West Side Story (w/ Jean-Pierre Boudreaux)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
It wasn't closely What's the secret thing?
Just got to find something you love to do and then do it for
the rest of your life. I don't want to be a product of
my environment, I want my environment to be a product of

(00:29):
me. Hello and welcome to The
Establishing Shot, a podcast where we do deep dives and two
directors and their filmographies.
I am your host, Eli Price, and we are here on episode 113 of

(00:49):
the podcast. And yeah, we're in Spielberg
still, but not for long because this is the second to last as of
now, Spielberg movie, hopefully another one coming out next
year, but as of now, this is thesecond to last.
So we're talking about West SideStory today.
I'm really excited to get into this conversation to join me for

(01:11):
this conversation is a is our like honorary, I guess, Co host
in a way part JP Boudreaux. And what I wanted to say about
JP for this episode is that whenhe's a jet, he's a jet all the
way. That's great.
I don't even have to add in the snapping in posts.
No, no, no. Yeah, sounded good.

(01:33):
We're just one step away from just going full on dance fight,
you know what I mean? Yeah, if we, if we break into
song or you see us doing some like pirouettes or whatever, you
know, just roll with it. Not to not to start singing some
of the stuff like, yeah, Spielberg's second to last film,
you know, just still out there. Yeah, it's I'm excited to do

(01:54):
this before we get into West Side Story, though.
Yeah, just J PS been on plenty of times.
He's he's shared his film, how he got into film.
He shared how he got into Wes Anderson and Christopher Nolan
and Spielberg. He's been in all the series.
So I just wanted JP to kind of share maybe some projects.

(02:17):
I know he's is it did your latest project release like
between the last episode and nowor was it already out?
I don't remember because it was just a few episodes.
You were on Lincoln with us. Yeah, probably so.
I mean, most recently, you know,I got to kind of put out a
little documentary in Guatemala for kind of a family friend of

(02:39):
my girlfriend who like story of his grandpa's life, which is
really fun. Just being able to do that
together, I think came out really great.
And then I just recently put outa little video kind of like,
it's kind of like partly a doc, partly A vlog kind of style of a
local MMA fighter who just had his professional debut.

(03:01):
Yeah, it was there. It was good.
Yeah, I was there on thank you, man.
I was there on Fight Night and that guy, especially Jason, he's
just man, he's a character. Like, like I, I really do feel
like he's, he's got the personality where like the
dude's got to go far in this business if he keeps it up
because like obviously he's got like the talent when it comes to
fighting, but he's just got that, that personality where you

(03:24):
just you just know he's going tobe a big deal if he, if he's
able to make it to, you know, the UFC, which is like kind of
the biggest stage for professional fighting.
There are apparently a a couple other like bigger leagues but
obviously the UFC is like the one.
Right, right. Yeah.
So that was fun and yeah, shouldshould be able to be dropping up

(03:44):
by my documentary from from Chile pretty soon.
Just got a couple more little tweaks to make to it.
And so when that's out, I will be blasting that everywhere
because that's like a a dream come true project.
Yeah, yeah, I'll be looking forward to seeing that one for
sure. JJP has like if you if you
follow him on socials, he's likehe'll post like those projects

(04:07):
or like you you're on YouTube too.
I think is. Yeah, yeah, I, I, I post, I post
most updates like on Instagram. But as far as like, you know, I
I usually put any project I do that'll go on like my inhabit
creative code, like YouTube channel.
Yeah, Yeah. Just kind of have a placeholder.
For it, yeah, yeah. So yeah, I'll, I'll be looking

(04:29):
forward to the chill A1 for sure.
But yeah, other than that, what have you been?
Do you have any like recommendations?
What have you been watching recently?
Yeah, yeah. I think I'm not sure how like
delayed the release of this episode will be, but it'll be a
few weeks. Yeah, kind of been a bit of ATV
show kind of kind of mode recently.

(04:51):
And so by the time this episode airs, you know, the couple of
shows that I have to recommend probably be fully available to
binge. But I will say recently I
finally watched the pilot episode of The X-Files and I'm
thinking about making that my new like, I don't really have
anything else to watch. I just want to kill some time,

(05:13):
watch an episode. But two shows, more recent shows
I've been watching that I've been really enjoying that I
recommend is number one on AppleTV, Chief of War with Jason
Marmoa. So far I've really loved it.
I love like historical drama. For any of your listeners, if
you love Shogun, this is right up your alley.
Also super cool. Like most of the cast is either

(05:37):
Hawaiian or like Pacific Islander.
You see some people in there like his name escapes me, but is
it Tamar Tamarison, the guy who plays like Boba Fett?
I don't know I'm. Not, I can't forget how it
exactly counts his name, but that guy's in there.
You got Cliff Curtis, which so funny with Cliff Curtis because
he's played even though he's like literally Maori, he's

(05:57):
literally with a New Zealand accent.
He's literally played like so many different like either drug
cartel leaders or like Middle Eastern terrorists because he is
a little ethnically ambiguous, but he is actually Maori from
New Zealand. And so you do have a couple
other cultures in there. But what's really cool is that
so far the majority language spoken in the show is actually

(06:18):
native Hawaiian. So and it's and it's about the
wars of it's about the Hawaiian war unification, like kind of in
like the kind of late, late 1600s, early 1700s somewhere
around there got you. Jason Moe is in it and he's he's
great. It's not exactly the most
original character he's ever played necessarily, but so far

(06:38):
I've been really enjoying that show.
Some really brutal action, just like the kind of weapons that
they had and these these native tribes at the time, but also
Hawaii, beautiful landscape. A lot of the landscape shops are
amazing. And the cinematography is like
it's right up there with Shogun where it's just it's just
absolutely beautiful. Really loving that.
And then kind of on the completeopposite end of the spectrum, if

(07:02):
we go from historical drama to science fiction, I know from
what I could tell, it's a littlehere to miss for people.
I've been loving Alien Earth. I it's kind of weird, but like
in the best way. And so far I'm having a great
time with that show. So yeah.

(07:23):
And I'm excited to see where it goes.
I am interested as a fan of the franchise, just to see how it
ends. I'm pretty sure it's going to be
a limited series because there'sthere's a pretty it's kind of
like the Obi Wan TV show where it's like there's a pretty
narrow window where you can believably tell a story in this
particular context and not like ruin the like ruin the

(07:45):
continuity of the entire franchise, which I think I've
heard Noah Hawley, who's behind the show isn't like didn't
really care necessarily about what's Canon, what's not Canon
per SE. But still, it's like, OK, but
you know, if if the the xenomorphs take over the Earth
at the end of the show, that would cause some problems
probably. But anyway, yeah, for the most

(08:05):
part, it's been great. It's it's never been more like
there's never been more of a Blade Runner vibe in the Alien
movie. Like it's like, you know,
there's there's it's like Blade Runner, Predator and and Alien,
like there's always been like a little bit of a little bit of
secretive fan crossover with these films.
So there's there's some stuff like that.

(08:26):
It kind of feels very familiar. But dude, it's it's brutal.
It's it's kind of funny at some parts.
I don't really want to spoil anything.
I think people should go on blind.
But there's some great acting inthe show where characters are
portraying themselves as a certain thing and they're doing
a great job at it. And yeah, I highly recommend.
Who's like the main big name cast it seems.

(08:47):
Honestly, honestly, it's a lot of like not well known actors
which I kind of love. I thought I remembered seeing
like some Timothy. Olyphant is in it a kind of a
more supporting role he plays. He plays a a synthetic which is
an Android in the Union universe.
The main character, I can't the two kind of main characters

(09:07):
right now is you have the one character whose name is escaping
me in the show. What is the name of the of the
oldest sister from Peter Pan? Wendy.
So the character Wendy is paid by Sydney Chandler, I believe
her name is, who is the daughterof, Oh, gosh, The actor whose
first name is escaping me, Chandler, he's in like, King

(09:28):
Kong. He was in Godzilla, King of the
Monster. Kyle Chandler, that's his name
he's going to be in. He's going to.
Yeah. So it's to Kyle Chandler's
daughter. She's doing great.
The guy There's a guy who plays her brother in the show whose
name escapes me, but he was mostrecently in Season 1 of Andor.

(09:49):
He's the guy who writes. That.
Show that. And, yeah, you haven't watched
Andor, bro. Not yet.
OK, forget everything I just said.
Watch Andor, everybody. Masterpiece, absolute
masterpiece. But he's he was in that show and
he's like her brother. And so far, yeah, it's it's it's
violent. It's kind of crazy.
Yeah. You know, I mean, it's like

(10:10):
xenomorphism, you know about xenomorphism.
They're very vicious creatures, and they've never been more
vicious than in the show. But yeah, so far it's been
great, so I recommend that. Cool.
Yeah, I, I haven't heard a a tonabout Alien Earth, but I've seen
it popping up, you know, here and there.
And yeah, I I really love the the Alien movies, even like the

(10:33):
bad ones I still kind of enjoy like like Alien 3.
Well, here here's here's something interesting for you.
I would think that the movie. I would think that the the film
this show feels most inspired byin a way as as far as the vibe,
I would say is Alien Resurrection.

(10:54):
And I mean that as a complete compliment.
I mean that in the best way possible.
I like Alien Resurrection, OK. Dude, it's, I don't necessarily
love the whole Ripley clone thing, but the overall vibe of
that movie, I was like, dude, this is like Alien meets
Jurassic Park and I kind of loveit actually.
Like the worst part of Alien Resurrection is like whoever

(11:14):
wrote the dialogue for that movie just needs to never have
it. Yeah, just, I don't know it it's
terrible. But but yeah, I like, what I
like about Alien Resurrections is I like the ideas it's going
for, even if it doesn't hit them.
And so like sometimes with bad movies, I can see what they're

(11:36):
trying to do and I probably givetoo much grace to them because I
can see what they were going foreven though they didn't hit it.
Alien Earth is like the same kind of weird weird vibe of
Alien Resurrection but like donemuch better with much better
riding in my opinion. Gotcha.
Cool. Yeah, I I think 3 is the I like

(11:56):
resurrections a little bit more than three.
Oh yeah. So, but yeah, those are
definitely the worst too. The rest of all of the rest of
them are are good movies. Like I think I prefer alien over
aliens very slightly. It's like aliens, like 4 1/2
Aliens is A4. Alien resurrection is like 2 1/2

(12:18):
three. And then right, Alien three, I'm
sorry, is like a 2 1/2 three andan alien resurrection for me.
It's like a 3 1/2. OK, yeah.
And what about? A Prometheus.
Prometheus and Covenant. I think Prometheus is like a 3
1/2 or A4. Covenant I like.
I'm one of the few people that like Covenant a little bit more

(12:40):
than Prometheus. I think I prefer Prometheus, but
I mostly because I think Prometheus would be remembered
much more beautiful if it was just if it wasn't attached to
the Alien universe because it was originally its original
film, its own original film. And then really where Scott was
like, well, let's just make thisa backwards prequel.
It may be the most like beautiful, the most beautifully

(13:01):
shot of all of them. I.
Think with the stupidest sciencescientist characters of all
time. I just that's like the biggest.
Thing about Romulus is really good too.
Oh, Romulus is fantastic. Yeah, Romulus was great.
OK, Alien Earth, go watch it. I, I just don't watch a lot of
TV and so it just like really takes a lot of time for me to
get around to watching shows. I don't get that.

(13:25):
Even ones I'm interested in, but.
Yeah, I, I totally get that withthe family and everything.
It's just, it's convenient for me where I come home from work.
I just want to sit down and relax.
I watch like an episode and then, yeah, go about the rest of
my evening. So that's a.
Lot of times, a lot of times theshows I end up watching are when
I know it's a miniseries and notlike this is going to have like

(13:47):
several seasons. Right when I.
I can go in knowing, OK, I can start like like devs, I'll watch
that whenever that came out 'cause I knew it was a
miniseries. I'm also a big supporter of,
like, wait for the show to come out and then watch it at your
own pace. Like, I don't.
Yeah. What I really?
Love was. The show.
The show I watched, it's the guythat did like Hill House

(14:13):
Haunting at Hill House. Mike Flanagan with the priest,
Midnight Mass. Midnight Mass, that was.
That show was a masterpiece thatis I.
Knew it was a mini series so I knew like there's a start and a
finish. That is one of my favorite like
a limited series I've ever seen in my entire life.
We honestly dude, if you ever want to do like an offshoot

(14:33):
episode just talking about that literally I will be.
They might have to. Because because there is so much
to talk about with that show. Masterpiece.
I loved it. I I haven't even seen Bligh
Manor and Hill House but Midnight Mass I haven't even
much more of my vibe and that show was incredible.
He also did Fall of the House ofUsher.

(14:55):
I haven't seen that either but and he I want to say he had a
movie. Life of Chuck.
He did. It's Mike Flanagan.
He did do Life of Chuck, and I loved Life of Chuck.
Did you see it? I did not.
I did not, but I've heard I I have a friend who saw it and
loved it. Yeah, I loved it.
It was, it's just, it's very, it's like it's very unique in

(15:16):
several different ways. But yeah, yeah, we should
probably jump in to yeah, maybe we could ramble like this
forever. Right now I feel like, I feel
like, I feel like that was like our our overture.
To open up the episode, it's theoverture.
Yeah. And now, now we get to, we get
to the first. Now it's the.
Prologue. The first, The first set piece,

(15:37):
yeah. Yeah, this is this is when you
know, this is the the camera swinging through demolished set
snapping begins whistling the whole like, oh man, so good.
Oh yeah. OK, West Side Story, we are
obviously talking about the 2021film by Steven Spielberg today,

(16:00):
but West Side Story originally opened on Broadway in 1957.
Book which which I had to look this up.
I was like, there was a book, but it's actually like
apparently like musicals will have these things called
librettos and they're they're either called that or they just

(16:21):
call it the book. And it's what has like kind of
the story and dialogue. Like is it like when a a movie
gets turned into a a novelization?
It is that kind of not. Exactly because the you write,
you write this like it's kind ofthe opposite.
You write this as like, I didn'tlook into it a whole lot, but

(16:43):
the vibe I got was this is like the concept.
So like you write out the story and and the care, like the care
about the characters. Yeah, almost like dialogue.
It's not the lyrics because Stephen Sondheim wrote the
lyrics for the songs, but kind of like the the story.

(17:04):
Flavor the play The play aspectsof a musical play.
Right. And even like so sort of like
the screenplay without like the lyrics of the music.
So what it well, you see the research, but it would it be
like you're leaving those segments for the musical numbers
that are supposed to involve? I don't, I don't know.

(17:25):
This is beyond my pay grade as far as like Broadway musicals.
And come on bro, you ever you ever never written a musical
before? I was, I was focused on
researching the movie version and so my research into the
Broadway play is very minimal. But but Arthur Lawrence wrote
the book or basically like he wrote, you can think of it as he

(17:47):
wrote the story. And so, yeah, he wrote the
story. I just mentioned Stephen
Sondheim wrote the lyrics at like 252627.
That's how old he was, pretty young when Leonard Bernstein did
the music, and it was directed and choreographed by Jerome
Robbins. So those are like the four dudes
behind West Side Story and obviously, like, big hit on

(18:12):
Broadway. I don't know how I didn't look
up how many years it ran, but itwas a long time.
And then just what, four years later?
Oh, yeah, yeah. And then just four years later,
the film adaptation by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins in 1961.

(18:34):
It won 10 Oscars, which is crazy.
And best Picture being 1. Rita Marino as supporting
actress as Anita being another one related to this version
we're talking about. But yeah, big deal.
Let's just say that West Side Story before we get into the new

(18:54):
one. How?
How long has it been since you watched the original?
Because I'm assuming you've watched the original.
Oh yeah, yeah. I thought it was very
interesting. I see in your outline here the
next thing we'll we'll talk about because sounds like
Spielberg and I had some very similar experiences growing up,
but it's definitely been a while.

(19:15):
We we it was one of the DVDs that we had as a growing up and
we would definitely watch it. So I was, I'm very familiar,
like I have very fond memories of watching it.
And I love, I mean, I've always loved the song America.
Like just the vibe of it. Like, oh, yeah.
I mean, you want to you want to talk about like, it will get

(19:36):
into the lyrical content of someof these songs.
But like, just to take a moment right now and talk about like
just the music that Bernstein wrote for this musical.
I mean, it is so very, very catchy stuff.
So I have very fond memories of watching it.
It it definitely has been some time since I can't tell you the
last time I watched the 61 version.

(19:57):
I did watch the one we're talking about today, just a
couple days ago, just to kind ofrefresh my memory because I saw
it when it came out in theaters.But the 61 version I honestly
can't tell you. The last time I saw it, but I do
know that there are a lot of differences between that and
this and I would say most if notall of those differences from

(20:18):
what I can think of, I think areactually beneficial.
But yeah, yeah and yeah, I did not grow up with West Side Story
and so I think I watched it for the first and only time.
I've watched it like 5 or 6 years ago and I haven't I
haven't revisited it. And hey, I have mixed feelings
about the original obviously like the music and the songs I

(20:41):
really enjoy. I don't really.
I think it's more like the some,some of it is like the acting
and the casting. Some of it is just the kind of
story in general. It's like the, it's kind of like
the RJ problem, like you eat, you either like buy into it or
you don't sort of thing. And so, yeah, I, I'm not like a

(21:06):
huge fan of the original. And maybe, maybe like if I went
back and watched it now, I wouldprobably like appreciate it a
lot more just coming off of the high of this version.
Or maybe it would make me like it less, but I don't know.
But yeah, it's just interesting.I I just wanted to hear.

(21:29):
Yeah, I think. I hear you how you kind of came
into. Yeah, I think it's definitely
one of those movies. You watch it and you're like,
it's definitely a product of itstime.
Yeah, Not just in the terms of casting, but also just like in
staging and directing, like I don't think well made.
Yeah. But but I think, I do think that
this, this updated version for 2021, not even just getting into

(21:51):
like the cast decision, but justthe general presentation, I do
think is like a very worthy upgrade.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. So Steven Spielberg, he grew up
in a very musical home. His mom was, as we feel like
we've probably talked about at some point, was a classical
pianist before she kind of endedup at home with the kids.

