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- [00:00]
A
Sa.
- [00:34]
B
That jazz.
- [00:36]
A
Hello, all you theater lovers, both out and proud and on the DL. And welcome back to Broadway Breakdown, a podcast discussing the history un legacy of American theater's most exclusive address, Broadway. This series is called Matt's Picks, and that is covering shows and movies, especially that you submitted that I didn't pick out of a bowl for grab bag, but I wanted to cover them anyway because I just love them so much. I am your host, Matt Koplik, the least famous and most opinionated of all the Broadway podcast hosts. And with is someone who's new to the pod. She's coming for my gig because she's got a podcast called It's Broadway Bitch that has been rising in the ranks. People be recommending it on Reddit, on Instagram. People be sending it to me saying, have you heard of it? I'm like, not only have I heard of it, I know her. And just you wait, Henry Higgins, because she's coming on here. It's Casey Balsham. Hi, Casey.
- [01:24]
B
Oh, my God. If all that's true, that's so cool.
- [01:27]
A
Yeah. Have you not, like, gotten any responses about the podcast? Because, like, I keep hearing about it.
- [01:32]
B
I mean, really well.
- [01:33]
A
I follow you on Instagram, and I've listened to it myself. I don't listen to a lot of Broadway. This is the best compliment I could give you. I don't listen to a lot of Broadway podcasts. I also say I don't love Broadway interviews, or in interviews in general, but Broadway interviews specifically because it's such a tricky ecosystem. Everyone doesn't know where their next job's gonna be. No one can, like, really air grievances that they used to have. But you have a very good. You're very good at creating a space where people are honest to a point where it doesn't feel like pr.
- [02:02]
B
Oh, thanks. It's been very fun. And once the mic gets off, too, I get some other. Some other dirt. But people have been very open, and it's been so fun to do so. I appreciate you picking up on that because I've been having such a good time, and I still can't believe that some of these people will even talk to me. Cause I truly love being in the world. And so it's been really fun. But, yeah, we're trying to have fun with it, but get a little gossip, so it's good.
- [02:26]
A
Absolutely. I mean, guys still listen to this podcast, but you should absolutely check out It's Broadway Bitch. Kasey does something very different than I do. I'm not great at Giving interviews.
- [02:35]
B
So I'm always going to be on mine as well. So it'll be a nice little give and take.
- [02:40]
A
Me and you here I am going to be on. On Casey's. So that's a little bit of PR for me. But I'm always just very. I admire people who can do that because I know that that's one of my weaknesses. So that's why I really enjoy yours.
- [02:52]
B
Anyway, thank you. Oh, thank you very much.
- [02:56]
A
Enough jerking each other off.
- [02:57]
B
I know. I love that though. Listen, that was very important.
- [03:02]
A
Yeah. Rub my nipples and call me pretty. Casey, what the flying fuck are we talking today?
- [03:07]
B
Okay. A movie that I had a severe love affair with in college. And I know what we were messaging back and forth. I was like, I had a moment with the show because I lived in Los Angeles. I would sit in that traffic. And this soundtrack, I think, literally kept me awake from getting in accidents. The movie Chicago near and Dear to my Soul. And rewatching it for this podcast was a goddamn joy. Can I tell you that? It was. I forgot how good it is.
- [03:34]
A
It's great.
- [03:35]
B
Wonderful.
- [03:37]
A
I'm gonna show my hand a little early before we get into this deep dive. Cause I've been teasing this episode for a while. I've talked about. Cause we've had a lot of movie musicals this century post Chicago for a reason.
- [03:47]
B
Yes.
- [03:47]
A
And I'll bring up Chicago a lot in comparison. And I've said on a few different episodes, I think this movie is perfect. I have no notes on it. And I will be talking more about why that is and comparing it to other movie musicals as well. But yeah, I'm the same way. I saw. I saw the stage show when I was nine. I really enjoyed it. I grew up on the original cast recording with Cheetah and Gwen. Movie came out. I saw it in December, opening weekend at the Ziegfeld, which no longer has a movie theater.
- [04:17]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [04:18]
A
Yeah. Me and. Me and about 1500 people in a sold out house. We all sat and watched it. And like within the first 30 seconds, we all collectively were like, oh, this is gonna work. Yes.
- [04:30]
B
That's the. You know, when I was just rewatching it, that was the exact same thing. I go right from the jump I wrote it starts in chaos. And you just know it's gonna be good.
- [04:38]
A
Yeah.
- [04:39]
B
Like you just from the. Within the first minute, you're like, great.
