producer: Sasha Ashall Video Producer: Jack Sanders Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  What's happening? It's Todd McShay and I'm back with a new home and a new show at The Ringer and Spotify, The McShay Show. It's a video and audio podcast coming to you year round with all my NFL draft information, big boards, mock drafts and player movement. Plus, I'll be chatting with some of my best friends in football, including some of your favorite football analysts. During the week, we'll have episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays that'll include discussions about my player rankings, who's rising, who's falling, and who your NFL team should be keeping an eye on. Plus, we'll be reacting each week to the college football playoff polls and giving you previews and picks for each Saturday slate. In addition, I'll have episodes on Saturday nights with my immediate reaction

• 0:43Speaker 00

  to the full day in college football every week. So if you love the college game, the NFL, the draft, or all of it like me, make sure to like, follow, subscribe, and get ready for The McShay Show on The Ringer, Spotify, and wherever you watch or listen to podcasts.

• 1:01Sean Fennessey?

  This episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Amazon Prime. What pairs with a good comedy? The cozy blanket arriving with Prime. What pairs with a nail-biting thriller? Snacks arriving with Prime. What pairs with the big game on Prime Video? That new couch arriving with Prime. Whatever feeling you're after, Prime helps bring it to life with great entertainment and fast shipping that delivers what the moment calls for. From streaming to fast shipping, it's on Prime.

• 1:26Speaker 02

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• 2:31Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Fennessy and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about Wicked. Later in this episode, I have a conversation with Malcolm Washington, the writer-director behind The Piano Lesson, the latest August Wilson adaptation that is now available on Netflix. Malcolm is one of the most thoughtful and engaging guests we've had in a while. We talked about coming from a Hollywood family. He is the son of Denzel, what he hoped to attempt when given the chance to make this film, and how he turned Wilson's stage play into such a bold cinematic experience. Malcolm, incredibly cool guy, stick around for that chat. But first, joining me to talk about the biggest movie in the world is a Wicked superfan, the host of Bachelor Party, The Ringer's head of production, frankly, my professional partner in crime for more than a decade,

• 3:14Sean Fennessey?

  and I think first-time Big Picture guest, Juliet Litman? Is that right, Juliet?

• 3:21Speaker 03

  I believe it is. Actually, no, it's not. I came on in the summer of 2020 to talk about the Disney+ adaptation of Hamilton.

• 3:29Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 3:30Speaker 03

  So, I'm back.

• 3:31Sean Fennessey?

  Perfect timing, I love it. The circle is squared. Juliet, most people probably wouldn't know it if they only listened to our podcast, but you and I really have been the frickin' frac of The Ringer for a very long time. We have had adjoining desks, adjoining offices.

• 3:47Speaker 03

  I miss those days.

• 3:48Sean Fennessey?

  We work in tandem on many, many things here, and yet we never pod. What's up with that?

• 3:52Speaker 03

  I know. I don't know, you haven't invited me on in four-plus years, so here I am.

• 3:57Sean Fennessey?

  You host like nine pods, what do you mean?

• 4:00Speaker 03

  I'm delighted to be here. I'm really excited to talk about this because I am so deep in Wicked and like wicked lore that I've genuinely been really curious about like what normal people think if you're not like deep into musical theater. So I'm just very, very honored and excited to be here, so thanks for having me.

• 4:18Sean Fennessey?

  How wonderful to be identified as normal on my own show for a change. That honestly just felt great. I felt so alive hearing you call me normal. Let's talk about Wicked. So Wicked has been one of the most anticipated movies of the year. It, of course, was dominant at the box office this weekend, made over $110 million in the United States. It's directed by John M Chu, a filmmaker that you have a lot of love for, who has been a guest on this podcast before. Screenplay is by Winnie Holsman and Dana Fox. Winnie Holsman, one of the writers on the stage musical. It was also written by Stephen Schwartz. And it's adapted from a novel called Wicked by Gregory Maguire. I think this is one of the most beloved theatrical properties of the 21st century. Would you agree?

• 5:01Speaker 03

  I definitely would. It has been on Broadway for 21 years. They made a lot of hay out of the 20th anniversary last year. And there is just so much wicked content out there. Like, if you just go on YouTube, you can find sort of like every blonde or like seemingly blonde musical theater actress doing a version of at least one wicked song. Someone who could be blonde is singing wicked on YouTube at all times. And also people who aren't blonde. It's just, it is a, it is a very large tent and it is, it's a fixture. Like, it is sort of, it is the fixture of Broadway at this point, I would say.

• 5:40Sean Fennessey?

  I want to talk to you about how that happened before we get into the movie itself. Because I, as I've said a couple of times on the show, have never seen the musical. I've never seen it performed. I've listened to the soundtrack a few times, but only since I had a child. I haven't read Jeffrey Maguire's book.

• 5:56Speaker 03

  Me neither.

• 5:58Sean Fennessey?

  I don't intend to. And it appears he's written dozens of books now in the vein of this film and maybe even a dozen just in the, in the wicked series. It's not because I'm allergic to it. In fact, The Wizard of Oz, I've said many times on the pod, is one of the signature films of my life. It's certainly up there with Star Wars and Jaws and a couple of others as the movie I've seen the most in my life. I had it on multiple times off of a taped VHS recording from the age of probably four through my teens, and it was on, on in my house all the time. Transformative, emotional, personal experience like it is for so many other people. And yet, for whatever reason, probably because of the timing of the musical and where I was in my life, I missed it. What is your relationship to The Wizard of Oz before Wicked?

• 6:40Speaker 03

  Um, like, nonexistent. Like, I like it and I know the songs.

• 6:44Sean Fennessey?

  What?

• 6:46Sean Fennessey?

  That's fascinating.

• 6:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, like, I know more about some of the characters in The Wizard of Oz as like an extension of Wicked, or like, kind of like going backwards. Like, I like, I've, Judy Garland, to me, is like, um, the inspiration for the Valley of the Dolls more than anything else. Um, like, she, like, I really also, like, find, like, Minnelli family lore very interesting, but like, I don't have a big relation to The Wizard of Oz. And I actually, um, have been thinking a lot about that, because it's been such a big part of the press tour in like, a quiet way. And so, I haven't really, I was just like, I should re-watch this, it's been so long. But yeah, like, I feel like I know more about The Wizard of Oz because I got into Wicked than the other way around.

• 7:29Sean Fennessey?

  That is just absolutely remarkable. Genuinely. And maybe that informs a lot of this conversation that we're gonna have about our reactions to this movie, because obviously, I hold a very special place in my heart for The Wizard of Oz. And not knowing really any of the source material very well, there are some things about this movie that confused me. Um, when did you-

• 7:47Speaker 03

  I'd love to explain them.

• 7:48Sean Fennessey?

  I look forward to it. When did you see the musical?

• 7:51Speaker 03

  Um, I first saw it in Chicago when I was in college, the national, the first national tour. And then it was in Chicago for a long time. So, I saw, that was, I think, 2005 or '06, like, shortly after it came out. And then, I just listened to the music for years and years and years. And like, over that time, Defying Gravity became more and more of like, this canonical song. And at the same, I think Defying Gravity also grew as Idina Menzel grew. Um, and Chris and Channewith, like, I was really into Pushing Daisies, which was around, like, right after Wicked came out, and she was on that. So, like, there were other ways that, like, my interest in Wicked got reinforced as those two stars became bigger. And then, I went this past May with my friend and her two kids

• 8:35Speaker 03

  to see it on Broadway. And it was sold out. It was a random Sunday in May. And I, like, sobbed through the whole thing. Like, every musical cue was, like, so moving, and I was just so happy to be seeing it again. So, it was very exciting. And, um, yeah, Wicked is, Wicked is like, a, as a phenomenon, so unlike most other shows, I, really, anything else.

• 8:58Sean Fennessey?

  For lack of a better phrase, Wicked is a prequel to The Wizard of Oz. It's a story that's told through the eyes of Elphaba, who's the wicked witch of the West, and her experience at Shiz University, at least in part one, which is the sort of wizarding school, the witching school, where she and Glinda, who is the good witch from the original Wizard of Oz, become kind of frenemies over time. During their time there, they learn a lot about the kind of underworld and machinations of Oz and who's controlling it and how it's all working. The film is a kind of like reclamation, I would say, of Elphaba's perspective. Cynthia Revo plays Elphaba, Ariana Grande plays Glinda in the film, Jonathan Bailey

• 9:41Sean Fennessey?

  appears, Ethan Slater, Bowen Yang, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum, star-studded cast. Did you like Wicked Part One?

• 9:49Speaker 03

  I did. I liked it. Good movie.

• 9:52Sean Fennessey?

  That's it? That's all you got?

• 9:53Speaker 03

  I liked it. I mean, I've been thinking about it. I had a really good time. I cried three times throughout, which is less than I did at the musical when I sat down and started crying the whole time. But I think it's just such a tall order to adapt something that is so beloved on Broadway that I went in really, really nervous for everybody and wanted it to be a success. And so I was like, OK, this is good. This is not a debacle. This is not Cats. This is not Les Mis. This is not Into the Woods. This is a good movie. And overall, the two main things, I told people before they saw it, was Ariana Grande is absolutely fabulous in transfixing, and I'm so happy for her.

• 10:35Speaker 03

  And if you like the musical, this is an incredibly faithful adaptation. And so I think it was made very much with the musical fans in mind, but I actually think it does a lot more, which kind of took me some time to really think about and piece together. But I think it's really successful in how it serves a lot of different audiences. And I've anecdotally heard people who aren't musical people. They're like, yeah, I liked it. It really picks up at the end. And I think that there is like, it goes through like different phases. You're like, okay, it starts as just hitting you right away with the music, straight into what you know from Broadway. And then I would say after two hours, in the last 40 minutes, it kind of evolves into something else where it feels more like,

• 11:20Speaker 03

  like a superhero movie. Like it becomes something that you could tie to like, you know, being inspired by like Marvel or whatever, you know, get the big cameo, you get the big fight scene. And then, you know, like whether you liked the first two hours and 35 minutes almost becomes irrelevant when Cynthia Erivo finally belts it out. And like Defying Gravity is already a beautiful song. I found like her triumphant moments so, so moving that I was just like, well, this is great. I'm so happy leaving the theater. So that, you know, they nailed the last five minutes. And like, if that, is that the most important thing? Maybe. So if so, they did it.

• 11:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, you've just underscored maybe some of my issues with the movie, which is that it feels like a very structured IP execution, more so than like a heartfelt spirited tale that people have had such a big relationship to. But I know I'm not the best person to necessarily weigh in on it because I don't have a lot of history. And so it does seem like most people, most fans of the musical are getting this huge sense of satisfaction from it.

• 12:16Speaker 03

  Definitely. Yeah, for sure.

• 12:18Sean Fennessey?

  Why do you, why do you have a big relationship with John M. Chu?

• 12:22Speaker 03

  I'm so glad you asked. Step Up 2 is like just an iconic movie for me. Also, you kind of alluded to this, like you missed Wicked because we talked about this last week. Like you were a senior in college when Wicked came out. And I think college is really a dead zone for pop culture consumption. Like you probably go really hard on a few things, but because the experience of college is being like engulfed in the smallest world that feels incredibly important. If it didn't make it in, it doesn't exist, right?

• 12:46Sean Fennessey?

  Especially senior year.

• 12:48Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. You're just like, totally. Like the only thing I really watched when I was in college was The OC, and that might be it. And Arrested Development. Like that's kind of it. And I was just like, everything else was, I guess we were watching more pop culture and stuff. But like, that's all I can remember, right? So I feel like it's probably the same for you. What did penetrate for me when I was in college was Step Up and Step Up 2. And I loved those movies so much. And he directed Step Up 2, which was also a tall order because Step Up is the breakout of Channing Tatum, where he meets Jenna Dewan. Obviously, a very important movie to pop culture history ever since. But Step Up 2 is actually really good and quite different.

• 13:28Speaker 03

  And John M. Chu was able to step in and make it a worthwhile movie that then led to three more sequels after that. And he also, I think, really understood at the time how to make something successful. He, on the heels of Step Up 2, engaged in one of the first YouTube viral stunts, which is he had a dance battle fight with Miley Cyrus and her best friend at the time, whose name was Mandy. And they had a child. They had a channel called Mylars and Manders. And they had this weird, like, in 2008, viral wasn't a thing. But they had these dance battle videos. And John M. Chu really understood how to, I think, use that moment for himself, Step

• 14:10Speaker 03

  Up 2, plus this YouTube phenomenon, to create something that fans would go crazy over while also trying to experiment with his own work and craft as a filmmaker. And I think that actually, you can still see him doing that kind of thing with Wicked, where when I think more and more about the movie, he made something he knew fans would love and then also quietly set it up to be his own homage to The Wizard of Oz. And I don't know that it's all entirely successful, but I just kind of admire how he balances fan service with trying to be the director he wants to be.

• 14:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I've always thought of him as a very self-styled Spielberg-ish technician of wonder, you know, somebody who's very conscious of trying to make wow moments for the people who are coming to see his movies. And sometimes self-conscious about it in a way that holds him back. His filmography is wild. Wicked is his 10th movie. I'm going to list off his movies. You just mentioned, he directed Step Up to the Streets and Step Up 3D. Those are his first two features. After that, he makes two consecutive Justin Bieber documentaries, one Never Say Never and then the concert film Believe.

• 15:17Speaker 03

  Never Say Never is a really good movie. It is Justin Bieber propaganda that is incredibly effective. Great job.

• 15:24Sean Fennessey?

  I will absolutely take your word for it on that. After the two Justin Bieber films, the Justin Bieber dipstick, he makes G.I. Joe colon retaliation, a big CR film. He makes Gem and the Holograms, which I think is actually a bit underrated.

• 15:40Speaker 03

  Oh, wow. Okay.

• 15:42Sean Fennessey?

  He makes Now You See Me 2.

• 15:44Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 15:44Sean Fennessey?

  I think is inferior to Now You See Me. We'll see when Now You See Me 3 comes along, coming soon. Then he makes Crazy Irritations, which obviously completely transforms his career. One of the biggest hits of the 2010s, a kind of right place, right time, adapting the right novel with the right cast, an incredible collection of people in that film, the Henry Golding discovery. Choose, like, I think balance of melodrama and light comedy fit really well with that movie. I was a big fan of that movie. And then he made In the Heights in 2021, which was released into that sort of like Project Popcorn Max era, but I saw it in a movie theater in a screening room and I had a great time with it. And I think if more people had seen that movie in a movie theater, and actually, I'm not a huge fan of that show. I saw that show a couple of times on Broadway and I love Lin-Manuel Miranda, but for whatever

• 16:28Sean Fennessey?

  reason, I could never connect with that show. But the film, I thought, was actually quite successful. Anyhow.

• 16:33Speaker 03

  I just gotta tell you, you're completely wrong. That's just an insane take. I love the musical, like, love, love, love. I listen to it all the time. That movie is so inferior to the wonderful stage production. This is wild, Sean.

• 16:47Sean Fennessey?

  I'm willing to accept all criticisms on my musical takes. This isn't, this isn't a genre that I really have a lot of love and appreciation for, but I don't know if I've really, truly, deeply, madly loved a musical, a filmed musical in like 50 years. Like, there's just, something has happened in the way that these are made now, and this is part of my hangup with Wicked that I struggle with. All to say, Chu, on his 10th movie, he knows what he's doing. Like, he's an incredibly professional, competent director. He has made a couple of choices in this movie that I find, like, unforgivable. Like, I find the movie, like, at times unwatchable because of the way that the CGI, the production design, and the colorization of the movie intersects. Wizard of Oz, one of the most beautiful movies ever made, that combination of the sepia

• 17:29Sean Fennessey?

  toned black and white and the Technicolor when they get to Oz is just so wildly influential and, like, awe inspiring and, I think, genuinely forges true relationships to movies and what movies can be for young people. The way that this movie is colored like makes me, maybe it makes me want to hurt myself. Like, I really don't, I do not like how the color looks at all. It's totally desaturated and I don't understand why.