(22:14):
But yes. So he grew up with his mom
playing classical piano, listening to classical music at
the home. And he said that West Side
Story, the vinyl record his parents brought home, and that
was the first popular music record in his home.
And he was 10 years old when that happened and so.

(22:34):
That was like his little Wayne mixtape or something like that.
Yeah, yeah. And so he obviously like when
you have a lot of classical music and then you have this
one, the one thing that's different, he listened to it a
lot. He even talked about when he was
10 or 11 or something, he started like singing some of the
lyrics to Officer Krups Krupke, that song.

(22:56):
And like, you know, my father's a bastard and his parents like
freaked out and like, what's going on?
Where where did you hear this? And he's like, it's that record
you brought home, you know, so, and then he even talked about
when the movie came out, he saw it in theaters like 5 times.
And so he has a very strong relationship to this movie.

(23:18):
This is like if you go like all the way back to like Temple of
Doom, like the opening singing Temple of Doom or like the the
music, the dance sequence in 1941, all of those are him.
Like he's always wanted to make a musical and he's always had

(23:39):
like, in the back of his mind, like, what if I was able to make
a new West Side Story? So it's kind of like this is
kind of like his passion projectin a lot of ways.
Like the thing he's always wanted to do but is never like,
one had like the chance to do and two, like had the guts to do
because it, it kind of does takea lot of guts to redo like a

(24:03):
classic, especially like a musical.
And so, yeah, he, he worked really hard to get the rights.
In 2014, Kevin McCollum held therights and him and 20th Century
Fox approached. He had to do a lot of like
meetings with Sondheim. And then Sondheim was at that
point was the only of the original 4 creators that were

(24:27):
still alive. So met with Sondheim and then
met with like the states of the families and really like had to
earn their trust to do it. You know, that they, he was
going to do this, right? And yeah, they, they eventually,
he eventually got the rights. They allowed for change in the
dialogue, but not for like the story or lyrics, which they did

(24:47):
change the dialogue. He I think Spielberg said they
only use like 5% of the dialoguefrom their original.
So they, they did a lot of work there.
But yeah. And then?
Which makes sense because like, a play is such a different
format than a film. Oh, yeah.
And so like, the kind of things that you would say and the way

(25:09):
you you present them in a play, it won't always translate to a
show, like, because like, you know, they say like when you're
doing a play, you're always trying to project to the
furthest back row. So you can't have like some of
these more subtle moments where someone's like, whispering
necessarily. Yeah, sure to play unless, you
know, at least traditionally when no one's using microphones
or anything like that. So it would, it wouldn't make

(25:30):
sense, the combination of that. But also just wanting to like I,
I, I do think that the movie really has a good line between
like, like it, it does kind of still feel like it's like at the
50s, but like the dialogue isn'tlike extremely antiquated.
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's like period.

(25:50):
It still feels period, but like it has a modern sensibility.
It's like retrofuturistic almostin a way I guess.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And so which a lot of that, so
Tony Kushner is who he brought on as the writer.
So he and when he first approached him, Tony Kushner was
like, I don't know about that, like redoing West Side Story,

(26:13):
but he eventually came on. What's funny is it seems like
Tony Kushner is always brought on to collab with Steven
Spielberg when they're doing movies that kind of echo the
past into the present. So you think about like Munich,
Lincoln and then this are all movies that like are set in the
past, but like kind of really echo into like present day

(26:37):
moment. The present day moment issues
that you're facing in the present, like cultural,
political times that we're in. All three of those are like very
much so that sort of thing. So he was the right choice in
that way. But also he I don't know it, it
seems like Tony Kushner really like did worked hard to to make

(27:01):
this story flow well. And so, yeah, I, I think he did
a really good job. And he talks about he didn't he
basically like they didn't want this to be like, oh, this is a
remake of the the adaptation, the film adaptation.
This is a new adaptation of the original material.
And so, and that's kind of, I mean, I think any time there's

(27:25):
like an another like little women, like, you know, there's
been so lots of little. Women, and I mean even even
with. This you want to start with the
source material you know. Yeah, I mean, even with this,
it's technically just Roman Juliet, essentially.
Yeah, in a in a lot of ways, it it's the foundation of the story
is Romeo and Juliet. Like the skeleton of the story

(27:46):
is still that. But yeah, that they they kind of
used Arthur Lawrence's like libretto or his book of the
story as the launching point andreally like melded it together
from there. And in a lot of ways too, they
kind of and we'll talk about this when we start like going
through like the songs and the structure of the movie.

(28:07):
But the original adaptation from61 did some like mixing around
of some of the structure of likewhen the songs happen.
This this did in some ways, likewent back to their way
originally was and in other ways, like like mixed it around
in in ways that the original didn't.

(28:28):
So it's, it's funny, like they both adaptations kind of chose
different ways to restructure, like the songs.
So like the examples I can thinkof are in the original stage
play tonight. I mean, Maria goes right into
tonight, just like it does in this Spielberg adaptation.

(28:51):
Well, in the original adaptation, I think they broke
it up with America in the middleof tonight with Maria and
tonight and then and then the the cool.
And their original adaptation isjust like it is in the stage
play. It's right after the rumble.
And so it's it. And it's not like Tony and Riff

(29:14):
singing it. It's it's after Riff has died
and this they move it before therumble and it becomes kind of
like this. It's like.
Singing it? Yeah, singing of.
The old and the new you gotta. Cool it.
Down right, right. So those are like some of the
it's it's just interesting to mehow like they kind of mixed the

(29:36):
song structure up in different ways.
And so yeah, yeah. So let's let's talk through the
crew and the cast. The crew of this movie is
obviously in some ways the typical wow, I totally typoed
one of the names. I just noticed in some ways is
the typical like Spielberg crew and obviously in other ways,

(29:57):
like that's not really possible because you're making a musical.
So we'll hear some familiar names and some new names, but a
Christy Mccosco Krieger and Kevin McCollum, who on the
rights at the time produced produced it along with
Spielberg. Krieger is his kind of like
Amblin producer. She's producing a lot of the

(30:20):
Amblin stuff, obviously based onthe Broadway show and Arthur
Lawrence book that we've talked about.
The screenplay is by Tony Kushner and the DP or
cinematographer Janusz Kaminski.Of course, I added an extra A in
my notes so it says Kaminski andthe editors are Michael Kahn and
Sarah Brochar. So this is Michael Kahn's last

(30:45):
movie with Spielberg. Sarah Brochar has been kind of
Co editing with him for the pastfew movies.
And I sound is the typical Spielberg guys with Andy Nelson
and Gary Rydstrom. But David Newman does some like
the new arrangements for this this adaptation.

(31:06):
And the conductor is Gustavo Dudamel.
He and he's conducting with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
John Williams, the man himself advised Spielberg to hire him.
And Dudamel talked about it was cool to hear him talk about how
at 15 years old he was in some conducting classes and they

(31:27):
actually were doing some arrangements of I feel pretty in
his conducting class. So he has like kind of a, a
close connection to, to the material.
And then I thought this was this, This is like after this
was made. But he did become the musical
director of the Paris Opera in April of 2021.
So I threw that in there just toshow this guy's a pretty big

(31:48):
deal. I personally don't know much
about the Paris Opera, but I have the feeling it's a pretty
big deal. So.
But yeah, lyrics, of course, Stephen Sondheim.
And then we have some kind of people that are helping make the
the new, the musical aspects happen.
Jeanine Tesori does the vocal production.

(32:11):
She's she's huge. I really enjoyed seeing her.
She's in a lot of the special features on the Blu-ray.
So I enjoyed hearing from her. Matthew Rush does the music
production. Matthew Rush Sullivan, I should
say. And Justin Peck does the
choreography. Now, I should say he's connected
to the New York City Ballet Company, so he's like a pretty

(32:32):
big deal too. But I should say about the
choreography, think in the credits it also has Jerome
Robbins. But I think the more accurate
thing would be to say it's basedon their original choreography
from Robbins, because Justin Peck does a lot of different
stuff with the choreography. It's not, it is not their
original choreography. It's inspired by it and based on

(32:55):
it, but it's not their original choreography.
So I say that just because I feel like he needs to get like
the credit, like more credit than he got, I guess, in the
actual credits of the movie. Yeah, so there's some phenomenal
dance choreography in this film for.
Sure. Oh, yeah, Yeah.
And we'll, we will certainly talk about it.
The production designer is Adam Stockhausen.

(33:17):
Spielberg's been stealing him from Wes Anderson for a few
movies from here and there and art direction by Reno D'Angelo.
Costumes were by Paul Tazewell, who worked on Hamilton.
He did the costumes for Hamilton.
So another guy that's a big dealin the the musical world.
And then I meant every once in awhile I'll mention like the

(33:37):
first assistant director or or assistant directors.
Adam Somner has been Spielberg'sAD for like forever, and I
always mention his name, but I don't really talk much about
what he does what what like first 80s do because it doesn't
really come up much in my research, but it did this time.

(33:58):
So here's an example because I know if you've been listening
through the series, I know that you've heard Adam Sommer's name
before. Here's an example of how big of
a like deal he is for Spielberg and the production of the movie.
So if you think about the the kind of quintet version of
tonight where you have it leading up to the rumble, you

(34:20):
have all these different aspectsof that song.
You have the Sharks getting ready, you have The Jets getting
ready. You have Tony, you know, headed
to meet Maria, you have Maria headed to meet Tony.
I think you even have like some Anita stuff thrown in here and
there. So you have like 5 different
things going on. Well, I don't what Adam, one of
the things Adam Somner did is hesaid, OK, let's map out the

(34:43):
shooting schedule for this because they're, they're doing,
they're doing all of the this. It's not split up when they're
shooting this, they're they're shooting this all, you know,
together. But they do have to figure out,
OK, when are we shooting this part of this group singing this
part? Because at one point, for
instance, Maria passes The Jets in the street.

(35:05):
So you have to have their paths crossed and you have to match
the shooting schedule up so thatyou have the right people in the
right spot. There's all it's if it sounds
confusing, it's because it is. And it takes someone like Adam
Somner, Spielberg's go to 1st ADto like put that on paper, match
out everything. It's a big deal.

(35:27):
And I'm sure, I'm sure Adam and and and Steven have a unique
relationship because we've been working together for so long.
But yeah, that, you know, havingbeen on sets, that is typically
the 1st 80s job is to make sure everything is on schedule.
And like, that's a lot of what you're doing in prep is, hey,
we're going to have Ansel Igor for these these these are the

(35:50):
shooting of all of our full shooting calendar.
These are the days that we have him.
When do we need to film what when?
And like you put together what they call the sides, which is
basically the segments of the script that you are shooting
that day. You know, everyone gets a copy
of those. Like as APA, it's one of your
main jobs. Just make sure everybody can get
a copy of the sides, which is like literally just a part of

(36:12):
the script that we're shooting for that day.
And for instance, if you've everseen in a movie or TV show where
they're showing you like behind the scenes of something and you
hear somebody go and action, that's usually the first AD.
Like, they're the ones who yell action and cut.
They're the ones who will run back and forth, the director ask
if there's any notes, you know, 'cause the director's usually

(36:33):
like living in video village, which sometimes can be very far
away from set. So yeah, you know it's not with,
right? Right, right, right.
Yeah. But yeah, the that was just like
a really good example of like the absolute chaos of a shooting
schedule just thinking about shooting that sequence.
Which one that casts this size for sure?

(36:54):
Yeah, a lot of moving parts. And that's the guy that's making
sure it happens. And so yeah, he he doesn't get
like a lot of credit, but he is a big deal for Spielberg and he
never really pops up in the special features.
So he just must not be like a infront of camera.
Kind of, yeah. He's a real.
He's like Nah behind the scenes only.
Yeah, and the only other crew I wanted to mention was Cindy

(37:17):
Tolin, who did the casting. I thought she deserved a big
shout out for putting this cast together.
But yes, Speaking of the cast, this movie took a whole year to
cast, partly because they took awhile to like find some of the
characters and partly because there's a lot of people to cast

(37:39):
in the movie. But one of the a few things
before we get into the actual cast members that I thought was
was cool to point out, the main thing is that Spielberg was
determined to have all the sharks be Latinx actors.
And he was very, very focused onthat.
And he was successful that they had all the sharks were of Latin

(38:01):
origin. And I was I always appreciate
when people are like intentionalabout that, especially like with
the first, with the casting in the first film, you know,
Natalie Wood is not by any stretch a Latino woman.
And so, you know, it's just niceto see people being very

(38:24):
intentional about that sort of thing.
And then on top of that, out of the 50 Latino actors, 20 were
new new Ricans, which are PuertoRican immigrants to New York.
That's kind of what they the term they call themselves.
That's cool. So yeah, I thought that was
really cool. Another casting fact, Spielberg

(38:46):
did not want any vocal dubbing, which you have in the the
original adaptation as well. So all the actors had to be able
to sing and on top of that. I will say a slight benefit of
that is that a lot of these songs, for most of the quote UN
quote bit parts, they're all singing together.
So it's like you just have to sing, you know, I have to sing
well, because when you have like20 people singing the same

(39:08):
lines, you know, you'll, it all blends together.
It'll sound all right. Yeah.
Well, like, yeah. So what happened with this
movie, though, is 50 of the castmembers are first time, this is
their first time in a film. And the main reason for that is
because a lot of them are comingfrom Broadway.
So they're they're sort of, you know, Broadway or stage act,

(39:30):
maybe not necessarily even Broadway, but stage actors that
are singing on a regular basis. So that helps.
Right, right, right for sure. But you'll, but you'll have a
lot of people that aren't used to being in front of a camera,
too. So there's some getting used to
there. Yeah.
Let's talk about the cast members.
Hansel Elgort, who plays Tony. Love him.

(39:55):
He so here's the thing the firsttime I saw Westside well, let's
get into what we think about himafter I after I give like the
breakdown so he. Al Gore is the son of an opera
director and a fashion photographer, so he's kind of
used to both the camera and the,the music side of things.

(40:16):
In a lot of ways. He he got his, his, I guess his
breakout would have been Fault in Our Stars would have been his
kind of like breakout role. And then I would probably say
the role that showed that he, hehad this sort of movie in him
would have been Baby Driver. He's doing a lot of like
movement in that movie, like synchronized movement that kind

(40:39):
of matches well with a musical style choreography and.
I I, I would maybe even argue that baby driver was his like
true breakout role. I mean, I think I I did because
like I for certain. Thing I had a.
Movie of the Fault in Our Stars,but I didn't even realize he was
in the movie. Yeah, well, it was a pretty big

(41:00):
deal for like a certain segment of audience.
Yeah. And so, so he, it might not have
been like his breakout for, you know, all audiences, but for
like, yeah, I, I, it's yeah. The fault.
I would still say The Fault in Our Stars was like his breakout

(41:20):
because it was a bit like it wasa pretty big movie for certain
audiences. But yeah, I did not see that.
That Baby Driver was my first. Baby driver is my.
Taxing him too. Yeah, and he's great in it.
Oh yeah. Yeah.
And so, and you definitely get when you watch that if you watch
this and you go back and watch that, you can be like, Oh yeah,

(41:42):
he's he kind of has that the vibe that shows he can be in a
musical. But the problem was less like
his movement and more his vocals.
He had he talked about he sent in tapes to a toe in the casting
director and he sent in tapes ofhim singing Maria.
He won't. He wanted to choose the song he
felt like was the hardest of Tony's songs to sing.

(42:04):
And so she the first times he was sending tapes in, she would
send back a message to him saying, I'm not showing this to
Spielberg, but keep trying. So obviously his first tapes
were not good enough, but he didlike vocal coaching for several
months, I think. And yeah, he came.
The funny thing is he came in and he had a sinus infection,

(42:28):
but he did his audition anyway and Spielberg found out he had a
sinus infection and had him comeback in once he was better to do
another audition. And that's when he finally got
the part. So it wasn't easygoing for Ansel
Elgort to get this role. Yeah.
So I should. This is an interesting

(42:49):
discussion because most people when you when you go and like
read critics or God, just hear the the general buzz around the
movie when it came out was that Ansel Elgort was like the weak
point of the movie. There is also some personal
controversy. There is that too.
Which and and we can we can mention that.

(43:12):
When I was looking at like when I was going to like kind of make
a new review on Letterbox, a couple of the people I follow
who watched it, you could see the date was right around when
the movie came out. And quite a few of them were
like saying some things that about about Ansel Igor and how
he should have been recast. You shouldn't even put them in
this movie. And, you know, yeah, we don't
necessarily have to like get into the details because it it's

(43:35):
that particular instance feels like a very, like he said, she
said. And like, I don't really know if
it's ever been said for sure, like what the actual situation
was. But I mean, obviously I I always
want the the best for for out ofa situation like that.

(43:55):
Yeah, yeah. But I mean.
He yeah, just to say he was, he was accused of sexual assault.
So in June of 20, we're kind of jumping ahead a little bit, but
he, the movie was set to releaseoriginally in December of 2020
and it got pushed back a whole year because of COVID, basically

(44:15):
the release. But in June of 2020 is when he
got accused of sexual assault. They were like, I want to say
there was some text messages that got put out like on social
media and stuff that that didn'tlook good.
And he I don't think from from what I know, he never like he

(44:36):
always denied the charges. And so I I didn't.
It wasn't like I don't, I don't believe he was brought up on
criminal charges. It was.
It was. Allegations from allegations is
a better the right word. But yeah, but basically like at
that point, June, you're talkingJune 2020, they, I mean, they
had shot the movie and edited itlike the movie was done.