- [04:43]
A
Do you remember when you first saw the movie?
- [04:45]
B
You know what's so funny is I don't. I can't remember if I first Saw it in the theater. I'm assuming I would have, because I was a theater major at the time. So I'm assuming that I would have seen it in the theater. But I don't remember when I first saw it. I just remember that watching it being like, this is going to win all the stuff. And listening crazy to the soundtrack.
- [05:06]
A
The soundtrack is. Is fantastic. The only, like, negative you could give it is that there are songs from the show that are not on it. But none of the songs that are cut from the show are ones that I'm, like, jonesing to listen to. Like, I. I do love. I am my own best friend. I do love when Velma takes the stand. But I don't listen to the soundtrack and go, ooh. It's really. I'm really missing it right now. Like, it just goes from. It's a no skip soundtrack. Everything is perfect.
- [05:31]
B
It's. Everything is perfect. And I wrote. This is a note that I wrote. I go. And I love that not all of them are, like, proper talented singers. But I'm like, does that say something about the score that kind of. Anybody can kind of sing it with even just like, a half good voice? Or is it just, like, is it that entertaining? Is the. Is, you know, are they just that good as entertainers?
- [05:53]
A
I want to put a pin in that, because I have a whole thing about that.
- [05:56]
B
Yes. Okay.
- [05:57]
A
Yes. Because the answer is, like, everyone in it is so perfectly cast, and everyone in it can sing. But you wouldn't cast Rene. Fuck it. I'll talk about it. Now. You wouldn't cast Renee Zellweger to play Ava Perrone.
- [06:08]
B
No.
- [06:09]
A
But you also wouldn't cast Patti LuPone to play fucking Desiree Arnfeldt, in my opinion. And I know Patty did do Desiree at one point. I think that it's wrong to cast people who are under qualified vocally and overqualified vocally.
- [06:22]
B
Right.
- [06:22]
A
Like, by the time we record this, Kate Baldwin will be playing Roxie Hart on Broadway. And I love Kate, but Ms. Baldwin is a vocal dynamo. And Roxie Hart is not a vocally dynamic role. And you realize how limited it is when you have someone like a Kate Baldwin singing it. Like, it's not gonna sound incredible with her. Because you're gonna go, why are we in Baldwin's basement? Like, I wanna hear that beautiful mix. I wanna hear that belt. It's like, girl, this score, like, Roxy doesn't go above a B. Cause it was written for a post menopausal Gwen Verdon, who's like, Already going singing. There's Melanie Griffith and Pam Anderson have been able to do it on Broadway and, like, not get raked over the coals for it.
- [07:05]
B
Yes.
- [07:05]
A
Because it's. Roxy is actually a very. It's a small vocal range, and you can get away with a semi non singer doing it, I feel like. Or it's the same with Sally Bowles. Like, you need someone who can carry off it musically enough that it's not painful. But if you have someone who's like, belting out funny, honey, I'm like, girl, that's not what the assignment is. And Renee has this, like, kewpie doll. Like, not total Betty Boop, but it's like a light baby girl voice and.
- [07:33]
B
It works bouncy in it. I was like, she's just. She's bouncing with her voice. She's. Her body's bouncing. The dresses are bouncing. Like, it does work with this kind of childlike essence to the voice. But that was one of the things I was like, you don't need to be a proper singer for any of these roles. Like, a little vibrato here and there was appreciated. But it is. That is such an interesting thing you say that. You're right. Like, it is kind of crazy to have a Sing an actual singer in. In that role.
- [08:03]
A
Yeah. Velma's the singing role. And. And that is because it was a pre menopausal cheetah doing it in 1975. Like, the thing with Cheetah is for a lot. For someone who's primarily a dancer, she was like a genuine triple threat. You listen to her in west side Story Chicago, you're like, bitch can sing.
- [08:20]
B
Yes.
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A
Then the rink happens. She hits 50 and like, menopause happens. And her vocal range drops by two octaves. She still sounds lovely, but it's like where she used to be able to belt a D in chic. We got Spider Woman where she's like a G. Gentleman's G is my money note now.
- [08:35]
B
Do you know what's so funny is I had Christiane Noel on the podcast who was so fun and lovely, but she was. I think it was her. She was talking about how women actually find a lot of their range. Like at 40, like there. That. That she was saying there is like a whole thing of that she's like, you actually, like. She's like. You kind of fall into your voice at 40, which is so interesting that there is this kind of thing that it definitely does change. And so I'm just waiting. I'm 43, so I'm hoping To star in something soon, you know, any day now. Now I can sing.