• 17:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's, it's weird. There are moments where I'm like, wow, this really pops and it's really cool. Like, the first glimpse you get at Munchkinland when Glinda comes in on the, or Glinda at that point, comes in on the bubble. I'm like, oh, this is cool. Reminds me of The Hobbit, reminds me of, you know, like, the, the thatch roofs of England and, and sort of like what, and then a ton of color. So it sort of like works. It takes like a very classic look and then explodes into a color bomb. I felt like, you will know better than me, I just felt like some of his lens choices were so weird. Like, I don't really know why then he would choose, like, seemingly like a different camera package altogether for like Dancing Through, Dancing Through Life. Dancing Through Life, I think people really like. I found it to be a real slog in the middle because of how it looked.

• 18:39Speaker 03

  And it was hard to know, like, who was the star of the scene? And it should be a really big announcement of like who Fierro is. And Jonathan Bailey has so much charm, you don't have to do much to really make that clear. But I thought it was a mess. So I actually agree with you. I just think that, like, for, for me, some of the high, the emotional highs really outweighed, like, the technical lows. So I sort of like can look past it. But I was definitely aware of it as I was watching and I'm like incentivized to like the movie a lot.

• 19:04Sean Fennessey?

  I'm glad you made the Marvel IP comparison because I do think for a lot of people who have a deep familiarity with the, the stage musical and the songs, you're sort of anticipating something as you go through the story. So each time a musical number ends, you're like, oh, well, this is coming next and I can start getting excited for it, which is a very different way of watching something where you have no idea what's coming next. And so it's much easier for me to get hung up on the desaturation. I was reading some interviews with Chu and he kept talking about the fact that as opposed to The Wizard of Oz, which is a film that is a dream that takes place in Judy Garland's mind, Oz needed to be a real place in this film. Which I just think is dumb. Like, I don't know.

• 19:47Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know why we need to try to transmogrify an imaginary place into a slightly more real seeming place, but that is a big creative decision that was made that I think kind of hinders my experience just enjoying watching the movie. Um, I, I do, I, obviously, the songs are, are, are quite good in this movie. Like, "I'm Not an Idiot," and I can tell, I could tell from the very first series of performances. And Chu obviously is really, really gifted with choreography.

• 20:11Speaker 03

  Really? Yeah.

• 20:12Sean Fennessey?

  How, how did you feel like the dancing kind of intersected well? And how did it compare to the stage musical?

• 20:17Speaker 03

  It's pretty different. His choreographer is this guy named Chris Scott, who he's been working with for a long time. One thing that, um, became even more explicit to me as you were going through his discography, and I know this isn't answering your question, so I'm sorry, but, um, he, uh, John, John Chu and Ariana Grande are both like graduates from the Scooter Braun School, essentially. And so, um, you know, just, I think Scooter Braun brought him into the Justin Bieber project, which then led to some other ones. And at the same time, Scooter was managing Ariana Grande. So I think, like, that has not been mentioned once in the press tour, but they've kind of been circling each other for a while, which I think is just kind of interesting. And I, I had mentioned it because Chris Scott is like, in the video that we were talking about, he's like, the, like, the second dancer

• 20:58Speaker 03

  in it, essentially. So John M Chu's been working with a lot of, I think, his USC friends for a long time. I'm not sure if Chris Scott went, but his cinematographer and he went to USC together. Um, but, yeah, I, I thought the choreography was good and inventive. I think the smartest thing they did around the choreography was the sound design that went with it. The sounds of the choreography is noisy, like, when they're, when they're tapping the books and when they're, like, hitting their marks with their feet. It's loud. Like, you can really hear those moments. It reminded me, actually, of Newsies, which does a similar thing with the, with the guys dancing. Um, and I thought that-

• 21:34Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, the stomping and the slapping of the paper and all those sorts of things. Yeah.

• 21:37Speaker 03

  Exactly. And so, there, the, the scene that people seem to also really love, and I liked a lot, is in, um, "What Is This Feeling?" And it's when Ariana Grande is walking with the books and, and everything. And I think they did a really good job of turning up the, the sound design on that to emphasize the choreography, because- Otherwise, I think it actually could have been lost because it's not bright enough, honestly. Also, it's hard, there's so many, so many extras in this movie and so many dancers. It's hard to really capture the scope of that, but by using some of the other cues, they make you more aware of it. And I thought that was actually a really successful choice that, you know, I was gonna call it quiet, but actually was a loud choice.

• 22:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's very loud. The other thing that I, I heard Chu say that I thought was fascinating was that 90% of the vocal performance was captured on set, live, as opposed to recorded and, and later filled in, which is very uncommon for musicals and very difficult to pull off. And I'm, I'm kind of amazed by that and want to give the movie a lot more credit because he managed to pull that off. Obviously Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are in the sort of like 0.0001% of people who can sing on the planet Earth. So I guess maybe that's not as surprising as it should be, but even folks like Jonathan Bailey being able to pull, or Jeff Goldblum for that matter, who have very little singing experience, being able to perform. What did, what did you make of that?

• 22:56Speaker 03

  Well, Jeff Goldblum's song is very short, two minutes, so it wasn't, weren't being asked that much of him in A Sentimental Man. Also, there's no expectation that he's gonna be a great singer, in my opinion, so sort of fine. I feel like the biggest loser from this was Michelle Yeoh. She's like the least vocally gifted, but like a lovely actress, who I'm sure will continue to have.

• 23:13Sean Fennessey?

  She sort of talks things her way through the movie.

• 23:15Speaker 03

  Yeah. So Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, in their multitude of interviews, have mentioned this. And they're like, yeah, it was a no-brainer for us. I do find that when actors decide, make this decision, because I talked about it a lot on Les Mis, they love to remind you that they're singing live. So, thanks, we got it.

• 23:32Sean Fennessey?

  I haven't been consuming nearly as much shoulder content for the Wicked promo as you have.

• 23:37Speaker 03

  I would say it's like 60% of my content right now. I thought that it was really cool to see. I think for Cynthia Erivo, I was really aware of how it felt like she was holding her voice back and it was building to some, to defying gravity. And I found that distracting. On the other hand, I'm also very aware of how powerful her voice is because I like, you know, watch her on YouTube all the time. So, you know, maybe that's like a personal problem. I thought Ariana Grande was just so captivating and, you know, she started as a child star. She hasn't really been like an actress in like a decade. And seeing her return to that. In basically a comedic role was honestly thrilling.

• 24:19Speaker 03

  It's sort of like what you get a glimpse of every time she goes on Fallon, but like for two and a half hours. And I just thought she was so incredible that, you know, probably because she was singing live, she had really given herself over to it and was never really like taken out of the scene and it was incredibly successful. So I thought it worked better for her than it did for Cynthia Erivo. But maybe Cynthia Erivo, no matter what, would have made the same choices.

• 24:40Sean Fennessey?

  Let's talk a little bit more about the performances because Ariana Grande is getting really, really high marks for the performance. Anybody who's watched her on SNL, I think, would not be surprised to see that she nails this, this certain sense of like stuck up, perfect girl, upending her own persona. She's sort of tailor-made for a part like this. Glinda, Glinda.

• 25:00Speaker 03

  So good. Yeah, it's so good. And also the way she throws her hair back is just like so funny. She just, all the small moments, she really nails. That's a big one, but you know, she just is, she's hilarious. I loved watching her.

• 25:11Sean Fennessey?

  One thing that I've read though, and tell me if this is right or not, is that Idina Menzel's portrayal of Elphaba in the musical is a little bit more like sly, playful, knowing, like not, you know, Cynthia Erivo plays this part very, very seriously and very darkly and very quietly, like very recessed for a lot of the film. Obviously, we're building towards that explosion that you're talking about with the finale and Defying Gravity and this sort of transformation that she has. But I think it's not really, it's just a choice that she made that I think I found the film a little bit more static than I wanted it to because she is a character who's very difficult to connect to, you know, because she's very restrained throughout most of the film.

• 25:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, yes. Idina Menzel's Elphaba is definitely like pushier, I would say. Like she is sure of who she is and I think she feels less wounded by the life she's led. Whereas I think Cynthia Erivo's Elphaba is much more aware of like the lack of love from her father and the fact that she wasn't even supposed to be in at Shiz. That's a change from the musical. In the musical, she just goes instead of being like, she's just supposed to be a student instead of being like invited the way that she is in the movie.

• 26:23Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 26:23Speaker 03

  And so I think that's like a big change. I think also there's more of a feeling of like Cynthia Erivo is like tolerating more of Glinda in a way because she also has like her own thing going on. So I think it did feel more like, as you said, recessed. I thought they kind of made her seem like 11 from Stranger Things in the first scene. I was just like, well, is she gonna like, you know, have some waffles or something? They made her magic seem really like crazy, whereas in the musical, it's more just like she's unaware of her talent or like unaware of her gifts essentially, like they need to be honed versus them being like some burden à la Stranger Things.

• 27:06Sean Fennessey?

  This is a small quibble, and I know as a fan of Beverly Hills 90200, this won't bother you that much, but everyone who goes to Shiz is like 35 years old. Shouldn't these people be young? Like, how old was Kristin Chenoweth when she was in the play? Was she in her 30s as well, I assume?

• 27:21Speaker 03

  I think they were in their late, mid to late 20s. Because, you know, Adia Menzel had been in Rent already, so she was sort of, you know.

• 27:27Sean Fennessey?

  She'd been around.

• 27:28Speaker 03

  Yeah. And it was like a big.

• 27:30Sean Fennessey?

  Cynthia Erivo is 37. It's kind of weird that she's going to university.

• 27:33Speaker 03

  I looked it up. It's myself. Jonathan Bailey's 36, Ariana Grande is 32. I just mentioned that because Cynthia Erivo, when her casting was announced, got the most like, she's too old to play Elphaba.

• 27:43Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, she did, there was that feedback?

• 27:45Speaker 03

  Yes, there was. And so I do, I do get the sense this movie is sort of like reactive to the audience or anticipating audience critiques. And I do, and so I did, I did wonder if that script change of like how her being invited to Shiz by Madame Morrible was like in response to the fact that people said she seemed too old. But like, I think she just, she's basically the same age as everyone else, so it's sort of like an unfair criticism. I guess Ariana Grande like looks young, but I don't know. It didn't, it didn't really bother me. We'll talk more about this, I'm sure, but you know, they're sort of presenting a world. And I'm like, well, I'm buying into this. So if you're telling me that all these people are going to Shiz, fair enough.

• 28:22Sean Fennessey?

  It's a very fair point. I won't argue with it too much, except it did dawn on me at one point, I was like, is it possible Cynthia Erivo's in her 40s? Isn't that a little weird?

• 28:30Speaker 03

  I actually thought she was in her 40s before I looked it up. I was surprised she was only 37.

• 28:34Sean Fennessey?

  Anyhow, let's talk about the story itself. So as someone who holds The Wizard of Oz fairly dear, like a reimagining of the premise of the film, I, I find a little curious. And. I haven't seen part two, so it's impossible for me to fully weigh in. And I honestly don't want to spoil for me. I treat this just like-

• 28:56Speaker 03

  So you don't know what happens in act two of Wicked?

• 28:58Sean Fennessey?

  I don't, I don't. I have a theory about how they'll finish the story.

• 29:02Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 29:02Sean Fennessey?

  But I won't share it here because it's not important. And if I'm wrong, what's the upside of that? But I will say like-

• 29:08Speaker 03

  Can I ask a question?

• 29:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, of course.

• 29:10Speaker 03

  Were you looking for Wizard of Oz Easter eggs as you were watching this?

• 29:14Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, not particularly. There were things that I felt I clocked very early on, which was the man who comes into her mother's home just seemed to be Oz and that he seemed to be the father, her father. But I, you know, that seemed like so obvious that maybe it was a wrong footing. Anyway, you don't have to respond to that to give anything away. Obviously, the movie very purposefully like shows us Dorothy and the Tin Man and the Lion and the Scarecrow going down the Yellow Brick Road at the outset of the film and almost as a way to sort of like assuage someone like me.

• 29:44Speaker 03

  Right.

• 29:44Sean Fennessey?

  To just be like, I promise this is related. Don't just watch the 1940s style Universal logo at the beginning of the movie. These things are connected. But truthfully, like, it just doesn't seem connected because The Wicked Witch of the West is one of the greatest villains in movie history, if not the greatest. And a story that recontextualizes her trauma and the way that she is like, I guess, potentially framed as the villain of Oz, I just find weird. Like, I don't know why I'm having a hard time with it. I guess it's a story about not judging a book by its cover and not about bullying and about being open minded about people who are different from you. Obviously, Elphaba has green skin and she is mocked mercilessly at the outset of the film.

• 30:26Sean Fennessey?

  And these sort of like gentle unions that can form when people begin to understand and accept each other. Like, I understand all the bromides that are in the text of the story, but I, I'm not going to jump to any conclusions because I don't know where it ends up. But you didn't, I guess when you just began loving this musical, you were like, who cares about Wizard, what the Wizard of Oz has to say about these people?

• 30:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think I was really incentivized to love Wicked because of Rent. Because Rent was like probably one of the most important things to happen before I turned 13, you know, like- So Adina Menzel was looming large for me already. So I was incentivized to care about Wicked at the very beginning. And then it took on a life of its own as it became so successful. And the Wizard of Oz piece of it, it was totally separate, honestly. And I actually, I also read a lot of interviews with John M Chu. And he loves The Wizard of Oz a lot. And Jonathan Bailey has been wearing Wizard of Oz t-shirts for all of his press tours. So for me, I'm like, The Wizard of Oz really looms over this movie for people who care about it. I'm like, I should learn so I can really understand how they're feeling.

• 31:29Speaker 03

  But yeah, Wicked is almost separate from The Wizard of Oz for me.

• 31:34Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I guess the choices that are made, for example, obviously little people are used as performers for the munchkins in the original film. And taller actors are used in munchkin land at the beginning of this film. The monkeys, for example, are not costumed people, but CGI. And I guess all of those choices, much like the choice to desaturate, are connected to this idea of making this feel more like a real, quote unquote, "real" place. But to me, that makes it feel like a divorce from The Wizard of Oz. Like, it feels like not trying to separate itself in some distinct way.

• 32:12Speaker 03

  Right. Well, two things about that. First of all, all the animals in this movie are bad. It's just a bad experience.

• 32:18Sean Fennessey?

  Well, talk about the animals and what they mean to the story, too.

• 32:20Speaker 03

  Okay. Yeah, do you want me to talk about that?

• 32:23Sean Fennessey?

  I do, yeah. Because I find that, I found that that critical framework in the movie to be fairly thin.

• 32:31Speaker 03

  Yeah. Also, in my 15 years of listening to the soundtrack and not seeing it, I had completely erased the animal subplot. Like, I was just like, and when I went to the musical in May, I was like, oh, right. There's an animal rights piece of this. I forgot about that. Like, I was genuinely surprised. Basically, it's an allegory for fascism. And the animals are beings, they're animals who speak, and they're being suppressed by, we find out, Jeff Goldblum's character. And that motivates Elphaba to want to get rights for all the people of Oz, including herself. And I think she also Connects to them because she is green. She doesn't know why, she was born that way.

