Johnny Oleksinski has been The New York Post’s entertainment critic, its leading voice on movies and theater, since 2018. He began at The Post as an entertainment reporter in 2015. Before moving to New York, he was a theater writer/editor at the Chicago Tribune and was chief theater critic of Newcity Chicago. He is a voting member of the New York Drama Critics Circle. Mr. Oleksinski majored in theater at Illinois State University. He lives in the East Village, and can be heard every on 710~WOR Radio.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is a podcast from dou wor back now to
the doubr Saturday Morning Show with Larry Minty. Welcome back.
Uh oh. New York Post entertainment critic Johnny Oleaczinski hates
a new play even though it has a big star.
Let's talk about Christine Chenoweth, who now is in a
(00:20):
new Broadway play. Everybody loves her from Wicked. She's been
a huge star on Broadway, so this has gotta be great.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Oh you bet it isn't. Oh my god, oh what
a big fat one star from me. It's called the
Queen of Versailles. And some people might know this story
it's about. It's from a documentary about this woman named
Jackie Siegel. She was married to David Siegel, who was
in charge of a Westgate timeshares, right, and she marries him.
(00:49):
She comes from upstate New York, very kind of low class,
upbringing marys this rich billionaire and then they start to
build a ninety thousand square foot house modeled after Versailles
and in France, in Florida, in Orlando, and then the
house comes in they you know, the financial crisis happens,
and there's all these setbacks that if anyone just heard
(01:11):
me say that and went, I would like to see
a music hall.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
About that.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
There's something wrong with you. And it turns out there's
so many many things wrong with the show. One of
the crazier things about it is beyond Christian Sheno with
who I've always liked before I'll get into her in
a second. Stephen Schwartz, who wrote Wicked, Rolling in Money,
Define Gravity, popular all that, he wrote Wicked, Pippin, god Spell,
(01:36):
Rolling in Money, Terrible scorch, the worst of his career.
I wish these legendary composers would just pack it up
sometimes and just enjoy their legacies, as opposed to sullying
them with subpar new stuff. But then there's Christian Shennow
with A's this kind of real housewife character. There's just
no humanity to it. I said, she kind of peacocks
(01:59):
around singing Blands songs. It really really was quite bad.
So that's the verdict from the New York Post. If
you read the New York Times, which I'm sure so
many WR listeners are clamoring to do, you'll hear a
very different take, objectively wrong one that this show is good.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
They are wrong.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
They are the only people that said it's good.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
They are wrong.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Do not waste your money seeing the Queen of Versailles.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Okay, how does that happen when you think something is
that bad that you can't believe anyone else would like it?
And I trust you on this, Are there other factors
in play with some of the critics that they would
give it a good a better review than it deserves?
Speaker 2 (02:43):
You know, you think you're implying some sort of corruption.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
I will say that there's.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
None of that is going on at the New York Times.
It's just that old phrase, there's no accounting for taste.
Some people have really weird tastes, you know that, You say,
I love this movie, and you go, how could you possibly?
And I think it's up to us critics to have
a broad ranging taste for a large readership.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah, I'm not saying it has to be corrupt. I'm
just saying that there might be other reasons because of
a personal relationship with liking a certain actress, liking a
certain producer, you know, liking that person that much that
it kind of colors the colors their review.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Oh, that is absolutely true.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
And this used to happen, and he was a great critic,
Ben Brantley, but he would review. He would sort of
write these love letters to starlits, so he would he
loved Christian Channa with and he would do the whole
beginning of the review like behold the Goddess of the stage,
Christian Channai, and then towards the bottom he might say, well,
the songs weren't that good and the staging wasn't that good.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
So that absolutely does happen. You're impacted by that.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
That's so funny because whenever I used to read his reviews,
I'd go to the last paragraph and that was speistically what.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
I got everything I needed right there. That's so funny
that you said that, because I always did that. That's
what that's kind of.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
That's sort of a critic seek if you like it,
you kind of bury the criticisms at the bottom.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Right. Let's talk about Sidney Sweety. We were just talking
about her a second ago, because she's getting hit with
questions as she tries to promote this movie. She's getting
hit with questions about the jeens Ad, which seems to
be so unfair. How is Christy.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Doing, by the way, the jeans ad that no one
cares about except the media.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Nobody cares. It's an ad.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
I don't know why my cohorts in the media are
so obsessed with talking about this ad and hammering home
this ad.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
The movie I like.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
I saw the movie at the Toronto Film Festival. I
thought it was really great. I think it's a big
step for her as an actress. Unfortunately, so people are
talking and I'm going, so it's one of the lowest
wide release opening weekends ever. It was like one point
three million across more than two thousand screens, which is very,
very bad. It's not her fault. It's not the movie's fault.