- [09:07]
A
Yeah. Well, so I know with men, our singing voices don't fully settle in until we're almost 30.
- [09:13]
B
Yeah.
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A
And then it's sort of, you know, you're off to the races for about 20 years and then obviously there's like another stage. But yeah, with women, I. I know that when you get to another stage, like, I. It either opens up or it starts to limit. You listen to a lot of female, like really great female singers. They get to that next stage of their. Of their careers and it is a different timber all of a sudden. And it's. It's fascinating. I really. I do enjoy it. I like it a lot.
- [09:37]
B
Yeah, it's. It's. It's almost like. Yeah, it's. You have two different artists throughout your life or how many ever you. You be from time. You're young and you're older, and that's why it's like sometimes you think about people like Justin Bieber and you hear them like when they're younger and you're like, what are you gonna sound like when you're older? And sometimes they. I feel like they can't sing after they're a child. So luckily he still has like a. You know, he's still. He's doing fine.
- [09:58]
A
He could play Roxie Hart.
- [09:59]
B
He could play. He could play Roxie Hart.
- [10:02]
A
He's got the haircut.
- [10:02]
B
Honestly, I can't wait till we talk about Dreamcast because I have some interesting opinions about kind of some of this gender bending of Chicago. So I can't wait till we get to that part.
- [10:13]
A
Well, honey, yeah, I can't wait for that either. Timing is everything. Because I will say the. We will get into the nitty gritty of sort of how this movie came to be and all of the potential castings that almost were and that people have like. I love it about.
- [10:25]
B
I love potential castings.
- [10:28]
A
The list is very long of who was up for this, who might have been up for like, there's. It's just name a celebrity and at some point they were called. The reps were called of like, would you want to come into audition?
- [10:38]
B
Yeah.
- [10:39]
A
Which has then over the years become like, did you know that Britney Spears was auditioned for Roxie Hard? It's like, no, she wasn't. Her reps recall that she, like, was interested in reading for Go to Hell Kitty. Right. And I don't think she actually read for it. She might have. There's again, like, it's. I feel like all the Paperwork for this movie and all the previous movie versions all got lost in a fire somewhere. And everyone's going just off of memory and everyone's like, oh, did that person.
- [11:02]
B
Come in to audition?
- [11:03]
A
No, I think we just called them. And then that person's like, no, I came in for five auditions and like you did. It's just like, it's messy.
- [11:10]
B
I will say I was talking to somebody the other day. It surprises me with these kind of movie singing roles. How many people. Because you're saying like all these like, people kind of went into it. I was talking to somebody the other day. Cause they're doing the. There's gonna be a live action tangled at some. And she was literally saying that every. Every actress. Every young actress in Hollywood right now is like, she's like, I have a casting tape for every single. It's like everybody kind of wants a piece of that, which is very interesting. These people that you don't think of as singers, like, I mean, I think we all saw the. What's his bucket? The guy from American Pie, his singing. Chris Klein. Chris Klein. I mean, it surprises me how many people auditioned for these movie musical roles. So I can't wait to talk about that. Cause it's like, you know, like, I mean, as we, as we just said Chicago, you don't have to have a belt, but some of them you fucking. And so to have every actress, I'm like, not every actress is going to be qualified just because they have blonde hair to play fucking Rapunzel.
- [12:04]
A
You know, there were a lot of lessons from Chicago that were not learned by Hollywood. And they don't learn lessons. They don't learn lessons. I mean, Holly never learns lessons. But also just. But when we, when it comes to making other movie musicals. Yeah, it is crazy what people are unable to clock what made Chicago work, including the people who made Chicago. Because the thing about this movie is everyone involved has yet to make a movie musical as good as this since by like a wide margin.
- [12:33]
B
Correct.
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A
And. And it makes you go, oh. Actually the only person involved in this movie who has a follow up that I won't say comes close but like is a strong second movie musical is Queen Latifah with Hairspray. And that's not like she didn't write in direct Hairspray. She was in it when I.
- [12:50]
B
So, you know, truth be told, when I was watching it, I rewatching Chicago, like kind of under these guys of like thinking about the direction and all that stuff, I went and I looked up Rob Marshall's other stuff because I just didn't know off the top of my head. And I was actually surprised at some of those because I was like, well, Chicago is so much. It's so much higher than even these other things that he has, the other things that he's done. Like, you're right. There was never something that could touch the way that Chicago was done. And I don't know if that's the story or what. Like, who knows? But you're right. Into the woods. You kind of go, all right. Like, yeah, it was all right.