• 33:12Speaker 03

  And so it's sort of the animals and Elphaba together stand in for sort of like the people of Oz who have been othered and therefore are being discriminated against or rejected. And then she finds out it's coming from the top down. And so it becomes, you know, like a government conspiracy.

• 33:31Sean Fennessey?

  Is that, is that, is that good? I don't know how to, I'm not sure that I would totally bought that part of the movie is what I, is what I'm saying.

• 33:39Speaker 03

  Well, the thing is that also the monkeys, the flying monkeys become like Elphaba's fault, basically, because she is able to read the grimory. So she is able to cast the spell on the monkeys that give them wings. And actually, that really uncomfortable and sort of like gripping scene was when the monkeys are feeling the pain of their animals, of their wings growing. I am not an animal lover. In fact, I would say I'm pet blind, but I found that very uncomfortable. And I was like sad for the monkeys. So it was effective because I felt really bad for them.

• 34:10Sean Fennessey?

  As you watch CGI monkeys transformed into winged horrifying creatures.

• 34:14Speaker 03

  Yeah. So the animal piece of it is so bad. To your point about not, it's just like, it's not effective, right? Like, it's just actually not an effective part of the musical. And like, I don't walk away from Wicked thinking it is about like fascism, honestly.

• 34:29Sean Fennessey?

  Well, you can see, you, I can understand it as the literary device. It's an obvious homage to Orwell and Animal Farm and the idea of like the separation between classes, between types of people and who gets to be in charge and why they get to be in charge and taking advantage of the structures that are built by one class to raise up another class. Like, it's all fairly evident. It's just in the movie itself, and I can't say in the musical. One, you've got Peter Dinklage giving a very weird performance as, is he a goat? He's a goat.

• 34:55Speaker 03

  He's a goat, yeah, Dr. Delmont. It's basically Tyrion Lannister as a goat.

• 34:59Sean Fennessey?

  Tyrion Lannister as a goat, who is a very wise man who's being pushed out of Shiz University, much like all the other instructors.

• 35:07Speaker 03

  Why he's also animals.

• 35:08Sean Fennessey?

  Who are all animals, yeah. Why he's one of the last ones to stick around is unclear. Nevertheless. Um, Elphaba grows a deep bond with him. What is his name? Professor who?

• 35:19Speaker 03

  Dilemon.

• 35:20Sean Fennessey?

  Dilemon. Um, and that that is like, really the inciting incident for her enlightenment?

• 35:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, basically. Um, but I, I just think there's, one of the reasons Wicked's so successful is there's so many other ways to watch it. And I think in the intervening years, as the soundtrack has become like the defining thing, uh, in the two, the two original leads, the, and their, I don't know their friends, but their relationship of Chris and Chenoweth and Idina Menzel, like it's a story about two women friends who like didn't expect to be friends. And didn't expect to like each other. Like for, for me, the most moving songs are in act two. So I'm like very excited about part two.

• 35:58Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, see that's, I have not heard many people say that. That's interesting.

• 36:01Speaker 03

  Well, Defying Gravity is like the iconic song, but at the very beginning of the movie, they play the orchestration of this song for good, which is the penultimate song, and it's just incredibly, incredibly beautiful. It's the, one of the most important like tracks about friendship, probably of all time. And it's just incredibly moving. And, and I think both Defying Gravity and For Good, the two most famous songs, can be applied to so many different types of relationships and feelings and people. You can really see yourself in them, even if it's not exact to what's happening in Wicked. And so I think that explained a lot of the sentimentality and just like emotional connection people have with Wicked overall. Cause you can really, and even with talking about the animals and like, it's about fashion fascism, but you know,

• 36:43Speaker 03

  it's also like, you know, a lot of people made this point, like it's very relevant right now. And then also the songs, the lyrics of, um, Dancing Through Life, where he's like, life's less, life's more painless for the brainless. Life's less fraughtless for the thoughtless. Like, I think a lot of people also like, yeah, makes sense. Just going to check out and move forward.

• 37:01Sean Fennessey?

  You're saying that intersects with our life right now?

• 37:03Speaker 03

  Yeah. So I think, and I think it, but it, at all times.

• 37:06Sean Fennessey?

  In what ways Juliet? What do you mean?

• 37:08Speaker 03

  Uh, you know, I'm just scrolling my Reddit app, looking for, looking for whatever it wants to give me. So I'm just going that way. But, but it actually, it doesn't really mean, like as a teenager, can't you imagine just being like, yeah, like I'm just going to be, I'm going to have less pain and think less and just like, listen to music and smoke a joint. Like I just feel like at any time in life, you could apply a lot of the lyrics to Wicked and feel a lot of meaning.

• 37:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think that's right. I think, um, I'm obviously extremely mixed on this movie. I'm not so heartless, uh, as to not recognize that. What I think particularly for me, Dancing Through Life, Popular and Defying Gravity are the three big set pieces of the movie. Dancing Through Life is obviously Fierro's big song, Popular is Glinda's big song and Defying Gravity is Elphaba's big climactic moment. All three performers who are the stars who are all, I think, all very good in this movie. I didn't, I wish Cynthia Reba was slightly more playful in the first act and second act of the movie, but by the third act, you're like, you're so fully with her. I agree with you largely about Ariana Grande. She's incredibly funny and is a wonderful performer.

• 38:13Sean Fennessey?

  Popular's probably my favorite number because it feels the most like a John M. Chu movie to me. It feels the most, that sort of like spring that he brings to his best stuff from Step Up to Crazy Rich Asians, that like, that light comedy that he's so good at, I really enjoyed. But there are so many stretches of the movie. One critical one in particular, which is when Elphaba and Glinda sort of like forge their union in the silent dance sequence. Where I was like, this is one of the worst things I've ever seen in a movie. Like, I found it to be completely incoherent and poorly staged and weird. And, but again, like, it's a scene that I don't, what is it like in the musical? How does it compare? I think in theory, the, what you were saying about a film about two women you who would

• 38:58Sean Fennessey?

  never imagine that they would become friends, finding common ground is a good idea and a nice thing. And when it happens in real life, how wonderful. But it happening in that experience, I don't know, it just didn't work for me at all.

• 39:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, so those three songs you just noted are, are all extended in the movie and changed from the musical. So they are all the, like, the three moments when I think John M. Chu really got to express himself. Defying Gravity is very chopped up in the musical. It's, it's less so. Popular is a standout song for Kristin Chenoweth from the soundtrack and, and for all Glinda's everywhere. But they added like a riff at the end in like, just like 30 seconds, basically just kind of capitalizing on Ariana Grande. And then Dancing Through Life is like a very important musical trope, which is like when the whole cast comes together to advance the plot and for a lot A lot of things to happen at once in the context of a song.

• 39:52Speaker 03

  Like, every great musical has a Dancing Through Life. Some of them have a couple. And I really disliked Dancing Through Life in the movie. And where would you say Dancing Through Life ends in the movie, Sean? Like, what's the final frame of that scene?

• 40:07Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, I couldn't tell you.

• 40:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, because it's 10 fucking minutes or more. It's like 15. It's so, it's so long. And in the musical, it goes from like Fierro's entrance through like arriving at the Ozdust Ballroom. But like, the dance is much shorter. Things don't go silent. Like, it is dramatized in a way that was like overdone for me. And I was just like, this is really getting long. And so, I, I, I just think that, um, it was sort of like, everyone's moment was both like intensified, but also worsened, except for Ariana Grande. And I think that's maybe why, to me, she's a star of the movie. But like, for both Jonathan Bailey and Cynthia Revo's characters, I felt like their defining moments were actually like, taken down a notch by some of the movie choices.

• 40:51Speaker 03

  I, I get why they did them, especially with Dancing Through Life, because so much happens in that song. And you have to like, lay it out linearly, whereas onstage, like, you could do a few things at one time.

• 41:01Sean Fennessey?

  I just thought, I thought the choreography in Dancing Through Life was really, really good. Like, that felt like him trying to get as close as he could to the Stanley Don and Gene Kelly, you know, this sort of like, uh, bandwagon style, like Fred Astaire movies, where you've got this like, huge intersecting cast, the swirling camera, and, you know, trying to move sets around. And I, I, I, I thought that that was kind of impressive. But again, that's like a song I have no relationship to. So, it didn't.

• 41:28Speaker 03

  I did watch a 13-minute video of, um, the like, creative team, and Jonathan Bailey and John M. Chu, explaining the Dancing Through Life scene and how they shot it. And the scene where like, they're going through like, the sort of hamster wheel library, like, and Fierro jumps out, is all one shot. And they had to like, flip the camera and stuff. And so, hearing them talk about the artistry was like, really, really cool. But I, I do think it just became like, overstuffed, because the obligation to like, explain everything that happens in that sequence is just too much. But, so it's, it's like, really a mixed bag. Like, I think, I'm like, inherently more pro-wicked than you are, because I just have a relationship to it. But I, I think like, every, all of the highs in the movie are met with some flaws, too.

• 42:07Sean Fennessey?

  Why do you think this movie is such a massive hit?

• 42:09Speaker 03

  Uh, I think a lot of people have had 21 years to like form an attachment to it.

• 42:14Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:14Speaker 03

  I think also Broadway soundtracks that take off become so like core to people's like sense of like their pop culture self, their reference aura, um, that like you have a relationship to it. So you're just like, let's see what someone else wants to do with it. I also was reminded this morning that Ariana Grande has 375 million Instagram followers. She's also now had two number one hits this year, a number one movie, probably the viral sketch from Saturday Night Live this season so far and the Domingo sketch. And, uh, she's massively popular. So her committing to a year of Wicked promo has definitely paid off.

• 42:53Sean Fennessey?

  It's an interesting thing to me. Obviously, this movie and Gladiator 2 has been sort of compared to Oppenheimer and Barbie. It's a, I would say, a significantly lesser combo than those two films, but eventizing dual releases, one more male leaning, one more female leaning. Obviously, uh, Wicked has this extraordinary queer fan base too that has come out, you know, very loudly for the film and the musical over the years. I would say Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande have gone way out of their way in the promo tour to acknowledge them as well and talk about the relationship between Glenda and Elphaba. So you are like, it's a film that's reaching a lot of audiences that are looking for a film to be excited about, to raise up, to claim as their own. That's obviously a factor.

• 43:32Speaker 03

  The queer culture thing is a big part of it too. Like,

• 43:34Sean Fennessey?

  Definitely.

• 43:35Speaker 03

  And they've really, like, I definitely have not, like, given enough credence to that in this, this conversation. Like, um, first of all, they have, like, the cast has been like, yeah, Glenda's a little bit, a little bit closeted. Like, they've kind of like come out and like named her as like a, you know, a queer character. And I think Jonathan Bailey and Cynthia Erivo are two like leaders in queer culture and also massively, massively talented people. Um, so I think that's like a huge part of it too. I'm glad you mentioned it.

• 44:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. And I guess, the musical thing is so interesting. This movie was more marketed like a musical than most musicals are, but there's been this trend in the last five years in Hollywood to not really reveal that a musical is a musical in the marketing materials, in the trailers. This being so famous and well-known and, and loved.

• 44:21Sean Fennessey?

  There's not as much worry about that. You want to hear Defying Gravity in the trailer to the movie, or you want to hear Popular or something just to get people's excitement up if they're familiar with it. But musicals are really hit or miss. And so the fact that this one is hitting, I think is like a combination of, like you said, the right stars, good timing for this sort of thing, and also just like a super professional filmmaking team. You know, this is not like a Johnny come lately. This is somebody who's been figuring out how to make movies like this for roughly 15 years, and it feels like he's ready to do it. It's just, I look at the material, the source material, and I'm like, this is okay. I guess I'm a little confused as to why it is the mega phenomenon that it is.

• 45:01Sean Fennessey?

  But then again, it's not, probably not aimed directly at 42-year-old men, right?

• 45:07Speaker 03

  Yeah. I found something so moving about seeing it in May. When I, I mean, you know, again, I've been listening to the music for 15 years or more, and seeing people so excited to be there. And then also just for me, you made this point about the professional production. The guy who was playing Fierro at the time had been in 1,000 performances of Wicked. And so I was so impressed, just thinking about how he is so good at playing Fierro, that like, he can do it more than 1,000 times in his marks every night. It's like, just like, I find beautiful. I don't know, I find like the artistry of Broadway and the professionalism that's needed to be really impressive. And I think that, that I really like about this movie as well. And I just think also, like, Wicked has become something that you can

• 45:50Speaker 03

  pass down and share. So there's also like an intergenerational aspect to it. Like, you know, I do think it's like a, it's similar to The Wizard of Oz for some people. Some people being me.

• 45:59Sean Fennessey?

  My daughter has seen The Wizard of Oz probably five times, and she quite likes it. She went this Halloween as Glinda the Good Witch.

• 46:08Speaker 03

  Nice.

• 46:08Sean Fennessey?

  She does not know about this recontextualization of Glinda. She has been listening to the soundtrack to the musical. She was in Target on Saturday and insisted upon getting an Elphaba dress.

• 46:21Speaker 03

  Oh, interesting.

• 46:22Sean Fennessey?

  So this is the first breakthrough of Elphaba interest. Now, in part because of that scene that you talked about with the monkeys transforming, I was like, my daughter can't go see this. This movie like we can watch it at home, but it's two hours and 40 minutes. It features some horrifying transmogrification and it's frankly a little slow at times.

• 46:43Speaker 03

  Yes, I agree.

• 46:44Sean Fennessey?

  I it's a little I'm a little bit. This is a segue into a question about um part two, but how long is the stage musical? Like when you saw it in May, how long were you sitting in your seat?

• 46:53Speaker 03

  Two hours and 40 minutes for the entire musical.

• 46:55Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 46:56Speaker 03

  Including the intermission.

• 46:57Sean Fennessey?

  First film is two hours and 40 minutes and the second film presumably will be more than two hours, right?

• 47:02Speaker 03

  I guess. I mean, it's act two is shorter, but in some ways more meaningful.

• 47:06Sean Fennessey?

  So my question for you is why? Like, how did this happen?

• 47:10Speaker 03

  Well, why is it so long?

• 47:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 47:12Speaker 03

  I think it's because it's like it's like taking uh like if the musical itself is like a like a folded up paper fan or like an accordion. It's like taking that and stretching it out and it's like everything that happened still happens like it beat for beat. What you see on stage happens in the movie, except it can't. Nothing can happen simultaneously. It also like going in between scenes. It takes longer. And then there is a there is some new exposition, but like honestly, not that much like there's more at the beginning explaining like the relationship between Madame Marble and Elphaba. Of course, there's the added three minutes of Christina of I keep saying Christina of Adina Menzel and Kristen Chenoweth at Wisomania and then Defying Gravity and that sequence is made much longer as well.

• 47:56Speaker 03

  And they throw in some other things like Jeff Goldblum asking them what color the um bricks should be and they pick yellow. Like that's not in the musical. That's added into the movie. So there's there's things like that like. But I really think it's just because it's so faithful, honestly, like if it was not going beat for beat and they were willing to cut some stuff, it might move a little bit faster, but I don't know what you cut. So I I don't know how you make it shorter and still be like as make all the fans of the musical as happy as they have made them.

• 48:21Sean Fennessey?

  Forgive this.

• 48:23Sean Fennessey?

  Inherently gender essentializing question, but Amanda is not here and I would do this if she was here too.

• 48:28Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 48:29Sean Fennessey?