(04:51):
If you go on Rotten Tomatoes it has with the
audience score, it's like a ninety six percent. So the
people that are going really really like it. It's just
this is a bad time for adult skewing movies. There's
that thing in people's head. Larry, I'm sure you say
it all the time, like I'll wait till it's on streaming.
It's the death now for these kind of gems with
(05:12):
good acting. But now we expect to see movies like Christy,
which is a biopic of Christy Martin the Boxer.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
We expect to see that on TV, not on the
big screen. So they wait and then the movie's tank.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Yeah it might do really well streaming, but people go
to the theaters now to see big events. Something that
plays do a big screen. If not, why go you're
gonna see it anyway.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Then I can't blame them. In New York anyway, you're
spending sometimes thirty dollars to see a movie and that's
just the ticket. Then you know, if you take a
date or your kids and you get popcorn and drinks
like somehow, you're down at one hundred and fifty bucks
just to watch a movie on a screen that might
not be as good as the one at home.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
So Michael Jackson is the first artist to have a
top ten hit in all six decades, the last six decades.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Yeah, this is gosh. He's working so hard.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
He's been dead sixteen years and yet just this week,
this week, he became the first artist to have a
top ten hit across six decades exsecutively. The previous was
five and it was someone I couldn't name. It wasn't
a big person, so uh, and the reason this happened,
So the song is Thriller. Thriller is now in the
Billboard Top ten again, and that's because the trailer for
(06:23):
the new biopick Michael, which is coming out next spring,
that came out and it was all set to thriller.
So now there's all these new fans watching this and
wanting to hear that song, which is pretty cool to me.
I still think that movie's kind of a pathetic and
awful thing that's not going to confront pedophilia. Not that
I want a movie about pedophilia, but I mean, he
(06:45):
was if.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
You're going to do a biopick on somebody, yes.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Yeah, I would say he was demonstrably a pedophile, and
now we're gonna have it. But hey, his song is
back in the top ten, which is kind of neat.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
New York Post entertainment critic Johnny Olegzinski. This has been
a podcas cast from WR
This is a podcast from dou wor back now to
the doubr Saturday Morning Show with Larry Minty. Welcome back.
Uh oh. New York Post entertainment critic Johnny Oleaczinski hates
a new play even though it has a big star.
Let's talk about Christine Chenoweth, who now is in a
(00:20):
new Broadway play. Everybody loves her from Wicked. She's been
a huge star on Broadway, so this has gotta be great.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Oh you bet it isn't. Oh my god, oh what
a big fat one star from me. It's called the
Queen of Versailles. And some people might know this story
it's about. It's from a documentary about this woman named
Jackie Siegel. She was married to David Siegel, who was
in charge of a Westgate timeshares, right, and she marries him.
(00:49):
She comes from upstate New York, very kind of low class,
upbringing marys this rich billionaire and then they start to
build a ninety thousand square foot house modeled after Versailles
and in France, in Florida, in Orlando, and then the
house comes in they you know, the financial crisis happens,
and there's all these setbacks that if anyone just heard
(01:11):
me say that and went, I would like to see
a music hall.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
About that.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
There's something wrong with you. And it turns out there's
so many many things wrong with the show. One of
the crazier things about it is beyond Christian Sheno with
who I've always liked before I'll get into her in
a second. Stephen Schwartz, who wrote Wicked, Rolling in Money,
Define Gravity, popular all that, he wrote Wicked, Pippin, god Spell,
(01:36):
Rolling in Money, Terrible scorch, the worst of his career.
I wish these legendary composers would just pack it up
sometimes and just enjoy their legacies, as opposed to sullying
them with subpar new stuff. But then there's Christian Shennow
with A's this kind of real housewife character. There's just
no humanity to it. I said, she kind of peacocks
(01:59):
around singing Blands songs. It really really was quite bad.
So that's the verdict from the New York Post. If
you read the New York Times, which I'm sure so
many WR listeners are clamoring to do, you'll hear a
very different take, objectively wrong one that this show is good.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
They are wrong.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
They are the only people that said it's good.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
They are wrong.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Do not waste your money seeing the Queen of Versailles.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Okay, how does that happen when you think something is
that bad that you can't believe anyone else would like it?