- [13:23]
A
Yeah, I think, because into the woods. We're getting off topic, but welcome to the podcast. Into the Woods.
- [13:28]
B
Spoken to my life.
- [13:29]
A
Because that show had been around for about 28 years at that point, something like that. And we theater kids grow up with the PBS broadcast and it's very near and dear to our hearts. And so we all had built it up in our minds what a movie version could be and all the different possible castings of it. And so when it came out, we had a lot of projections onto it of this is gonna be an Oscar player. This has to be epic because we've waited so long. And it came out and it was fine, but it wasn't as dark and as weird as we knew the show could be. But it was because other. What we forgot was like, most of America does not know the show. So they watched it and they were like, what the fucked up fairy tale is this?
- [14:11]
B
I mean, infertility, like, it's really. There's a lot of themes in that that you're like, huh, should I have been singing about this when I was. When I was small?
- [14:20]
A
Girls getting their toes cut off. Anna Kendrick talking to birds. It's an odd musical. I love it, but it's odd. And I think we all forgot for so long how odd it is because when that movie came out, I remember on Rotten Tomatoes, the audience score drastically dropped because everyone was like, oh, it's a Disney musical with Meryl Streep. And all these people and families would go. And they're like, I brought my 7 year old to this PG rated musical. And an hour in, Tammy Blanchard's getting her he.
- [14:50]
B
The.
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A
And I'm like, sorry no one told you.
- [14:53]
B
Sorry about that.
- [14:55]
A
So getting back to Chicago for a quick sec. Chicago for the. For those who don't know the synopsis, as per Miramax Films, which produced the movie version of Chicago, at the height of the roaring 1920s, aspiring performer Roxy Hart murders her lover. And with the help of smooth talk and lawyer Billy Flynn becomes a media sensation alongside vaudeville rival Velma Kelly. Roxy navigates the corrupt world of fame and justice, where there's, quote, no such thing as bad publicity. I think that's pretty. That's a solid byline.
- [15:25]
B
I like it.
- [15:26]
A
I mean, it says absolutely nothing about Mama Morton or Lucy Liu's cameo as go to hell, Kitty. But you can't get all iconnery in one sentence.
- [15:33]
B
No, you can't do it all just in that. I think that's a brief. I think it's a. It's enough.
- [15:38]
A
It is enough. So you said you're not quite sure if you saw this in theaters or if you saw it maybe like, on home dvd? Do you sort of remember the, like, vibe around this movie when it opened and then sort of through the Oscars?
- [15:51]
B
Yes, well. Cause again, like, being a theater major, it was like, you know, just being the most dramatic and, and having the most dramatic friends and working at a restaurant with the most dramatic people. It was like, I. I feel like I remember me and my friend Sean, like, vividly. I remember us, like, I feel like just singing it or dancing to it. Like, I just remember being. It being a very, like, present part of, like, a certain year in college, you know, just kind of like a rewatch and again, just like, singing it and just. And just kind of like watching the Tonys being like, of course Katherine Dana Jones is going to win. And. And I just. It was just. It was very present.
- [16:31]
A
Casey, the Oscars.
- [16:32]
B
Oh, I wrote the Tonys.
- [16:33]
A
I don't. I don't want you getting. I don't want you getting canceled or misgendering award shows.
- [16:40]
B
Uh, I take back my statement. The Oscars. I remember thinking during the Oscars that of course she was going to win and being just, like, really jacked because I just felt like it was just a very present part of my. Of my life this one year, like, with just certain friends. We were just kind of like, hey. Like, it was just always just very dramatic act outs and, and things like that. So I don't remember. But again, like, it was just one of those things that I wasn't so kind of clued into any of the history or any of the backstory. And to be honest, again, like, I've always been a fan of musical theater and I was a theater major, but, like, I didn't. I don't know. I didn't know about it. Like, I had never seen Chicago Live before I saw the movie. I didn't know that there was these other songs. Like, I don't know, like, this is like, I'll be learning a lot today. So that was like, my first introduction to. I mean, you hear the songs, all that jazz, you know the songs. But, like, I had no context as to what they were until I saw the movie.
- [17:39]
A
Have you gone to see the stage show since?
- [17:41]
B
I have. And I always say I feel so bad because it's like, you know, it's been running so long, and you watch it and sometimes you're like, this has been running for a very long time. Everyone on stage was, like, drunk, half asleep. I don't know what was going on, but it was like. Like, I think one of two or three shows that I've seen in a decade where it didn't get an immediate standing ovation. Like, it was very. It was like a. We saw Chicago and the whole crowd clapped.