  Do you, as a woman, feel like you need more IP movie franchises?

• 48:35Speaker 03

  No, I do not.

• 48:36Sean Fennessey?

  Because this movie is very clearly pulling so closely from that framework that you're talking about, where you had the key cameos from previous cast members. You've got a MacGuffin. Each musical number is like a fight sequence or like a splash page sequence. You've got big cliffhangers serializing the stories leading into the next stage. You've got these quote unquote weak or different heroes who emerged to be the most powerful. Like all of the tropes that you would find in a superhero story, or frankly, even like a Transformers movie, are in this movie, are essential to the the structure of this movie. Something we heard a lot about with Barbie was that it was like finally a blockbuster primarily aimed at women

• 49:18Sean Fennessey?

  that speaks to, you know, an unspoken sensibility that should be more at the movies. Obviously, that movie is really funny and clever and kind of fucking with that idea in the first place, which is one of the reasons why I liked it. It's self-awareness I appreciated. Wicked, not in a bad way, and it's not, I'm not saying anybody doesn't deserve this, but it does feel very much like, okay, let's look at what worked on this movie and try to port it over. Does it feel that structured and that, I don't know, like baked baked in in the musical itself?

• 49:50Speaker 03

  No, it definitely does not. Like the musical just kind of stands alone. Like I don't, there's no, funny enough, there isn't after, right? It's the Wizard of Oz. But like, I've never once been like, okay, Wicked's over, now it's time to watch the Wizard of Oz. There's no like sequence, there's no sequence that it's following or playing into. So the musical definitely doesn't feel that way. I also will just say, like, without any spoilers, the more I have also read people's responses to Wicked, I'm like, oh, this is even more of like a, you know, universe spawning movie than I realized. Like, there's a lot of, there are a lot of tie-ins to the Wizard of Oz, like, a lot. And I didn't clock them because I'm not a Wizard of Oz person. I think a lot of people didn't clock them because they weren't expecting it. But, um, you know, if you want me to send you some, some links to what's in there, I'm happy to do it.

• 50:34Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, send me all the Easter eggs, send me all the Screen Rant links, the Collider links. What do you got, everything you got for me?

• 50:39Speaker 03

  There's like, just like tons, like, should I name a couple?

• 50:43Sean Fennessey?

  If you'd like.

• 50:44Speaker 03

  Well, they won't mean as much to me, but like, The Lion Cup, The Lion is. You know, comes back in The Wizard of Oz. Um, the lion cub in the bike in like the, when one of her faces riding by is supposed to connect to the bike scene in The Wizard of Oz. Like, things like that. Um, there's a lot of like other, just, uh, there's some sartorial choices, particularly on Fierro, that connect to some of the costumes in The Wizard of Oz. There's a lot of layering of like, of connectivity like that.

• 51:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, these are, we used to call these things allusions.

• 51:21Speaker 03

  Allusions, Michael.

• 51:23Sean Fennessey?

  A-L-L-U-S-I-O-N-S. We didn't, we didn't call them Easter eggs, but now they're all just Easter eggs. You know, like you can't, you can't just allude to a piece of material that is connected to the story that you're telling. Boy, let's talk about the Oscars.

• 51:36Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 51:37Sean Fennessey?

  Cause this movie, once it started screening, and I saw it at a fairly early media and industry screening.

• 51:45Speaker 03

  I saw it on November 1st, so I've been waiting over three weeks for this.

• 51:48Sean Fennessey?

  You did too.

• 51:48Speaker 03

  Thank you so much for having me.

• 51:49Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you for being a part of this. I'm so glad. I'm sorry I've been combative with you. I love you so much, but I just, I'm.

• 51:54Speaker 03

  I don't think you have been.

• 51:55Sean Fennessey?

  Trying to work my way through the movie.

• 51:57Speaker 03

  Come on.

• 51:57Sean Fennessey?

  By our standards is where we haven't been combative.

• 52:01Sean Fennessey?

  This movie really like hit the race hard two weeks ago, when a lot of people started seeing it. And I had Katie Rich and Joe on the pod last week, and we talked about its chances and how it has like really arrived in the Dune Part Two placeholder for big event movie that had been sitting in the race. Like, this kind of quickly moved ahead of it. It's hard to tell how real that actually is. I don't claim to know. I just know that a lot of people have seen this, a lot of people like this movie. And because of some of those themes that you talked about, and some of this, where this movie like very neatly metaphorically aligns with where we are in the world right now, I can see the wind at its back a little bit in the race. You don't follow the Oscars as closely as I do, but what's your sense of like how it's fitting in right now?

• 52:46Speaker 03

  I think people are surprised by how good Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande are. And like, truly good. Like, these are great performances. Like, I actually was thinking. Will they become the Idina and Kristen for a new generation? And I think it's totally possible, depending on how part two goes and how people feel about the soundtrack of part two. But I think that Cynthia Erivo's delivery of Defying Gravity, especially when you listen to the soundtrack versus the sort of like spliced up version on screen, is so moving. Like, it's just incredible. And I really do well up thinking about her moment of triumph on the top of the broom. And I think that that combined with just like the humor of Ariana Grande that we don't get to see from her that often, has like really surprised people.

• 53:30Speaker 03

  And so those two, I feel like, are really just getting so much deserved attention. And then I think the costumes are incredible, like just like great, great costumes and a lot of small touches. Like, the fact that they are always wearing like bags, like purses, instead of like a backpack, I like really love. It also kind of reminds me of like, I don't know, like some fancy restaurant, sometimes I do that. And I think the choreography is also really impressive. So I, you know, I think that like, I don't know, the choreography will be rewarded, but I do think a lot of the other like craft pieces of it, like the smaller parts of it are being recognized too. So, I don't know, I just think those two women, this is gonna change their careers. I really do.

• 54:10Sean Fennessey?

  So, I'm with you almost through and through. I think costumes, hair and makeup, production design, sound and visual effects, maybe visual effects, maybe not, all seem-

• 54:20Speaker 03

  Animals are tough.

• 54:21Sean Fennessey?

  They're not, it's okay. They all seem like pretty safe bets, and this is a movie that, you know, it is like doing part two, and then it's sort of like below the line. You've got best in class working on movies like this. There's gonna be a lot of recognition for the people who made them. I don't think anybody had Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo as locks until they started screening the movie, and now that they have, Ariana Grande may be surging close to the lead of best supporting actress right now. She's, it seems like she's like neck and neck with Zoe Saldana. I don't know how true that is. There's still like a lot to come in that race in particular. Felicity Jones in The Brutalist, for example, could get a big moment since that movie comes out later this year. Best actress is incredibly competitive this year.

• 55:04Sean Fennessey?

  I think a lot of people seem to think that Cynthia Erivo and Nicole Kidman are fighting for the last spot. Nicole Kidman's going to be in Baby Girl, you haven't seen that, right?

• 55:12Speaker 03

  No, and from what I read, I don't plan to.

• 55:15Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting take. I liked it. I liked it. I think it's Mikey Madison's year, so I don't think it really matters either way, nevertheless. Best Picture, I don't think it's gonna win Best Picture, but if it wins Best Picture, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be a brat about it. I gotta tell you. I like an IP Part One winning Best Picture, even though, I know it's a post-strike year, but honestly, like, really, that's, that would not, that's not, I don't think that would be a good outcome. I don't think that sends the right message to Hollywood at all, which is like, keep making, keep serializing your stories and be more like TV, I think just sucks.

• 55:48Speaker 03

  I also don't think it's deserving, and I liked it a lot, and like I said, I love Wicked, but it, like, what it really succeeds at is like, being a faithful adaptation, which is really hard to do. Like, and I was thinking about the other ones that have either succeeded or failed. I feel like Chicago is the closest to like, also being a successful adaptation of the sort of like, big Broadway adaptations of recent memory, but most of them are bad. So the fact that he was able to pull it off is, is like, a big deal and really impressive, but doesn't make it like, the Best Picture winner, in my opinion. It's a feat unto itself.

• 56:19Sean Fennessey?

  I think that's one of the big reasons why Chicago did win, which I would say is not amongst Oscar nerds, is not considered one of the better wins of the last 25 years.

• 56:27Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 56:27Sean Fennessey?

  But, I liked that movie at the time when I saw it. I probably haven't seen it since it came out, but I think one of the reasons why it won is exactly the reason you just cited, which is that it's very hard to make these effectively.

• 56:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:36Sean Fennessey?

  And Chicago plays well as a movie.

• 56:38Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 56:39Sean Fennessey?

  And because of that, and because the, you know, it's another same thing, it has three or four like, huge set piece songs where you're just so into it, a couple of supporting performances where you're all in, and so because of that, it's getting rewarded. It's more the Part One thing to me. I've also seen a lot of people make this comparison, and I'm curious if you, you probably won't agree with this, because you're looking forward to some key moments in Part Two, but many people have said that this is a little bit of like, It and It Chapter Two, which I know you didn't see, because you won't watch horror films.

• 57:07Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 57:07Sean Fennessey?

  But the first It movie is pretty darn good. Really scary, really entertaining, faithful in the right ways to King story, focused entirely on the, when they, when they were all kids and experiencing Pennywise for the first time. The Part Two is about the grownups and engaging with Pennywise many years later in their lives. And Part Two just frankly isn't very good, even though it has Jessica Chastain and Bill Hader and, you know, it's just kind of like a CGI mess, and the pacing's bad, and it has problems. And some people I've seen speculate that part two is gonna be like kind of a letdown relative to part one, but you don't see that?

• 57:41Speaker 03

  I think part two, I have a sneaking suspicion this is a one for us, one for them. And I think this was for us, and I think two is gonna be for John M. Chu. And I think I'm okay with that. I like him. As you know, as discussed, I like his work. I really think there's gonna be a lot more like connection to The Wizard of Oz and a lot more of the allegory, and I'm not looking forward to that. I am purely looking forward to it for two songs, which one is the first song in act two, which is a long song. It's very good. It's, uh, "Thank Goodness" is what it's called. And Christina, I keep saying Christina, Kristin Chenoweth has like a really, really beautiful soliloquy in it basically

• 58:24Speaker 03

  about expectations and what it's like when you actually live your dreams. And it's really, it's a very mournful song, which is funny since act one begins with, um, "No One Mourns the Wicked." And then the penultimate song, "For Good," are just two staples of my life. So I'm very excited to see them performed. That said, I, I think there will be a lot more like political stuff. And John M. Chu's kind of alluded to this a little bit. He's like, he has a quote where he said like, you know, I've already cut the movie and it's gonna hit hard and after the election and whatever. So I'm actually really not looking forward to that part of it. But that said, I'm like happy to be in this world. I'm like, you know, I, I defend basically every show that I ever enjoyed watching. Cause I'm like, well, if I didn't have that show, what will I have been doing with my time? So it's kind of how I feel. Like I'm grateful to be a part of, a part of it. So I don't know. I

• 59:09Speaker 03

  do think it'll be more of a departure from the musical.

• 59:14Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting. Okay. Well, thank you for coming on the Wicked journey with me.

• 59:17Speaker 03

  Sure. Anytime.

• 59:19Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know if I'll ever see this again. I guess I'm probably gonna end up seeing it like a thousand times with my kid.

• 59:23Speaker 03

  Well, I think the music video movie moments will live on. The one thing we haven't talked about is the sequence of "What Is This Feeling?" which he uses split screen a lot and also has pretty good choreography. That's the best movie as a movie sequence, I think, because it doesn't, it, it takes something that was successful on stage and a very good song, but uses techniques of the screen in a way that you just don't get otherwise. So I, I wonder if moments like that and also the, like, also it has really good choreography will kind of become like what replays in your world. It's like, not the whole movie because it's too long, but you'll get, you know, it'll be the cups of Pitch Perfect of this movie, I think will be them and their splits, their split screen.

• 1:00:02Sean Fennessey?

  You just got your, your Pauline Kaelon. Nice. Talking about form and content and where they meet.

• 1:00:06Speaker 03

  Thank you so much.

• 1:00:07Sean Fennessey?

  But, but, but for watching it on YouTube and not in entire films, which I don't think Pauline would appreciate.

• 1:00:12Speaker 03

  I just want to be asked back, so I'm trying to seem smart.

• 1:00:14Sean Fennessey?

  Did you prep? Did you like, were you, were you nervous?

• 1:00:16Speaker 03

  My prep is my life. It's just like living and consuming Wicked.

• 1:00:22Sean Fennessey?

  Speaking of your life, let's talk about movie musicals. You cited a couple of big ones at the beginning of our conversation that haven't gone so well. Cats. You know, Les Mis was financially successful and won some Academy Awards, but I think is reviled by some. What was the third one that you cited?

• 1:00:38Speaker 03

  Into the Woods with Emily Blunt and James Corden and many others.

• 1:00:42Sean Fennessey?

  I deeply dislike that movie and I've never seen that stage musical, although I know, I hear it's wonderful.

• 1:00:46Speaker 03

  Uh, it's inventive. I think at this point it feel, it's, it's so impactful that I think that impact has been lost. You know what I mean? It's been like mitigated through constant reproduction, restaging and whatnot. But, um, it's definitely, you know, it's probably the most successful stuff, financially successful saw time.

• 1:01:04Sean Fennessey?

  So none of those films are going to be on your list of your favorite 21st century movie musical?

• 1:01:09Speaker 03

  No, this was very hard for me to make. And I'm going to be honest, when I saw your list, I was like, okay, this is where Sean wants to go. I'm going to follow him there.

• 1:01:17Sean Fennessey?

  Well, see, when I saw what you put down, I was like, okay, so maybe I'm right to have made some of the choices I made because the pickings are kind of slim here.

• 1:01:24Speaker 03

  The pickings are slim because I think, you know, into, I, I don't think we can say Into the Woods, Les Mis, or, um, what was the one we just discussed?

• 1:01:32Sean Fennessey?

  Cats.

• 1:01:33Speaker 03

  Cats.

• 1:01:33Sean Fennessey?

  Which is an abomination, a zero star movie, one of the worst things put on screen.

• 1:01:37Speaker 03

  We don't acknowledge it. I just want to say common denominator in two of three, James Corden. So keep that in mind for your future musical casting. I don't think we can say any of those are great. And like, a lot of the other movies that have like, music that I like are so absurd. Like, my favorite movie, or not favorite, but the movie I've watched the most that has music at the center of it, is Music and Lyrics starring Hugh Grant, Drew Barrymore. I guarantee you, no one else on this planet can say that. So I'm not gonna like, put that on my list, but like, the song that they write is really catchy.

• 1:02:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I, I find this tricky because, when I don't live in New York anymore, so I don't go to see stage musicals, I don't go to the theater really in LA very much at all.

• 1:02:13Speaker 03

  It's really a loss for you.

• 1:02:14Sean Fennessey?

  Um, and it is a loss. And I used to love going to see shows on Broadway, and I would have loved to have taken my kid to have that experience. And it was something I did as a kid. We would go on like, field trips in school to go see. We definitely saw Miss Saigon, we definitely saw Phantom of the Opera, we definitely saw a number of shows. We definitely saw Stomp, definitely saw Cats, like, saw many of those shows.

• 1:02:36Speaker 03

  Rent is one of the most important things to have happened in my life. I mentioned it before, but I, I do think a lot of my perspective on musicals, I was, I guess Rent came out in 97, so I was 11, and it was like, the biggest deal there was. And it remains like, one of the biggest deals there has ever been for me. So I, I think like, my perspective on musicals. And, and then also Wicked, because of the Idina Menzel is, is, uh, is so tied to that. And I do think that like, if you, the musicals of your childhood really influence how you think about the genre and, and like, their place in pop culture.

