"Train Dreams" and "Wicked: For Good"

Just as it says on the tin, T Lo flipped on their mics and offered a non-spoiler review of "Train Dreams," starring Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones and Kerry Condon, and a totally spoiler-filled review of "Wicked: For Good."

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:23):
We're Tom Lorenzo.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
And this is the Pop Style Opinion Fest. Hello, and
welcome back to another edition of the PSO. I am
the Tea and you're Telo Tom Fitzgerald, and I'm here
with the low and your Tilo Lorenzo because my love
the husband. It is the day before Thanksgiving.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
And I'm gonna eat my favorite thing ever, which is
pumpkin pie.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Not tomorrow, Well we are, I'll buy one for you
will get more than your share of pumpkin pie over
the next several weeks.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
And then you have to explain why not tomorrow? All right?

Speaker 2 (00:53):
So here we people say that they love hearing our
holiday plans. Our holiday plans this year are rather low key.
My family Thanksgiving is a blended of Thanksgiving with my
cousins from New York. It has always been that way
my whole life. It goes back to my parents living

(01:14):
in New York so and then over the it was
always obviously on Thanksgiving Day, and then over the years
as everyone aged and the family got larger and larger
and larger, it got harder and harder for everyone to
get together on the day of Thanksgiving because you know,
they had in laws that they wanted to see and stuff,
So about ten years ago.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Ten years, it's that long. It was.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
It was after my mom died, and that was ten
years ago. My one cousin and I talked about it
and said, you know what, we should just move this
to the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It would just be easier.
So tomorrow we're not really doing much of anything. My
sister's coming over to spend the day with us, and
I will do like Lorenzo's vegetarians, and I'm not going

(02:00):
to cook some elaborate to two pronged meals. So I'm
doing my signature butter not squash and sage lasagna. The
recipe is on Marthastewart dot com. You can find it.
I've been using it for fifteen years.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
It's amazing.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
It's a very good lasagna, and it's it's got that
you know, autumnal feel to it because it's got you know,
sage and butternut. But it's surprisingly light. It's one of
those lasagnas that is surprisingly well, has no meat in it.
And I make my own noodles, because of course you
do well. This is a recipe that Martha actually suggests

(02:39):
that you use. You make your own noodles, And one
time I made it with store bought noodles and it
wasn't right right because store bought noodles tend to be thick.
And this, this is a recipe that calls for super this.
If you want to make it and you don't have
a pasta maker, then go look for the the sheets

(03:01):
of lasagna noodles, the kind that you get in the
refrigerated section. Those are thinner and you can actually roll
them out a little bit before you boil them. So anyway,
that's for tomorrow. And Lorenzo loves an apple I mean
he loves a pumpkin pie. But I told him I
can't make a butternut squash lasagna and a pumpkin pie.
That's just way too much a pumpkin. So I'll do

(03:24):
my apple pie, which is the New York Times recipe.
And the upshot of that is there's two ways of
do an apple pie in America. You either dump the
apples into the pie shell raw with some butter, or
you cook them on the stove and you make a filling.
I much much much prefer the latter method. I like

(03:46):
an apple pie filling. I do not like crunchy apple pie.
I don't like biting into an apple pie and having
to crunch the apples. And I also don't think if
you do them raw, I don't think release enough juice.
So when I say cooked on the stove, I you
know you dice up the apples. And the best way

(04:08):
to do an apple pie is you dice up the
apples there regularly. Some pieces should be really small, some
pieces should be chunky. And part of the reason you
do that is, well, it's just a better mouthfeel. You want,
you know, various sizes of but also the tinier pieces
tend to dissolve and they help create the sauce. So
the you cook it on the stove with maybe a

(04:31):
tablespoon or two of sugar. I can't remember how much butter. Really,
whoever much butter, you want some cinnamon, and you just
sort of par cook them. You do not get them
super soft. You just you melt the butter, You dissolve
the sugar, You sprinkle a little corn starts over it
so that the it'll thicken. But you don't cook it

(04:53):
for more than five minutes, and you don't cook it
at high heat. You just want slightly cooked apples that
have released their juices into a butter and corn starch
mixture and then the thing to finish it off. And
I have done this. I have done apple pies without
doing it, and I have done apple pies after I
figured out doing it. And I feel like this is

(05:15):
the PSTA resistance. This is what actually gets it to
pure apple pie flavor, which is, when you're done cooking
the apples, you sprinkle balsamic vinegar, not too much, no
more than maybe a tablespoon over it, and a lot
of recipes say apple cider vinegar, And of course that
makes the most sense and it probably will increase the

(05:36):
appleness of the flavor, but balsamic adds sort of a
dark sweetness to it. It really lends a roundness to
the flavor. So if you're doing an apple pie, that
is my tip. Slightly cook the apples in butter, sugar,
and cornstarch and then sprinkle some balsamic vinegar on top
and then you dump that into your podcrest. I'm also

(06:00):
going to make a for tomorrow bourbon brown sugar ice cream,
oh right, right right, which I've made before.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
And it's it. I have to say this. I mean,
we bought a machine. Uh you know an iker a
long time ago, and we bought like a broth.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
We bought it a like Marshall's marsh It was queeze
on art. Yeah, that was I think we we paid
forty dollars for it in Marshalls, which means it was
probably one hundred and twenty dollars. That was original.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
And I looked at it. They looked like all plastic
and stuff like this is not going to work. Makes
the most amazing I scream.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
Yeah, it's also still puttering along. It's got to be
close to twenty years old.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
I know, but we we use it. You use it
and it makes incredible ice cream.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
And then on Saturday, when the whole family gets together,
I will be bringing corn bread stuffing which I've been
making for cheese thirty years at this point, and a
pumpkin cheesecake, and what we call the Uncle Joke of cakes.
When my mother was a little girl, her mother used

(07:08):
to make a special cake for my mother's brother, my
uncle Joe, and it really wasn't She made it every Thanksgiving.
And to most people this would not be a Thanksgiving
style cake, but to my this to me represents Thanksgiving
because I've had every Thanksgiving since I was a baby,
and so did my mother before her. It's just a
yellow cake with chocolate icing. And my grandmother used to

(07:29):
put chopped walnuts on top. But she used to make
a cake, very nineteen fifty sort of thing to do. Yeah,
she used to do a whole cake. And then in
the years since when I started taking over the the
baking of stuff for the for the meal, and I
only do a couple everybody, there's like thirty five people,
and people bring desserts and everything, so I'm not solely responsible.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
We get stuff for New York.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
So in the last couple of years, because the dessert
table has gotten so big, I reduced it down to cupcakes.
I'm just going to do a dozen cupcakes in honor
of Uncle Joe. And Uncle Joe's long gone, my mom's
long gone. Her mom is of course fifty years long gone.
So you know, it's just a family tribute. It's just
a continuity sort of thing. And I guess this year

(08:16):
it probably feels a little more important because Uncle Joe
was long gone, but his wife just passed this year,
and so and myn n was the last of that generation.
It's really the end of an era, the the grown
ups are all gone.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
Wow, so I just thought about it. Yeah, there's any
her generation anymore. And anyway, but Tom is a fantastic baker.
He really is.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
Yes he does, Yes, Yes, I am, well, I am
he is.