- [18:04]
A
Yeah. I don't think it's. I don't think it's a secret that that show has suffered from long on night as the most. And there. It always depends on who's in is the leads.
- [18:16]
B
Right.
- [18:16]
A
When. When the cast wakes up. Because I. I saw it. I've been very fortunate. I've seen it twice. Once was in 1999. My Velma was Sharon Lawrence of NYPD Blue fame, who fully did all the Velma choreography. She did the split at the end of I Can't Do It Alone. And Charlotte d' Amoise was my Roxy. This was at the Shubert Theater in 1999. I see it again in 2023. Jinkx Monsoon is doing her first stint as Mama Morton.
- [18:42]
B
Ooh, fun.
- [18:43]
A
Yeah. And that was a time where. And I have friends who are involved in that show, and they're like, yeah, everyone was present for that one because Jinx actually brought in audiences that. Yeah. Like actual. Like, actually like actual theater people, not just like, the theater fans came back to see it and celebrities came back to see it.
- [19:00]
B
Yeah.
- [19:00]
A
And I don't remember who my Velma was. I can tell you who my Roxy was, though. It was Charlotte d'. Amboise. Yeah.
- [19:07]
B
I don't even know who. Like, I don't think I even had any of, like, the names. I think I just saw, like, a basic run of the mill. These are the people that have been playing it forever. But that's also like, one of the fun things right. About Roxy is that she is like, these are supposed to, like, semi ageless characters. Yeah.
- [19:23]
A
Cause so the. Well, let's get into the history now. This is a great segue. The movie Chicago is based on the stage musical Chicago, which is based on the play Chicago by Maureen Watkins, who was a reporter at the time in Chicago and was seeing this trend of women murderesses who were getting a lot of notoriety and fame during their trials and often getting off scot free for Basically, yeah, for manipulating the system.
- [19:51]
B
And we've been paying for it ever since, as women.
- [19:53]
A
Pretty much.
- [19:54]
B
Patriarchy has been keeping us down since Chicago.
- [19:57]
A
They saw Chicago, they said, no more of this. Please don't vote. Don't, don't, don't, don't vote. If you give a woman a vote, she'll get a gun and she'll shoot us simply because we're doing her wrongs. Is. But Watkins was one of those women who doesn't support women because she was seeing all this and she was like, I don't care that they feel independent. She's like, this is a misuse of the judicial system. This is also disgraceful. She became. She just looked at the whole thing as kind of like sin incarnate. And wrote Chicago as a play, kind of as a satire of the whole situation. It was then turned into a movie, I think in 1943 with Ginger Rogers called Roxie Hart. And that's sort of where it ended for a while. And then, I want to say in the late 50s, early 60s, was when Gwen Verdon came across the property. I think she had seen it once in her youth and always loved it. And then came across the property again, wanted her husband, Bob Fosse, to adapt it into a musical for her as Roxie Hart. And at that point, she was about, like in her late 30s, so she could still play 30, maybe late 20s, if they really were like going for broke. Cause that's how old Roxy was supposed to be. She was supposed to be in her mid to late 20s. And Maureen Watkins would not give them the rights because she had become like a reformed Catholic or something, or born again Christian, something like that. And she was like, I wrote a sinful play and no one will ever get it. No one ever, ever. It shall never shall never see the light of day.
- [21:24]
B
Religion ruins everything it do.
- [21:27]
A
Luckily, Ms. Watkins did what we all eventually will do. And she died by. And her estate was like, what was that I hear? Money. You want to give us money? Yes, money, please. That is.
- [21:42]
B
Thank you very much.
- [21:43]
A
Yes, that is. If ever everyone's like, how could they musicalize this sacred text? Or how could they do a remake of this sacred movie? I'm like, because the people who have the rights were like, money, please take it and run. And so they finally were able to adapt it in the early 70s. By that point, Gwen Verdon was hitting. Was getting close to 50 and. And they. By the time it came to Broadway in 1975, she was, I think she was 50 or 51 years old and she was playing young. And they made the satire of it all that she was older than she was claiming to be. But people still, people weren't really getting that joke at the time. And so they were just like, she's too old for this. Why is she doing this?
- [22:26]
B
Right.
- [22:26]
A
But because the role was originally written to be young and then was originated in the musical by an older woman. It's always kind of been able to go back and forth because. Did you know the famous story about Liza Minnelli with Chicago go on stage?
- [22:39]
B
I don't. Or maybe I do. Maybe I'll be need to. Maybe I have heard it. But refresh me, please.