• 1:03:05Sean Fennessey?

  They do. I, it's interesting that you say that. So there's a couple of other things that I think fly into my mind when I start thinking about this. Because I was raised in the heart of the rebirth of the Disney, like, the second gen, golden generation of Disney films. You know, The Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin.

• 1:03:23Speaker 03

  Lion King.

• 1:03:24Sean Fennessey?

  Lion King, you know, that era, Little Mermaid, when, when the studio really like reclaimed its mantle as like, arguably the greatest movie musical studio of all time.

• 1:03:34Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:03:34Sean Fennessey?

  And, you know, setting aside like, vintage MGM and a handful of others. So, that to me is as much movie musical. You know, it's not just about adapting a stage musical. Also, Hollywood history, you know, sure, there's, there are Singing in the Rain and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and, you know, Bandwagon and stuff like that, but there are- Ten times as many completely failed movie musicals in movie history trying to adapt stuff off of Broadway that just doesn't work, is too clunky, is too long.

• 1:04:02Speaker 03

  The Rent movie's awful.

• 1:04:04Sean Fennessey?

  It's really bad, yeah.

• 1:04:05Speaker 03

  I think part of it is, part of going to a musical is the live experience, right? Like, then in some ways that's lost when we talk about a movie musical. And, and going to a musical or anything staged where you're present, you get to make so many choices yourself, and there's so many people on stage usually, and you get to look where you want to look, and you get to experience it in a way based on how your eyes move. When you see a movie musical that is adapted from a stage show, you're being, someone's perspective is being imposed on you. And so it really corrupts whatever your memory is, or whatever your feeling was of watching that. And I think that is just an impossible barrier, and why the success of Wicked is actually so impressive. And also probably why they were scared into going for beat for beat, because otherwise, people are like, well, that's not my memory, fuck this.

• 1:04:49Speaker 03

  And so it's, it's just impossible to live up to that. Like, no one could capture what it was like for me to see Rent the fourth time I saw it, you know? And so I don't, why even try?

• 1:04:58Sean Fennessey?

  I, I, that's such a smart point. I love that you said that, because it, it confirms something that is on our list, which is that we don't really have very many Broadway adaptations, you know? We don't really have any stage musical adaptations, because filmmaking is just a different form, you know? In the same way that you made the point about using the split screen style in Wicked, which is something you could not accomplish necessarily on stage, is it, you know, is an amplification of an idea from the musical. But it's more easy to create something either wholly new, or to shape around something more literary, rather than this like musical live experience that you've had going to see it. Is it like a good time or a bad time for Broadway musicals right now?

• 1:05:38Speaker 03

  I think it's good. There's a lot of shows right now that are like very buzzy, like Almost Happy Ending with Darren Criss, Nicole Scherzinger is playing the lead in Sunset Boulevard, she won the Olivier, the British Tony for it last year, and finally came to the US. The show is getting like mixed reviews, but she's getting incredible reviews. Death Becomes Her just opened.

• 1:06:00Sean Fennessey?

  I know, I'm curious about that as a Zemeckis fan. I forgot to mention it on our Zemeckis pod, but I had been reading that it's pretty cool.

• 1:06:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, and Beyoncé just went to see it because Michelle Williams is in it. So, I'm excited to see, I happen to love that movie and like think about it often, so I, I want to see the musical. I think it's a pretty, pretty good time.

• 1:06:18Sean Fennessey?

  Would you have swapped out Back to the Future 2 for Death Becomes Her in our Zemeckis Hall of Fame?

• 1:06:22Speaker 03

  I don't know, Death Becomes Her is like a niche movie, but it's so perfectly done. I also think like, talk about movies that are so resonant. I just think that like in the age of like the mainstreaming of plastic surgery and stuff, I think about it all the time.

• 1:06:35Sean Fennessey?

  I totally agree. It got a huge second life in the 21st century.

• 1:06:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:06:38Sean Fennessey?

  That might have been a mistake on our part, but you know, it's me and Brian, you know, two straight white guys in their 40s, not acknowledging Death Becomes Her.

• 1:06:44Speaker 03

  It's also just such, such a good cast. Yeah, it's incredible. But I think it is a pretty good time. You know, I think it took, it took a while after COVID to kind of like build stuff back. Also, I think plays are having a big moment. I think actors like doing them. And then like, it was just reported, I think today, that Oh, Mary made its investment back, which is hard to do. Four and a half million dollars. So, and that's still going strong. I'm seeing it in a couple of weeks. So I think it's a pretty good time for theater.

• 1:07:08Sean Fennessey?

  I know Denzel is about to stage Othello in a couple of months, right? Which is pretty exciting. He's really only done that like four or five times in the last 40 years. So it's gonna be a hot ticket.

• 1:07:19Speaker 03

  It's really cool. Also, I feel like he just loves Shakespeare. He's been in so many Shakespeare productions, right?

• 1:07:23Sean Fennessey?

  He does. He does love Shakespeare. Let's do our lists. Let's do our favorites.

• 1:07:28Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:07:29Sean Fennessey?

  I found this to be difficult as you did. I don't even really have like a clear methodology for what makes a good one, because I think all five of mine are different in different ways. And in some ways, when I do these lists, I try to make, I try to pick like different kinds of movies, so I'm not repeating myself. How did you think about the list making?

• 1:07:45Speaker 03

  I went with what music, based on the movie, did I want to listen to over and over again?

• 1:07:50Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, I love that.

• 1:07:51Speaker 03

  Like, what movie compelled me to keep listening, essentially? And also, I think a really key part of it is like, I mentioned this earlier, is like, I like, I'm willing to buy into Wicked. I think with movie musicals, you have to establish like the terms of, of your world and so that the music doesn't feel weird and so that feel like, well, why is this a musical? I have to say, that's my biggest complaint about Emilio Perez, which is I'm just like, why is there music here? Like, there's actually no reason other than like, just because they wanted to. And I think that like-

• 1:08:20Sean Fennessey?

  That's how I feel about a lot of that film, is just because they wanted to.

• 1:08:24Speaker 03

  Yeah. And I, but with the music in particular, it's just like, I do love Zoe Saldana. If anyone wants to talk to me about Center Stage, please send me a DM. But like, the music has to both enhance and evolve the movie and push it forward in a way. And so I tried to think about what soundtrack really impacted me and like what I was trying to recreate by listening to the music.

• 1:08:45Sean Fennessey?

  Um, okay. Let's do our lists. We can do these fairly quickly since most of these are well-known properties. Why don't you start us off with your number five?

• 1:08:52Speaker 03

  My number five is at one time the highest grossing film in the United Kingdom. It is Mamma Mia. And while I don't think it is a perfect movie, it is incredibly fun. Uh, my listening to ABBA has gone straight up since 2008. Uh, I also think it was like a career turning point for Amanda Seyfried, which is a weird thing to say, but I really think is true. And um, it's like the most fun I think that like anyone has had making a movie perhaps ever, particularly Christine Baranski and Meryl Streep. So I just felt it had to be acknowledged. Though it's sort of serious, it's flawed, but it's, it's a great time and I can totally buy into it. And again, the music of ABBA is pretty hard to deny. If a jukebox musical can be a hit, it can be as a movie as well.

• 1:09:35Sean Fennessey?

  It's a great pick. I would, I would ruin my life for Amanda Seyfried, just being a guest on this show. She's absolute legend, probably the coolest single person I've ever talked to in the history of this show. I think she's a great actress. Uh, fun fact, I've never seen this film. Don't care about ABBA at all.

• 1:09:48Speaker 03

  Okay. I don't know that it's like a Sean fantasy film. However, it's a good time. I think your daughter might like it. Perhaps show it to her.

• 1:09:55Sean Fennessey?

  I'm sure. Honestly, I think that one of the reasons why I have the daughter that I have, and this is the third time she's come up on this episode, the absolute like princess pilled girly girl that she is, is to kind of like backfill all of my holes.

• 1:10:09Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:10:10Sean Fennessey?

  From the last forty years of cultural consumption.

• 1:10:13Speaker 03

  How about open you up to a new world?

• 1:10:15Sean Fennessey?

  Are you saying I'm not kind?

• 1:10:16Speaker 03

  I'm thinking it's not about your failures, I'm about saying what lies ahead.

• 1:10:20Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't describe Alice as particularly kind either, but um, she's just forthright, just like I am.

• 1:10:25Speaker 03

  Kindness. It's okay.

• 1:10:26Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Um, she's, she's probably gonna love Mamma Mia. And you gotta put it in her hands, you know? You show it to her, you put her onto it, and then, you know, we can

• 1:10:35Speaker 03

  Sounds great.

• 1:10:35Sean Fennessey?

  Dance to Dancing Queen together.

• 1:10:36Speaker 03

  Do you accept DVDs or only Blu-rays?

• 1:10:38Sean Fennessey?

  No, I mean, we'll take what we can get, but Blu-rays are preferred. Frankly, 4K, if you can find it, that's, that's really my preferred mode.

• 1:10:44Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:10:45Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think you've seen the garage recently, have you? It's been a while since you've been at the house.

• 1:10:48Speaker 03

  No, I haven't.

• 1:10:48Sean Fennessey?

  Things are getting a little out of control with the physical media, I gotta say.

• 1:10:51Speaker 03

  That's how I feel about books. I'm just like, this is an issue.

• 1:10:54Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe we should buy like a, like a hangar together where we can put all of our physical media. What do you think?

• 1:10:59Speaker 03

  Sure. We could do high fidelity, like part four and just be like a record store and bookstore together.

• 1:11:05Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, now, well, now you're, I mean, that's our retirement plan together. That's how we can maintain adjoining offices long-term.

• 1:11:11Speaker 03

  Sounds great.

• 1:11:11Sean Fennessey?

  When we co-own a Blu-ray bookstore. Okay, uh, my number five is Sing Street, which is a movie that I liked upon release and like more the further I get from it. Um, it's been almost 10 years since Sing Street came out, 2016, John Carney's, not his next musical after Once, but he's the director of Once, which is a beautiful movie. I think I have a lot of Irish bias when it comes to the John Carney stories, very sentimental story. Sing Street is not so much about love affair as it is like the making of a band, the making of a scene, the making of a sound. Um, a kind of like new wave rock band in Ireland amongst teenagers in a, uh, private school. It just has like an incredible amount of energy and verve and sincerity and great tunes, really good performances. I really like Lucy Boynton in this movie.

• 1:11:56Sean Fennessey?

  She kind of disappeared. I don't know where she's at. Probably best known for Bohemian Rhapsody, but she was really great in this movie. Um, have you seen Sing Street?

• 1:12:04Speaker 03

  I have not. I didn't see the musical on Broadway, nor did I have seen the movie.

• 1:12:08Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, excellent adaptation. I highly recommend people check this movie out. I like all of John Carney's movies, even Flora and the Sun, which kind of got mocked when it came out a year and a half ago, starring our girl Bono's daughter Eva Hewson, Eve Hewson, Eve Hewson.

• 1:12:20Speaker 03

  Eve, yeah, respect her.

• 1:12:22Sean Fennessey?

  She's really great. Uh, Flora and the Sun is okay. Sing Street is where it's at.

• 1:12:27Speaker 03

  The Nick forever.

• 1:12:28Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, what's your number four?

• 1:12:29Speaker 03

  My number four is Encanto. First of all, I had to include something from Lin-Manuel Miranda. That's just sort of, he's like one of the most important people, if not the most important person in musicals in the 21st century.

• 1:12:40Sean Fennessey?

  He'll be coming up again on my list.

• 1:12:42Speaker 03

  And this is, I heard the music first. I don't have children. And so I was like, but you know, I think I'm gonna watch this movie. And it's just like really well done and it's, it's actually like a little bit different than some of his other stuff for kids, um, in a way that I just really liked. And, uh, there's just like a lot of bops in it as well that like makes sense. So it's a great movie.

• 1:13:03Sean Fennessey?

  I like this movie too. Uh, I've seen it quite a bit. Every time I go on vacation with my extended family, all the kids watch it like nine times in a row. So I'm very familiar with Encanto.

• 1:13:12Speaker 03

  Sure. I mean, we don't talk about Bruno, just, you know, great song.

• 1:13:16Sean Fennessey?

  One challenge I have is like playing, you know, when you play on Spotify now and there's the video visualization with like scenes from the movie, that's really hard to get my kids' face off of that, like to not be focused on that while we're listening to music. So a little bit of a dangerous thing. Like Disney has, continues to crack the code on poisoning generations, myself included. Um, my number four is Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? Which is a Coen Brothers movie. And you might think to yourself, the Coen Brothers haven't made a musical, but Oh Brother, Where Art Thou really is a musical. Obviously it had an extraordinarily successful soundtrack. It's also obviously a kind of a remake, reimagining of The Odyssey. It's also kind of a remake, reimagining of Sullivan's Travels. It's like a reference to the Preston Sturgis movie about a bunch of guys who break out of prison

• 1:14:01Sean Fennessey?

  and become incredible recording stars. And yeah, just an incredibly fun, beautiful movie, oddly set during the Great Depression, that I love. Where are you at on Oh Brother?

• 1:14:13Speaker 03

  Um, you know, it's part of the heyday of George Clooney as an actor. So I'm very high on it. I would say everything he did from 1994 to like 2005, I'm very, very pro. So I think it's great. Um, I just want to note, I think the Coen Brothers made two musicals. They also made Inside Lewin Davis.

• 1:14:30Sean Fennessey?

  They did. Well, is that a musical? I guess it is in a similar way.

• 1:14:35Speaker 03

  It's a, it's a movie that centers music and a cat.

• 1:14:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think it is. And I think if I include Oh Brother, Where Art Thou, then I think it, like it has to be. And there are other movies that will come up in our discussion.

• 1:14:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. The, the like, the diegetic music or like the performed in real time as capturing the characters' real lives. Inside Lewin Davis, probably a better movie than Oh Brother. It is, it is a better movie than Oh Brother, but it's not a better.

• 1:15:01Speaker 03

  I think it's more boring than Oh Brother, Where Art Thou. But I think the like revelation of Oscar Isaac in that movie, he was, it was so like early in his career, was just so incredible. And I really like the music of Lewin Davis.

• 1:15:11Sean Fennessey?

  I do too, but I, I think that's, I think I like, I think I like the movie more and the. I don't know. I don't know. Let's just say they're tied in my fourth spot.

• 1:15:22Speaker 03

  The YouTube repeat viewing for me of Oscar Isaac singing Roar as if he is Lumen Davis is so incredibly high. It's one of like the pop culture highlights of my life. So check it out.

• 1:15:32Sean Fennessey?

  Good to know. Good to know. What's your number three?

• 1:15:35Speaker 03

  Number three is a true musical, probably the only like true musical. I don't even think Mamma Mia counts because it's a jukebox musical, but Hairspray from 2007 starring Nikki Blonsky, James Marsden, Brittany Snow, Michelle Pfeiffer, Queen Latifah, Christopher Walken, and John Travolta. What a great, great movie. It is also the movie to stage and back to movie adaptation, which is very common these days. It is just so well done. I was thinking about it. I was reflecting before this podcast. The performances are universally strong. Like everyone in it is really good. And even the people who like are not famous like Elijah Kelly, I thought he was going to have a huge career based on Hairspray. I would have bought all

• 1:16:18Speaker 03

  of his stock. And also, I think it represents another key part of like musical movie success, which is Well Done Camp. And of course, John Waters is the father of Camp and really understands it. It gets away with a lot as a result, and it's just really great. And then I think like the emotional center of it is just an incredible song from Queen Latifah. That's like kind of offsets a lot of the like really frothy music otherwise. And it's just really great. If you haven't watched it in a while, I recommend it.