And I trust you on this, Are there other factors
in play with some of the critics that they would
give it a good a better review than it deserves?
Speaker 2 (02:43):
You know, you think you're implying some sort of corruption.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
I will say that there's.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
None of that is going on at the New York Times.
It's just that old phrase, there's no accounting for taste.
Some people have really weird tastes, you know that, You say,
I love this movie, and you go, how could you possibly?
And I think it's up to us critics to have
a broad ranging taste for a large readership.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah, I'm not saying it has to be corrupt. I'm
just saying that there might be other reasons because of
a personal relationship with liking a certain actress, liking a
certain producer, you know, liking that person that much that
it kind of colors the colors their review.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Oh, that is absolutely true.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
And this used to happen, and he was a great critic,
Ben Brantley, but he would review. He would sort of
write these love letters to starlits, so he would he
loved Christian Channa with and he would do the whole
beginning of the review like behold the Goddess of the stage,
Christian Channai, and then towards the bottom he might say, well,
the songs weren't that good and the staging wasn't that good.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
So that absolutely does happen. You're impacted by that.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
That's so funny because whenever I used to read his reviews,
I'd go to the last paragraph and that was speistically what.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
I got everything I needed right there. That's so funny
that you said that, because I always did that. That's
what that's kind of.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
That's sort of a critic seek if you like it,
you kind of bury the criticisms at the bottom.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Right. Let's talk about Sidney Sweety. We were just talking
about her a second ago, because she's getting hit with
questions as she tries to promote this movie. She's getting
hit with questions about the jeens Ad, which seems to
be so unfair. How is Christy.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Doing, by the way, the jeans ad that no one
cares about except the media.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Nobody cares. It's an ad.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
I don't know why my cohorts in the media are
so obsessed with talking about this ad and hammering home
this ad.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
The movie I like.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
I saw the movie at the Toronto Film Festival. I
thought it was really great. I think it's a big
step for her as an actress. Unfortunately, so people are
talking and I'm going, so it's one of the lowest
wide release opening weekends ever. It was like one point
three million across more than two thousand screens, which is very,
very bad. It's not her fault. It's not the movie's fault.
(04:51):
If you go on Rotten Tomatoes it has with the
audience score, it's like a ninety six percent. So the
people that are going really really like it. It's just
this is a bad time for adult skewing movies. There's
that thing in people's head. Larry, I'm sure you say
it all the time, like I'll wait till it's on streaming.
It's the death now for these kind of gems with
(05:12):
good acting. But now we expect to see movies like Christy,
which is a biopic of Christy Martin the Boxer.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
We expect to see that on TV, not on the
big screen. So they wait and then the movie's tank.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Yeah it might do really well streaming, but people go
to the theaters now to see big events. Something that
plays do a big screen. If not, why go you're
gonna see it anyway.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Then I can't blame them. In New York anyway, you're
spending sometimes thirty dollars to see a movie and that's
just the ticket. Then you know, if you take a
date or your kids and you get popcorn and drinks
like somehow, you're down at one hundred and fifty bucks
just to watch a movie on a screen that might
not be as good as the one at home.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
So Michael Jackson is the first artist to have a
top ten hit in all six decades, the last six decades.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Yeah, this is gosh. He's working so hard.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
He's been dead sixteen years and yet just this week,
this week, he became the first artist to have a
top ten hit across six decades exsecutively. The previous was
five and it was someone I couldn't name. It wasn't
a big person, so uh, and the reason this happened,
So the song is Thriller. Thriller is now in the
Billboard Top ten again, and that's because the trailer for
(06:23):
the new biopick Michael, which is coming out next spring,
that came out and it was all set to thriller.
So now there's all these new fans watching this and
wanting to hear that song, which is pretty cool to me.
I still think that movie's kind of a pathetic and
awful thing that's not going to confront pedophilia. Not that
I want a movie about pedophilia, but I mean, he
(06:45):
was if.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
You're going to do a biopick on somebody, yes.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Yeah, I would say he was demonstrably a pedophile, and
now we're gonna have it. But hey, his song is
back in the top ten, which is kind of neat.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
New York Post entertainment critic Johnny Olegzinski. This has been
a podcas cast from WR
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