Speaker 1 (08:50):
Seriously, he makes the most amazing stuff.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
So I'll say it again. I would not last past
the second episode of any any bake off show. I
can follow recipe. I have about a dozen good recipes
that I turn to when I need to impress people.
I have basic technique skills, but I would never present
my I have no decorative skills. Like I cannot decorate

(09:13):
a cake to make it look impressive. I can, but
I can deliver you a cake that's kind of just yeah,
taste amazing.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
But that's what I like about your baking is because
it's like, in a way basic, And by that I
mean like just home baking. Yeah, home baking comfany food
that tastes amazing, and it doesn't have to look like,
you know, from a very fancy bakery. I mean it
doesn't have to, but it's delicious everything. I mean, the
whole place smells amazing.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
When you make anything, well, I will be getting to
work shortly after we flip off these mics to get
well the ice cream, I gotta get that started almost immediately, So.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
That ends our cooking with Chilo.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
And of course the decorating for Christmas has already started.
Yeah yeah, yeah, but it's so elaborate now that it
takes ten days to pull it all together. The tree
is u and it is fully fluffed, but it takes
days to pluck. It takes a full day to fluff it.
I have not begun the light situation. I'm time dreading

(10:13):
it because it does take a really long time. There
are something like six or seven strings of lights and
they all need to be You can't plug them all
into the same power strip because it'll blow out. So
every single you can, and you can't plug them all
in together. So every string of lights has its own
has its own extension cord, and they each run out

(10:36):
to two different power strips on either side of the tree.
Because we use the c seven bulbs, which are the
screw in light bulbs, the nineteen fifty style bulbs, and
they they'll blow out a fuse if you try and
plug them all in together. You can't plug them all together,
and you can't plug a bunch of them into the
same outlet, so you know, this is how it's done.

(10:57):
Every single string has an extension cord that runs down
the center of the tree and out the bottom, and
that just takes oh my god, it takes so much time.

Speaker 1 (11:08):
And I think it's what takes more time.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
I actually like dreading it this year. And you know why,
because we didn't put up the tree last year. Right,
I'm a little out of practice. Last year we went
to the German Christmas markets all through Christmas and we
didn't decorate our house because we didn't want to leave
it bed, Like, we didn't want to leave a ten
foot tree up with three cats who were freaking out
because they were alone. So we never decorated last year.

(11:31):
And now I'm like, I'm totally out of practice.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
Alone without uh, let me just I had that we
had someone taking care.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
Of them anyway, that's it.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah. So so we're exciting. We're excited because.

Speaker 2 (11:45):
We're exciting too. We're very exciting.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
We're exciting. We're very excited because there's a ton of
new stuff we bought in Germany, in Belgium, you name it.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
I don't even know where it's.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
It's just great stuff that we bought new and Paris
we bought Christmas right now. I know, it's so funny.
We we actually one of our listeners and readers mentioned
the store in Paris and he said he sent a
lovely man and said, you guy should go to the store.
And I was actually thinking about it. So we went
and it was all Christmas stuff, like floors of Christmas stuff,

(12:21):
and we bought a couple of things. And it's nights.
I mean we have we bought uh the Eiffel Tower, Uh,
you know another one, uh, and some other stuff. But yeah,
we we have new ornaments and new Christmas stuff from many,
many places.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
That's true. All right, let's get into our topics of
the week, which are very simple. This is a very
simple We're assuming some of you are either preparing your
meal while you're listening to this or telling the rest
of the world to fuck off and you hate this holiday,
so it's your pre holiday comfort. Listen, that's what we're
trying to do here. And we're just going to talk
about two movies, both of which well one of which

(12:59):
is on streaming, one of which is inescapable. We're going
to talk about Train Dreams, The Joel Edgerton Felicity Jones
movie that dropped on Netflix last week, and we're going
to talk about Wicked too, Wicked Forgod that we went
out to see last night specifically to have something to
talk about today, and we grumpily sat through the whole thing.

(13:22):
But well, okay, we'll have good things to say about
it too, not much so Train Dreams. I'm not we
will not be spoiling this film to give you a
chance to go and see it. We're going to talk
about it, but we're not gonna We're not going to
spoil parts of the plot, so you don't have to
worry about that. Wicked. Yeah, we're going to get into
the details of Wicked, and that'll be the latter half

(13:42):
of this podcast. And you know, again, I'll give some
warning that we're about to spoil things, but I mean,
what what do you I guess there are certain character
fits that you might not know if you're not familiar
with the material, but we will be talking about that stuff.
So Dreams, Lorenzo you go.

Speaker 1 (14:02):
I was excited the minute we put the preview on
our site, posted the preview on our site. I got
very excited about it. It's my kind of movie. It
reminded me a lot of the Power of the Dog
type of movie with Kirsten Dunn, directed by Jane Camp
that kind of movie. It slow paces. If you don't

(14:23):
like that kind of movie, you're not gonna like it.
But it's that kind of like, you know, let's just
tell a story here of someone.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
Of someone's life.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
Yeah, and if you like that kind of movie, which
I adore, love worship of that kind of movie, I
just couldn't wait to watch it and I absolutely loved it,
loved it. Cry my eyes out towards the end and
we'll get interesting. Yes, Oh my god. I was like
sobbing towards the end because I there's nothing more than

(14:52):
I love an adore in terms of filmmaking than tell
the story of like an ordinary person. I mean, that's
my my favorite thing. I agree with that. I just
love it. It centers me, It makes me think, It
just makes me a better person. I know that sounds
so big, but it does me.

Speaker 2 (15:13):
It's one of those films that posits a very basic
essential point, which is that every life is worth living
and every life is worth examining, and that is lovely
and uplifting. And I didn't sob at the end of it.
And but I will I don't really have criticisms of
this film. I think it's lovely, I think it's I

(15:35):
would recommend it to anyone, But I will say that
I didn't think it was It didn't offer anything new.
It was a very simple story. I felt like, in
some respects we had seen this film before, we had
seen versions of this story before, so it really wasn't
offering me anything new. And I did. I came to

(15:58):
terms with that. But I mean, there was a point,
probably about past the halfway point of the film where
I thought, oh, okay, so this isn't going anywhere. It's
just going to be his life. And again that's not
spoiling anything. There's not like major twists and turns and
oh my god and this and that. It doesn't have
that sort of cinematic feel where it's all going to

(16:20):
be wrapped up in a bow for you at the end.
It's just going to offer you this man's life, this
man's story and perspective, and let it unfold for you.
It's the type of film that is extremely, extremely performance specific.
If you don't get the right person in the lead role,
because they are going to carry that entire film. And

(16:42):
this is the type of character who doesn't speak all
that much, so Joel Edgington has to carry the entire
film almost silently.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
Yeah, that's the first thing that surprised me, because I
usually don't like movies with voiceover narration. I usually don't
excuse me, but there's no way you could have this
movie without it.

Speaker 2 (17:01):
I mean that's Will Patton provides the voiceover, and it's
it's lovely and spare. It doesn't over explain things, and
you almost feel like you're essentially getting the inner thoughts
of this.