• 1:16:45Sean Fennessey?

  Haven't seen it in a while. Things really went off the rails for Adam Shankman there, didn't they?

• 1:16:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think this is his peak. This is many people's peak, honestly.

• 1:16:53Sean Fennessey?

  It's really weird. Bedtime Stories was his next film, the Adam Sandler movie. Then he made Rock of Ages, which is a fiasco of a musical. What Men Want, starring Taraji P. Henson.

• 1:17:03Speaker 03

  Disaster. Unfortunately, I do.

• 1:17:05Sean Fennessey?

  And then Disenchanted, which was the sequel to Enchanted. Did you ever watch that?

• 1:17:09Speaker 03

  No, I didn't. I liked Enchanted. I thought about including it. I think James Marsden is like an underrated, um, like musical comedy guy. He's great. I love James Marsden.

• 1:17:18Sean Fennessey?

  I like that Marsden, that movie confirms that Marsden fits in the lineage of John Travolta and Christopher Walken.

• 1:17:25Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 1:17:26Sean Fennessey?

  Like, I really enjoy that framework of the song and dance man through movie history.

• 1:17:29Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 1:17:30Sean Fennessey?

  Good pick.

• 1:17:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's great. Also, John Travolta, um, I think it was his first time in a musical since Grease, so it was like a big deal.

• 1:17:37Sean Fennessey?

  My number three is, it was gonna be Dancer in the Dark, which is a movie that I've always really liked and I find is fascinating and incredibly sad and punishing. But then I remembered that there's some really sordid and sad details around the production of that movie where Bjork, um, accused Lars von Trier of some absolutely awful sexual harassment. And I'm like, I don't really, I don't, it's an awkward thing where I want people to see Bjork's performance, which was, is so intense and so impressive, but also led to her basically never acting in a movie again because of her terrible experience on this movie. But it's a movie about a woman who is experiencing like incredible, like the loss of her sight and she works in a factory and she has like a big imagination and a big relationship to

• 1:18:18Sean Fennessey?

  musicals. And it kind of like blends real life, um, with this fascination with musicals. Um, shot in that kind of Dogma 95 style where it's like multiple digital handheld cameras that are cut very aggressively to capture like all angles of performance. Very cool movie. It's just a little hard to be like, this is one of the best of this time because it's, you know, couched in so much pain. So I'll give a shout out instead to pop star Never Stop Never Stopping. Perhaps you've heard of it from the Lonely Island?

• 1:18:49Speaker 03

  I like to think I'm among the top 1% of Lonely Island fans. So yeah, I've heard of it.

• 1:18:53Sean Fennessey?

  Are you in on their movies?

• 1:18:54Speaker 03

  Um, I was just gonna say, Bin Laden, Finest Girl is like one of my favorite songs maybe ever from this movie, but I like the music much more than I like their movies. But I, I love, love, love, love their music and music videos. Like just, they're so funny. And they're my favorite rap group.

• 1:19:10Sean Fennessey?

  Do you listen, did you listen to their pod with Seth?

• 1:19:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, of course. I like, it's like my favorite like doing chores pod. I love it. I also love Seth Meyers. I like, everything about that pod is like straight down the middle for me.

• 1:19:19Sean Fennessey?

  This movie is so, so funny. It comes kind of at the tail end of the Apatow era and it really bricked in theaters, but it opened right at the launch of The Ringer. It was basically the first Friday of The Ringer's launch. It was the first big movie of that weekend. And we claimed it and loved it. Nobody else went to go see it. To me, this is like a full blown rewatchable. Like, it's such a funny movie. It's one of the very few good studio comedies of the 2010s. Highly recommend people check it out. And yeah, it's just like full of hilarious Lonely Island songs. I mean, they've been like 200 at this point, so.

• 1:19:54Speaker 03

  It pushes the envelope in like all the right ways. Like, it is, it is like very edgy, but like, in not, in like a bad way, in a great way. It's so, it is so funny. Absolutely love it.

• 1:20:05Sean Fennessey?

  Agreed. Very happy to see your number two. What do you got?

• 1:20:07Speaker 03

  A Star is Born 2019. All comes back to Judy Garland.

• 1:20:11Sean Fennessey?

  It really does.

• 1:20:12Speaker 03

  I don't know. This movie's undeniable. It's a force. Lady Gaga's a force. Bradley Cooper's a force. This is another movie we claimed and like loved. I have a Jackson Maine like tour t-shirt that I still wear all the time. I don't know. It's, it's, it's another movie where you're like, holy shit, they nailed it. And it's like very exciting that they were able to pull it off. And there was so much anticipation from the first trailer and the snippets of Shallow. But like, everything about it has become iconic. I also think because it hit right before COVID, like it was like a fall 2019 movie, right? Like, its legend got to grow kind of quickly because we were all at home. And like the Oscars performance could kind of like stand alone for a while. And there's just so many things about it that are legendary. And it's just a good movie. Like, it's actually a good movie with

• 1:20:57Speaker 03

  a really good original music, which is hard to do as well.

• 1:21:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think it's the fifth version of A Star is Born. Prior to that, my favorite, my favorite still is the Judy Garland, James Mason version. I think that's the best one. And if you have never listened to the songs from that original, from that, it's not the original. I guess it's the second version, the one that came in the 50s, yeah. Judy Garland is just like out of this world. Like, the, the most extraordinary singing you'll ever hear in your life. This new one, yeah, is one of my favorite movies of 2019. I think Amanda and I did roughly 48 episodes about the movie. Love it. So, great pick. My number two, also a recent film, West Side Story from Steven Spielberg. Obviously, this is a world renowned filmed movie musical from back in the 60s.

• 1:21:43Sean Fennessey?

  The new version is just some of the best damn directing and choreography you'll ever seen in your life. One of the most striking movies ever. Also a movie that kind of bombed and not very many people saw in movie theaters. Like I saw it in theaters twice. Was just completely taken away by this movie. Uh, I love it so much. You're in on this or no?

• 1:22:03Speaker 03

  I liked it. I don't think it's an improvement on the original movie with Natalie Wood. Um, and so like I, that's why I didn't include it. I love West Side Story as a musical, like, and the music is incredible. Um, it does also like ensemble really well, which is something that's important to me. I, I think my favorite thing about the 2022 remake is, um, the way it captures New York and sort of like a heightened surreal way. Um, it doesn't try to make it like, feel like a living city. It makes it feel like a set and it, it actually really works in an interesting way, but I, I didn't love it.

• 1:22:35Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, shame on you. Steven Spielberg, well, remember, uh, what's your number one?

• 1:22:40Speaker 03

  My number one, do, are you surprised by my pick, Sean?

• 1:22:43Sean Fennessey?

  Well, you've given me an opportunity to talk about something else that I'm interested in discussing with you. I'm not super surprised because you and Amanda are alike in many ways. You're different in some ways, but you are alike in many ways, and this is one of them.

• 1:22:54Speaker 03

  I chose Walk the Line starring Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix. It is absolutely hands down my favorite Reese Witherspoon experience I've ever had. I love her clothes. I love Joaquin Phoenix's renditions of Johnny Cash's songs and, uh, I think it's just a really good biopic. I, I really like it and also definitely I knew Johnny Cash, like I knew of his music, but it really opened up the musical oeuvre of Johnny Cash to me. Um, and I think this is just a great movie that's also like really, uh, sad. And also another underrated actress from the television show Big Love, Jennifer Goodwin. Love her as well. And she is plays his first wife.

• 1:23:29Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm. She's kind of fallen by the wayside these recent years, hasn't she?

• 1:23:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:23:33Sean Fennessey?

  It's a sad story. Um, yeah, I mean, James Mangold is running this back with A Complete Unknown, which is out in one month. And is a biopic of Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash figures into that biopic. He's played by Boyd Holbrook, not Joaquin Phoenix in it. I saw it last week. I'm holding my thoughts on the film for when I record a podcast about it. I think you you're probably aware of what how my relationship to Bob, right?

• 1:23:58Speaker 03

  Sure. Yes, I am.

• 1:23:59Sean Fennessey?

  So, yeah, complicated subject matter. Walk the Line is good. I like it.

• 1:24:03Speaker 03

  It's a great movie. I remember seeing it very vividly and I really had a great time. Um, yeah, and also the costumes in it are so good. It's like a fun movie to watch. Like, it's a very, like, visually style, the style of it is is like, very cool. I mean, I also, you know, it's kind of easy with the 50s and 60s style and the structured dresses for Reese and everything, but she's just so plucky as June Carter Cash. It's very fun.

• 1:24:25Sean Fennessey?

  How do you feel about Walk Hard destroying it forever?

• 1:24:29Speaker 03

  It's funny. I was thinking about John C. Reilly when we mentioned, um, Chicago, because he's my favorite part of the movie. So I'm like, okay. He's such a great part of that movie. Um, I'm okay with it. I don't know. I like really support both Will Ferrell and, um, uh, John C. Reilly, so I'm okay.

• 1:24:44Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Uh, my number one is Moana.

• 1:24:49Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, I remember very vividly in the early days of The Ringer, Jason Gallagher, uh, was trying to sell me on how good Moana was. And I think his son was young at the time when the movie was released. And I think was, I think the movie was going really hard in his house. And I was like, that's cool, man. I'm not seeing it. Um, and I didn't see it. I didn't see it for many years, and now I've seen it probably 15 times. And in addition to it having the framework of like a very traditional post 2000s, like female empowerment Disney story, which is like pretty common through the Disney and Pixar films post, you know, like the antiquated ideas of romance that you find in like Sleeping Beauty.

• 1:25:33Sean Fennessey?

  There's been this real concerted effort to give the female characters a kind of independence. That's all there, and that's all, all of that is good. And the, like, the culture that is portrayed in the film and the adventure aspect of the story is great. All of it works really, really well. It's brisk, it's well-paced. But it's Lin-Manuel Miranda just absolutely cooking up something delightful. Like, the songs in that movie are so good. And it's when you are a parent and you have to listen to this shit all the time, and you find one that you actually like, it's such a relief when your kid is like, "I want to watch that one," because you know you can just sit comfortably with them and not be annoyed. And so, is Moana the greatest movie musical of the 21st century? I don't give a shit.

• 1:26:17Sean Fennessey?

  Like, to me, it is the one that has given me the most comfort and joy. So it's my number one.

• 1:26:22Speaker 03

  A great pick, Sean, and also a great tie-in this week. How smart.

• 1:26:26Sean Fennessey?

  Well, that's the thing, is coming later this week on the show, we're covering Moana 2. We're doing that with Yasi Solak and Rob Harvilla. How do you think that's gonna go?

• 1:26:34Speaker 03

  I think that'll be really fun and also very lengthy. So, everyone, bring your water.

• 1:26:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, well, it'll be Thanksgiving weekend. People will be able to consume it, and that'll be all right.

• 1:26:42Speaker 03

  I'm excited that Moana 2 is coming out. I like Moana, I'm like on the periphery of Moana culture. I've never seen the full thing. Like, the reason I choose Encanto over Moana is the music did not compel me to watch the movie. But I was like, when I heard the Encanto music, I was like, "I'm gonna have to check this out." But I do like the rock soundbites from Moana, so I'm looking forward to new soundbites from the rock.

• 1:27:03Sean Fennessey?

  I think I neglected to mention Moana when I did the Red One episode, but that is like a true good that he has accomplished in his relatively complicated last 15 years of the movie. He's genuinely great as Maui. But yeah, Moana, check it out, man. It's fucking good.

• 1:27:18Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:27:19Sean Fennessey?

  I love it.

• 1:27:19Speaker 03

  I will.

• 1:27:19Sean Fennessey?

  It's beautiful.

• 1:27:20Speaker 03

  I'll check it out.

• 1:27:20Sean Fennessey?

  And you know what, Jason, you were right, if you're listening. Good job, goodbye, good job by you. Where can we find you, Juliette?

• 1:27:27Speaker 03

  On Bachelor Party on Mondays and Thursdays, talking reality TV. Less and less Bachelor these days, but a lot of reality TV. And on Ringer Dish on Mondays, Jam Session, usually with Amanda. When she gets back, she will continue to be my co-host. In the meantime, it's a rotation of great people to talk to me about pop culture, mostly celebrities. And on Fridays, on Ringer Food, Food News, check it out. It's only 30 minutes, it's a great way to pass some time.

• 1:27:49Sean Fennessey?

  Gosh, I haven't been invited on any of those pods. What's going on?

• 1:27:52Speaker 03

  Do you want to talk about reality TV?

• 1:27:54Sean Fennessey?

  I don't really watch any.

• 1:27:56Speaker 03

  All right, so that's tough. At least I watch some movies, but thanks for having me, Sean.

• 1:27:59Sean Fennessey?

  I really appreciate you watching Wicked and all these movie musicals, and bringing your incredible expertise to this episode. Thank you, Juliette.

• 1:28:05Speaker 03

  Thanks so much for having me, it was really fun.

• 1:28:07Sean Fennessey?

  Let's go to my conversation with Malcolm Washington.

• 1:28:21Sean Fennessey?

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• 1:29:06Sean Fennessey?

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• 1:30:13Speaker 06

  First feature film, The Pianist, and Malcolm, thanks for being here. Thank you for having me, it's an honor. So, obviously you grew up in a house with film in it. I'm wondering, what was the first? We did watch movies, there was those film there. Was there a movie that you saw that opened your mind that made you think you could be a filmmaker? Hmm, good question. You know, I feel like there was more movies that made me feel like I could never do that because of how much I love them. But I remember, I remember seeing Tree of Life with my mom. When it came out, we saw it in theaters, she was living in New York, we went to, there was like a, like an art house theater in Lincoln Center. That I think is gone now. Okay, yeah, yeah, it is, yeah. Tragic. Yeah.

• 1:30:56Speaker 06

  But I saw that movie there with her, and I remember at the end of the movie, we were like, holding hands like, bawling, crying. And I'm like 20 years old, you know, I'd never seen a movie that dealt with, like, big kind of themes like that. Or, and dealt with it so intimately, and I saw myself in the story. And I, me and my mom, I remember having this feeling of, it's the first time that we both saw ourselves in the same thing. And then time kind of warped around itself in that moment where it's like, wait, you're the child and I'm the child too, together? Yeah, yeah. It was a movie set, like, she's from the south and it was in the 50s. And it was like a similar era of her, of her, of her youth, so it was just like, one of those movies, I was like, whoa, this is more than a film.

• 1:31:39Speaker 06

  There's like something spiritual and poetic and all these things were, were in it. So that was one of, an early one. What did you think you were gonna be doing back then? You must have been in college at that point. Yeah, in college, I didn't know what I was doing. I hooped for a little bit in college, but then after that, I started studying movies, but never, I didn't think to make them. Like, I was like, just writing about them, and studying them, but not, never making them. It's interesting, I had, um, Ramel Ross in here the other day, and we were talking about it, and he, he played ball in school too. And he was talking about how that like, did help.

• 1:32:14Sean Fennessey?

  And didn't help him on his artistic path. Did playing basketball like help you at all? Figure out any aspect of your career?

• 1:32:21Speaker 06

  It not in in some ways, yeah, like just small things like so much of directing is just managing people and running a production. So it's like team building, it's communicating. So all the all the principles that you learn in in team sports is totally there. And like how you build out the team you want, you know? We we were talking about the Knicks.