- [22:44]
A
Listeners, sit back and listen. So Chicago was supposed to open earlier in 1975. I think it was supposed to open that January, maybe even towards the end of 74. What happened was Bob Fosse got a heart attack and they had to postpone rehearsals for a couple of months while he recuperated. And so by the time they went out of town and, you know, cut a whole bunch of stuff and brought the show tighter and leaner in July, June or July of 1975, first of all, because of his heart attack, this is something that's been known for a lot of people. A lot of people who get heart attacks and recover or get heart surgery and recover, their attitude changes for a while. They go through this sort of like six month depression and they become a much more morbid version of themselves. And of course, that was the space Fosse was in when they came back to rehearsals for Chicago. So all the rewrites, he's like darker, meaner, sadder. So it comes to Broadway, very beautiful, very stylish, like a very harsh show. And it would. Right after Watergate, it was right as A Chorus Line was coming from the public to Broadway. And a lot of audiences and critics were like, no, thank you, please. And it was looking pretty grim for them that summer, I want to say, like two or three months after Chicago opens, Gwen Verdon had swallowed a piece of confetti because they were shooting confetti out at the end of the show every night. And she had swallowed a piece and it had scratched her vocal cords and she needed to get surgery and then to basically be on bed rest for like Five weeks while she recuperated.
- [24:10]
B
Oh, my gosh.
- [24:12]
A
And Fosse and Kander and Ebb had called Liza Minnelli, who had done the movie Cabaret with them as well as Liza with a Z. And she'd worked with Kander Neb on Flora the Red Menace. And they're like, hey, is there any way you could come in for a little bit while Gwen recovers? Like, we desperately need someone to come in and, like, save the show. And she came in, I think she, like, rehearsed for 48 hours, comes in, she said, I won't have any announcements in the papers, don't do any, any press. Like, just put my name up in the. In the program and. And do an announcement and that'll be good. And she does. And she apparently was great. And also, like, 20 years Gwen's junior. So again, it's that back and forth of, like, yeah, Gwen is 50, Liza's 30. It all works out. But she got great reviews. She sold out run, and by the time she left after five weeks, enough people had seen in, like, Chicago that it was able to then run for two years, fully blanked at the Tony Awards, but, like, ran for over 900 before. So, like, Liza Minnelli saved Chicago in that respect.
- [25:05]
B
Good for her.
- [25:06]
A
Yeah, we love it. The show kind of teeters in and out of pop culture for a while after that, but it doesn't become a mainstream hit until the 90s, famously, with encores putting it up in 1996 right after that.
- [25:21]
B
Gotta love encores. Gotta love Encore.
- [25:22]
A
Gotta love Encores. Well, it's the show that put encores on the map, really, because they had done, like, Allegro and Call Me Madam, and everyone's like, this is fine. Sure, this is nice and all. And then Chicago comes in fresh off of the O.J. simpson trial, and everyone goes, oh, shit. Not only is this a no Skip score, wow. This story is so fucking relevant right now. Celebrities being on trial for murder and the entire nation watching with bated breath, like, it's like. It's pure soap opera, not real life. During that time, late 70s to early 80s, there had been talks of a movie version. The first thing that was going to happen. Marty Richards was the producer of Chicago, and he held onto the film right rights all this time. And first, Bob Fosse was going to make the movie of it. He wanted to do it first with Goldie Hawn and Liza Minnelli. This time, Liza was going to be Roxy. Oh, it was going to be Velma. And Goldie Hawn was going to be Roxy. This is the first piece of concrete fact I know. Unclear how far along it got, I would imagine, because the musical was like a semi hit. They couldn't really get a lot of interest. Also, it was a two female lead movie. Hollywood's famously misogynistic. They were like. They're like. That doesn't sound like English to me.
- [26:33]
B
And one of them has brown hair. No, thanks.
- [26:35]
A
No, thank you. The only thing we like about it is that they're both white. That's. That's what. That's what Hollywood said. You had white people. But then you say women, and one of them's got brown hair and it's short.
- [26:46]
B
No.
- [26:46]
A
Are you sure? Are you sure you didn't mean a woman and a little boy? Because we'll do it. We'll do a sequel to Harold and Maude. But this Chicago you speak of, it doesn't also help that Bob Fosse was also kind of in Hollywood, starting to go on the downturn a little bit because he had Lenny and he had all that Jazz, which, you know, both were moneymakers and Oscar, you know, candidates. All that Jazz. Straight up masterpiece, by the way. I don't know if you've ever seen it.
- [27:10]
B
I feel like I. Not in the last. If I have, I was really little.