Speaker 1 (17:15):
Man exactly exactly and and and oh my god, Joe
Edgerton Jesus Christ. First of all, he's I've always thought
he was gorgeous, the most one of the most beautiful
actors out there in my opinion, And he's so good.
He's perfect, perfect for this real perfect. I thought he
was amazing. I was actually watching an interview with him
and he talks about that, the fact that he you know,

(17:39):
there was not a lot to say. It was pretty
much him working, doing things, moving around. You know. I
also have to say, Felicity Jones did a fantastic job.
I thought she was good but I was in love
with Carrie. Uh my god, her character.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
You're raised through a bunch anyway, I'm just.

Speaker 1 (17:56):
Talking about acting in general. I'm talking about acting in general.
I thought everyone was good, Yeah, just the perfect, you
know performance.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
With Felicity Jones, she is very good, but it's a
nothing part. Yeah, And I felt a little bad for
her because it's very similar to the part that she
had in last year's The Brutalist, where she is just
she's the wife. She's she's the wife figure. You know.
The male character is in love with her, he does
things for her, he worships her, he thinks about her,

(18:30):
but she does not have a lot of agency in
that story, which is you know, I mean, it's not
that story. It's definitely not her story. It's her story.
But you need a wife, but you need a wife.
So I just felt that it was a shame that
she had done two of these in a row. She
does a great job with it, and she she's always
a watchable actress. I have no problem with her performance whatsoever.

(18:54):
But I just felt, Okay, so she's the wife Kerrie Condon.
I thought she was giving a slightly odd performance, and
every once in a while I've said this before, where
you're in a film, you're watching a film and then
you come up against someone you realize, oh right, nobody
in this film is American. Joel Legeriton is Australian, Felicity

(19:16):
Jones is British, Kerry Condon is Irish. They're all playing
Americans and it's fine. But then we got to carry
Condon and I'm like, wow, she's really working hard. Yeah,
I like I should do that accent.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
I was watching an interview with him and I forgot, like,
how thick his accent. It goes like Jesus great, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
Fine, everybody's fine. It's just like when you have three
actors from three different three English speaking actors from three
different countries, three wildly different accents, and they're all trying
to play Pacific Northwest early twentieth century accents. It's fine,
but I did when I got to carry Condon. That's

(19:54):
when I was like, oh right, nobody hears American. They're
all acting like Americans. She's another one. And again, this
isn't a criticism in the film. This is not a
woman's story. It is very much a man's story, and
it's the story of a very sensitive man, and so
it's not macho or anything like that. But the women,
they just come in and out of the story. They

(20:14):
don't they affect him. But those characters are not They
don't have much agency on their own. There is a
wonderful scene with Carrie Condon on the Firewatch with the
two of them talking where I actually did burst into tears,
where she reveals something about her own you know what
I'm talking about, And the connection between those characters was powerful.

Speaker 1 (20:37):
I thought her character was great because it's someone.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
Who I thought she wasn't well drawn.

Speaker 1 (20:42):
No, I thought he was. She was great, someone who traveled,
someone who had experienced seeing other things and finally realized
that now she wants peace and quiet, right, And I
thought that was brilliant. I thought that, I thought. And
she just gave enough to him, fed him enough.

Speaker 2 (21:00):
I agree with that, and.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
I don't want to give anything away, but I didn't. Yeah,
when they got together, it was like, really, are we
really going to go there or whatever? Are they talking?
What is going on here? And then you know, she
just gives him amazing advice advice.

Speaker 2 (21:14):
Yeah. Also William Mason, Bill Macy or William Macy actually
William Yeah, I think he's probably going to get a
nomination out of that perform. It was a quietly heartbreaking performance,
just quiet and dignified. And here's what I mean about

(21:37):
and this is not a failure of the actresses this,
but I mean William H. Macy wasn't given a lot
of material, but he gave you fully a live human being,
a fully realized human being. And I do feel like
the two female characters, they're more figures than actual people
in his story. And again that could be very deliber

(22:00):
As I said, this is a man's story and early twenties,
and it is a story in many ways about traditional
masculinity and what that entails. In some ways, it is
an ode to traditional masculinity in the sense that he
is a quiet man who works the land, who doesn't

(22:23):
have much to say, you know, that sort of thing,
who sticks to his commitments, who loves fiercely. That's he,
and it's it's a lovely, uplifting view to remind you
that in this day and age, masculinity isn't a dirty word.
Misculinity does not necessarily have to mean aggression or violence

(22:44):
or what a toxic you know it is. It is
a corrective to that idea and it's not it works
on that level. I did think a couple of times
early in the film, I was like, Wow, these because
it's all early in the film. He's a lagger in
the Pacific Northwest at the at the just before World

(23:05):
War One, and so it's all men out in the
woods shopping down trees, and I did think those those
scenes are loving. They really are lovingly reconstructed around the
campfire and all that. But I kept thinking, Wow, these
men are well groomed, clean and extremely well spoken for
where they are. Joel Edgerton never looked anything less than

(23:30):
beautiful throughout the movie. It's not that he was gleaming
white and perfect, but it's a very sort of clean,
benign look at a certain point in history. It's not inaccurate,
and it does have a a point to it. And
there is something in the book. Did you read about the.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
Book it's based on on a book by there's a.

Speaker 2 (23:56):
Major change which I'll just without giving too much away,
I'll say in the movie he witnesses something that affects
him for the rest of his life deeply. But in
the book he actually is involved in it. He actually
does something, and that is what changes the story. And

(24:16):
when I read that, I was like, oh, that's why.
That's why everything felt so unusually benign and clean, is
because they deliberately took out part of the story that
would have cast him in a terrible light. And again
I respect this. None of this is criticism. I'm like, oh, okay,
so this is they literally cleaned up his past in

(24:37):
order to tell a specific version of this story, and
it is slightly different from the version in the book.
But I get why, because the whole point of it
was to show a good man leading a good, quiet life.

Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yeah, a simple man.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
A simple and good man, and in the book he
had done something really terrible. So I understand why that
was taken out, and it actually helped me accept why
this was such a benign view.

Speaker 1 (25:06):
But I appreciate a lot of things. First of all,
that they touched on racism and all that quite a bit,
quite a bit, which I was surprised.

Speaker 2 (25:13):
I was Asian anti Chinese racism.

Speaker 1 (25:16):
Yeah, and if you know a little bit of history,
then you appreciate that they inserted that there. I also
liked a relationship with the other workers and from from
various ages.

Speaker 2 (25:26):
It was just relaxed masculinity and a very it was
it was actually really nice to say it was nice,
whether you accept that the truth of that, that's that
it was nice.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
To see the different generations working together like what you
were and what you're going to be eventually.

Speaker 2 (25:41):
And the boots nailed to the tree. I know, it's
just so touching. It's so touching.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
I was really touched by the whole thing. I was
touched by the yeah, because again because it's a story
of a simple person. And I appreciate that. I think
we're we tend to expect too much of people, or
expect to complicate their story, complicate things, and even in
real life, I think we have so high expectations of
everything that you know, that's why you know people are

(26:09):
said and unhappy, I feel. So I appreciate those stories. Uh,
and the story of a simple person. And everybody matters.
I think that's the point here.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
Everybody, every life matters, every life matters.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
I keep saying this. I always say this when I
travel internationally, when I go to another country, that I
always come back thinking that, my my god, I'm just
a little dot.

Speaker 2 (26:32):
Yeah on a big plan.