• 1:32:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:44Speaker 06

  And I'm a Laker fan, but you so you wanna you wanna build out diversity of thought of experience. You know, you want you want some you want some wily vets, you want some OGs, you want some young talent. You want some, you know, you wanna just get all of that out. So I think in that regard, it definitely helped. But the film, the artist's life has been a different journey for me.

• 1:33:06Sean Fennessey?

  When did you decide you were gonna be making films? That that was something that you wanted to do?

• 1:33:11Speaker 06

  I decided in when I was in undergrad, I made this film. I went to I again, I was writing about them. I didn't know how to make them. And I did this this like a summer program. And I was like, OK, let's let's see, let's try it. And I ended up writing this story that didn't intend to be personal, but it became so personal. And we shot on 16 millimeter film. So you're, you know, you're loading the camera yourself, you're doing everything yourself.

• 1:33:40Speaker 06

  And when the when I finished making the movie, I was looking at him like, whoa. Something came out of me, you know? It was like not something I I planned to do or aim to do, but there was some third spirit, some voice that came out. And I was like, well, I wanna and it was really satisfying. I was like, I wanna see what that's about, like what this this subconscious thing that's coming out of you. Like, what is chase that thing?

• 1:34:03Sean Fennessey?

  I assume you were on set as a kid at times, right?

• 1:34:06Speaker 06

  I I was on set a little bit, but like not everybody assumes that because, you know, my obviously my dad's a a big actor, but.

• 1:34:14Sean Fennessey?

  I was just wondering if like I tend to ask that for anybody whose parents are in the business because then you like learn that. For somebody like me, growing up, movies are not mechanical. They're just magic.

• 1:34:24Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:34:24Sean Fennessey?

  But sometimes if you grow up and you go to visit a set as a kid, you see that it is like, it's labor, it's collaboration.

• 1:34:32Speaker 06

  It was magic to me. The way I grew up, I grew up in the valley, man. And we were like riding bikes in a cul-de-sac. Like, it was, I would say it was no place for a kid, you know? And my, and my parents always were so cool about setting up our lives in a way that, that they, that they were trying to create good people and like well-rounded humans, you know, with a consciousness and a worldview. So it was, it was, I wasn't like on set every day as a kid, like, understanding how movies were made at six years old.

• 1:35:04Sean Fennessey?

  What about August Wilson? Were you exposed to his work early? When did you come to him?

• 1:35:09Speaker 06

  August is such a legend in our, in our community and in our culture. And, and I'm, come from a proud culture, so August is a name you hear about. But I didn't engage in his work meaningfully until, until I was in AFI and film school. In film school, we, we got to direct, I got to direct a scene out of one of his plays. And that was the first time I got to really read and interpret and be like, oh, wow, okay. I see what everybody's talking about. Like, this is why he's on the pantheon, you know? There's just incredibly rich characters and, and somebody who's saying something.

• 1:35:42Sean Fennessey?

  One of the things I loved about your movie is August Wilson's work is incredibly powerful, but it is written for the stage. And the adaptations are complicated because sometimes they can be seen as too stagey. That's the word they hear all the time. But your movie is very cinematic, you know? It is very visually oriented. It's trying to break beyond just what you would expect you'd see on a stage. Can you just talk about like, developing what you wanted this movie to be visually? And making sure that it stayed true to what his vision was when he was writing it?

• 1:36:07Speaker 06

  Yeah. I'm, I'm such a fan of the cinema. Like, that's where I grew up. That was like, my sanctuary as a kid was going to Universal. We used to go to Universal.

• 1:36:18Sean Fennessey?

  CityWalk?

• 1:36:19Speaker 06

  CityWalk, absolutely. It was up there. And then later, we moved and I started going to Century City.

• 1:36:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:25Speaker 06

  And then to my adulthood, shout out to Arc Light Hollywood. I hope somebody brings it back.

• 1:36:28Sean Fennessey?

  That was my spot.

• 1:36:30Speaker 06

  Spot, oh my god.

• 1:36:31Sean Fennessey?

  I know.

• 1:36:31Speaker 06

  But that's, that's like the language that I love and that I, that I speak. So with this, there's so much reverence for Mr. Wilson and, and his legacy and his work. But I felt like the best way to honor it was to try to break it. Right, was to, was to break beyond um the ways that we've seen it before. And it's also a work that's been produced a lot. So I felt like, okay, we can do something very different with this one and the other ones will still exist, you know?

• 1:36:56Sean Fennessey?

  How specifically did you think about that? Like, because the structure of it is fairly straightforward, but you've got flashback elements. You've got almost like, these kind of like supernatural genre elements. Like, what specifically were you looking to do?

• 1:37:08Speaker 06

  All, all of that. So, so play with form, right? So first, you know, we, we have this structure of the, the stories kind of barreling on this path anyway. How can we, how can we break that? How can we fuck with that a little bit, you know? How can we inform these moments with uh things of the past? And also imaginings, memories.

• 1:37:31Speaker 06

  Some things are like dreams and nightmares, that, the thing that lives in between both where it's like, you know, when you have a memory and you're like, was that true? Is like, am I, am I failing my own memory? But what I, what is honest about is my feeling of the thing. Is, it didn't, might not have happened exactly like that, but how I, how I felt about it did. So it was trying to weave that into the structure of it, but also play with the um language of film. So genre is a, a thing that we wanted to make something exciting and bombastic and, you know, muscular and, and just kick the door down, like, we wanted to come in like that. But also tell a story that, that was subjective in nature. That we're telling a story of a family who all have different ideas of, of what happened and what they should do.

• 1:38:16Speaker 06

  Who all are standing on hollowed ground and, and write in some way about the direction the family should go in. But how you experience it as an audience member will change how you think that that moment should be. So we'll, we're, we're gonna play a perspective and, and subjectivity. And give you some moments that are really about the person listening. And, and sometimes it's, it's about this other thing, not the big monologue. That's the real story point for this, for this part. And not to give, get into the story too much, but I wanted to guide the audience through the story using things like this, like perspective and point of view.

• 1:38:52Sean Fennessey?

  Before we go too much further into the movie itself, like, why did the adaptation happen? You know, it had been recently staged.

• 1:38:58Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:38:59Sean Fennessey?

  Samuel L. Jackson acclaimed for his work and the performance. Like, why did it become a movie? Was it something that you said, "I want this to be my thing"? Was it something that, you know, there's this mission to film all of Wilson's plays? What happened?

• 1:39:09Speaker 06

  So, there's a mission to film the century cycle. There's a mission to film these as plays at Netflix, I mean, as films at Netflix. And this one made a lot of sense to be next because it was the play and they had Samuel L. Jackson and my brother, John David, were gonna do it. And anytime Samuel L. Jackson wants to do a movie, he's like, "Yeah, let's find out how to get this movie made." So, I spoke to them about this take on it. And like I said, what we were trying to do was to be bold, you know, to be fearless in our pursuit of making this a film. So, we wrote, me and Virgil, co-writer and homie of mine, we wrote the script to see, to show everybody what the take was.

• 1:39:54Speaker 06

  It's like, hey, this is gonna be a genre movie. This is gonna be like a fun movie that you're gonna fall in, you're gonna fall into it expecting this, uh, fall into the genre elements of it. But when we land it, it's gonna be this poetic kind of musings on ancestry and lineage and legacy, like these big themes. That's where we'll land the plane. But on the way, it's gonna be a fun ride. And do you wanna come, do you wanna take it in this direction, you know? And luckily, they did.

• 1:40:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I love the take on it so much. Tell me about working with your brother. It's complicated. Like, you know, I'm sure you guys are close, but making a film is complicated and it's a lot of hard work. And he's, he'd also, you know, played this part before, which I'm sure helps, but also you have your vision.

• 1:40:39Speaker 06

  Right.

• 1:40:40Sean Fennessey?

  So, what is the dynamic on set with two people who are as close as you are, but maybe have a lot of hits? History too.

• 1:40:46Speaker 06

  You know, it's it's interesting. I I'm such a fan of my big brother, you know, and he's somebody that. I'm not only a fan of hi- his work, but just who he is as a person. Like, he was such a great example for me. Coming into, you know, my my adulthood and and ways to move and and what to listen to and all all these things. But getting to work with him was so great because. We had a shared language already and and, you know, in any creative process or any project, you want to be able to communicate freely, clearly, to have trust with the other person. And so in that way, it was so amazing. But at the same time, you want.

• 1:41:25Speaker 06

  Sometimes, if you want something so bad, you start pushing too much for it. And I think that once we both had to understand, like, hey, we both want to do good for the other person, like. Let's settle then and and just, you know, trust trust the offense.

• 1:41:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:41:40Speaker 06

  And and we'll be OK. And once we did that, we just fell into a wonderful rhythm. And there was such a great. Collection of actors that were there with us, you know, Danielle Dedwiler, who smashes this movie. She's so so gifted and. Samuel Jackson is so good in this movie, and I think a different type of performer in this film than than you might expect. Um, which I think is really wonderful and and it's just awesome.

• 1:42:03Sean Fennessey?

  So I'm I'm curious, uh, with someone like Danielle, who has built up a reputation as like a very a commanding performer, you know, like somebody who. Kind of can take over a movie a little bit. I think that benefits this movie in some ways, but it's interesting. Your brother has a very big part, but there are a lot of big supporting parts. I have some questions about those parts, too.

• 1:42:21Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:42:21Sean Fennessey?

  How do you balance like, um, who's stealing the moment properly? Like, it's something I'm always curious about when you have a lot of very, very charismatic actors. And especially with a a story that's written so thunderously, you know?

• 1:42:34Speaker 06

  Right. That's a that's such a good way to put it and and to set it up in that way, because there's so much to chew on and. And each of these actors and characters, there's so much depth and dimension to them. And each one of them are deserving of their own version of this film. But what was amazing with working with all of them was they were so generous to each other. And it wasn't about stealing the show or stealing the moment. It was about telling the truth and just being honest. And then everything else would kind of fall where it may. And from a filmmaking standpoint, that's exciting because if you have all these elements of everybody being honest and telling the truth and delivering their best, as a filmmaker, you can make choices as to who are we empathizing with when?

• 1:43:18Speaker 06

  Whose side of this should we be in any moment? And sometimes you're completely objective, right? Sometimes you let them, you lens them equally, you give them similar size, cross cuts and things like that. And other times you take a stance, you put the camera in another position or you cut it in a different kind of way, depending on what the story's trying to give you or trying to say for itself. So it was exciting to work with such great actors where you can have the privilege to start making choices on where you want to put the camera and what you want to say ultimately.

• 1:43:53Sean Fennessey?

  Was there anything that surprised you being in command on set for the first time on a feature that you didn't expect? I mean, obviously you probably are surrounded by people who've made a lot of films. You talked about the wily vets versus the rookies, you know, balance. But I assume when you're in that situation, and this is the first time you've done this particular thing, some things happen and you're like, shit, I just did not see that coming or this was a nice surprise or whatever.

• 1:44:17Speaker 06

  Well, in performance, it was, in just making a movie, there's so many incredible surprises that you try to get all of them in the movie. Cause you plan this thing for so long, you think about it for so long. But ultimately, when you get there and you start shooting, the last thing you want is for it to be exactly what you planned. You're like, please, somebody come with something that I couldn't, that's beyond my own level of comprehension that I couldn't see in the thing itself. So you're seeking that anyway, so that was exciting. But I think overall, one thing that I was actually really surprised about, I come from short film. I made a bunch of shorts and music videos and stuff like this. In that space, I feel like we were constantly, especially in school, you're constantly trying to make your movie look like a feature. You're trying to make it like, you know, I want my movie to look like The Master.

• 1:45:02Speaker 06

  I'm trying to make Phantom Thread. And you know, that's what you want to, you get the anamorphic lenses, you like, get the Steadicam dolly out. And now I'm working with so many of my heroes, like Leslie Jones, our editors, a legend, and I loved working with her. And Mike G, our DP's made so many, shot so many incredible movies. And what I found was interesting was at that level, they're all trying to dirty it up. They're like, no, no, the characters and these other things, like, don't, it shouldn't be too glossy, like, we should, let's, let's dirty it up a little bit. And that was really exciting because it's like, yeah, like, that's, that's, now we're getting to the truth. And that's where the, the cracks and crannies in, in the story are. And that's where all the flavor is, like, that's, that's the thing.

• 1:45:46Sean Fennessey?

  It's interesting, when I saw the film, It'll Tell You Ride, and I wasn't really sure what to expect. Obviously, I hadn't directed a feature before. I was completely blown away, especially by the third act. I was like, this is such a cool choice to make this, this like Exorcist style, like electrifying. Yeah, I thought it was great. And then I saw Gia Lucas in the credits and I was like, aha, that's a really interesting choice for a movie like this. Like, so why Mike as your cinematographer?

• 1:46:10Speaker 06

  Mike, um, Mike shot It Follows, which is a movie I love. And I felt what he was doing with like the top light in that and the kind of, a kind of camera work. It was this kind of slow, uh, this, the slow and moving camera that I thought was really interesting. And then us, I saw and really loved how the, there's a, the funhouse sequence and what he's doing with light and shadows and, and what he's doing with the complexion of the skin. It's really wonderful and composition. So I was like really interested in his take on genre. But he, I hadn't seen him do a movie like this either. So it was kind of like, meet me in the middle. And then when we talked, we talked.

• 1:46:54Speaker 06

  We had so many similar influences and talked a lot about Tarkovsky. Like, we were both like interested in that kind of, um, that kind of film, visual language. And so he brought so much great genre stuff, but he was great with story, too, and telling the story with the camera. So he was somebody that, that early on, I think the studio and everybody started to understand exactly what I was after. When Mike came on and Anna Lee, our sound, uh, our designers, like she, she made such an incredible soundscape for this thing. And it's so alive, the house is breathing and the genre elements there, like all these people came together and kind of put it together.

• 1:47:34Sean Fennessey?

  I thought that all those choices are really great, like totally elevate what could be something that just feels more claustrophobic. And is claustrophobic at times in a good way, but I feel like it was really expansive and way it was surprising. The big revelation for me acting wise was Ralph Fisher.

• 1:47:49Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 1:47:50Sean Fennessey?

  Who, you know, people know from the DC movies.

• 1:47:52Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 1:47:53Sean Fennessey?

  But I didn't clock that it was him through the first 20 minutes of the movie. So different and just like remarkable. Like, I thought he was actually like, kind of held the movie together in some ways for me.

• 1:48:05Speaker 06

  Well, you know what, his, I think his character too represents the audience in so many ways. Like, he's the one that receives the piano lesson.

• 1:48:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:48:12Speaker 06

  He's like our eyes and ears into this thing. It's like so much of it is through his imagination of it all. So in a lot of ways, I've, it's good that, you know, we're supposed to position ourself with him. But the way that he played him, I thought was so beautiful because Ray is this gigantic man, you know, Ray is like tall, super strong.

• 1:48:31Sean Fennessey?

  Looks like a linebacker, yeah.

• 1:48:32Speaker 06

  Yeah, he looks like, looks like superhero.

• 1:48:34Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:34Speaker 06

  So, and, and he was playing him in this way, like we, we did this camera makeup test. And it's the first time that the actors wear the clothes of the character, we're starting to light it in a way. We're moving the camera, how we think that we'll use in lensing, how, how we think that we're gonna do it in the movie. And we're playing music too, so just kind of trying to set a vibe and let everybody settle into their stuff. And Ray started doing this thing where he would like sit in this, he'd pick the smallest chair. And then try to be tiny inside of it. And the contrast of him, the biggest man in the room, trying to be the smallest in the room, was so interesting and gave me insight to, oh, how he's thinking about this character.