(44:58):
Yeah. And this is not only is this
like a big production movie, it's a musical.
And so even if like it came out and it was like true, he had
like criminal charges. It's kind of like you can't
recast him now. Like the movie's made.
You would have to start from scratch and and redo redo all of

(45:22):
his. Scott, I guess I don't know.
Yeah. And you want to reshoot a movie
in like 16 days? Yeah, Well, I don't think
Spielberg is Ridley Scott, so I don't know.
There's there's there's certain things like that where it's kind
of like, OK, you can't, you can't really like put this on

(45:45):
the movie and read this into themovie.
They obviously like didn't know this was this stuff was going on
when they cast him when they were on set.
Like if there was stuff going onon set, you would hope that it
would be addressed. You know, it it just, yeah, it

(46:07):
just was it. You can't put that on a movie
and and and critique it based onsomething that has nothing to do
with the movie. It's a very like damned if you
do, damned if you don't kind of situation.
Yeah, right. I mean, you can say it's just
kind of one of those you in certain ways you have to
separate like the art from the artist.

(46:27):
And in this case, it's like, it's not even really like the
artist. It's just like one piece of yeah
of the of the whole so. And I think for the most part,
it's interesting that people sayhe's the weak point of this
movie outside of that whole situation.
I think for me, and maybe it's just the goodwill that he built
with me as a viewer and Baby Driver and also thinking that I

(46:52):
saw him in like Tokyo Vice, which he's been in most recently
on HBO. And he's really good in that
show. Like I think he's a, he's a
pretty solid actor. And so, yeah, it's interesting
to hear that he's a weak point in this movie for some people's
perspective, because personally,I, I think he's very charming
and likable in this film. He's got like those kind of
boyish good looks vibes. He seems like the guy that a

(47:12):
girl could fall into the instantthey meet her, essentially.
Like that's the vibe he gives off.
And I agree, I think my theory is that it's not necessarily an
Ansel Elgort problem, it's a Romeo problem.
It's the character of Romeo. Yes, yeah, I can.
I can understand that completely.

(47:33):
And I think like no matter who you put it can be Leonardo
DiCaprio, it can be Ansel Elgort, like whoever you put put
in the character of Romeo, he's just like a hard character to
really like buy into it comes. Off as too arrogant or too

(47:54):
immature like it's. Yeah.
You know, it is, I mean, he feels like a character that was
written in the 1600s because he is, you know, like, and so if
you're, if you're basing your, if the spine of your project of
your story is kind of inspired by that kind of character, then
yeah, I totally agree. I do.
I do think it is more so a a Romeo problem because the

(48:19):
character itself has a very limited.
He's just, he's got a he's in a plot point more than a
character. He's not very dynamic as a
character now, I would say like they give him, they, they do
their best to give him at least like a back story that shows
some dynamics. Even if you don't see those

(48:39):
dynamic play out on screen, there's at least like a back
story that you can kind of like fill in the blanks in your head.
And I think that is, it's just to me, it's a question of can
you do that in your head while you're watching the movie so
that you can like buy into it? Because I was talking to, I
watched it with Robin, my wife, and she was just like, I don't

(49:02):
buy him as like the tough guy. She's like, I can buy that he
like loves her, but I have a hard time buying that he's like
the tough guy. And what I told her was like
this time when I watched it, because I had the same problem
the first time, because I went back and read my review from
back then and I was like, oh, I,I had that same problem back

(49:24):
then. I think this time I was able to
like read the back story into things.
OK, he's been to prison. He's like, he like legitimately
100% wants to be a different person.
And so he's, he's kind of, he has, he's has.
This cleaned himself up. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
He's had this off moment, off off moment.

(49:47):
He's had this off camera epiphany before the movie
started that you don't get to see.
But if you can like feel that inin your mind while you watch it,
it makes sense. But to be fair, if you can't
feel that in your mind, it's notreally on the viewer to have to
do that necessarily. So I do understand the critique.

(50:09):
It's just a matter of it's kind of a subjective thing of if you
can or are willing to fill in those blanks for the character
in your mind. I was this time around and so I
didn't really have those problems, but it is it is a
understandable critique to me. I think he looks more believable
as a tough guy than Mike Face orFeist or however you say his

(50:32):
last name. Personally, but yeah, I think
they're different. They're different.
Yeah, they have like the tough thing in different ways.
But yeah, I mean, we can talk, we can jump, you know, jump into
Mike Feist as Riff. He actually auditioned for Tony
at 1st and then he got called back to audition for Riff.

(50:54):
Which I think was the right call, I think.
I think so, too. He's a great riff.
He looks like a riff. Like he looks like a guy named
Riff. Yeah.
He just does. He's he's phenomenal.
He is, to me, like 1 of the really strong points of the
movie. I think what's what feels
dangerous about Riff is he's kind of, he feels more
unpredictable. He's kind of got that like wiry,

(51:15):
scrappy, unpredictable, and thenhe's.
Like he's like a wire haired dachshund.
Yeah. Yeah, you know, just ready.
Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah.
And and the other thing that feels dangerous about him is he
feels more insecure than Tony. Like he's they don't really like
overemphasize this in the story for this movie.

(51:37):
But I think there is a bit of like, I don't know if I can lead
The Jets like you led The Jets kind of thing going on with Rif
like this insecurity. And sometimes those those sorts
of insecurities make you even more like dangerous and more
like likely to lash out. And so he has that kind of

(52:00):
energy and that he kind of carries through the booty to me,
which is not easy to do. It's it speaks a lot to like how
good Mike Feist is in the movie.Yeah, yeah.
Apparently he doesn't really do like, act like he's he was never
like I. Think the only thing he spit in

(52:22):
recently was his. Challengers.
Yeah. Oh, he was in the bike riders
too. I forget that.
There was a while where he kind of went off the grid, though.
And so he is. He's phenomenal in Challengers.
Him and Josh O'Connor. Have you seen Challengers?
But you've got to watch it, it'sso good.
But we don't have to follow thatBunny trail.

(52:43):
But just when you get the chance, watch Challengers.
It's very, very good. But yeah, I think Mike Feist is
one of the strong points of the movie for sure.
He he's he's a product of like Broadway.
He was, did he, I know he was Tony nominated for Dear Evan
Hansen, but it's I can't remember if he won the Tony for

(53:05):
it or not, but he was at least Tony nominated.
So a talented dude. Yeah, He, he's great.
And then going back to Maria, Rachel Zegler, you know, think
whatever you want about Rachel Zegler.
She's she's like. She has, interestingly enough,

(53:26):
has had her own string of controversy in recent years.
Yeah, a little less like a little more just like
personality based than than anything like bad.
But she this and this movie. So when she was cast, I think

(53:46):
she was 17. By the time they were filming,
she was 18. It's her first ever film.
Kind of a a girl that grew up like performing.
She had actually just played Maria on stage for a few
performances when she was 16 in New Jersey, where she was from.
And Spielberg said she was on the first day of casting, she

(54:11):
auditioned and blew him away. But then they they went through
like, hundreds of more girls from Maria, and they ended up
going back to her. Tesori, the the vocal producer,
said she had never been in a recording session before when
she started with her. Just very inexperienced in a lot
of ways. And she's like, she might be the

(54:32):
best performance of the movie. Oh yeah, she's incredible.
Yeah, I'll say putting the wholeSnow White thing aside, she's
very likable in this movie. I will give her that.
She's incredibly likable in thismovie.
She just really envelops that like kind of like sweet
innocence of a character like Juliet slash slash Maria young

(54:55):
love. Exactly.
Also huge props to her. And I think a lot of the the
kind of Latino side of the cast that don't naturally have a, you
know, cultural accent. Like she's not only is she
speaking with a pretty heavy Puerto Rican accent in a lot of
scenes because she's kind of a little a little kind of more
fresh off the boat, so to speak,when it comes to getting into

(55:18):
New York. But she's like singing with that
same accent, which I can't even imagine how much more difficult
that is when it's not your normal kind of diction, so to
speak. Yeah, yeah.
Incredible. She's she like, is throwing out
so much like energy that I thinkI remember who played.

(55:39):
Who's the guy that plays Chino? Joshua Rivera.
He talked about how in that finale scene, like he wasn't
even really acting anymore per SE.
He was just like feeding off of like the crazy energy she was
putting off. And so like, like the he was
saying like the look that you see, like in my face is just me

(55:59):
reacting to her. Like legitimately she's.
I'm not even like acting. The ending scene is so powerful,
she's great. Yeah, so, and I'm going to say
more about how good I think she is later when we start talking
about like the songs and the plotting and all that.
But yeah, can't can't say enoughabout how good Zeklar is.

(56:20):
I didn't see Snow White, but I did see a few scenes and from
what I can tell she's fine. And Snow White, like it seems
like she's not the problem with the movie.
It's other other casting choicesand just the general, the
general like Reap live action remake of it all.
She sounds great. Like if you listen to the

(56:42):
soundtrack or go watch, you know, some scenes of her
singing, she's still like, is anincredible vocalist.
Or even like the bow to songbirdsnakes, which I I still haven't
seen, but I've seen a couple claps of her in that movie again
singing in an accent that is nother own because I think her
character's got like a southern drawl in that movie.
So. There you go.

(57:04):
Very interesting. Yeah.
But like that, I guess like thisis just me thinking off the top
of my head, but people that can that are like great vocalists
probably have a better like a better palette for being able to
like do different things with their voices.
Yeah, probably so. I don't know if that's true, but

(57:25):
the hypothesis makes sense in myhead.
Yeah. Moving on down the cast, Ariana
Dubose plays Anita. She dad was Puerto Rican, so she
she talked about like connectingto her roots with this role.
She is also a product of stage plays and Broadway.
So that's kind of her her background coming into this
movie as well. She's great.

(57:49):
She's so good, she won an Oscar.I honestly can't think of a
single person that is not good in their role in this movie.
So I think I mean, if you said perhaps the casting director,
they really did it. For sure she is.
She was in Hamilton. Do you know what she is in
Hamilton? This is a a pop quiz.
Is she just like a part of the chorus in Hamilton?

(58:09):
Sort of, but she's something specific.
She is the bullet in Hamilton. But anytime.
Yeah, Yeah. So when you see the person, like
going across with the bullet, that's her.
Yeah. You.
Noticed that. So she was a bullet in Hamilton
and she's a bullet with her acting in this movie, I think.

(58:30):
Yeah, she's she's great in in the mood.
I mean, everyone's great. David Alvarez plays Bernardo.
He's great. He seems like he's just like a
really fun guy from watching himand like the special features.
Dude, I think my favorite part from Bernardo is in the very
beginning when the detective calls everybody Muchacho and
then he goes well it seems to beMuchacho.

(58:54):
He just like kind of mocking himback with his the guy's like
just murdering the Spanish language and he's just hitting
him back. But that's I don't know.
He's he's got a great kind of like like a like a like AI mean
he's a boxer, like he's kind of his back story.
He's got. So he's got like this kind of
like almost like Pitbull like energy in this movie.
It's like he just like ready to go at any at any moment.

(59:15):
Yeah, and he does really good too, like switching back and
forth really fast between like, playful and like intimidating.
Like he has this kind of like this boiling like anger,
intimidating anger that kind of pops out.
But when it's not like he, he plays like playful and and fun

(59:35):
really well too. Yeah.
Yeah. The other like big role I think
is Rita Moreno as Valentina. So I I already mentioned it, I
think, but Rita Moreno played Anita in the 61 adaptation and I
believe she won the Oscar for supporting actress for that

(59:57):
role. So that's 2 Anita's winning
supporting actress now. But yeah, it was.
Actually could argue Anita gets the most to do in the play in a
way. Like as far as like performance
wise, because of just the our character goes through.
Yeah. And you know, like we said, like

(01:00:17):
you have Tony and Maria are kindof like the Romeo and Juliet,
like stand insurance and so theythose characters.
They're kind of lost in. To what they're going to do,
those characters just are what they are, and kind of like in
Romeo and Juliet, the some of the side characters are a little
bit more interesting. Exactly, Yeah.
And so, yeah, and so that that holds up with with Anita too, I

(01:00:42):
think. And but yeah, Marita Val.
So Valentina, who Moreno plays was not in the original material
or the adaptation. That character was Doc, who
owned the shop, and it was actually Tony Kushner's husband,
Mark Harris. His idea to kind of take the dot

(01:01:03):
character out and put in the Puerto Rican woman in that role,
that kind of out of that idea ofhaving like Doc and Valentino
were like a mixed couple interracial couple.
And so, yeah, that was that was his idea and it works really
well, I think. And then like, on top of that,

(01:01:24):
coming up with that idea and then bringing Rita Moreno back
in, you know, theater is a very like, it's all about legacy.
And so to be able to like bring her back for something like that
is just like perfect. And then on top of that, like
she's a real New York Rican. She moved from Puerto Rico to
New York when she was 5. So she just has that, that

(01:01:45):
background, like just huge. And then she, she just brings
like incredible energy on set. Like, anytime she pops up in the
special features, I'm just like,I'll give me more of her
because, I mean, at this point, she's over 80 years old and she
just somehow like, has so much like positive energy that she

(01:02:09):
brings. Really, really incredible.
But yeah, we'll, we'll definitely dive more into her
later. I'll mention a few others.
You have Brian to RC James playing Officer Krupke, Corey
Stahl playing Lieutenant Shrank and Josh Rivera playing Chino.
Those are kind of like a few other characters that have a

(01:02:32):
little bit more to do. Should I run through all the
Sharks and Jets? There's a lot of names here.
I should definitely go ahead. I mean, it's your show, but we
we got, we got a lot to get through.
I'll mention a few people. So Iris Muniz plays Antibodies,
who was kind of had the more like tomboyish feel in their

(01:02:54):
original apparently. Apparently when he wrote the
original, his idea was to have atrans person.
But just the way you did that back then I think was just like
tomboy. And so Iris Menace is actually a
trans person that plays in this role.
So another example of like actually casting someone to play

(01:03:18):
the sort of character you're casting.
So I thought I would point that out.
There's not really any other bignames or big things to point out
with the rest of the the cast. Yeah, you can go look it up.
There's the best way to look it up is like there's the fan wiki
for this. And if you want to like see the

(01:03:40):
breakdown of like who all are the Sharks, who all are The
Jets, That's the easiest way to like see the casting breakdown.
But they're all really great. The Jets get a little bit more
to do than the Sharks do. I think they did.
They tried to do a little bit more balancing with this
adaptation from the original, but it's still like leans toward

(01:04:01):
the jet side of things. I mean, you get you get America
and then you get G Officer Krupke.
But I think just in general, youget a little bit more leaning
toward The Jets as far as like the amount of material you have
to work with, the amount of likeconnection you have with the
characters. Yeah, I don't.
Did you, did you kind of feel that as well?

(01:04:24):
I mean, maybe a little bit, and I think it's just because of the
nature of the story. Yeah, because it is.
So it is so kind of built aroundTony, right?
And like Maria's not involved with the with the sharks, but
Tony's is the former leader slash Co leader of the jet.
So it does kind of makes sense that it leans a little bit more
on his side because part of the story is him trying to prevent

(01:04:45):
the rumble from happening and things like that.
You know what I mean? Yeah, and, and like, you just
don't have like you don't have acool song for the Sharks or you
don't have like a Jet, like the opening Jets number for the
Sharks and. It's also one of those things
like you got to pick your battles like you can't do if you

(01:05:05):
do each side completely equally.I don't think it would.
It would be well. So you got to kind of write, you
got to find the story a little bit more through one side or the
other. Yeah, yeah, you do.
One of the things they did add, which I thought was really cool,
was actually the first thing that sung in the movie is La Bar
in Kenya, which is a Puerto Rican like rebel anthem.

(01:05:28):
And so that was the first thing.So I thought I do think that was
cool. And that was like a powerful
moment, you know, with them all raising their arms and, and
singing that, that anthem. And the anthem is like all about
like freedom and claiming freedom and rights.
So it, you know, it works because they've, a lot of the

(01:05:49):
Puerto Ricans came to New York because they were, their freedom
and rights were being taken awaythere.
And they come here and they're still having to fight for their
freedom and rights. So there's a lot of like,
there's a lot of like, I don't know, just powerful thematic
stuff going on with that. Hi.

(01:06:10):
Quick reminder that you yes, youcan be a huge help to the
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(01:06:31):
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(01:06:52):
Check out that link in the show notes to learn more.
Back to the show. Yeah, Let's talk about the
production. There was the same amount of
time put into rehearsal as therewas into the filming.
Spielberg talked about this is the most like rehearsed thing
he's ever done, which I guess iskind of like, yeah, of course,

(01:07:14):
but yeah, 4 to it's like 4 1/2 ish months of rehearsal and prep
that they did. So that includes like
choreography, orchestration, vocal coaching, doing the vocal
session, recording sessions, dialect coaching.
All of that stuff is like 4 to 5months worth of work.