- [27:13]
A
It's. We're gonna be covering it again on this. On this series at some point. Probably sometime in the new year. But, God, it's a straight up masterpiece. Point it. He. After all that Jazz, he does star 80, which everyone hates. And like any momentum he had as a film director, everyone's like, we're gonna. You're in movie jail for a little while for this one. The next time a movie version is brought up again, this time Bob Fosse is like, I've cracked it. I figured out how to make this movie. And he says, and I have Madonna interested. And Madonna, yeah. Madonna at this point was just a pop star who had done Desperately Seeking Susan. She was not a quote, unquote, movie actress yet. We put that in quotes. But he had gotten her interested. I think at that point she was going to be Velma. And Goldie Hawn was still interested to play Roxy. And then Bob Fosse dies and. And it all gets put to the side. Now, this is where things kind of get a little in and out in terms of timeline and who's actually doing what. Because then Harvey Weinstein of Miramax, our favorite. Our favorite man in the early 90s, Weinstein approaches Marty Richardson with Miramax because Miramax is kind of picking up steam now is as this sort of like indie darling studio that gets a lot of awards attention and they make movies at a reason price that then can be profitable. Things like the Piano, My Left Foot. And he approaches Richards and he's like, I wanna make Chicago. This is like my white whale. And Richards is sort of like, I don't know, we would need a director as good as Fosse. And no one wants to touch it because it's like under the Fosse shadow. They approach Milos Forman, who did Amadeus, one of my absolute favorite movies. And he's like, yeah. He's like, I'm not touching a Fosse project. They approach Herbert Ross who did the Turning Point and the Goodbye Girl. And he's like, I'm not touching Fosse with a ten foot pole. But they are able to convince Larry Gelbert, who is a famous Hollywood screenwriter, has done a bunch of comedic stage shows. They get him to write the screenplay, he writes a screenplay for them. That they're like, this is hilarious. Not sure if it's Chicago, but we'll see. They get Goldie Hawn and Madonna back on board. This time they switch roles because Harvey Weinstein, because Goldie Hawn has still attached as a producer at this point as well as playing a part in the movie. And Weinstein's like, well, what if we make Roxy in her late 20s again and Goldie Hawn at this point is 45. And she's like, I see what you're doing. You can't push me out of this project. So she and Madonna switch roles and then things just fall apart because they can't find a director. But she did eventually get paid by Weinstein and she says in an interview that she did approach him after she got paid at some like award show. And she said, you know what? You're a real shit, but you have restored my faith in decency because you paid me for my work. And then in her interview, she's like, little did I know at the time. But she's like, in 1996, he paid me for my work, even though I was off the project. And I thought that was very decent. I was like, yeah, you got your money and we'll take that. There are people who've worked on Broadway shows that have been open for a while and still haven't been paid for their work.
- [30:10]
B
That's not okay.
- [30:11]
A
That's not okay. There's someone who a Tony winning musical, the Last, like, let's Be, I'll Make It Vague. If it lasts like four years, somebody who did a very significant amount of work on a physical, visual aspect of the show that's very important to the show's appeal has still yet to be paid. So just. Just saying. Just saying. It's not all sunshine, rainbows and butt kisses on Broadway, Everybody.
- [30:35]
B
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
- [30:38]
A
The next time that Chicago kind of comes back into the mind frame in Miramax, where it's like, okay, I think this is real now, is they approach my beloved Nicholas Heitner right after the.
- [30:47]
B
You know, Nicholas Heitner.
- [30:49]
A
Well, did you wrap in? So this is. This is post encores now. So, like in the early 90s is when Weinstein and Miramax work with Marty Richards. Like, can we kind of figure this out? And then when encores happens and Chicago becomes this huge hit in New York and becomes like a cultural phenomenon, Weinstein approaches Richards again. He goes, okay, let's actually make this happen. And Evita had just happened with Madonna, which was like a semi hit. It made some money, it got some Oscar love, but not a lot. But he's like, I think that that's going to set up the plate for us, like, genuinely make a sure musical. And they approach Alan Parker, who had made Evita, and he wasn't interested. Then they approached Nick Heitner, who was really hot at that point because he had done Miss Saigon. Huge, huge hit. And he had most importantly done Carousel, my beloved 1994 production of Carousel that made Audra McDonald very famous. Okay. And what made that such a big deal for him was Carousel.
- [31:42]
B
Can we side note real quick?
- [31:43]
A
Yeah.
- [31:43]
B
Always the other Carousel. Did you like it?
- [31:46]
A
The 2018 one?