Speaker 1 (26:34):
So I appreciate that perspective. Every time I come back
from from a travel, you know, from a trip abroad,
is that Yeah, you're just one, and you know and
and but everybody matters, everybody. Everybody's a life. Yeah, everybody's
a light.

Speaker 2 (26:51):
So it's a highly recommended for your holiday weekend. It's
break thing to sit down and watch on Thanksgiving night
if you want it. It's just a very touching, gentle
story of a life. And as I said, I know
that our reader, our listenership exkews towards women and gay men,

(27:12):
and maybe that doesn't sound maybe an exploration of traditional
masculinity doesn't doesn't sound like something you want. But I
actually found it. I don't know. It was uplifting in
a way to listen. This isn't like some inceet complaint
like we need more positive portrayals of men or whatever

(27:33):
that sort of thing. But it was just nice to
see someone show you to be a man in the
traditional sense. Does not necessarily have to mean what has
been piled on to the meaning of that in the
years since. And maybe this is not Maybe this character's
life is not historically correct. Maybe he would have been

(27:54):
more racist, maybe he would have been more violent, right
exactly in reality, but it's not a hisdocument. It's a story,
and as a story, it's a beautiful one. So yeah,
highly recommended Train Dreams on Netflix. Watch it over your
holiday weekend. All right, all right, so we're going to
take a short break and then we're going to come
back to talk a lot about Wicked for Good. We're back.

(28:19):
They're starting to make noise next door, so we might
be cutting this short. We'll see. We're gonna barrel our
way through it.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
We always see this.

Speaker 2 (28:25):
We've been saying this for you now and they're not
stopping this. They're nowhere near close to this building being done.
So in case you were wondering anyway, okay, Wicked for Good.
You know, we did a podcast about Wicked exactly a
year ago. We went out to see it and then
did a review of it. And I was reviewing, doing

(28:45):
certain site review stuff. When I realized that, I was like, oh,
we went out the night it came. We should do
that again this week. So I floated that idea to Lorenzo. I,
so why don't we just go out and see it?
And I'm telling you that because otherwise I would not
have gone out to see this. I wasn't rushing. I
did want to see the first one in the theater.
I was less inclined to want to see this one

(29:07):
because I'm not a fan of Wicked. I was not.
I was never a big fan of Wicked, and you know,
the musical, the play right right, right right, and whatever
curiosity I had about it on screen was satisfied by
the first film. Like, I really didn't need to see
the second film, especially since we all know how it ends.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
I kind of feel the same. I liked the original
movie period. I don't like anything after that. Don't want
to say I'm not crazy read I was. I was
never a fan of the play or the musical. Yeah,
never had no interest. I usually don't like when you
take a story and you create a story based on a.

Speaker 2 (29:46):
I'm going to go off on that in a minute.

Speaker 1 (29:47):
I don't like. I usually don't like that, you know,
call me a purist, whatever you want to call me.
I usually like, you know, he worked, leave it alone.
That's my take. Creating a whole book based on your
oge own imagination about what could be or could be,
you know, anyway, it's your choice.

Speaker 2 (30:04):
I read the original Gregory McGuire book when it came
out in like two thousand and four or whatever.

Speaker 1 (30:08):
So I knew about the play. Let me just finish
my thought. I knew about the play. I knew everybody
talked about how the first part of the play is great,
the second part is not so great, blah blah blah.
So I knew all that, so I was curious to
see how they were going to do the second part
of the movie, and then you know, we're going to
talk about it. But it was interesting. I knew the

(30:29):
expectation based on what people were saying, not that I
saw the music or the play, never did or read
the book, but you know, I knew it wasn't going
to be as great as the first one, so I
was kind of expecting that, but it was actually worth
an expected.

Speaker 2 (30:45):
I read the original Gregory McGuire book when it came out,
and I thought it was interesting at the time, but
I also felt in the sense that it had created
a sort of literary trope of trying to go back
into stories to explain everything you thought you knew was
wrong kind of thing, and it was done with a

(31:06):
lot of fairy tales. In the last twenty five years,
it's been a lot of deconstructing of fairy tales and
stories and that sort of thing. And when you look
at something like the Maleficent movies, they would not have
existed without Wicked. That is, the Maleficent movies are essentially
Wicked without music.

Speaker 1 (31:24):
Interesting.

Speaker 2 (31:25):
And I bring that up because in the opening scenes
of the film, I was like, Yeah, this is why
I just am not big on these stories where you
try and go in and explain everything and give everything
a backstory. And when you do that, this is what
happened with Maleficent. You inevitably have to turn a witch

(31:46):
into a hero. And a witch can be a hero,
of course you can. They can, but in both Maleficens
case and Alphabet's case, they turn them into superheroes where
they are literally flying around and kicking ass and beating
up people. And and I remember those opening scenes with
Alpha but being super Alphaba, I was like, yeah, can't
a witch be a witch? Like witches have a long

(32:07):
dark history cover and most of our iconography of witches,
including the Wicked Witch of the West, arises out of
ancient European traditions, myths and folklore, and all of that's gone.
She's flying around like a Marvel superhero.

Speaker 1 (32:22):
It.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
You know, if you like deconstructed stories like this, then great,
I don't because when you deconstruct it, you take all
of the mystery, all of the magic out of the story.
You don't when you start explaining why the monkeys have
wings or is showing the construction of the yellow brick road,
I'm like, who the fuckre like what? This does not

(32:46):
enrich the story. It just adds superfluous details to it.
And this is the problem with the second act of
Wicked or Wicked for Good. It's nothing but that the
first act of Wicked or the first film. It's not deconstructing.
It's more or less constructing another side story behind the
original story. But then you get into the second act

(33:09):
and it's about, well, here's why there's a tin man,
and here's why there's a scarecrow, and here's why there's
a cowardly lyon.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
If you hadn't had added all these characters from the
original movie, I felt like it was just be rehashing
the whole thing that we saw, you know for the
first movie.

Speaker 2 (33:25):
Yeah, can I just find it? So I didn't need
to know why there's It never occurred to me to
wonder why there was a tin woodsman and what his
origin was. It never occurred to me to wonder why
there was a talking scarecrow. It was a story for children,
It had fairy tale qualities to it, It had whimsical

(33:45):
qualities to it. You really when you try and explain
that stuff. First off, the explanations are free and stupid.
I mean they're dumb. Number one. You can just explain
everything away with magic. So magic, okay, So the scarecrow
was a scarecrow because of magic, and the tin Woodsman
is a tin woodsman. I shouldn't note that we are.

(34:06):
I haven't spoiled anything yet, but we are going to
spoil certain things about how those things happen. I won't
get into that yet. But the general idea of deconstructing
a story for children written a hundred years ago and
trying to make an action blockbuster in twenty twenty five,
I just was so turned off by the whole thing.

(34:29):
I just did not care. Like I said, in the
first Wicked movie, it felt like a story was being constructed,
whereas in the second it felt like it was all
being narrowed down so we could get everyone into position
for the Wizard of Oz. So we had to explain
the Scarecrow, the tin men. We haven't. We had to

(34:49):
bring in Dorothy, but of course, wink wink, we're not
going to show her face or have anything to do
with her. And this is if you never saw the
Wizard of Oz, and I realized, who the hell would
watch Wicked if they hadn't didn't understand the Wizard right right,
But I guess they thought they were being clever, and
I know the stage show is more or less the
same way. Is that they don't really get into Dorothy's story.