(01:07:35):
And then they did as they got like closer to filming, they did
about 3 weeks of pre recording for vocals.
So about I think I don't know what percentage was shot and
recorded live, but they did shoot and record some of the
songs live. So some of the more like
intimate songs. So I think the ones I remember

(01:07:56):
Spielberg saying are somewhere was was filmed a lot, filmed and
recorded live. A boy like that, I think I think
it's a boy like that slash the love I have or something.
What is it called thing ever right now.
Yeah, I have a love that I thinkthat was recorded and filmed

(01:08:18):
alive. One Hand, One Heart was recorded
and filmed live and then about 75% of tonight was, he said.
Like anytime there's like wide shots in tonight, it's it's
playback, which is a term that just means it's they pre
recorded it and they're playing it back while they record the

(01:08:41):
while they film it. So yeah, so they did live.
Lip syncing essentially. Right, exactly.
And the way they do that is the actors will wear earpieces in
their ears that's playing back the song as they film.
So I thought that was cool. But yeah, so I thought it was
cool that they did like wheneverthey possibly could, they did do

(01:09:02):
some like live recording for thefor the vocals, but but they did
a bunch of prerecording beforehand.
So, yeah, I the cool thing aboutthat is by the time it when you
have a film where you have so many characters like interacting
and they have to bring this likeenergy of camaraderie on screen,

(01:09:23):
you've been working and like being around these people for
like long days and long hours for almost half a year, you
know? And so by the time you're
filming, like you don't have to act like you love these guys
anymore. You're just, you've been hanging
out with them for five months, so.
Yeah, it just comes naturally. Just for reference, you know,

(01:09:44):
most, most movie productions, like a like a film production is
usually going to be one to threemonths and you're, and so if
it's a one month, you're maybe doing like a week of prep.
And that's mostly just like scheduling stuff, you know,
maybe, maybe a little bit of stunt work.
ATV show is like 6 months. So they they're, they're prep,
just the prep work was almost aslong as a full TV shows

(01:10:06):
production. So, yeah, so by the and like,
and even in, you know, a couple of months working with people, I
mean they become, you know, I mean, I, I, I still have some
people that are really good friends of mine that I've met
through through some sets that Iworked on.
So you really especially, you know, depending on your role,
like working with second team, which is the stand insurance

(01:10:26):
anytime they're trying to set upa new camera shot, you know,
these people who they kind of match the height and build of
the actors. So the actors don't have to just
stand around waiting for the cameras to be reset because
sometimes you can literally takehours to get everything right.
And so especially those people, we spend a lot of time if we're
on stage, we're just kind of hanging out somewhere off camera
waiting for them to be called. And you know, you get to talk

(01:10:48):
and you get to get no people. You're there for 12:13, 14-15
hours a day, five days a week for a month or two straight.
I mean you get you get pretty close.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
And so I I did love that yeah. Then they they get into filming,
they do they film from July 1st to September 27th and 2019 a

(01:11:13):
long time between finishing filming and it releasing thanks
to to our good friend Mr. COVID.But yeah, they so location wise,
Stockhausen really like honed inon New York.
Like this is a very New York movie.
You want it to look like New York and but it's also period.
So you kind of have to like findstuff that looks like the period

(01:11:36):
New York. So they did do some like on
location stuff. So they filmed the first thing
they shot was the cool sequence and they shot that at Bush
Terminal, Pierce Park in Brooklyn.
And that set is incredible. I think looks really great.
A lot of like fun stuff to like move around and hang on.

(01:12:01):
I I think one thing that did stick out to me about that scene
is at the very end and I and I never noticed it when I saw in
the theater, obviously, but watching it kind of on the same
monastery I'm looking at you at now here at home.
When I rewatched it recently, something that stuck out to me
and I couldn't Unsee it is at the end of that sequence when
they've kind of wrestled over the gun and Riff has it back and

(01:12:23):
they're all going bang, bang, you know.
Yeah. Like I was looking at how they
were standing on what was supposed to be like a brick like
road. And I'm looking into something.
I don't know what it was about it that caught my eye, but I'm
looking. I'm like, I'm pretty sure that's
like a flat flooring that just has a print of like a brick
walkway on it. And it's very obvious because of

(01:12:45):
the way it looks and the way thelight is hitting it.
It's very obvious. It's like a completely flat,
smooth surface, which makes sense because they they were
just doing their dancing on it. Like you don't want to trip, but
but it was something that like, I don't know how what about it
caught my eye but stuck out to me and I couldn't Unsee it once
I saw that. So it just goes to show you that
the movie trickery is is I didn't even.

(01:13:08):
It's very interesting. Yeah.
Now you have to go back a littlebit.
I'm telling you, I know, but it's.
Crazy. And like I have, I have a
Blu-ray player, but I have the disc I bought has the 4K2, but I
don't have a 4K player. So now I'm going to have to go
buy a 4K player and rewatch thatscene.

(01:13:28):
But yeah, they do all like otherlocation shooting.
They do some in Harlem in Washington Heights, which is
also Washington Heights is Brooklyn.
They do some in Queens. There's like a church in
Brooklyn that they shot the G Officer Krupke song in.
That's crazy. The sanitation shack with like

(01:13:51):
the salt, with all the like saltand stuff for the rumble that
was at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, that building.
So that's a on location thing. The whole, so the beginning, the
whole like demolished area is like supposed to be a stand in
for this place called San Juan Hill, which was area that was

(01:14:12):
like the heavily Puerto Rican residence and got like
demolished and Lincoln Center got built there.
So when you're seeing like the plans that is showing like
that's Lincoln Center, which wasbuilt there.
And so which ironically, the movie premiered in Lincoln
Center. So there's a little bit of like,
I wonder if when the people saw that there was kind of like some

(01:14:35):
nervous chuckling going on of like, yeah, yeah.
But that whole sequence was donein Paterson, NJ, So kind of
looks like period New York therearound in that area and whatnot,
so. It reminds me of of here in New
Orleans. Supposedly at one point we had

(01:14:56):
the largest little Saigon like Vietnamese kind of community
outside of like maybe New York here in New Orleans.
And a lot of that got supposedlygot demolished and they so they
could build stuff for Tulane Gotcha Day.
So we were reading that once. Don't quote me on that, but
yeah, I have to find someone with her.
So it's just, it's one of those things that, yeah, it happens at

(01:15:20):
the time and you couldn't reallydo much to stop it.
Yeah. I mean, you still can't do much
to stop a lot of that stuff. But yeah, it's so there's that
kind of like sad thing going on with with that scene.
If you, if you kind of are familiar with with what was
going on back then. Patterson was also about half of

(01:15:41):
America was shot and Patterson and then the finale was shot in
Patterson as well. So the whole like, you know,
Tony getting shot in the procession and all that was in
Patterson. Spoilers.
Oh, God, he he dies. Yeah.
And Patterson also. Also the location for the great

(01:16:03):
Jim Jarmusch movie starring AdamDriver.
So. Oh, the same Patterson?
Yeah. Yeah, that's what Patterson is.
OK, I was going to say a little his name.
Is Patterson and he lives in Patterson.
Look at that Patterson squared. But a little side note is, you
know, you watch this with your wife.
I I rewatch with my girlfriend and she was really excited for

(01:16:24):
it. She you know, she's like
musical. She'd never seen it.
And at the end of it she tells me she's like, I'm upset with
you. I'm like why?
She's like, I thought this was going to be like a fun like cute
romantic movie. Tell me it was a tragedy.
I was like, I I told you it was based on Romeo and Juliet.
You know what happens at the endof Romeo and Juliet, right?
Yeah, yeah. Luckily we, my wife had seen it

(01:16:47):
before, so there wasn't that surprise for her.
Yeah, she was prepped. Normally when she watches
something that does not have a happy ending, she'll proceed to
go in the bedroom and get in bedand turn on the office on her
phone to lighten the Yeah, Yeah.So that's a fun fact.
I think it's, I think that's, that's healthy, I guess, you

(01:17:09):
know. You sure she hasn't watched
Chism the paper? She is not.
I don't know if I don't know if you can call that anything
related to the office, to be honest.
It's Have you watched some of it?
No, I've just seen the trailers and and the few clips and I'm
like they forgot to make it funny.

(01:17:32):
Oh man, yeah, the the only othertwo locations I have are the gym
was shot at Saint Thomas AquinasCollege, which is like kind of
just outside New York City, I think.
And then it's. Certainly the most gymnasium
looking gym. Yeah, it is perfect.
And then they did some shooting at Steiner Studios, which is a

(01:17:54):
studio in Brooklyn. The behind the bleachers part of
that scene was in the studio Maria's Alley.
So when he when Tony like gets into like the actual alley where
they're like talking and he's climbing up the that was just a
huge set they built at Steiner Studios.
And then like I know the gimbalswas a set that they built there

(01:18:17):
for I feel pretty. I'm sure there was some other
stuff that they that they built as Time Studios.
But yeah, interior shot. Yeah, like the shop the
Valentina's shop was probably. Inside the apartment?
Probably, yeah, probably built there.
So that that just didn't come upin my research, so I didn't
write it down. Yeah, obviously like we talked a

(01:18:41):
little bit about like the camaraderie.
One of the things that I came across was that and 1957 Rome,
Robbins didn't let the Sharks and The Jets like intermingle.
But when they were like off stage, it was like this kind of
like creative choice, I think toto kind of keep that antagonism.

(01:19:04):
Yeah. Between them.
Spielberg was like, I forget that they are going to have fun.
Like he was he was all about like celebrating the diversity.
And some of the actors and the special features are like, it's,
it's really crazy to like, be like playing basketball or like,
you know, having fun, like laughing about something.
And then we have to like, get onscreen and like, hate each

(01:19:25):
other. But I, I do appreciate like the
different approach. They're like, but that's kind of
that's kind of the atmosphere Spielberg always tries to set
on, on his set. So set on a set is kind of a
weird sentence structure, but Oh, well.
But yeah. And then, like, several of the
actors and crew members talked about how, like, we kind of

(01:19:48):
talked about Spielberg's, like, passion and love for the
material, kind of like sets the tone for for the set and just
the energy. And not just like the energy and
the love for it, but also like, wanting to do it right.
You know, Everyone knew Spielberg loved it and wanted
to, like, make the best version of it he could.

(01:20:08):
So it kind of like brings out the a game and everybody sort of
thing. Yeah, let's talk.
Let's talk before we we get likeinto some of the other stuff,
like I want to talk through the songs and we can just talk about
like which songs we liked, but what was our favorite stuff
there? Let's talk a little bit about

(01:20:30):
the cinematography and camera work because I think you'll have
some, some fun, like, insight here.
So I guess like, a good place tostart.
I see that you're there in the notes, Spielberg.
So Spielberg was there for like,all the rehearsals.
So him and Justin Peck for like the choreography were like
working hand in hand through therehearsals.

(01:20:51):
He was there. I saw him recording on his
iPhone. I saw him recording with like a
little handheld, like, home video camera.
Yeah, yeah. Dad, Cam.
Exactly. Just a proud dad watching his
kids performance. Oh yeah.
Which funnily enough, I think I heard Spielberg and the
Director's Cut podcast, which islike a DGA thing, talk about how

(01:21:15):
he has like home videos of his kids performing like parts of
West Side Story. Oh.
That's cool. So yeah, he was there doing like
filming at the rehearsals to. It's basically like
storyboarding with your iPhone during, during rehearsals.
So he's he's basically like figuring out how he wants to

(01:21:37):
shoot certain scenes, like basedoff of the choreography that
Justin Peck is putting. And then sometimes it would
happen in reverse. Spielberg would like go up to
him and say, hey, I think it would be really cool to get this
shot. And so Justin Peck would adjust
the choreography so that that shot could happen.
And that's all happening during rehearsals.
And then on top of that, he's also like storyboarding.

(01:22:01):
And so they're getting the orchestration done and he'll
even, he even did some stuff where he was like taking a
camera and moving it down like storyboard piece to storyboard
piece as the music is playing tokind of like plan out like the
shot sequence. When are we going to this part
in the song? When are we going to this part
this shot? Just a ton of like work on the

(01:22:24):
front end of like mapping out all of this.
And I just, I don't know, like if there's anybody better to do
that sort of thing than Steven Spielberg.
He he's like, he jokes that his like he has his like stick
figure storyboards, like qualityof drawings aside, just like the

(01:22:46):
mapping out and planning of thatsort of thing.
He's just like masterful at. Yeah.
But yeah. And then on top of that, I was
kind of thinking about it. Is there another form, like, is
there another like genre of filmthat kind of like forces you to

(01:23:07):
utilize the full extent of what a film can be more than a
musical? I mean, I think probably so, but
it's up there, you know, of like.
Yeah, I think it'd be hard to argue there's there's another
that because it because it's like it gives you such a wide
range of different things that right like like furnishes like

(01:23:28):
the choreography part, like an action movie might do it better,
but having but having to do haveall these different because it's
like a musical number. It's like a, it's like a great
action set piece where you have all these movie parts you got to
move the camera in and out of. And people are like, like, I
love seeing the behind the scenes of like a really good
fight scene, just seeing like how many people are like ducking

(01:23:48):
behind the camera man or, and stuff like that.
And there's a lot of that same kind of stuff.
And like, and again it, you know, the same thing with like
any action film, like your John Wick films and stuff like that.
That's what I was thinking. Of everything has to be taught,
it literally is like, I think actually I want to say it was
the guy who is in the most recent Karate Kid film.

(01:24:12):
His name is escaping me right now, but he was on the show from
Corridor Digital. I think it was Stuntman React.
I want to say he went on there to promote the movie because you
know, that show's gotten popularenough to where people go in
there promote their stuff now. And they were looking at like
some fight scenes for like Jackie Chan and stuff and some
stuff from the new movie. And he was talking about how his

(01:24:33):
background is actually in musical theater, like growing up
and how that actually like learning like dance routines
actually helped prepare him for learning the choreography for
Karate Kid legend. Because it's it's like the same
kind of process of like learningthe rhythm and learning the
steps and learning the timing, you know?
Yeah. But also with with most

(01:24:55):
musicals, you also have these really great kind of more
intimate character moments that allow you for a complete
different approach. You know, most musicals, you're
going to have some like comedic timing you have to learn how to
do. And so I think there is
something to it to where they they have like all these
different kind of bits and pieces coming together.

(01:25:15):
Yeah. And you know, I was thinking
about like, so I was thinking about that too.
Like, OK, a big action set pieceis maybe like the closest, the
other closest thing to like you have to really utilize every
aspect of what a film can do as far as like camera movement,
like care, like you want a good action set piece also is all

(01:25:39):
doing something. But the character, the best
ones, at least you have a lot ofmoving parts.
You have, you know, things exploding you or things like
coming in and out of camera a lot like the there's a lot of
camera movement and like that, like a musical number has all of
that stuff. But also like they're, you know,

(01:26:02):
there's people singing and like like dancing.
And I just, I don't know, I was just thinking like, man, this
is, I think musicals really do like force you to do all the
things that a film if you're doing it well, in other words.
And I think, you know, I, I think the forerunners of like

(01:26:26):
how to shoot a musical. Like you think about like like
Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers films and and then like, think
about like Stanley Donnan films,like singing in the rain.
They did a lot to like push the form forward in the sense of
like, we're not just going to like film people doing dance

(01:26:48):
numbers on screen. We're going to actually like
utilize the, the film art form and like move the camera and
make like directorial choices with how we're shooting
something and the angle and the way the cameras moving.
And so I, I think those are like, there's some great films
in there. I mean, Singing in the Rain I

(01:27:09):
think is a masterpiece. And I probably still would would
like put higher than than this movie.
But in the sense of like how to move the camera around a musical
sequence happening. I don't think anyone is has done
anything near what Spielberg does in this film.
It's incredible. At least not with like a very

(01:27:30):
like classical take on a musicalI.
Think. I mean, there's, there's,
there's a lot of like more modernized musicals, I think
have a very different approach. But but but as far as like a
very classical kind of version of musical like this.
I think that is one of the biggest reasons that this kind
of reactation, so to speak, justwork so well is that it

(01:27:53):
literally, it's taking like, youknow what, like almost like
50-60 years worth of learning how to, of, of like changes in,
in filmmaking technology and newtechniques.
And like, like they're just simply able to do things in, in
2019 when this was shot that they literally couldn't do.
And in the 1960s when the original film version was shot

(01:28:16):
because of the, the weight of the camera, the size of the
camera, the needs of the camera,you know, and like, I don't know
if this was shot on film or digital.
Either way, it looked phenomenal.
It was shot on film. But even but even with being
shot on film like the modern film, cameras are so much
smaller and lighter and easier to work with.

(01:28:37):
Probably a lot quicker to changeout the cartridges.
Too. Oh, for sure, for sure, for
sure. And so and also just all the all
the kind of additional equipmentlike you know.
Lighting. You know, it's the lights are,
are are brighter, but also lighter and smaller and you can
put in place as you couldn't before.
Yeah, I think, I think you said in your notes about the crane

(01:28:58):
work, like the big giant crane arms, which they they had that
kind of stuff back in the day, but just the stuff we have now
with the hydraulics and then thecontrols like the snooze so
much. Yeah.
It's just so many more tools available.
Add on to that having somebody who is a master of movement and
timing and is like at the heightof his powers in a lot of ways.

(01:29:21):
Yeah, I will say I think what I what I appreciated when I saw
this movie as opposed to like the last couple of Spielberg
movies that have come out in themore recent years is and, and
kind of learning about how special West Side Story is to
him. It really makes sense because,
you know, I think I remember seeing like Ready Player 1 and
maybe some of the other more recent Spielberg movies.

(01:29:44):
I I wouldn't put him up there was like someone like Ridley
Scott who I'm really like. I think he really needs to
retire because his last couple movies have felt very phoned in,
in my opinion. But that's a whole nother
conversation for another day. But like, I think Ready Player
One especially, I just, it didn't feel like, yeah,
Spielberg magic just wasn't there.
And this movie, like, on my rewatch, it's hard not to just

(01:30:07):
be smiling the whole time you'rewatching this movie.
Oh, yeah. Because it is just a spectacle
to behold. The colors, the glitz, the glam,
the way the camera moves, the performances.
It's just a great time, a great time.
Yeah, absolutely. And I think I'm scrolling down
because I wrote in my notes for like scenes that I loved.

(01:30:28):
There was like, there were a fewtimes when like I think I
audibly like reacted to like. I think one of the times was
when they when the Sharks and The Jets enter the warehouse and
it's that overhead shot of theirshadows.
Crawling literally my girlfriendBearda.
She was like, wow, that's a really good shot and she doesn't
she like she loves movies, but she's not the type of person to

(01:30:51):
be like, wow, it's such a good shot, but she she she literally
was like, wow, that's a really good shot.
Like the long shadows. I mean, I think I mean.
I think I literally went yes. Yeah, no, that that shot's
great. I really like, there's some
really good like close-ups in this movie.
I love the scene of Riff and Tony and the little like

(01:31:12):
basement, like just the intimacythere, the way especially, Oh my
gosh, dude, when when they're like on opposite sides of that
shelf and Tony's like, I went toprison, what I did to that game,
what I almost did. And there's a little like
reflection, like light bar, likebeing bounced into their eyes.
Yeah, every single character always has like the sparkling

(01:31:33):
eyes in this movie and it's great.
Yeah, I love that. I love some of the intimacy, the
close-ups of like the one hand one heart scene.
Yeah, yeah, that one's great. And you have the like the
lighting from the the stained glass, like giving the color to
make it feel like this like sacred moment, you know?
Yes, it's beautiful as well as Imean, I think the the dance

(01:31:56):
scene, everything about that is great.
I love just the shots of the twoof them from across the crowd as
they're kind of following each other.
I also really love they go behind the the the bleachers and
they're having their little moment.
And I love when they like snap back to reality and the
production design is completely changed.
And like it looked like this very like kind of clean, like

(01:32:18):
magical space. And then like, you see, there's
like a basketball on the floor and like a random mop bucket and
just. Yeah, I think even, I think even
like. The lines go away.
When they're like having their moment, there's like even this,
this like fogginess, the the kind of typical Yanush Kaminsky,
like fantastical fogginess in the air.