• 1:49:17Speaker 06

  And he thought through the whole thing in such a wonderful way, but then threw all of it away and was so present in the day that I raise like a brother to me and I'm so proud of what he did in this film.

• 1:49:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I really was so amazed. Is there a difference when you're on set between talking to someone like Ray and someone like Sam Jackson? How do you communicate with actors? How do you modulate? What's the right thing to say to experience more experience versus less experience?

• 1:49:44Speaker 06

  This is like my favorite thing. This is my favorite thing on filmmaking is because it feels like a thing that you'll develop over the course of your whole life, you know? And it's something I like is like I love talking to people. I love talking about movies. I love trying to understand where somebody's coming from. And in an ensemble, you have so many different actors that have different experience, different process, they communicate in different ways, they listen in different ways. And I think the role of director is very much meeting the actor where they are and then help guide them to where the movie wants them to be. And that's a different journey for each of them.

• 1:50:24Speaker 06

  So with this one, yeah, Danielle and Ray and John David, Sam, Mr. Potts, Corey, Erykah Badu, all different people that I got to deal with differently. We forged a different kind of relationships. And it's funny because now we're rolling this movie out and everybody's coming back together again and we're talking about it. And everybody's like, wait, you talked about that? Like, you talked to me about this other thing. And it's like, yeah, we all have this different kind of experience of this thing, you know? And I think that that's what's so great. And we had a project that could sustain all of that because the characters are so well drawn, they're so dimensional, that there's enough to, there's a full dimension, a full life of each of these characters, even if we only see them for a little bit.

• 1:51:06Sean Fennessey?

  At any point, did you have to say to any of the actors, like, this is not for the stage? Because obviously, film acting is very, very different from stage acting. You got a couple of cast members who played the parts on stage. How do you navigate that too? Like, this is too big, or this is too small? Like, what's the language you use to communicate to people?

• 1:51:24Speaker 06

  You know what? I think from the beginning, A, we had a, everybody's very smart. Everybody knows what we're doing. Everybody knew that this is, you know, they had all worked in film before. But from the beginning, I gave everybody a bunch of material. A bunch of images. I made books all the time. I was always making books and videos. And in the script, and all of these materials are screaming to you, this is a visual, this is a movie. This is tonally different from what was done before. This is a new thing.

• 1:51:57Sean Fennessey?

  What was in those materials?

• 1:51:59Speaker 06

  I made like a hundred-page book of, of reference images of like, my musings on Afro-surrealism, my musings on spirituality and faith, of West African spiritual practice, of the Black Southern American Christian church tradition. These, these belief systems that are being wrestled with in the Black community and the Black American experience. And with the film, ultimately, the, the end is, is a wrestling of these conflicting, but ideology that, that exists in concert in, in Black Americans today, still. These are parts of our, of our histories. So, ideas about that, ideas of Black American reclamation are themes in the film. Just all the things that I was thinking about wrestling with the movie,

• 1:52:42Speaker 06

  as well as images of the time and historical context, information on, on Parchment Farm.

• 1:52:50Speaker 06

  Just all, a bunch of ideas, you know, that they could touch or not. Thoughts on, on genre and what genre can do for a film like this and what we're, what it's, how we're gonna use it exactly. So, just a bunch of different things that they can tap into or not, but you know, this is a considered work that's a film.

• 1:53:08Sean Fennessey?

  So you weren't like quizzing anybody at the end, it was like,

• 1:53:10Speaker 06

  No.

• 1:53:10Sean Fennessey?

  Do you, what are my thoughts on Afro-Surrealism?

• 1:53:14Speaker 06

  Because that's not even always for, like, this was also for the crew, too.

• 1:53:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:17Speaker 06

  This was for everybody. Yeah, everybody got it. When you walked around our production offices, the walls were adorned with like pages out of this, these books I was making. And, and it was to bring everybody together. Hey, this is the vision. This is the mission. This is what we're after, you know?

• 1:53:30Sean Fennessey?

  That's so interesting. You hear all the time that filmmakers will put together a lookbook, or they'll have references, or they'll say like, hey, look at this performance in this film. But the idea of like, writing through your thoughts on an intellectualized aspect of the story that you're telling, I don't know if I've specifically heard that. Where did that, like, what, why did that strike you as something to do and share?

• 1:53:50Speaker 06

  Well, because I was doing it for myself. Because this is something like, I think that I've thought through this story conceptually so much. And it, in making a film, you're, you're housing so many different ideas. I know some filmmakers are like, never do this, you know, never like, intellectualize the thing. But this is what, this is like a canon, like, this is an important piece of American history and literature, you know? American artistry. And so, yeah, I'm gonna think through it. I'm gonna like, intellectualize, I'm gonna connect it to these larger ideas that exist around it and inside of it and dialogue with it. Um, and I think that that helped some of our crew. It definitely, it just helped me. Helped me to write through it and, and think through it in that way.

• 1:54:34Sean Fennessey?

  I wonder if, I don't want to get too pointy headed about this, but

• 1:54:38Speaker 06

  Let's do it.

• 1:54:38Sean Fennessey?

  I wonder if like, if because you have, you're already working in adaptation.

• 1:54:43Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 1:54:43Sean Fennessey?

  So you've got this really strong thing to kind of balance all of those things against.

• 1:54:48Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 1:54:48Sean Fennessey?

  That somehow, somehow it like, kind of keeps things grounded in a way, so that you don't get too far flung. But it still like lets you do things that you wouldn't otherwise be able to do in an original or something like that.

• 1:54:57Speaker 06

  You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. It could, it was strong enough to contain it. Like, it was so, and we're work, this is a Pulitzer Prize winning. Masterwork, you know, here's why it's a Pulitzer Prize. You know, these things are in it, you know, let's, we're gonna explore these things. And, and there's stuff in here that exists in the text and stuff that, that we added to it. That they're, they're icebergs onto these much bigger cultural touchstones. You know what I mean? And, and like I said, I'm trying to make a film that is exciting and stuff. And, and it's scary and funny and all these things. But underneath that is, is mountains of, of ideas, of, of cultural touchpoints.

• 1:55:38Sean Fennessey?

  Do you have to stress test those things with the estate? Like, how does that work where you're adapting something, but you're adding to it or you're redefining it?

• 1:55:45Speaker 06

  You know what? The estate was, Miss Constanza Romero Wilson, August's widow, was so welcoming of me. And I think August himself was so concerned with the future of, of black artistry, you know? And, and was always interested in pushing things further. That's why he deals with space and time so much. He's concerned of the past and the future and the present, how these things all live together. So I had, I got a lot of support, not only from the estate, but his, his niece was like, I talked to his niece in the beginning and I was, when I was really scared and reverential and she was of just wanting to, you know, do a good job with the thing.

• 1:56:29Speaker 06

  And she was like, she was like, fuck it up. She was like, tear it up, you know, like do, do you, you know, dude, that's what he would want. It's like for you to take it on and, and then bring all that you have to it, honor what he's doing, understand the man and, and his, and his mission and what his purpose. But ultimately embody that spirit, embody that, that mission and then, and interpret it and adapt it in your way and, and bring it out and how you do it. And that's what we tried to do with, with this one.

• 1:56:55Sean Fennessey?

  It's very cool. I really liked that you did that because it, I mean, it's weirdly a challenge now to the other, is it seven or six more adaptations that need to come? Because like, in a way, like you wanna see these things. Evolve and become new because otherwise they're just a regurgitation.

• 1:57:11Speaker 06

  It's a story in the movie itself. It's like you have to build on the legacy that was left for you. You have to contribute to it and that's risky and it's dangerous and you have to have skin in the game. You know, but you ultimately you have to build on that thing and I hope that this one is like a a window cracking for the rest of them where somebody else will come and blow it out the water and do something that we never even could have imagined for the next seven or however many are left.

• 1:57:36Sean Fennessey?

  Were you nervous at Telluride?

• 1:57:38Speaker 06

  Are you kidding me? Yeah. Yeah, I was nervous at Telluride. A hundred percent because this work is so personal. I've never made a movie, I've never made a feature film before. I've never put one out. Everything I've made has been so

• 1:57:52Speaker 06

  it's lived in like small corners of the internet. Like I don't tell people about it. It's not like out publicly, you know?

• 1:57:58Sean Fennessey?

  Was that purposeful and strategic?

• 1:58:00Speaker 06

  Yeah, I just wanted to develop. I just wanted to develop. I liked making this stuff. I didn't want like I wasn't like ready for the scrutiny. I wasn't ready and I was making personal things. So I didn't want to expose myself to that kind of. I just wanted to keep developing and making things I loved and I knew at some point I would have to confront that fear in myself. Confront that insecurity in myself of hey, you know, if you want to make stuff, you're making it for people.

• 1:58:24Sean Fennessey?

  You're ready now.

• 1:58:25Speaker 06

  I had to. Yeah, I had to. It was like this project was too important and too big for everybody, for all of us. It was much bigger than me, you know? And ultimately that mission became, I was, you know, humbled in front of that mission.

• 1:58:40Sean Fennessey?

  So now that you've made this, what kind of movies do you want to make?

• 1:58:42Speaker 06

  I want to make, like moving forward?

• 1:58:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:45Speaker 06

  I want to make movies that I just grew up going to the theater and I grew up like like having exciting film experiences, you know? And I want to make movies that that reach those audiences too. I want to make movies that operate on multiple levels that that are fun and exciting and you can go with your friends on a Friday night, but ultimately when you leave, you didn't expect for it to stick with you the way that you did.

• 1:59:10Sean Fennessey?

  Do you, do you have anything that you are working on to do next?

• 1:59:14Speaker 06

  Yeah, I do.

• 1:59:15Sean Fennessey?

  And you're not going to tell me anything about it?

• 1:59:17Speaker 06

  I'm from the Spike Lee school. Like when I was working for Spike, Spike wouldn't tell you anything until it was like set in stone is happening, it's coming out. Like you wouldn't, you wouldn't even know like.

• 1:59:26Sean Fennessey?

  Can you tell me about working for Spike? You worked with him on his TV show?

• 1:59:29Speaker 06

  I worked with him on She's Got to Have It.

• 1:59:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:59:31Speaker 06

  And it was amazing, you know, Spike. Obviously, we know the films that he's made, that like his impressive body of work. But what people don't understand about Spike is that underneath Spike, he's uplifting a community, like generations of young filmmakers. There's, he's like a, he's Professor Lee for real. Like, when you walk on his sets, there's so many people that he's bringing with him and showing them the ropes. And I'm, I'm one of many, you know, that he allowed in the room, that he not only allowed in the room, but gave opportunity to later. Like, he'll produce his assistant's movies and he'll, he'll put your name in a hat and he'll, he'll uplift you.

• 2:00:13Speaker 06

  He'll fight, not only just above the line, like Spike will fight for have, to have black Teamsters in the union. He fights for black gaffers and electricians, like across sets. He, he's made so much opportunity for so many black people that couldn't get in to the unions or couldn't get onto a set. So he, he, that's the thing that I saw firsthand that I'm so impressed by. And doesn't talk about it, he just does it.

• 2:00:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:38Speaker 06

  He just does it. So there's a generation of filmmakers that have, that have come up under Spike. And I'm honored to put my name among them.

• 2:00:46Sean Fennessey?

  Malcolm, we end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they've seen?

• 2:00:51Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 2:00:51Sean Fennessey?

  You're clearly a cinephile.

• 2:00:53Speaker 06

  Yeah. The last great thing I've seen, phew, I watched, um, wait, are you gonna answer this too?

• 2:01:01Sean Fennessey?

  No, no, just, this is you, man. This is your interview.

• 2:01:03Speaker 06

  Okay, when we wrap, I wanna, I wanna ask you what the last great thing you've seen. I, recently, I watched, I watched, there's two things that are coming to mind, but I'mma, I'mma just give you one. I watched, the other day, I watched Belly. You know Belly, the High Williams?

• 2:01:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I mean, a classic for me.

• 2:01:18Speaker 06

  A classic.

• 2:01:19Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, I love that movie.

• 2:01:19Speaker 06

  Do you?

• 2:01:20Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I do.

• 2:01:20Speaker 06

  What do you love about it?

• 2:01:22Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I mean, it's like visually, one of the most breathtaking movies ever. I saw it in theaters when I was a kid and I was like, Because I was a hype music video freak, so.

• 2:01:30Speaker 06

  Yo, same.

• 2:01:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:31Speaker 06

  So I, what I, I was, I was talking to somebody, I'm sorry, not to.

• 2:01:34Sean Fennessey?

  No, go, go, go, go.

• 2:01:35Speaker 06

  I was talking to somebody recently and we were talking about like the nineties, uh, like nineties black Renaissance in art, you know? And, and I was talking about how important music videos were. Music videos are and to find, and that so many, some of them have transcended music video and are in this space of fine art.

• 2:01:56Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 2:01:56Speaker 06

  Um, that they're reaching to something bigger and, and, and working in a, in, in the medium in a new way. And Hype Williams' work is so influential and I know.

• 2:02:05Sean Fennessey?

  Busta and Missy videos and.

• 2:02:06Speaker 06

  Come on.

• 2:02:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I totally agree.

• 2:02:09Speaker 06

  Like aspect ratio and, and letterboxing and all, all that stuff. He's like hype and skin tones. You, there's a direct line from Hype Williams' belly to like Barry Jenkins' moonlight.

• 2:02:20Sean Fennessey?

  Hundred percent.

• 2:02:21Speaker 06

  Direct line.

• 2:02:21Sean Fennessey?

  The like, um, the walking into the club sequence at the beginning of Belly. And then when you get into DMX's house and Gummo is on and the house is all white.

• 2:02:30Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:02:31Sean Fennessey?

  And like those contrasting colors. Yeah, the way that they're shot, I'm, I'm total, I'm with you a hundred percent.

• 2:02:35Speaker 06

  Hundred percent.

• 2:02:36Sean Fennessey?

  It's cool to hear that, you know, for sure Barry and like for someone like you, that that influence is kind of trickling down. Cause you know, that's the only feature he ever made.

• 2:02:43Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:02:44Sean Fennessey?

  And I don't even, I guess he still makes videos.

• 2:02:46Speaker 06

  But you know what, like, I feel like that's what I'm so excited about this next generation of, of filmmakers. Because we all grew up in that, we all grew up on that stuff, you know? So you look at like Hype Williams and now you, you, you look at people like Khalil Joseph. Like Khalil is like somebody that I admire his work. So like he, he, his work was some of the first work that I saw where I'm like, actually that, that's the answer to your question. Your first question, you said, what's the movie, what's the movie that made you want to make films? It was Khalil Joseph's work, watching Until the Quiet Comes. I saw Until the Quiet Comes and I just saw myself in something. In the same way that when I first read Ta-Nehisi Coates, I saw myself in that and I felt like you're talking directly to me. I felt like that was Khalil Joseph, Until the Quiet Comes.

• 2:03:30Speaker 06

  And he did this thing called Double Consciousness at Mocha. Did you see this? Incredible, incredible work. So, sorry, I, I rambled, but those are.

• 2:03:39Sean Fennessey?

  You didn't ramble, those are great answers. Malcolm Washington, thanks so much, man.

• 2:03:42Speaker 06

  Thank you, thank you.

• 2:03:52Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you to Malcolm Washington, thanks to Juliette, thanks to Jack Sanders, thanks to Sasha Oshel for filling in on this episode, thanks to our producer Bobby Wagner. Later this week, as I said, with Yasi and Rob, we will dig into Moana 2. We'll see you then.