(35:11):
But Dorothy's story impacts the main character. Dorothy quote kills
the Wicked Witch of the West, so we have to
have her in the story, but they don't. They don't
do anything with her. So the literally one of the
most important aspects of the story happens off screen. Wink wink,
you know she kills the witch. We don't actually see

(35:32):
it because oh, we saw it in the original movie.
But if you step back and look at this movie
and take it on its own terms, without without all
the references that it's making to another film, that story
fails completely. Nothing makes sense. Nothing, any of the characters
are doing makes any sense. And suddenly there's, you know,

(35:55):
there's this other character whose face we're not seeing, who
winds up killing the main character and we don't know
anything about. And I get it. We all know Darthy's story.
We don't quote unquote need it retold. But actually, if
you are hinging the entire third act of your movie
on her story, right, and you refuse to tell her story,
that is a very weird third act.

Speaker 1 (36:16):
Well, the director gave an interview. I actually put it
in on the post, the lounge post as one of
the articles. He gives an interview and explain why we
don't see her face because he wants to keep it
a mystery. So what's the mystery? So he's basically answering
you a question. He expects everyone to know that character,
the story and when you go see the movie, so

(36:38):
to keep the mystery to you know, so it's everyone's Dorothy.
We all have our own Dorothy. And he didn't want
to that's a bullshit. I know.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
I know you are a filmmaker. Make your film, like,
don't do this. Oh, I'll let you all imagine what
she looked like. Make your movie and if you it
just felt really unbalanced. To me because you go to
such great lie to explain the Tin Woodsman and explain
the Scarecrow, and Dorothy is just she's just the back

(37:08):
of someone's head. We never get to and you know,
all right, I'm going to start spoiling things. Yes, I
have to start spoiling who the Scarecrow and Tin Woodsman were?

Speaker 1 (37:20):
Right?

Speaker 2 (37:20):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (37:21):
Can I just talk about the movie in general just
a little more. It's the thing is that I was
very curious to read uh comments or or you know,
the way people who are obsessed with the with the
with the musical, how they reacted to it, you know
what I mean, Like I was curious to see because
it's basically based on the play the musical and I'll

(37:43):
slash the mood the book. So I was scarious to
read those comments. And most people said that they the
people who love the musical, they said that they they
felt that if they followed the play, the movie wouldn't
do well, you know what I mean, like if you
know page by page pretty much, and I think that's
and they feel like that's what they did. They went

(38:05):
straight with the play and it didn't work. And I
feel and then there's commentary about well, you say Wicked
part one in part two, but it's you know, people
defending the movie. Well, it's actually a continuation of the story. Okay,
that works, but if you didn't see part one, then
part two makes no sense.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
A film, even a sequel film, right, should stand on
its own as a that it tells a complete story beginning, middle,
and an end.

Speaker 1 (38:32):
And that one doesn't.

Speaker 2 (38:34):
It doesn't. It really doesn't. It is the next episode
of a television show. And I don't like even like
you can look at say the original Lord of the
Rings trilogy, which was a movie that was shot three
movies that were all shot in one go, but each
of those movies tells I mean, they have a rising
and falling action, each one has an ending that that

(38:54):
has you anticipated.

Speaker 1 (38:56):
When granted they have several books to follow, not just
one book.

Speaker 2 (38:59):
That I don't think that makes a difference in the
fine in how that movie was constructed. My point is
that you can tell and even I would say the
original Star Wars trilogy, those are three separate films. They
tell an overarching story, but each one ends and then
the next one begins, whereas this one it's just like
boom Let's picking up where we left off. I do

(39:22):
feel that, and I'm saying something that pretty much every
critic has said. This would have all worked so much
better as one film. It should have been. It would
have been a very long film, a three hour and
twenty minute film maybe, but we've seen those in the
last few years. The problem is all second acts of
musicals are are weaker than their first acts. In almost

(39:46):
every instance. That's the case. They also tend to be
because of the nature of how these stories are constructed.
They also tend to be kind of depressing because everything
starts falling apart for the characters. And that works in
say a three act structure or a four x structure,
because you're taking an audience through something and when everything

(40:06):
goes bad for the characters, well, it was only an
hour ago when everything was going good for the characters,
so it doesn't feel but this it's a year later
and everything sucks. So it is a movie where just
everything sucks, and that's not you know, every once in
a while they would I think they did it once
and I remember thinking they really should do this more
where they flashed back to right with them when they

(40:29):
were all students and they were in a field of
pop and I was like, you know, they really should
remind you of this a little bit more in the film,
because this film is a downer.

Speaker 1 (40:37):
I you know, as someone who hasn't seen the play, musical,
read the book, just the movies, I felt that the
first movie was so cheerful and uplifting and up bright
and beautiful colors, you know, And I get it, that's
the beginning of the story and I expected this the
second part to be dark, but my god, this was

(40:57):
like way too somber, way too dark. The lighting everything,
it was just too much dark.

Speaker 2 (41:03):
Literally, yeah, it was such a muddy looking it.

Speaker 1 (41:06):
Was just like, I mean, it was dark to look at.
I was like, all right, can we get a can
we get a flashlight here? Because I can't see anything.
It was just very dark the whole thing with the animals.
And I get it, you're making a social issue, you know,
point here, but it just felt too dark. The whole
thing felt too dark to me. And if you don't

(41:27):
know what happened before, if you're just watching these movies,
you have no idea why people are behaving the way
they are. Because they changed, they kept changing their behavior.
That's all the time.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
I don't mind that the story got a little dark,
and I don't mind that the story layers political, you know, stop.
I mean, the book did. That was the whole point
to it. But this does get down to whether or
not I enjoy watching all this political allegory being layered
onto a story that was written for children, and or

(41:58):
or put more succinctly, it's not about whether I enjoy it.
It's whether I think it works, and I don't. I don't.
It's I'm not bothered by the film being too dark.
I just didn't think it worked within all this whimsy.
And you're trying to talk about racism and fascism and everything,
and you can, you can do that, but I just

(42:21):
don't think the film handled it well. I think if
you are doing that, if you're doing a film about
fascism and racism and political allegories set in a whimsical land,
it needs a fine touch. It needs a director who
knows what they're doing. And I mean, maybe this sounds
silly because it's going to be the biggest film of
the year, but I don't think John Cheu is that director.

(42:42):
I don't think he's a very subtle director, and I
don't think he's a very thoughtful director. I think what
he tends to go for in films is bomb best.
Everything's loud, or he throws everything at you. I tweeted
on Blue Sky last night after we came back. I said,
I felt like I just got yelled at for two hours.