(01:32:40):
And I think when it cuts, I think that's that's kind of like
dissipated a little bit. Little the little colored
spotlights that come mom and Maria walks around and when it
cuts those are gone yeah you know it's it's kind of it's kind
of it's a really nice little touch but I mean the whole dance
sequence at the gym is is great and then I think one of the
other biggest upgrades of this film versus the original is the

(01:33:04):
entire sequence for the song America yes instead of just
being locked in on stage on thatrooftop the.
Whole and it's great. Don't get it.
Yeah, yeah, the original is great.
It's original. Yeah.
But this is like it's a celebration like this one is.
And that's what I and even like one of my favorite like I think

(01:33:26):
the other one of the other shotswhere I was just like.
Oh yeah. When it was happening is that he
does this like low angle shot where the they're dancing in the
middle of the street and the shot is like very like
symmetrically composed with the skyscrapers coming up on either
side of them. And you have the sky in the

(01:33:47):
background. And it's just this like
beautiful, like, I don't know, this beautifully composed low
angle shot like looking up at them.
And then of course, like they'rejust like bringing the the
joyous energy and, yeah, love that whole sequence.
That was like a standout shot tome.

(01:34:07):
For some reason that stood out. But yeah, I don't know, there's
so much to really love about theway this movie was shot.
It's it's just incredible. I don't know.
And it like some of the things you were talking about too are
just there are things that are so like purely cinematic, like
you could not have this moment on a stage.

(01:34:28):
And when you adapt a stage, stage play or a stage musical
like 2 the screen, you have to do things with it that you could
not see on the stage. So like the like, Maria and Tony
seeing each other across the gymis one of those moments because
like, not only do you have like blurring dancers passing in

(01:34:50):
front of the camera. And the, the long lens that they
have at Tony where he's like, you could tell it's, it's a long
lens just because the way it works, it looks you tell like
you're probably on like a couple100 millimeter lens.
Yeah, and they they also kind ofthey also do this effect.
I don't know if it's like something they're doing, but the
way they're filming it or if they are, if they're doing it

(01:35:11):
somehow in post where like it feels like everything else is
slowed down around them almost. It's not like a, it's not like
a, oh, I'm watching like the Flash when he's running and
everything slowed down. It's it's kind of like this more
subtle thing. It's a very surreal kind of
thing. Right, but you could you you
just you can't do that on the stage.

(01:35:31):
It's just a different medium that doesn't allow for that.
And so there's a ton of those moments that are just so like
purely cinematic that that make this obviously stand out from
what the stage play would be. But even from like the original
adaptation, which is obviously like, well, you know, a classic

(01:35:53):
and and great, but but I don't know this the way Spielberg shot
this was just so good. Like even just thinking about
like the final procession of carrying Tony off in it, the
cameras like the the whole thingis being framed through the
rungs of like a fire escape ladder as the camera moves up.

(01:36:13):
Just that it's like a very, like, it's a toy, like, it's a
very, like deliberate choice. Like he's doing something with
that framing and the way he's doing.
I don't know. It's just, it's also great.
Yeah. Janusz Kaminski also talked
about how when you have lots of people in the frame, it's a
nightmare for the cinematographer.
And he was, he was just talking about like, you have to create

(01:36:36):
this like deep focus. And so you have to like use an
incredible amount of light. You have to like get a sharpness
from the foreground all the way to the background because you,
you're wanting to have, you're wanting to capture all of the
dancers, You know, all of like the movement of everybody needs
to be sharp and in focus becauseit all, it's all working In

(01:37:01):
Sync, you know, which I would imagine is a pretty tough task
for a cinematographer. You could probably speak to
that. I don't know if you have
experience shooting a lot of people in frame, but I'm sure
you can imagine as. Someone who knows not in a way
in which you really have to pay attention.
Most of my experiences with likea lot of people in film on sets

(01:37:25):
has been a lot of extras. But nothing like a dance
sequence, you know? Right, right, right.
And most of that, even even then, it's been a lot of what
they call panel paneling with essentially it's like, you know,
example is when I worked on Happy Happy Death Day too, they
needed to have a big a big crowdfor this basketball scene.
Well, instead of paying for 5000people, you pay for 500.

(01:37:48):
You put them all in this one little area.
You film it, you film a couple different reactions and then you
move them over, you switch them all around a little bit.
You film it again, same. And like you do that.
And then in post production, they will stitch those different
components together. And then you have your crowd,
you know? And it's so it's like, you know,
it's like all real people, but just kind of layered something

(01:38:09):
differently. So yeah.
And again, it for it all to be abunch of like kind of mostly
background shots that you're notgoing to notice.
Yeah. Yes, but nothing like this.
I can't imagine when you have your your, your key players
you're trying to stay focused onand you have like at least 20
people that are going to cross and frame, it just kind of could
throw everything off, but. But I mean, if you just you

(01:38:30):
think about like the wide shots in the gym, like you want, you
want, you want it to be something where like every time
you watch it, you can notice like a new couple and what
they're doing with their dance. And so you do you want a
sharpness and a focus like from from like front to back, you
know, really just incredible work by this is some of the like

(01:38:53):
this might be some of you even Janusz Kaminsky's best work.
Just everything looks so good inthis movie.
Yeah. The the other thing I wanted to
say, the gem, that gem sequence,while we were talking about that
there were 60 like dancer actorsand 150 extras.

(01:39:15):
So that just goes to show you like how much is, how many
moving parts are are going on there.
And sometimes they have a space for that many people to be
filling up. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, let's let's talk through the songs and sequences and we
can kind of like use that to kind of make our way to the end

(01:39:37):
here. The So the first we talked about
LA Bar in Kenya. It's the first thing actually
sung in the movie. But then you go into the jet
song, which is really good. A lot of like a lot of moving
parts. Again, a lot of like moving down
the street, you're doing a lot of tracking shots, but I think

(01:39:59):
too like one of the things that.That it's born out of I think is
like this. So when the when the Sharks walk
away, you can even kind of see like this twinge of like respect
in the eyes of The Jets, Like they kind of respect the Sharks
in a in a way because they kind of have a common enemy and

(01:40:20):
Lieutenant strength. But then when he goes off.
Because they both kind of stand up for each other.
Right. Well, there's there's kind of
like a, you know, snitches get stitches kind of thing.
You know, there's like neither of us are.
No, it's. Taking you down except for me,
kind of. Thing, Yeah, yeah, exactly.
This is our thing. You you're not involved like

(01:40:42):
we're not talking to you. You know, I think that's a kind
of a typical, like a typical thing, but but like, so it's
born out of that. But also like they there's kind
of this sense with the Shark, with The Jets that they like
have nothing to lose really. Like they've already lost pretty
much everything. So they don't really have a

(01:41:02):
whole lot to lose. That's kind of juxtaposed with
this kind of like defiant hopefulness with the Sharks, I
think. And and yeah, I don't know, I
don't know. It's a it's a interesting
dynamic, I think between The Jets and the Sharks, because
they kind of probably are have more in common then they and

(01:41:24):
they think sort of thing. It's one of those sorts of
things. And I think that kind of
culminates with like that final procession at the end kind of
laying, laying that point down. But the differences are
interesting too, because it's, it is, it's the difference
between labour and Kenya, which is this very like strong willed,

(01:41:48):
hopeful, defiant song versus like the jet song where they, I
mean, they're, they're confident, but they also like,
there's this like anger and frustration that like bubbles up
the further into the song they get.
So like the first verse is like,you know, the, when you're a
jet, you're a jet all the way and we're awesome.

(01:42:10):
But by the time you get to like the end of the song, you can
tell there's, there's a more like defeated frustration too,
to how they feel. And so I I just thought that was
an interesting juxtaposition between the Sharks and The Jets.
Yeah, I definitely, I know, you know, we'll probably get in some
more of the themes here momentarily and I'd love to save
some of my commentary about kindof what you're saying with some

(01:42:32):
of the similarities and things between between these two sides.
But you know, one of the things that I'm I'm thinking about is
that, you know, there's probablya lot of people who are
listening to this who maybe they've never seen West Side
Story, maybe they've never even heard of it.
But the more I think about it, the more I think West Side Story

(01:42:53):
may be one of the most parodied like musicals ever made.
And the been the sense of like the whole idea of like the
snapping and the dance fighting like that.
There's like tons of stuff that have made fun of that.
And I can't really think of any other movie or or musical other

(01:43:14):
than West Side Story that that could have originated from
because it's such an iconic thing from this movie,
especially for that Jet song. When they all start, I mean,
even in the beginning, they all start like snapping together and
the, you know, like, you know, just, I don't know, like, like
if I think of like, you know, snapping in unison while we walk
and we're acting like a bunch oftough guys.

(01:43:35):
Or, or like, like, I literally saw this, this like random like
Instagram reel that someone madewhere it was like a skit where
like someone like bumps into himin a convenience store.
The guy's reporting. He's like, all right, now you're
really going to get it. And he starts like slowly
walking towards the guy while snapping and like you're
expecting like some other peopleto come aside him, but it's just

(01:43:55):
him by himself the whole time for like 2 minutes straight
walking toward this guy, the convenience store snapping.
And it's like, they've got to bemaking fun of this, right?
Like where else are they going to get that from?
So I do think that that's it's kind of interesting how it's
maybe had a bit of a hidden kindof influence on pop culture that

(01:44:17):
maybe people don't realize. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
I think off of that point, what's in what something that I
noticed because like thinking back to the original adaptation
like that is different here is Ithink that the jet, like The

(01:44:38):
Jets here feel more like dangerous.
There's like a actual, I don't know, there's a greediness and a
danger that you feel with them that maybe is less so felt in
the original adaptation. And I don't know exactly, I
can't pinpoint exactly why that is.

(01:45:01):
I think I think really original.They all just feel a little too
clean cut. I think that's what it and
there's like this color, there'slike this color palette that
like the Sharks wear these colors, The Jets wear these
colors and that's not really a thing in this one.
Yeah. And I think, I think here is
especially the way we're introduced to all the different

(01:45:21):
Jets in this film. Like they just, they just feel
like a bunch of like, like, likestreet kids, like, yeah,
they're, they're never at home. They're always out and about.
They're all kind of dirty, you know, super sweaty.
They got a bunch of grime all over their over their shirts.
Like they've been out all night.They were out all night the
night before. They're going to be out all

(01:45:41):
night again tonight. And so, yeah, yeah, I just, I do
agree there is there is like a presentation that and and I feel
like in this one, the Sharks kind of feel a little bit more
kind of presentable, I guess youcould say.
And I think I think that's also kind of a reflection on some of
the themes that maybe the Sharksfeel like they have to be in
order to be accepted, whereas The Jets are able to get away

(01:46:03):
with kind of just being these like, you know, these like
scrawny, scrappy juvenile delinquents that could just be
messy, you know? Yeah, yeah, it.
You know, I was just thinking like, in this version I might
have seen, I might have just seen that guy do like a ballet
twirl, but I still think he might like, knife me if he

(01:46:24):
really needed to. I love, I love the beginning,
the beginning overture where they're walking.
They just start going Yeah, and they just start to just randomly
just like trying to outdo each other.
It's great. They're.
Spinning and yeah, you know, sliding and yeah, it's great,
Yeah. And then there's like, I think
that's why like cool the cool song in this, I think is really

(01:46:48):
I like that they they restructured it and put that in
front of the rumble for this onebecause it.
Fits really well. It fits really well and I think
it does some good character development.
You get to actually see there's a little bit more that you get
of the relationship between Tonyand Riff, I think from that.

(01:47:09):
And yeah, and the dancing has a lot to do with that.
The it's what's incredible with like what Jerome Robbins did and
then what Justin Peck does with this is that you get you kind of
like get dialogue by the way people dance against each other.
And I just think that's really cool.

(01:47:31):
It's really impressive. And I don't know to have a eye
for that and to, to kind of figure out, OK, how do I, how do
I show that these guys love eachother but are like, but have
like come to different perspectives on the world and
like want to move forward in life.

(01:47:53):
They're kind of like at a crossroads between each other.
And you're kind of showing that all with like the way they're
moving around each other. And in this choreography, it's
really impressive. Yeah, I, you know, it's all part
of telling the story. I mean, it's just like, you
know, the, the best action scenes are ones that tell a
story and like are made, are motivated by the characters

(01:48:15):
think it's, I think I want to say it's like Jackie Chan who
says that like every action scene has to be like tell a
story of its own, you know, and,and even, and sometimes you can
even be introduced to a character and the way in which
they fight, you can like learn alot about who they are as a
person. Like are they very cool and calm
and calculated and they only strike when they need to?

(01:48:37):
Are they rough? Are they do they make a lot of
mistakes? They let themselves get hit a
lot and then come back in, you know, and, and, and so you do
get that. And I, I think what I really
love about cool is I love the, the gun purchasing scene and
like the intensity there and like the kind of back and forth
and like Riff's desperation. And then it immediately cuts to

(01:48:58):
them faking like they're shooting each other with a real
gun that they just bought, whichcould have accidentally gone off
and killed. They, they instantly turned into
like 5 year olds running, running through the streets.
And I'm just like, these, these,these boys have never grown up.
This is why they're still in this position, you know?
For sure, yeah, we haven't. So we haven't really mentioned.

(01:49:21):
There's there's a few songs we haven't talked a lot about.
So there's something coming. Something's coming is 1 song.
That one is, is maybe the most forgettable I think of of the
whole movie. To me.
It's kind of like, I guess it, it's like Tony's like why song
there? You know, that's kind of a thing
in musicals for the main characters.

(01:49:43):
You get the the why they have, the motivation, they have sort
of thing, but it's kind of a forgettable piece if there is
one in the whole movie. Yeah, you definitely could have
cut that scene and. Yeah.
Wouldn't have mattered. But Maria and tonight are both
really great. We haven't talked a ton about
especially we haven't really talked about Maria, but I mean,

(01:50:05):
it's a. Igor kills it as performs that
song. Yeah, and, and you really buy
that. Like, he's kind of infatuated
with this girl. You get one of the, like, the
coolest shots of the movie with.Isn't that the is?
I'm pretty sure that's the sequence where you get the shot
of him standing in the puddle with the lights reflecting.
You know what I'm talking about.Yeah, Yeah.

(01:50:27):
I think that's in that. I know, I know, something's
coming. Starts off with him looking at
himself as a reflection of the floor that he cleaned right?
So I don't know if maybe gettingconfused but it probably.
No, no, it's it's him in the street in a puddle.
And like. All the lights are like reflect
from the buildings are like reflecting in the puddle.
I love the, the random like, like floor sweep that's like

(01:50:51):
rolling into the basketball like, well, I, I, I love how
cause like he's singing the songand the lights start coming on
and at first you're like, oh, it's just one of those magical
film things. And then Spielberg and Kushner
and their genius, they include this little moment of this guy
like turning on the lights so hecan clean the basketball court
and he like runs over and he's like singing to the guy.

(01:51:11):
The guy's just like, OK bud, great.
Moving on. Can I get to work here?
You know, like, yeah, it's that's, that's a fun little bit,
I think. Oh yeah.
And then like I think it is goodlike that they switched it back
to the original of like going straight into tonight.
I think that works really well. Magically happens to end up in

(01:51:32):
the same alleyway that he needs to be, I mean.
Yeah, that's a good. It does kind of feel like
magical. He's just because he is just
kind of like guessing. She probably lives over here,
which is probably a pretty educated guess.
Yeah, it probably, I mean, you know, I would say most of the
Puerto Ricanios probably lived in the same area.
So he was probably pretty familiar of of what part of town

(01:51:56):
he. Yeah, and.
It's almost like, it's almost like an old school cartoon where
like a like a someone puts a piein a window and then the cartoon
character like smells the pie and starts like floating and
it's being carried along by the scent.
Like that's the kind of feeling you get where he's just kind of
like, yeah, yeah, just floating till he finds himself in the

(01:52:19):
exact place he needs to be. Yeah.
And then you get the it's, it's kind of like, you know, the the
Romeo and Juliet balcony scene, you know, it's kind of the, you
know, wherefore art thou Romeo kind of thing.
And he's he's down there. And tonight is tonight is like a
phenomenally written song. That is the song that I think

(01:52:43):
I've been singing in my head non-stop since I watched it the
other night. Out of all the songs, that's the
one that like my mind keeps going back to, which tells me
it's like a great song, you know?
So I don't know, that might be my favorite song of the movie.
It's very like, it's very like simple, but very like sweet.

(01:53:06):
Like, I feel like I could sing it to my wife and it would be
like a sweet song, you know? Well, it's, it's funny because
during Maria, my girlfriend, hername is Myrna.
And she's like, is this, were you singing this when you met
me? And I, I started going Myrna, I
just met a girl named it's just like, I mean, it fits, you know.