(43:02):
And I don't mind that the film is loud, it's cacoffiness.
I remember saying this last year about the film when
the first film with I can't remember what Jonathan Bailey's
big number is, where he's singing in that library and
he's very hot and sexy. And I complained about that
number then because they built this ridiculously elaborate set with
turning wheels and gears and grinding, and there were literally

(43:24):
like two hundred people flipping and doing all sorts of
things in the background. And I complained about it then,
and I'll complain about it now. I think I know
I had studied a lot of musicals. Movie musicals need
a certain clarity to them because you need to direct
the eye where to go, and you need to direct

(43:45):
the audience to the correct emotional like who's having the
emotional response in this scene with fifty dancers and he
doesn't do that. It's all cacfinis. There's so much going
on that scene with where she goes to the castle
with all the monkeys and they all start lighting the
fires and she just screams a song for four minutes

(44:06):
while all of these shrieking monkeys are flying around, and
there's so much going on. I remember sitting there going,
I don't even know what the emotion is here. Is
she angry? Is she sad? I can't tell. She's just screaming,
And there's so much that I cannot focus on.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
The whole point of being a musical that you are
singing your feelings. It's completely gone.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
It's gone, it's gone. It's just let's scream things at
each other. And that seduction scene.

Speaker 1 (44:33):
Oh my god. Yes, it's because a.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
Lot of people. I don't want to be mean, but
I mean I did think it. I was like, all right,
we're watching two queer people who are trying to pretend
that they're hot for each other, and you know they're
not queer for each other. And I mean, Jonathan Bailey
has played sexy straight men to no problem before, so
I really don't think it had to do with their queerness.

(44:56):
I just think the staging of that they are screaming.
Their faces are this part like literally a centimeter apart
because they're about to kiss, but they are both screaming
their songs at each other, and it's not sexy.

Speaker 1 (45:10):
And I find that that scene they just didn't they
didn't know what to do because because clearly you can
make the argument that this is not a movie for kids.
I get it, But at the same time, kids are
going to see this movie, and they all know that,
the studio knows that, everybody knows that, so they're trying
to play this this you know double you know, meaning

(45:31):
here that they're just hugging or kissing or whatever, but
they're not, you know. And then why they're going to
have sex. I mean, we can't show that because kids
are watching this. It just it just felt very awkward.

Speaker 2 (45:41):
The whole thing didn't show sex. I don't expected song
as a metaphor for sex. That's as classic a movie
musical move as it cats. But I just didn't think
the staging of that song was sexy at all. There
was nothing about it that was sexy.

Speaker 1 (45:58):
And again a lot of people that point, and I
agree that there's no leading up to that. I mean
in terms of their relationship. I remember from the first movie,
but it came out of nowhere, like the way they
do were just together.

Speaker 2 (46:11):
Why don't we take a short break here and then
I'm going to get into that because motivations, what the
hell were they? We'll be right back, We're back, and
Lorenzo was talking about how that's quote unquote sex scene
didn't make any sense. But I turned to Lorenzo at
one point during I can't remember which scene it was,

(46:31):
and I was like, nothing anybody is doing here makes sense,
and yes, oh, I know what it was. It was
the scene where Fierro was captured, where Fierro pulls the
gun and Bubba. So we are going to get into
some spoilers here. I did not understand the motivations of
a single character in this film, and they changed from

(46:53):
one moment to the next. I mean, Alphabet's dancing with
the you know, she's she's fighting the Wizard's she's messages
in the sky about the wizard lies and then she's
dancing and singing with the Wizard, and then she's fighting
with the Wizard again, and then she's putting the Wizard
in a kate, Like, what are we doing here, and
then all of these characters, like, honestly, the movie is

(47:15):
Ariana Grande's movie, it's Glinda's movie, and she is the
character whose head we are inside through most of the movie,
whose changes in character we can understand because they spend
time with her, and we understand mostly why she's doing
what she's doing. Alphabe's motivations seem to change from minute
to minute, and it's all about freeing the animals and

(47:38):
fighting fascism, and then it becomes, well, screw that, I
just want vengeance for my sister, which okay, fine, they're not.

Speaker 1 (47:44):
Well established enough. And then and then at some point
you decided to be against your sister, but then you
you're supporting your sister, and then you it's very confusing
the establish Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:55):
I do feel like they didn't they they cast an actress,
a wheelchair bound actress in that role, which and my
understanding is it's not on the stage like when when
Alfab casts her spell, she gets out of the wheelchair
and walks in the movie, she floats in the air.
That's not a complaint or anything, but I do feel

(48:15):
like there was a certain restraint with nessa Rose, like
they they didn't want to depict a differently abled person
as an outright villain. But she is an outright villain.
The movie only works, the story only works if she's
a villain. And they were so you know, reticent, so
reluctant to do that with her. I was like, you know,

(48:37):
if you just make her a total bitch, this story
would work a lot better.

Speaker 1 (48:41):
Right, It would make more sense her decisions, especially with Bach,
you know, everything would make more sense. I mean, why
are you acting like this towards you know.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
Well, I understood that she was infatuated with him, but
again they were like, oh, she's a sweet but she's
you know, you know whatever, Like just make her a bitch.
That's the point. I never understood Pharaoh what he was
doing from minute to minute. There were entire scenes, and
I did. I turned to you at one point, I
was like, I have no idea what he's thinking right now, Like,
no idea what this character is thinking.

Speaker 1 (49:10):
It's supposed to be like, oh, maybe he's faking it,
maybe he's pretending that he's you know again, but again
it's not clear.

Speaker 2 (49:17):
It's not that I'm confused. I understood what was going on,
but it was not being depicted that I didn't understand
why why I had I had to figure everything out.
I didn't understand why I needed so much information from
previous films or from what I know about this musical
in order for the story to make sense.

Speaker 1 (49:35):
A lot of people made that point that it we
didn't have enough information enough scenes with with bach And
and Nessa to you know, and the same thing with
with with the two of them with what the name
fe were Piarah pharoh and and then Alphabet. They didn't
wouldn't have enough there. In terms of same thing with.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
The Cowardly Lion, he gets a second yes, origin story
in the first film, and now he hates Alphaba, but
we don't know, I mean, I guess, but that character
was and the digital work on that character was really bad. Animals.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
I agree, I agree, Oh my god, you're right. I
noticed that, And I forgot to mention that the animals
all looked fake?

Speaker 2 (50:17):
What else? So yeah, I didn't know what Fierro was
doing from moment to moment. So let's get into the
whole twist, which is that Alphaba essentially accidentally creates the
tin Woodsman and the Scarecrow out of bach and Fierro Again.
I hate this. I knew it was in the story
I read the story, but I hate this idea where

(50:38):
we have to explain there are every character has some connections.
So he couldn't be some tin woodsman out in the
woods who was rusting and left alone. He has to
be the Wicked Witch's sisters, you know, I agree, uh,
lover or whatever. And same thing with Fierro. He can't
just be some scarecrow out in the field. He has

(51:00):
to be Alphaba's boyfriend and Glinda's ex boy like I agree.
It makes this Oz into five people. There are five
people on OZ, and nobody else matters.

Speaker 1 (51:10):
I just and most of the time it's basically just
the two of them, which I kind of understand.

Speaker 2 (51:16):
Okay, and now we have to this is what I So.
The story of Wicked for Good essentially lets everything in
The Wizard of Oz happen off screen, but it happens
like it happens the way more or less the way
Dorothy goes off, Glinda sends Drothy off on the Yellow
Brick Road to go find the Wizard. Why why does

(51:41):
she do that? Why? At this point, like Fierra has
been captured and Alphab has been fighting her, And why
is Glinda sending this girl off to the Wizard. Why
would she do that? There's literally no explanation for that.
It doesn't make any sense given the story that we've
told We've been told about Glinda. That whole scene is

(52:04):
I get it, Glinda essentially caused the death of Nssa
Rose because she gave them the idea to go after
Nessa Rose. She didn't realize Matam Marble was going to
kill her for it. But so there's Glinda standing over
essentially Nessa Rose's dead body, and at this point she
has to know that she caused that to happen, but
she's not acting like that at all. Watch that scene.

(52:25):
Is this someone who sends someone to their death? No,
so she sends she sends Dorothy off to the Wizard
for absolutely no reason, no explanation whatsoever. She already knows
the Wizard. Glinda knows the Wizard is a fraud. So
what does she think the Wizard's going to do for Dorothy?
And then why is Fierro and Bach with her? I

(52:51):
get that Bach? Well, no, I actually don't get Bach
hates Alphaba for turning him into the tin Woodsman, But
he was that nessa Rose is the one that did that,
initiated that. But I guess he hates Alphaba. Now, okay,
we're not really given much of an explanation or any moment,
like he gets turned into the tin Woodsman and we
barely ever see him again, and then the whole thing.

(53:16):
They really wanted that Fierra revealed to be a surprise,
so they just kept him out of the movie until
the last second so we could see him in that
ridiculous makeup. Did you not think he looked ridiculous? Why
did Ray Boulger in nineteen thirty nine look better as
the Scarecrow than he did Jonathan Bailey in twenty twenty five.

Speaker 1 (53:36):
Why I didn't understand the face thing.

Speaker 2 (53:38):
I didn't understand the face. It just I didn't understand
it at all. But again, why why why did Fierro
go off with Darthy? Now I understand it's sort of
explained that there was some sort of plan at the end,
but there's no point at which Alphaba and Pierarro could

(54:00):
have hatched that plan. Not only that, but Alphaba reacted
with surprise when she saw Piero at the end, so
as if she didn't know that Piero had been turned
into a scarecrow. Right. None of that makes any sense
to me. None of that actually makes any sense at all,
and none of it is explained in the story. So
it's just I'm sitting there in the last twenty minutes going,

(54:21):
why is everybody The only reason everybody's acting this way
is because it has to end the same way the
Wizard of Oz ended. But none of that actually makes
any sense because you decided to deconstruct these characters and
give them all these motivations that they didn't have in
the Wizard of Oz.

Speaker 1 (54:36):
Well, so that's the thing. I was watching the whole thing.
I was like, oh, so that's why, But that doesn't
make sense, you know. I kept having that reaction all
the time, like wow, the acting thing. Yes, Glinda knows
that it's not true that the Wicked Witch melts when
she's exposed to water, but when Darthy throws the water
on her, Glinda cries.

Speaker 2 (54:57):
As if the witch has been killed. Why well, why
why are you crying? And the story is well and apparently,
and that's the thing I thought the ending was that
Glinda was before I saw the film, Glinda knew about
right alphabet and Fierro going off at the end.

Speaker 1 (55:18):
But no, she doesn't know, she doesn't know.

Speaker 2 (55:21):
Why does she think she's Why does she think a
bucket of water killed her friend? Which that's pure propaganda.
The film made that clear and she knows that. So
why none of that makes sense?

Speaker 1 (55:33):
I think it's an awkward combination of trying to get
stuff from the original movie to be in the story,
plus the version of the book, plus some of the play.

Speaker 2 (55:45):
All together as milange, and it falls apart.

Speaker 1 (55:48):
And I felt like the second movie, I felt like
things were getting repeated over and over again. So many
things were.

Speaker 2 (55:55):
Could they stop crying every as they sing at each other?

Speaker 1 (55:57):
Every scene? Felt like didn't we just talk about this
before much?

Speaker 2 (56:01):
We love each other and you're my datest friend Everard,
I'm gonna tearfully cry two witches from your bed. No,
it's again and again and again.

Speaker 1 (56:07):
I know. I know it's a musical, but at some
point I was like, all right, enough songs. Can I
have a little bit of a story here because I
craved the songs.

Speaker 2 (56:17):
The songs are not great, there's no decent dancing or
anything like that. I do want to talk about the
production design, which, oh, Okay, God.

Speaker 1 (56:28):
Let me just finish. He had that. There was so
much declaration of love between those two that I was like, enough.

Speaker 2 (56:34):
Enough, you two are being weird.

Speaker 1 (56:36):
You it, you two are being weird the whole thing.
We're good. I'm good, and I'm there's good in me
from you and you from me, from me from you.

Speaker 2 (56:44):
Yeah, I'm like, all right, can we just I need
to go home? Yeah, I need to buy it's are waiting,
I can wrap this up. I totally agree. And it wasn't.
It was shorter than any of it than the first film.
It's not that the film was too long, it's just
that it it. It wasn't interesting enough to be that long,
you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (57:04):
Right? And two more things I want to talk about.
The acting part is a Jeff Golden number one. I
think he's a very charming actor. If you see him
on the red carpet, he's very charming. He's funny, and
I feel that that's all we got. I didn't I
was expecting a better impersonation. I don't know, I just
don't think. I felt I felt like I was looking

(57:27):
at the actor the whole time and not so much
the character. And I felt that way in the first movie,
and I was like, well, let me see the second movie,
and it confirmed.

Speaker 2 (57:36):
What I felt.

Speaker 1 (57:39):
I don't know, yeah, and I and something else that's
gonna piss a lot of people, but I'm gonna say
it anyway. I thought Michelle Yoh was absolutely.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
Horrible, Madam horrible.

Speaker 1 (57:49):
And let me just say something. She is a great actor,
she has proven that.

Speaker 2 (57:54):
But this is not her material for her.

Speaker 1 (57:56):
The line delivery, it was so stiff, so bad.

Speaker 2 (58:01):
Yeah, it was just ja. They got her to sing
one forget the singing. It was horrible.

Speaker 1 (58:06):
I'm not even touching, but the it was just bad.
The whole thing was really, really, really laughable at some point,
and I'm like, this is horrible for Michelle you because
she is a good actor. She can she can act.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
She shouldn't have been casting this ship. I think she
was cast because she looks amazing in those costumes. But
that's right, right, Which there's another character that actually doesn't
make sense to me, because, Okay, the Wizard actually has
a witch. What does he need alpha before if he's
got Madame Marble? And I know there are explanations for
that in the play and in the book and everything,
but there's no explanation in the movie. There's no explanation.

(58:40):
Why do you need alpha? But if you've got this
witch who can make tornadoes right right, just she can
wave her hands and make tornadoes, and why at the
end of the film is Glinda going up against her like, oh,
I'm okay, okay, Well she's a witch and you're not.
And okay, so you've got some monkeys and now you're
bad at like this is what I mean? Nothing about

(59:01):
that made any damn sense at all. Nobody nothing of
what anyone was trying to accomplish. I actually could not
explain what anyone was trying to First of all, why
was why was the wizard so against the animals? What
was that about?

Speaker 1 (59:15):
Never, it's never clear, it's never.