(01:53:29):
And so I, I, I think I definitely prefer Maria.
And again, I, I think that's fair performance of it is he's
just got this like very like sweetness when he sings this
song, which you just like you said, you really buy that he's
absolutely smitten. Yeah.
And I remember so when I, when Icame into watching this after,
you know, not having seen it since 2021-2022, whenever I saw

(01:53:53):
it, hey, I was thinking like, Ohno, Ansel El Gore, his singing
is going to be like kind of subpar to everyone elses.
And there is a sense in which, like, when he is singing
alongside Zeigler, like she's blowing him off the screen, but
not so much so that you think like, oh, he's not a great
singer. Like, he still sounds really

(01:54:14):
good. I was kind of like.
Yeah. I had, I had for some reason,
low expectations coming into this rewatch from whatever
memory I had of the first time, but but I was impressed.
He he holds his own fairly well,I think even he's against
Zeigler's powerhouse voice. So yeah, he's got a couple like

(01:54:35):
singles and stuff he's put out over the years.
And there's there's one called Supernova that I remember when
when I I found out about that song, I kind of was like, I
think it's it's pretty. So I think the man he he
actually does sing really well. But like you said, I mean, yeah,
there and I don't know, it's just very, very different vocal
performances in a lot of ways, yeah.

(01:54:57):
For sure. But but they go really well
together. Yeah.
Like if you talk about like 1 heart, one hand, one heart, I
think that their voices playoff each other so well in that
scene. Yeah, yeah.
And the the just kind of skipping ahead to that song.
They also like change kind of like the vibes for that too.

(01:55:19):
It's like a lot more serious andsacred in this movie and it's in
their original adaptation. It's like, and I'm not, I can't
speak for like the the stage play, the the Broadway play, but
it's it's more playful in their original adaptation and in here
it's kind of taking itself a lotmore seriously.
So it, which I appreciate. I think it's well done and and

(01:55:41):
you kind of buy it, you know, especially because they set it
up with him like baring his soulto her kind of and like being
extremely vulnerable goes back to like Tony Kushner's part.
And in his writing of like you've set up this moment where
he's just like been so extremelyvulnerable with her.

(01:56:05):
And then now you can kind of buyinto the seriousness of this,
like speaking, you know, tellingyour vows to each other like
she's she's thinking like I can I can be vulnerable and give
myself to this man because he just bore his soul to me.
And so I think that's, you know,speaks to 1 aspect that I think

(01:56:26):
Kushner, like really set up the moment well for.
But yeah, in between. But in between, we already
talked a a good bit about America.
Great, great, great, great. One of the highlights of the
movie. I think, I think I would argue
maybe the best written musicallyand lyrically, yeah, there's a
lot to love about that song. It's it's hard, it's hard to

(01:56:50):
like argue against that for mostof the songs.
If you know, if anyone told me their their favorite song was
this, I would be like, yeah, OK,makes sense to me, you know, But
yeah, that that one definitely like is one of in at least in
this adaptation, one of the morelike just fun, exciting, just

(01:57:12):
joyful moments of the movie. And they shot it during a heat
wave. So everyone was like burning up
hot throughout the throughout the shoot for that.
And then the other one we haven't talked a ton about was G
Officer Krupke, which is such a it's just a extremely fun song.

(01:57:32):
And film and like the choreography and like, just that
whole sequence is really fun. I love, I love when the woman,
the only woman that's in there, she goes and locks herself in
the cage. Yeah, where all the cops leave.
And like, I love the couple kindof similar to like the kind of
janitor that we get during Maria.
They like kind of have a couple little insert shots of her

(01:57:54):
watching that whole sequence take place.
And she's just like, what is going on?
What's happening here? Yeah, I love the, I love little
moments like that because it's like, it's almost like playing
off is like, oh, these these guys think that they're in a
musical and then this is like a real person in the world, like
what is going on? These guys are original.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

(01:58:15):
And then I mean really from there, like you've got the we
talked a little bit about the The Tonight, the quintet version
of tonight. You know, by the end of that
song, you have like, overlappingand responding vocals that kind
of are very, like, operatic and just really well done.

(01:58:37):
But yeah, that's a great sequence.
And that one I think displays like, you know, I always talk
about like Spielberg distinctives, like things that
like Spielberg does really well.And I think the kind of sense of
geography when Spielberg's like on his A game, his like sense of
geography, whether it's like a action set piece or something

(01:59:00):
like this is just top notch. And I think you never like
really lose a sense of where characters are or where they're
going through this whole sequence, even though you're
following like 5 different people or groups through the
city. So definitely Spielberg there.
And then, yeah, then there's theRumble, which is not a musical
piece, but is a very like well done sequence.

(01:59:24):
I think one of the things that Ithink I wrote down was Riff and
Bernardo. So when Riff and Bernardo get
into the knife fight, they both like just acting wise are like
really putting off the energy ofnot it's not so much even that
they are like out for blood in that moment.

(01:59:46):
What they both, the energy they both put off is that like,
they're both scared for their lives.
And I think that's like so well,well done.
Yeah, like, like, they almost don't want to be there, but
like, either them back down at that point, right.
And I also, man, you know, it's kind of one of those movies when

(02:00:07):
you watch it and you're just like, come on.
Oh, guys, just talk. Just just work it out like no
one asked to die, you know? And yeah, and I and I love, I
love when when Tony, he gets in there, he starts trying to talk.
He's trying to break it up. I will say, I think the one, the
one thing about the movie that sometimes just a little off to

(02:00:28):
me is that Tony, he doesn't really like, it's like he, he
kind of feels like he goes back and forth that if he wants to
stop the rumble or not because he he seems like he's like,
yeah, I want to stop the rumble.But there, there's so many
scenes where he like, it's just letting stuff happen.
It's like, wow, why don't you like push a little bit harder?
So I, I, I, I even in this scene, you know, he starts

(02:00:48):
trying to break it up and then not and then yeah, and then not.
And I love that. I love whenever, you know, kind
of Bernardo starts hitting him and he's just like taking it.
He's just like, no, dude, I wantto fight you.
No, I don't want to fight you. And then finally, like, dude,
something snaps. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, once.
Well, after Riff gets stabbed, you know, he just, Yeah, blacks
out and just goes for it, you know?

(02:01:10):
Yeah, the the former self comes out, I guess you can say.
Oh, no, I'm sorry. It's before Riff gets stabbed.
He starts beating Bernardo, right?
And then he realizes what he's doing, decides to walk away, and
then kind of in the aftermath ofthat.
That's when the knife falls on the floor and then they Right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And one of the other things that

(02:01:31):
I noticed like just camera wise is it almost feels like the
camera is like bobbing and weaving through the once the
fight big once all the fighting breaks out, the cameras doing
like some bobbing and weaving through the fight too, which is
which is cool works. Makes you feel very visceral,
that whole scene. Oh, yeah, for sure.

(02:01:51):
Yeah. And then they talked to about
like people were actually like tearing up and crying on set
after because, I mean, they're watching Riff and Bernardo die
several times for different, youknow, different takes or
whatever. And very like, it wasn't just
let's get the shot done. It was, there was a there's a
real like visceral feeling in the in the atmosphere or what

(02:02:13):
they were shooting it too that Ithink comes across, you know,
But yeah. And then one of the things that
is like off putting is how you go from the rumble to I feel
pretty, Yeah. And I'm.

(02:02:36):
Going to be honest, not a song Ilove.
Yeah, that's. I mean, I guess it makes sense,
but it does kind of feel out of place.
I will say I think what's interesting about this song
though, is if all the songs fromthis musical I think I like.
There's two things from West Side Story that I think are very
out in the the cultural scientist.

(02:02:57):
The thing you already? Talked about the the snapping
and dancing and then this song, because while we're watching it,
miRNA was like, is this from this movie?
I was like, yeah, as far as I know, it's original to West Side
Story. And I because I think this, I
feel pretty, oh so pretty. I think that that's just like a
yeah, a thing that's just out there in the culture.
Like people are familiar with that line.

(02:03:18):
I probably first heard that fromAdam Sandler in Something.
What does he? He sings that in something, I
think. I think it's like, it's like a
sound trend maybe or yeah, I think it's a sound trend that's
gone trendy on like TikTok at one point or something like
that. And it's just one of those like,
like people don't know it's fromthis.
Yeah, like from West Side Story.You know, what's funny about I

(02:03:41):
Feel Pretty is that Sondheim hated that song he talked about.
Yeah. Well, he talked about like he
was young when he wrote these songs.
And a lot of the music lyricallyis like very simple, like very
simple rhyme schemes. And so he was like, it was one
of those things where he felt like, I'm young.
Like in hindsight, I guess looking back, he's like, I just

(02:04:04):
was kind of trying to show I cando other stuff too in my lyrics.
And so he's doing more complicated rhyme schemes a
little bit more like, you know, you have some of that in this
song. And so yeah.
And so but then like even beforethey they put it out, he had
already kind of like thought like, I actually don't feel like

(02:04:25):
these characters would speak this way.
It doesn't really fit like the character, the characterization.
And so he actually, I think I can't remember if he actually
rewrote the song to be differentor if he like wanted to do that.
But the the other three guys already liked it and they didn't
want to get rid of it by that point.

(02:04:47):
So it ended up in the in the final product.
But he even before the the musical came out, he like had
decided he didn't like the song and wanted to get rid of it so.
Have you ever seen Jesus Christ Superstar I?
Haven't it's been on the list but I haven't seen it.
Yeah, well, again, great. Another great.
Like, like musical, like a rock opera, like a true rock opera.

(02:05:10):
I was like almost no verbal dialogue.
Almost everything is sung. I feel pretty to me, kind of
feels like there's a song in that movie.
I think it's called I don't knowhow to love him, but I don't
know. But it's sung by Mary Magdalene.
At one point in in the musical. It's kind of the same thing
where it just, it kind of just grinds everything to a halt.

(02:05:30):
Yeah. And if you're like, if this was
cut out of the movie, everythingelse could still happen and be
fine. Yeah.
You know, it, it is fun to kind of see Rachel Ziegler having
some fun. And I guess it kind of it it's a
good way of showing like her innocence that she's just in
such a complete headspace and her brother just died, you know,
and and it it's a good it's kindof an interesting juxtaposition
to what happens right after withChino tells her what happens.

(02:05:53):
But. But it is one of those things
where it's like, I feel like it's the very it's very obvious
that if this was cut, nobody would know.
And everything. Yeah, everything could still
move the way that it does. I think at one point they had
considered cutting it, but Tony Kushner like really wanted to
keep it in and wanted it to likebe thrown in like right after

(02:06:18):
the rumble. I think he felt like the the
like whiplash of it was like profound in some way of like all
of this is happening. And then you cut to this and it
there's like this, it's kind of off putting.
So like even as you're watching the song and watching the, the

(02:06:39):
joy on screen and the the happiness, you know in the back
of your mind that it's not goingto last.
And so I think he wanted you to have that feeling for that song.
And so I kind of get it. It is a fun song.
It's it's fun to watch and it like and I think moving it from

(02:07:00):
like the I think in their the original adaptation, it's like
in the what the Taylor kind of shop with Anita and stuff.
And and I do like that they moved it to the gimbals which
which was a fun to play around in the set and everything.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's just kind of goofing off
at work a little bit, yeah. Yeah, but I do, I agree with

(02:07:22):
you. But I do also like appreciate
like what Kushner was going for with like having that like kind
of like knowing in the back of your mind what's really coming
down the line while you're watching this, having that in
the back of your head the whole time.
And that the uneasiness I guess that that brings.

(02:07:43):
And it kind of even makes the when it when she finally gets
the news, it makes it a little bit even more bitter because you
just saw how happy she was. I think all of that does give it
some credence to like be like there is a good reason for it to
be there. But in general, I think I do

(02:08:05):
agree with you. Like it wouldn't change a ton to
to take it out either. Hello.
Again, do you know how you can really support the show for free
in just a few minutes or less? That's right, just leave a
rating and review on Spotify andApple or wherever you listen.

(02:08:25):
That might allow for ratings andreviews.
These really help the visibilityof the podcast.
In fact, just hit that pause button right now and drop the
review right now and then you can get back to the show.
I'd greatly appreciate it. OK, I trust that you when left

(02:08:46):
that rating and review. Now back to the show.
Another song we haven't really talked about is Somewhere I
Loved Somewhere in This and The in the stage play, it's not sung
by anything in particular and it's actually like a ballet
sequence. And then and the original
adaptation, Tony sings somewhere.

(02:09:07):
So I don't remember whose choiceit was to give this song to Rita
Moreno, but it was a great choice.
She talked about how it's kind of like this religious song of
belief and hope, which I definitely feel.
And this is this is one of the moments that like, I, I didn't
like cry, but I was definitely like misty eyed during this

(02:09:30):
sequence. And then I even maybe it got
even more like misty eyed watching the special features of
them talking about it, seeing her talk about it, and then
hearing kind of the perspective of like Spielberg and Tony
Kushner of like why they made the choice.
And it's just like, you know, wetalked about Rita Moreno moved

(02:09:52):
here when she was five years oldfrom Puerto Rico.
She's lived through. So she's over 80 years old and
she's lived through so much. And to have this song that's
like this longing for somewhere where the cruelness of the world
is is gone and finally ended some somewhere, someplace where

(02:10:13):
we can just like be together andlive like in harmony with each
other. It's just like it's it's
touching and heartbreaking and all of the things all at the
same time. And so you have that.
It's not just like Valentina feeling that as a character, but
it even like watching the special features and just like

(02:10:36):
seeing the context also of Rita Moreno as an actress and the
relation. They're the same feeling, the
same experience made it even more powerful, kind of like in
reverse, you know, thinking backon it, I love that sequence it.
I didn't do it this time, but when I was telling my wife about
that, I choked up a little bit just thinking about the how

(02:10:58):
powerful and, and moving that that sequence was.
I don't know. Did you have any?
Did you feel that when you were watching that at all?
No, to be honest. Yeah.
For whatever reason completely forgot this song is even in
there. Like I don't know why, but just.
I can see that. I think I think because it's

(02:11:20):
it's it's I think it's because it's, it's a pretty short one.
It is. It's and so and and.
There's not, there's not a wholelot going on in it.
It's. Right, right.
There's just so much that happens like right before and
then right after that it just and my my brain completely
glazed over the fact that this yeah, song occurs.
So I I really don't have any necessarily strong feelings.

(02:11:43):
I'm worried the other about it. But I mean, I do love Rita in
the in the film. I think she's a great addition.
Yeah, yeah, it, yeah, I just found it very like touching.
But the next song also, it's kind of like a combo of two
songs with a boy like that. And I have a love.
It's it's kind of the thrashing out of Anita against Maria when

(02:12:05):
she catches, you know, her, which that's the choice is still
kind of hard to like wrap your mind around of like she's
sleeping with this guy right Right after he murdered her
brother. That was just funny.
It's just still hard for me to buy.
My mirrorness said the same thing.
That was like her biggest, her biggest gripes with the movie

(02:12:28):
was #1. It's the Romeo.
Juliet problem, right? Right.
Her Her biggest issues with the movie were, number one, it was a
tragedy and not the sweet romantic movie she was
expecting. And #2 that she's like, I feel
like Maria just forgave him. Like what?
And again, I'm, I'm like, yeah, I mean, I don't know.
It's young. She's only 18.

(02:12:48):
Her first real love. You know, I was like, it's just
like the notebook, you know, like a very similar to that
where where both those characters kind of never really
get over that, that that young first love Ryan Gosling much
more so to where he can't even really live a functional life
after after that whole situation.

(02:13:09):
So, but I agree. I agree.
It it is one of those things that it's just one of those
movie things or like you said, the RJ problem where they they
have to have a resolution. You know, I, I think it also
maybe helps, I'm going to be honest, it's going to sound

(02:13:32):
really dumb, but it's been a while since I've seen a version
of Romeo and Juliet. And I think, am I wrong that
it's like her cousin that, that it's killed, not her brother.
So yeah, think, I think it's a little bit more maybe acceptable
in a way in Romeo and Juliet, but because it's her brother in

(02:13:55):
this scenario. Yeah, it.
Feels so much heavier. Yeah.
And there is like there's some pretty strong antagonism between
the two that is that is set up throughout the movie between
Maria and Bernardo. And so like you have you have
that in the in favor of Maria's.There's also the vibe of like,

(02:14:20):
Maria's very disapproving of hisgangster activities.
It's very obvious that both her and Anita are of the opinion
that if you keep playing gangster you're going to end up
in jail. Or worse, or get killed, yeah.
Exactly so so not to say that that it still doesn't make sense
necessarily. It's still a very magical movie

(02:14:42):
moment. But I do think, like you said,
there is that antagonism there. There is this understanding that
like, it's not like her brother is like her favorite person in
the world necessarily. It's, it's my only real quibble
with the movie. And it's not even the, the
reason why, like I don't really give much weight to it as a, as
a quibble is because it's not even really the movie's fault.

(02:15:05):
It's just like this, the Romeo and Juliet story structure.
It's like, it's the, it's the fault of that.
It's the fault of like the, the source of the source material.
And so it's just like, I can't even like fault Spielberg and
Kushner and the acting or I can't really fault any of that.

(02:15:25):
It's, it's Shakespeare's fault at the end of the end of the
day. So thanks a lot, Shakespeare.
Yeah, it's all Shakespeare's. Fault that guy's.
He was terrible. Right.
I mean, you know. But yeah, so he might have been,
who knows? I will say this about this
quibble they do. Spielberg in this movie does a

(02:15:47):
ton to help me forgive that quibble.
One of the one of the ways he does it is he doesn't cast
Richard Beamer and Natalie Wood.He actually cast an 18 year old
girl in the role. And so that helps you buy it a
little bit more. She actually is young and so,
you know, you kind of can buy the kind of young glove things a

(02:16:09):
little bit better. I think Enzo Elgort sells his
like infatuation with her reallywell.
You have the like some of the lines he gives like I stopped
falling the second I saw you. He delivers well the whole like
see and pray thing and like getting Valentina to help him
with the translation is like really cute and like endearing.