Speaker 2 (59:18):
Oh, and all the animals have been outlawed and speaking animals,
and so I have been run in there in cages
in the bottom of the castle or whatever. But everyone's
cheering for the cowardly Lion to go after the witch.
The cowardly Lion is standing there in the middle of
the Emerald City, after we've spent three hours being told

(59:38):
that animals are being brutalized and this one's getting cheered,
Why again, you cannot fit the Wizard of Oz characters
into the story you've created. It does not make any sense.
And maybe they should have just ditched any effort to
do the Wizard of Oz at all, just to to
and the you know whatever. But they had over explain

(01:00:00):
every single thing. And that's what happens is when you
try and over explain every single thing, it starts making
less and less. Right.

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
The only thing that worked for me really really well
with the costumes. I have to say, I was really
impressed by the costumes. Especially Glinda's gowns are stunning.

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
I don't get that sweater that the.

Speaker 1 (01:00:19):
Sweater everyone makes I don't get it. Everyone makes fun
of this.

Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
I don't get the sweater. But yes, they cover the
fierros like the military guards. Costumes were just stunning.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
The wedding gown I thought it was perfect, because you know,
you were expecting this insane gown, but it was actually
your beautiful dress, and with the you know train and
all that. And I was paying attention to everything this
time because I was borded everything else. The jewelry, the earrings,
the mil god, the jeury was perfect. Pardon me, I

(01:00:51):
was looking at them. I was like, this is all
custom made, gorgeous stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
Oh yeah, well that's what he's doing.

Speaker 1 (01:00:57):
It worked, worked for the character because that's the character.

Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
And Madam Marbles cost and then Jeff Globlim wore coat,
an embroidered coat with pots all over them.

Speaker 1 (01:01:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:09):
Just I mean it belongs in a museum.

Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
So yeah, the costumes were great. The sets, I guess.

Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
They're not sets. Mostly I hated the production design. I
found that obnoxious. This is going back to John Cheu
not knowing when to settle down. I noticed in the
first fifteen minutes there were four scenes with fireworks in it, Like,
you can't just let a scene happen. You have to
end it with fireworks four times in fifteen minutes all,

(01:01:39):
and how many fireworks. There were so many scenes with
fireworks and banners exploding and puffs of smoke exploding all
over the city. I'm not against any of that, but
there's no restraint. There's it's just bomb it. And it's
the same thing with the the production design of what
the Emerald City looks like, the buildings and everything. And

(01:02:01):
I know most of that was seen in Wicked, but
I do feel like it was a little more out
of control in this film. I'm I'm not arguing that
it needed a more simplistic, minimalist production design. I'm just saying,
if you're going to have every building, every single thing
so ridiculously over designed, maybe like calm down on the

(01:02:25):
editing and the and the special effects and the fireworks
and let everyone see what you've done inste everything's moving
so quickly, every frame is so full of information that
you absolutely cannot register anything anything.

Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
If you ask me, I don't remember a lot of
things because things looked like because there were so many dancers,
so many people on stage, or you know, in the scene.
It's just felt like too much. Everything felt like.

Speaker 2 (01:02:53):
A movie musical requires no matter how exuberant the production
numbers get, and they should get exuberant and over the top,
and no matter how eye popping the production design gets,
it needs a certain restraint and clarity to it in
order for the story to make sense, because otherwise it's
just gonna be a lot of noise. And that is

(01:03:14):
exactly what Wicked for Good was. For me. It was
a lot of noise and color, but not a lot
of thought was put into this product.

Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
That was my first thought it's very loud. It's just
loud all the time. And yes, it's a musical, people
are saying, and you're gonna have extras, you know, showing
out to dance with them, But my god, it's just
two munch Yeah. Sometimes you need, like, you know, some downtime.

Speaker 2 (01:03:37):
You do, that's yeah, I mean that's how you construct
a film. You need to give the audience a break
every now and then, right right, And he doesn't do that, No,
he does. And it doesn't give you time to think
about why people are acting the way they're at. Everything
just just moves from scene to scene to scene. And
I look, this film's gonna make, oh my god, more
money than I've ever seen.

Speaker 1 (01:03:57):
In my life.

Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
Yes, yes, so you know this is just me and
you ranting about something that is going to be a
wild success anyway, And that is I'm not mad at
it whatever. I just didn't think it was listening.

Speaker 1 (01:04:08):
They renewed all fair, they renewed all Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04:11):
So what do I know?

Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
I know nothing, people, I know nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:04:15):
I don't know. I think we've beaten this one up. Yes, yes,
I mean go see it, of course, I mean, I mean, yeah,
only if you want to. Yeah, it's not a recommended film,
but I know that if you're a Wicked fan, you're
gonna want to see.

Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
And I feel like you have to see the first
part before you see the second. There's I mean, if
you just see the second part makes it doesn't make
a lot of sense.

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
And one final thought, I do think Ariana grand it
is her movie. Yes, yes, And I actually would not
be upset if she got a nomination out of this.
I do think the girls an actress, She's for real
actress and she and she carries this movie more so
than people realize who haven't seen it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:56):
I think, I think can I just forgot to mention
that because I wanted to talk about her seeing both
of them. I think the thing with with Ariana Grande
is that she does a fantastic job. She talks about
how much she worshiped this role, this movie, or play
whatever her entire life. Uh, and she wanted to play
this part so badly, so you can tell it's like

(01:05:17):
it's like kind of like Lady Gaga, you know, preparing
for her role for that movie. So, uh, you she
worked really really hard. Unfortunately, every now and then you
can see that that she's trying too hard to reach
at a certain point, it doesn't come naturally. She has
an amazing voice, but she's she's not an opera singer.

(01:05:37):
It's not that it requires an opera singer row but
every now and then she tries to reach that and
it doesn't work. But she is incredible. The only complaint
that I have is that I can't help but notice
that every now and then she sounds like Kristin Chenoua's
I said.

Speaker 2 (01:05:55):
That the first she clearly was. I mean, she is
modeling it, and.

Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
The people were making the point that the part was
written for her for Christen, you know, and and that
it's hard not to mimic her her style, which I
kind of agree and disagree. But every now and then
we're like, whoa, you sound just like her?

Speaker 2 (01:06:15):
Yeah, I mean, you don't have to sound just like
Kristin Chenoweth to do and to.

Speaker 1 (01:06:20):
Make the comparison, you don't get that from Cintio Revill.

Speaker 2 (01:06:24):
No, she's not doing a denonon Zelle.

Speaker 1 (01:06:25):
No, she's not. She's very herself. I am really touched
by I was really touched by Cintia Rebel's performance. Overall.
I think she really brings it to the role, that pain,
that suffering. You know that her whole life as a
character going through so much uh so much everything, And

(01:06:46):
when you play that as as as a black person,
as a black actor, you know, it makes it up
oh absolutely much bigger point.

Speaker 2 (01:06:52):
I agree.

Speaker 1 (01:06:53):
And you cannot not see that, you know, you just
see her doing a phenomenal job. So I give her
a lot of credit. I think you can you feel
the emotion. It's the only time in the movie that
I get emotional is when Saint Jerry will perform perform,
you know, every now and then. That's it. But yeah,

(01:07:14):
I saw it. Yeah, don't need to see it again.

Speaker 2 (01:07:17):
Eftionally, those are our thoughts on Wicked for Good. Let
us know yours. I know some of you kittens have
already seen it. We will be back next week after
the holiday with whatever cross across our desk. Until then,
have a lovely hobit holiday. If you're in America, take
care of yourself, love you mean it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:33):
By bye bye