(02:16:31):
So like they do a lot of like work on both sides to kind of
like help you by the love. We were chuckling quite a bit at
that scene and you're nervous like, Oh my gosh, it's you.
Because I've I've, I've, you know, her being, you know, for
your listeners, she's from Guatemala.
So we've had those same conversations where I'm like,

(02:16:52):
how would I say something like this?
I'm like trying to figure out like something sweet to say.
Yeah. In Spanish, you know?
Yeah. And so it was really, I think
that was all honestly one of thebiggest things for me rewatching
this movie is like kind of like experiencing this now with like
dating a Latin woman and like kind of experiencing this
different culture and like trying to like trying to take on

(02:17:14):
some of it of for myself to like, you know, be able to like
grow closer to her and her. Family and meet her where she
is. Exactly, exactly.
And so it is kind of interestingthat, you know, I've I've had a
little bit of that same experience.
Yeah. You know, which which is funny
because like the another movie that recently that kind of kind

(02:17:35):
of gave me the same kind of vibewas we watched Nope to get not
Nope. I'm sorry.
Get out together. Yeah.
And specifically the scene whereeveryone's over for the party
and he's having to like go meet these people and go meet these
people, go meet these people. And he's just like feeling very
awkward. I'm like, dude, that literally
was like the first time I was able to go visit her and like
meet all of her family and friends.

(02:17:56):
Exactly. Like, I know a little bit of
what it feels like to kind of beeveryone's there to see like,
who is this, you know? And so it's it's definitely
interesting in this movie specifically to kind of see him
sitting down with with Valentinaand being like, how would I say
this? Yeah, OK, OK.
And then he starts trying to practice it.
And I'm just like. It's funny because like, I was
listening, I don't remember which, I was listening to some

(02:18:19):
podcasts that came out at the time of its release of people,
like reviewing it. And one of them was talking
about how, like, there's times where you go back to like,
something Ansel Elgort's doing. And it really like, brings down
the energy of the movie. And he gave that scene as an
example. And I was like, I just totally
disagree. I feel like it does.

(02:18:40):
A lot to help you a Latina, obviously.
Yeah. I I just feel like.
So the first thing you want to do is learn how to say some some
nice things in Spanish to make them make them smile, you know?
I thought it was a very like funand cute scene and you get this
like fun dynamic between him andValentina.
Yes. Also she's a very, she's a very
motherly figure. Like she she wants to see Tony

(02:19:03):
doing well. So I don't know, I just I was
like, I don't, I just disagree with that take.
I really enjoyed. I thought that was a good like
little character building moment.
And and then like, I think the thing that helps helped the most
maybe of all was you have the boy like that, which has, you
know, Anita just like really lashing out and she's like,

(02:19:27):
it's, it's so good. She has the I think Ariana
Dubose talked about, she was talking with Tesori, the the
vocal producer and about like having these like imperfections
and Anita's voice that kind of come out where she's not like
singing so clean and perfect, but there's these, I don't know
exactly like how she brings those imperfections out, but you

(02:19:48):
can feel it in like a song, likea boy like.
She's about to lose her composure right the whole time.
And so that's good. And then you get, I have a love
and my, my goodness. Like Zeigler tells me that she's
like in total infatuated love with this guy and that she would

(02:20:11):
sleep with him no matter what hehad done.
And that to me was like. That to me, like in the moment
when she's doing it, I'm like, this makes no sense.
Like, who would do this? Like I, I can't believe this.
But then she sings that song andI'm like, OK, I, I guess.
So. It just goes back to another
moment where Ziegler is just like, so incredible in this

(02:20:32):
movie. Yeah, I I love, I love when
she's like, can you forgive me? And and he's just like, you
can't ask me that. Yeah.
Well, you, yeah, no, she said that about can you forgive him?
And then for herself, she said can you forgive me?
And it's kind of like she doesn't exactly answer, but kind

(02:20:54):
of does. And a yes, it's kind of like
you're going to have to leave here, which is like maybe like a
roundabout way of saying like, Ican forgive you, but you can't
stay sort of thing. Because I I had written down in
my notes when I was watching that scene that I was just like
blown away with the capacity of Anita for her to forgive Maria

(02:21:19):
in that situation. And like, yeah, she's like, I
can't forgive Tony, but why? Why?
Why would she? Or should she?
You know, she doesn't know the guy.
But her capacity to like still love and care for Maria in that
moment. I don't know.
It just was, it hit me as very like it was a very powerful

(02:21:41):
thing for a person to do that. I think it's, it's like really
sold well in the moment too. Yeah, I think also I, I do want
to say one thing for me that I remember when I watched this
movie, I guess it'd been such a long time that seen the original
play or the original film version.
There's a couple things that I, I picked up on in the movie that

(02:22:02):
kind of annoyed me at the time. And then on the rewatch didn't
annoy me. I, I didn't remember it being as
like annoying as it was. And then also there's there's
one particular moment that like I thought they had added that I
didn't realize was, has been in it the whole time.
So one thing is I've, I, I remember, I mean, granted,

(02:22:23):
remember this movie came out 2021.
We just gone through all like the George Floyd stuff and you
know, like there was so much talk online about, you know,
racism, anti racism, all these things, which of course, like,
you know, I just want to say, I guess racism, obviously, but but

(02:22:45):
I think it was at a point where like the discourse had just
become so toxic from both sides.And like, and I remember
watching this movie and like, I felt like they were kind of
playing into that somewhat. And I remember getting annoyed
by it with like the the protective character.
But then I'll rewatch. I'm like, oh, wait, I don't know
why I thought that because it's really not it.
It's like it feels very normal, the way that the detectives are

(02:23:09):
talking and everything. Like, yeah, the one scene,
though, that I was like, why didthey add this?
And then I come to find out it was even in the original
musical. It was in the original film
adaptation. And apparently when I was a kid,
I watched the film adaptation. I just did not even realize this
is what was happening. Is the scene when Anita goes to

(02:23:31):
docs to give a message to Tony and all The Jets are there and
they attempt to rape her. Yeah.
And I remember watching this in the theater and I was like,
that's that's so out of like nowhere.
Like, why would they do it? Like, why would they put this in
the movie? That doesn't make any sense.
And then I did a little bit of research and I realized like,
like I literally on my rewatch the other day, I, I realized

(02:23:53):
like that that's been in there since the very beginning, which
very, very like progressive for 1957 to have a scene where they
almost rape a woman in the in your musical, like, well, like
it's kind. Of insane the big difference
from the originals to this is they actually like call it what
it is in this one because you know there's a little that's

(02:24:16):
what it. Was.
There's a little bit of in thoseold days, it's like there's
still kind of that boys will be boys.
Yeah, that icky kind of boys will be boys kind of attitude
kind of that was still there. They were definitely like they
were definitely doing it and they I think they wrote it for
it to be that. But there.

(02:24:38):
But it still was this time wherelike you didn't call it what it
was necessarily. And in this one, she, like, I
can't remember if it's Anita herself or if it's Valentino.
No, it's Valentina says. She says.
Like, I don't know all of you since you were young and you've
grown up to be rapist which. Rapist.
Yeah, I don't mean. I don't know.
I don't know what it is about that particular line, but I
remember what I watched in theaters and I heard her say

(02:25:00):
that. And again, on the rewatch, I'm
like, something about that line just sounds.
I don't know, I just don't like the delivery on that line or
something. It's just weird to me.
I don't know something about it.But yeah, I mean, maybe that's
why I didn't remember it from the original film version,
because they don't really play into it and make it as obvious

(02:25:21):
as what's here and what's what'sreally interesting.
I I, I don't know how much else you wanted to touch on before we
get into some of the themes, because there's lots to talk
about with themes. But I love.
And by love, I mean, it's very sad, but it's I love how it's
like the other women and the parlor, when they when she gets

(02:25:41):
there, they're just as willing to play into the racism and the
making fun of her and and all this stuff.
But when they start seeing that the The Jets are feeling a
little bit of blood in the water, they start trying to cool
the situation down. Yeah.
And then when they throw them out and they start descending

(02:26:01):
upon her and Grazi's like banging on the window, like, Oh
my God, please don't hurt her. Don't hurt because in that woman
at that moment. Yeah.
She finally, like, becomes an actual.
Well, yeah, exactly. She becomes a person to her.
Yeah, Before that she's just whatever.
But in that moment, she's like woman to woman, like, please
don't do this, You know, Which II think is really plays into the

(02:26:24):
fact that like you kind of said earlier, like there is so much
these two groups have in common.Yeah.
And they and they, but they just, they just refuse to see
eye to eye. In a way, I think you could
argue that the Sharks are probably a little bit more
willing to find common ground and The Jets are kind of more of

(02:26:45):
the the antagonistic ones. Yeah, but but I do.
But at least overall, I think there are like certain people,
like Bernardo obviously is very he's got a very like anti white
bias. But but obviously so because I
mean, like, yeah, I don't want, you know, Maria, you're not
allowed to date an Americano andall this kind of stuff.
He's mad at Tony for even looking at her, you know, and

(02:27:07):
and all this kind of stuff. And, and I'm sure, I mean,
obviously he has his reasons fornot trusting people in that
situation, but right. But it is kind of a just, it's
just classic story of like, man,you all are both like both of
y'all's groups are being played by the same people, which are
the people, yeah, who are tryingto demolish this neighborhood to

(02:27:28):
build these luxury apartments, right.
You know. Lincoln Center.
Exactly. And, and as well as like a lot
of the themes in this movie, in this musical, like in the
lyrics, you look at the lyrics for the song America.
And the whole time that song's happening, Mirren is laughing.
And we were talking. It's like a lot of the stuff

(02:27:49):
they talk about that song are kind of still the same today.
Yeah. Yeah.
And we're like, we're like what?Like almost 6060 years later,
seven years later, what, 672027 will be what, 6070 or something
like that. And yeah, it's just, it's just
kind of crazy to think that likesomething written in 1957 is

(02:28:12):
sadly still as, if not more relevant today than it was at
the time. And that's been a through line
in this. So in this kind of stretch of
Spielberg's career, which you know, several of these movies
he's worked with with Kushner onnow there's this through line of
like Bridge of Spies, Lincoln, The Post, this movie where

(02:28:35):
they're kind of like their movies set in the past in this
like political moment. And in this one, it's a little
bit more like political undertones, whereas the rest of
them it's like the overtone is political, but that are like and
even like Munich, going all the way back to Munich, which was
when he first worked with Kushner that like speak so

(02:28:59):
relevant to today. That's not it's.
It's like a. It's disconcerting, you know,
it's, it's sad. You know.
And you know, it, it speaks a lot to, I guess like the human
problem of it all. But yeah, it, I can't remember
who said it in the special features, but somebody, I don't
know if it was Kushner or Spielberg or who.

(02:29:20):
I wish I had noted who said it, but they said the xenophobes of
today are the immigrants of yesterday.
And I thought that was such a good line that speaks to like
this, what we're talking about, of like how they have more in
common than they think. They're both, they're both
immigrants. They both have the same enemy,
which is the people in power that are like taking advantage

(02:29:41):
of them. You know, they're they're both
fighting over something that's already lost in a lot of ways.
They're, you know, Spielberg said.
They're both fighting under the shadow of the Wrecking Ball is
the way he put it. And yeah, you know, it's, it's
just, it's sad. Yeah, it's it's sad.
And it's it's hard to kind of like reckon with how.

(02:30:04):
Yeah. And it does really all culminate
like in that finale. You know, you have you have
Chino who feels who I do appreciate what they did with
him. They made him a little bit more
of a character and, you know, hefeels like he has no choice but
to do what he does in killing Tony and then like.

(02:30:26):
I do think it's, it's interesting too about that real
quick because it's like he tellsBernardo at one point, you're
you're the best friend I've everhad.
And Bernardo says, oh, you're like the smartest friend I've
ever had. And so it you definitely get the
vibe that like Chino's like, oh,Bernardo's my best friend and
Bernardo's just like Chino's just some guy.
You know, well what's interesting, you know, before I

(02:30:49):
continue the point I was going on, you know, you mentioned the
moment where Grazi and and I think Velma is the other girl's
name. They're like banging on the
door. They have that moment of like
connection to one of the, you know, there's also other subtle
moments in the film where there's there's that sort of

(02:31:10):
like connection. One of them is.
The dance when they're like, both sides are like, we just
wanted to dance. Like the dance?
About all this gangster stuff. Yeah, the dance is 1A more
obvious one, but another subtle 1 is when Tony and Chino get to
the rumble at the same time late.
They help each other open the garage door to get in.
They have this like moment wherethey like make make eye contact

(02:31:33):
and they're they kind of have this moment of like
understanding. We're both showing up.
We don't want this to happen. And we're going to try to talk
our side out of it. There's you know, we can move
past this sort of it's all communicated non verbally, but
it's definitely there And then for the movie to just end the

(02:31:56):
way it is, you know, with with Ziegler, when she has when Maria
has the gun and she's just like I I hate now you know you.
Feel, I love the way she feels that line, Yeah.
But the way she delivers, she's like, wait, I hate now.
Yeah. Like, like she's like realizing
it for herself, you know? Yeah, the, the innocence is, you

(02:32:19):
know, is gone. And then like Tony Kushner made
the choice and the original, shesings part of somewhere to him
as he's dying. And he felt like that wasn't,
that didn't feel right that she wouldn't be singing about this
hopeful future to him in that moment.
And so instead he has her seeingpart of tonight.

(02:32:42):
And it's more this idea of I'm losing you, but I'll hold you in
my memory forever instead of like a looking forward.
It's kind of like this memory feeling.
And I thought that was a really a really like profound choice to
to make that change. I think it.
It's like this. We need to remember the past.

(02:33:05):
We need to remember, we need to hold this in our memory so that
we don't make the same mistake moving forward sort of thing.
Yeah. And I think, you know, Speaking
of like things that that could change.
I think one of the one of the things that was a controversial
decision at the time. And I think when I originally
saw this film, I found kind of distracting.
But on a rewatch, not so much. I think is a is the fact that

(02:33:27):
there's no subtitles when Spanish is being spoken.
And, and I think honestly, if I'm being honest, I think it's
because I'm so much, so much more used to hearing Spanish
now, Yeah, have dating, dating a, a Latin woman from, from,
from Guatemala, having been there several Times Now to like
spend time with her and her family and just being like
everyone speak, you know, a lot of people speak span, speak

(02:33:50):
English, you know, when, when we're, when we're together.
But obviously everywhere we go, there's Spanish being spoken.
So just becoming so much more oflike familiar with hearing it
and working on learning it, it was not nearly as distracting.
But I do remember when I saw this at the theater, like there
was a part of me, if I'm honest,was a little annoyed because I'm

(02:34:12):
like, I mean, I get why, but youkind of like put something in
there. But then I but I think I noticed
that there was a lot more Spanglish than actual just pure
Spanish so. Yeah.
And even like when there is justlike pure Spanish lines being
spoken, you kind of, you kind ofknow like what they're saying
even though. You don't.

(02:34:32):
Understand the words because it's all like contextual, but I
do I I appreciate the choice. It's it's not the first time
Spielberg's done that. He has a lot of honestly, like
most of the movies where you have like kind of saw other
languages being spoken on the side and not like important
lines being spoken. He doesn't ever subtitle, but it

(02:34:54):
is in this one. The there does feel like there's
a purpose to it because all throughout the movie, what do
the white people keep saying, like speak English?
And so it like not subtitling. It kind of emphasizes that, like
rebellion, rebelliousness against that to me.
So, yeah, yeah. Totally.

(02:35:15):
Agree. Yeah, I mean, that's that's
really the movie. I I really like the devastating
and I mean, I don't like the devastating ending.
I guess I should say it's but itis appropriately devastating, I
think. But there, I mean, there is a
tinge of hope because you do have finally because of a

(02:35:38):
tragedy them kind of like finally laying aside differences
for once. So I guess there's like a small
tinge of hope, but it is small, Yeah.
Because here we are in 2025 witha lot of the same problems, you
know. Yeah.
Am I the only one that, like, low key feels like a little bad

(02:36:00):
for Chino at the end of the movie?
Yeah, yes, he killed Pony, but also like, yeah, he's like the
only person that has to face theconsequences of his action.
Yeah, the cops show up. Everybody else is like snuck off
down an alley. With, I'm sure they were.
They were they were a little bittoo excited to to throw him into
the slammer, I'm sure. Oh, yeah, for sure.
That that that was the. It's like the one thing.

(02:36:22):
I'm just like, man, appreciate him, man, come on.
Like, like, you know, yeah, he killed Tony, but he can't be the
only person that has to face theconsequences that.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, yes.
I mean, this movie we, you know,it was dedicated to Arnold

(02:36:43):
Spielberg, who died in August of2020 at the age of 103.
But also another big thing that happened was in late November,
Stephen Sondheim died. And so, you know, he got to be a
part of the production of this movie, Spielberg said.
He was at every like, vocal recording session they did.

(02:37:07):
Sondheim was there. So he was.
Out of pressure, but that's awesome.
He was all up in the business for it and and you know, it's is
like for promotional material for the movie with Sondheim
saying like that he really loveswhat Spielberg did and it was
great. So you kind of have to take it
with a grain of salt, but like, I guess he doesn't have to say

(02:37:29):
that if he doesn't think it so. I'm sure he wouldn't have been
around for every session if he didn't want to be involved,
right? He thought it was terrible, you
know? Yeah.
So, so you know, that that kind of like gave a little bit more
heft to the movie, the importance of it.
But it did release December 10thof 2021, kind of like in that

(02:37:49):
period where you're still hopinglike, oh, there's a Spielberg
movie released in the theaters. Maybe we'll get another big
thrust of people back to theaters after COVID.
But, you know, musicals aren't necessarily a thing that draw
everybody. There's a lot of people that are
kind of like allergic a little bit to musicals.
There's not really like a young audience pool because like how

(02:38:11):
much of A young audience are like can have a connection to
West Side Story and this. It really ended up being 1 of
Spielberg's biggest commercial failures.
I think a lot, you know, due to a lot of factors.
The main 1 still being probably people just weren't going back
to the theater quite yet. It only made $76,000,000 and I

(02:38:34):
think the budget was over 100 million, so not great.
It did open. Spielberg, you can eat that,
yeah. It yeah, absolutely.
It did open number one in the theaters to $10 million, which
does not happen now. Thank God.
Movies are not opening #1 to $10million anymore.

(02:38:55):
We're getting back to, we're back to a little bit better than
that. But but yeah, I mean, but then
again, the next week, Spider Man, No Way Home came out and
that was unprecedented commercial success, so.
Let me let me tell you talk about a terrible release window.

(02:39:15):
Yeah. I mean, this this is right up
there with one of the ones that I always think about is, I think
a really underrated action comedy directed by John
Mctiernan, who did The Predator,who did.
Yeah. A die hard.
Yeah. Great Arnold sports theater
film, last action hero, great movie.
Jurassic, Really kind of kind ofkind of.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think it was.

(02:39:37):
Was it the same week? It was either the week before,
the same week or the week after Jurassic Park, one of those 3.
So I guess it was Spielberg's term to experience that because
he he made that movie flop and it's actually such a gem really
ahead of its time. I think when it comes to like
spoofing, like the action kind of movies and stuff, but it

(02:39:58):
happens sometimes. I mean, you know, you can't
always bet on that because sometimes a movie is a surprise
success and it overshadows yours.
But this is this is what happensa lot of times with these kind
of big art or films, kind of things.
Like I, I was really, really worried about this happening
with Dune because I really wanted to like have the complete
story. And I was so happy when it was
like, I think it was like the day before Dune was released.

(02:40:21):
They officially greenlit Part 2.Yeah, finally or like the day
after or something. And Dune 2 almost.
Kind of became a cultural phenomenon meme in a way, and
like surpassed. I I literally, I literally went
to go see Dune Part 2 at the Britannia Theatre on 70
millimetre film. And I think it was either right

(02:40:42):
before or after the showing. These guys that were near me,
one of them was like, yeah, I didn't watch the first part.
What? What, so like that?
That's the power of Dune 2. And I'm so glad we're getting
Dude Messiah now as well. But yeah, but it's just, it is
one of those things where it just happens.
But you know, luckily, when you're someone like Steven
Spielberg, you're allowed to have a flop.

(02:41:03):
You can eat it. And it's at a point as a career
where the flops don't matter quite as much because he's
Steven Spielberg. But like for me revisiting in
this and just like absolutely loving it, it just kind of makes
me sad that it came out in a in a time in theater going history
where people just weren't going to the theater.
I, I think I was telling, I don't think I said mentioned

(02:41:25):
this on Mike, but we were talking beforehand and I was
trying to remember if I had seenit in theaters and I thought I
had. But then I looked at my
letterbox log and I didn't see it until later in March of 2022
after it had already released ondigital.
So then I was second guessing maybe I did wait till it was out

(02:41:48):
on digital, go see it. I wasn't going to the theater
quite as much back then as I am as I.
When was your your kid born? 2019.
But OK, so they're so they're OK.
I didn't know it was around thattime.
No, no. So we, you know, we, we still
like, I go see a lot of movies at theaters and my wife will go

(02:42:12):
when it's something like West Side Story, like a musical or
like we saw Freakier Friday the other day, you know, kind of a
nostalgic movie from our past legacy equal kind of thing.
She'll go see stuff like that. But yeah, yeah, I just, I can't
remember if I saw it in theatersor not, but but yeah, this one,

(02:42:33):
I mean, it, it got, it was received well.
It got 7 Oscar nominations, production design, sound,
costumes, cinematography, directing.
It didn't get the best picture nomination.
I think it maybe got edged out by Koda, which ended up winning
that year. I thought Koda was fine, a fine

(02:42:55):
movie. I didn't think it was like, oh,
this should win Best picture sort of movie, but.
Oh, well, I I think that that Koda, I haven't seen it, but you
know, I know it's that's. Fine, it's a good movie.
It's like, it's like one of those things where it's like,
yeah, I mean, I, you know, let'spick that one.
Yeah, it's like a, it's like a six or seven out of 10 sort of

(02:43:15):
movie to me, you know? If it wasn't about a deaf
family, you probably wouldn't. Yeah, agree.
You know, Yeah, it did the thosewere the six it didn't win.
It did win one, which was ArianaDubose for supporting actress.
So well deserved keeping up the Anita.
If if in 50 years from now West Side Story gets remade again.

(02:43:38):
I'm sure the Anita. I I guess the Anita will have to
win supporting actress. Yeah, that's the rules.
Now you. Got to keep it going.
But yeah, I mean, we've talked already really a lot about our
favorite shots and we've talked a lot about our favorite.
Like, I don't know, our other themes.

(02:44:00):
Was there any other like thematic elements you wanted to
hit on before we wrap up? I think we've hit them all,
really. I think we really hit all the
major ones, you know? Race relations, gentrification,
immigration. You know, yeah, it's all there.
It is. Yeah, it's all still there, so.
Well, hit. I'll hit my final thought then.

(02:44:20):
But towards the end of the special features documentary,
Spielberg says I'll be nearly 75years old when the film comes
out. And I realized you can teach an
old dog new tricks, UN quote. And he he kind of at other
points talks about like how muchof A joy filled experience this
was for him. It gave him a lot of
fulfillment. It gave him closure for this

(02:44:42):
promise he had made to himself so long ago that he was going to
try to make the remake this movie or just make a musical in
general. And I don't know, it just, it
just kind of, it made me like happy just thinking about
Spielberg at 75 years old, like fulfilling a dream that he's had
his whole life. Like how many people are like

(02:45:05):
pursuing lifelong dreams at 75 years old and like pulling it
off in such a phenomenal way. And it's like, I don't know, it
just was inspiring to me to likenot give up on dreams that I
might have or things that I wantto do or pursue.
So if you're out there and you're listening and you're 75

(02:45:25):
years old or you know 20 years old or 40, you know, it's not
too late to to pursue like whatever dream you have like in
your heart. Yeah, he he's kind of.
Cliche, but that's what it got me thinking about.
Yeah, for sure. You know, here's a question for
you. So Spielberg is currently, I

(02:45:46):
just checked, he's 78. Yeah.
So I mean, you got you got a couple of these classic kind of
our tours at this point, the newHollywood as they were Scorsese,
Francis Ford Coppola, some of these guys.
I mean they're they're good out there in years.
So you know, we got the Fableman's that came out you'll
be talking about on the next episode.

(02:46:08):
I think he's got another movie coming out.
What next year? Next year it's.
Supposed to be like a UFO movie.How many more of these you think
he's got in him considering Clint Eastwood just made a movie
at like 93? Yeah, no, you know, he, he still
feels when you see Spielberg andyou like, I mean, you don't see

(02:46:29):
a lot of them anymore, like out there obviously because he is
older and he is like, I'm sure trying to spend as much time
with his family as possible. But like when you do see him, he
still feels pretty like full of energy and excitement.
I'd imagine like I would I wouldbe bet that this next movie is
not his last movie. So, you know, he just kind of

(02:46:50):
seen he's just kind of the kind of guy that he'll he you know,
he might die on a movie set shooting a movie.
You know, he's just going to keep doing what he loves to do
until he can't anymore. OK, How would that was?
That would be what I would thinkis OK.
As long as he can get up and beyond and do his thing beyond

(02:47:12):
set and do his thing, then he's going to keep doing it so.
OK, I guess the second question,because I won't be back before
this Spielberg series finally comes to an end.
I think like I've been doing this for like, what, a year at
this point? Yeah, over a year, yeah.
Over a year, So what you're justkind of reflecting on the
series. What do you think was

(02:47:33):
Spielberg's greatest run movie wise?
I mean, it's probably it's OK, let me pull it up.
I also want to remind your viewers that for as many movies
he's directed, he's helped. Produce.
More infinitely more like. So as much as you love Spielberg
movies, there's probably a bunchof other movies that you really

(02:47:54):
love that he had a hand in making.
I mean, he is quite literally one of the most influential film
makers of all time and will always be forever.
Absolutely. You know, it's so a a run of
movies that are all great. He doesn't have any run where
there's just like all of them are just like phenomenal movies.

(02:48:16):
I don't think there's there always is like a hiccup.
It's hard to argue against the run from like Jaws through ET or
Temple of Doom. If you're a Temple of Doom
person. 1941 is his worst movie in my opinion, so that's thrown
in the middle there. But like Jaws, close Encounters,

(02:48:39):
Raiders, ET, Temple of Doom is areally great run from like the
mid 70s to mid 80s. Then the other run, I would say
his like starting with Saving Private Ryan and 998-9899
whenever that came out through Catch Me If You Can.

(02:49:02):
That's a four movie run that's really good, but man, really
like his run from 2012 with Lincoln, the BFG, you know, you
know, your mileage may vary withwhat you think of the BFGI.
Think it's fine. I don't think it's bad, but it's

(02:49:24):
not great. I think Ready player one has a
lot of problems. So there's a couple of hiccups
in there, but I mean, even like going back to War Horse I think
is a good movie. War Horse, Lincoln, Bridge of
Spies, The Post, West Side Story, The Fableman's, those are
all really great movies. Yeah, I definitely think like

(02:49:46):
East. Like most iconic is East.
Silberg was great. Yeah, most iconic would be
probably Jaws through Temple of Doom that run.
Yeah, I, I think my my favorite Spielberg is definitely like mid
90s to mid thousands. Like I think of my favorite film
movies as much as I love the NAAJones films, Yeah, love ET all

(02:50:07):
these stuff. I mean, I'm like, I'm thinking
like I love Jurassic Park, love Lost World.
Schindler's List is a masterpiece.
I know you. You do.
I really. Like AI lost world, I really
like AI is. Great.
Yeah, I. Also really really really enjoy
Minority Report. That's a really fun movie.
Catch me if you can. I've not seen the terminal but

(02:50:27):
I've heard good thing. War of the World I love his
version of. The terminal is.
Very pretty, you know, not not not a fun one.
Not the. Terminals.
The terminals got a lot of issues.
Munich I think is one of my biggest blind spots I've always
wanted. To watch it, it's been one of my
was one of my biggest. The blind spots that blew me
away the most, like the biggest surprise of the whole thing is

(02:50:50):
probably Munich. I think it's phenomenal.
And when you do finally watch it, you'll have the same feeling
of how is this so relevant? This should not still be so
relevant. Yeah, I definitely want to check
it out. I got to see what what it's on
that I can watch on. Here's my hot take, though.
West Side Story is a top five Spielberg movie.

(02:51:13):
I don't think it's a hot take atall.
I think a lot of people might think it's a hot take.
But here's the. Thing currently currently I have
it slotted in at number. Five.
Here's the thing with Spielberg,though.
I think you could almost separate his filmmaking into two
categories. You have the blockbusters and
you have, like, the art. The art or films?

(02:51:34):
Like the I think the serious drama, dramatic films.
I think West Side Story easily top five of like the his more
serious work, but he's just. But it's a lot of fun too.
It's it's kind. Of what's your top five?
What's your top five? Currently my top five is Jaws,
Schindler's List, ET, Jurassic Park, West Side Story.

(02:51:56):
You have West Side Story above, above any Indiana Jones film.
I struggle. My favorite is is Last Crusade
and I have it at #6 so any givenday I could switch those two
probably, but Munich is right there too.
Honestly, Munich's fighting for a top five spot too for me.
It was your top five one more time.

(02:52:17):
Jaws, Schindler's List, ET Jurassic Park.
West Side Story. You see, I would not put ET in
the top five. I love ET.
It's a good movie. It's a good movie.
It's fun, but I, I just, I think, I think, I mean, dude, I
would go, I would probably go not necessarily in this
particular order, but you got togo Jaws, which I just got my

(02:52:38):
ticket for the 4K. I'm going to try to go tomorrow
night. I think, I think I got a ticket
for Tuesday. I was surprised to see how many
days it's running. I think you got to take it for
Tuesday afternoon. I mean, I'd probably go Jaws if
I have to pick one Indiana Jonesmovie.
I feel like you got to go with Raiders.
Yeah, that's if I was like making like a Mount Rushmore of

(02:53:01):
Spielberg movies. Like my personal preference
aside, Raiders would be on it. But this is like.
For me, like my favorites, that's fair.
So OK, I'll go. I'll go my favorites.
I would say Jaws for sure. I think I would still put
Raiders. I think when you watch all
three, like Indiana Jones films,I think that's the one I do like

(02:53:22):
the most. Raiders, I think I'd go Jurassic
Park. Obviously I'd like Saving
Private Ryan, but I feel like I've only watched it once and I
feel like when I watched it, it's a great movie, but people
think it's great. But I'm like, I don't know.
I think I've seen better war movies.
I'd rather watch like Black HawkDown.
Like I think that's a better warfilm, personally, I think I

(02:53:44):
think West Side Story definitelyis deserving of of top five when
you when you look at everything he's done.
Yeah, but but it's it's definitely I don't think E TS
top five I'm to be. Honest, my top 18 Spielberg
movies are all four-star and up.So yeah, I mean, when you have
18 movies that are like 8 out of10 are up.

(02:54:06):
And what is 1941 for you? What would you like?
Where did you rate that one? It's #40 on my list but I'm that
includes like TV, movies and shorts.
What, what, what what? What rating did you give it?
Like what? How many?
1 1/2 stars. Oh wow.
That's great, it could go #1. It's I, I haven't seen it, so I
mean. I mean, it has some great

(02:54:28):
production, but man is it a awful like for a movie that's
supposed to be a comedy. I didn't laugh one time.
Except for laughing, I'm. Not kidding.
Like it's not even like this is so bad it's making me laugh.
It's just. Yeah, yeah.
I think I don't know. You know, I think I have a lot
of respect for directors who like and I guess, you know, if

(02:54:49):
you made his movie movies he hasand there's some directors have
been made more like you're goingto have some blunders.
But you know, I, I don't know, Ithink if someone like Dene
Vanov, I think if Christopher Nolan, who are obviously are two
people who if Spielberg didn't exist, they would not be film
makers, right? Like.
Oh yeah, absolutely. Like like, like Christopher
Nolan has has is on the record saying the first movie he really

(02:55:10):
attached to as a kid was like 2001 A Space Odyssey.
And you know, Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg are like
coming up together in the 60s and 70s when they start making
stuff. So all part of the same kind of
like young New Hollywood kind ofkind of stuff that happened in
the 70s and so. You know, AI crossover.
What exactly Exactly It's so it's, it's just, it's really

(02:55:31):
interesting to see how not only can Spielberg like, like inspire
film makers that we love today, but like, they're still making
stuff too, you know, And it justgoes to show like how like
cinema is like very old, but also very new still in other
ways. There's still new things to do.
And I think, you know, just kindof like wrapping things up with

(02:55:52):
all of this, like I think that this version of West Side Story
shows that like there's there's still like, if you're going to
re the amazing thing about this movie is this is this came out
at the time where like the things that you're supposed to
remake are like superhero related or like Ghostbusters

(02:56:13):
related, or that's the things you're supposed to remake.
And here comes Spielberg and he's like, I'm going to make,
I'm going to remake a 19th is early 60s musical classic.
And it's just like the boldness and the courage to do that.
And then and also like the confidence knowing that or like

(02:56:34):
at least hoping that you can pull it off and and just nailing
it. I just love that.
Everything about this movie is the definition of They don't
make them like they used to. Yeah.
And like, and like it's, it's like one of those things where
it's like it, it's kind of how Ifeel about like Oppenheimer.
Like there are there. I don't really think there's
anyone else on in the entertainment industry other

(02:56:56):
than Christopher Nolan that could say, I want to make a
three hour biopic about a, abouta nuclear physicist and it's
going to cost like $150 million.Yeah.
Christopher Nolan says that they're like, what do we sign?
Anyone else? They're going to be like, whoa,
hold on there. But yeah.
And like, the same thing with this.
It's like, I'd really don't knowif anyone else besides Steven
Spielberg could have made this movie.

(02:57:17):
Oh, yeah. Because they wouldn't have
gotten the budget needed to makeit at the level in which he was
able to do so. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. Great movie.
I love how much I loved this movie on rewatch so.
Yeah, same. I bumped it from a from a four
to four and a half. Same, same exact thing.

(02:57:39):
Yeah. I mean, there's not really much
else to say about it. I mean, there are more things,
more like interesting tidbits. But we we've talked enough about
it, I think. And I like to the the kind of
like look back. We just did too.
That was fun. We are going to record a 21st
century movie musicals draft that you will hear next week.

(02:58:00):
So JP will be on again for that.So that's going to be fun to do
to kind of partner with this episode.
And then of course, we'll be getting into the Fableman's our
last Spielberg film to cover. So bittersweet coming up.
Bittersweet episodes. But but yeah, JP, where should

(02:58:24):
the people follow you to keep upwith what you're up to?
You always feel free to follow me on Instagram.
That's always the best place to keep track of updates for
whatever I'm doing, whether it be, you know, life updates, film
related stuff, or even even maybe my my own little little
things that we might be working on so.

(02:58:45):
Yeah, yeah, and I'll link that in the episode description for
you to follow him. I'll link your letterbox too.
Always fun to follow on Letterbox.
So yeah, go follow JP on Instagram on Letterbox.
He does. He does better than me at
logging movies. I think I'm.
Going to be honest though bro. Way behind.
You're the, you're the one that that got me more into, into

(02:59:09):
logging my stuff on letterbox. So I've had a letterbox account
for a while. I didn't really keep up with it
that much. And I think it was you and maybe
a couple other people that like being more consistent.
So now anytime I watch a movie, like the first thing I think
about, it's like, oh, I got to log it in a letterbox.
Yeah, yeah, You know, I, I thinkit's going to be one of those
cool things like one day for like my kids to like, look back
on and. Yeah, I think so too to.

(02:59:30):
See all this stuff that. I've all my stats.
What movie did dad watch the most?
Oh Fantastic Mr. Fox and and TheMuppets Christmas Carol.
OK. Oh yeah, every year.
I'll watch those two movies every year.
So Thanksgiving and Christmas, Yeah.
Go follow JP. That's all we have this week.

(02:59:50):
I've been Eli Price for Jean Pierre Boudreaux.
You've been listening to the establishing shot.
We will see you next time. We will not be here for a little
while. But look, I think it was this
way. Better to be king for a night
than schmuck for a lifetime.

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