- [31:47]
B
Yeah.
- [31:48]
A
Listeners say it with me. I sure did not.
- [31:51]
B
I didn't either. And I feel so bad because I feel like I was supposed to.
- [31:56]
A
Carousel is my favorite musical. It is top three, one of the hardest musicals to do well. And when you don't do it well, my God, is it the most painful, infuriating night of theater? That aside. So that's why they get Heitner. They're like, oh, you're. You're the musical man right now. So they get him. They get him on board. They fire Larry Gelbert because they don't. Heitner and Gilbert don't get along. Heitner's only real contributions were he first wanted Nicole Kidman for Roxy. Okay, he was gonna do it, but then she signed on for Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge. And Baz Luhrmann had also turned down Chicago and Moulin Rouge turned out to be like a two and a half year process. So she basically was out of commission that entire.
- [32:31]
B
Worth it, though.
- [32:32]
A
Oh, so worth it.
- [32:33]
B
Love it. That was another college movie that I watched like once a week.
- [32:36]
A
It's. It's. Moulin Rouge should not work. I tell everyone I watch Chicago if you want to learn how to make a movie musical, don't watch Moulin Rouge if you want to learn how to make a movie musical. Because that movie does so many things wrong, but it works. And they get away with it. You will not.
- [32:53]
B
No. Moulin Rouge stands on its own as something totally different.
- [32:58]
A
Yeah. You're like, how did you put all these ingredients together that should be vomit casserole. And yet it's exquisite. It I. It's not. There's no science. Purely magic there.
- [33:08]
B
No magic.
- [33:09]
A
So Heitner can't get Kidman. He does then cast Charlize Theron as Roxy Hart.
- [33:13]
B
Oh.
- [33:14]
A
But then Heitner leaves for other projects. And now there's. The only thing they have now is they have a Roxy Hart, which is Charlize Theron. And this I know for a fact. Cause Charlize Theron has spoken about in interviews what happened that she didn't end up being in the movie because Nick Heitner leaves. Then they try to get Sam Mendes, who's just opened Cabaret with Natasha Richardson and Alan Cumming, but he's in pre pro for American Beauty. And they're like, huh? Your co director Rob Marshall just did this TV movie of Annie with Kathy Bates and Victor Garber that got like 50 million viewers and won a bunch of Emmys. Like, they don't. Miramax also holds the rights to Rent. So they bring in Rob Marshall to go, okay, pitch us your movie version of Rent. And Rob Marshall says, so I came in here under false pretenses. I told you I was going to talk about Rent. I don't want to talk about Rent. Look at me. I'm not a rent man. Like, Rob Marshall is the most white gay man in the world. And he's like, I'm not doing Rent because I want to talk to you guys about Chicago. And he comes up with the idea of. Because the thing they could never crack with Chicago was Chicago's musical is billed as a musical vaudeville. That was the style. All of the songs are presentational. They're not really diegetic. They aren't seamlessly coming in and out of scenes. They're commenting on the action a la cabaret. And everyone's like, how do we do this right, And Rob Marshall says the songs come from Roxy's mind. She wants to be a performer, and the only way she can understand the world is if everything's a musical number. Cause all that's all she wants to do. So it deepens her character, but it also allows us to have these songs that comment on the action. Because while the action is happening, Roxy is there and she's viewing it as a song. And everyone's like, done. Here we go.
- [34:52]
B
Yeah.
- [34:53]
A
They get Bill Cosin to write the screenplay, and Charlize Theron has to re audition for Rob Marshall. And he eventually turns her down.
- [35:01]
B
No, thank you.
- [35:01]
A
No, thank you.
- [35:03]
B
Charlize.
- [35:04]
A
Charlize. I'm so sorry, my love. Here's the thing. Everything I just said, Casey, was very muddled about, like, timelines and who came on when, who did exactly how much work. It gets more muddled from here.
- [35:16]
B
Oh, gosh.
- [35:17]
A
Because now we're. Now we're in the casting game. And you've spoken to enough actors, you know that this casting game is crazy and messy. Yeah.
- [35:24]
B
Yeah.
- [35:25]
A
And there's better.
- [35:26]
B
What I've learned, too, is that from a. Actually just. Just a friend who was just like. Sometimes it's not even about acting. It's just about, like, I don't like that person's agent. This person doesn't email me back. And that I find fascinating. It's not always the best person for the job. It's the person who maybe has a better agent or a better email etiquette.
- [35:45]
A
Absolutely crazy. And people sometimes who are just better.
- [35:48]
B
To work with, better to. Don't be a dick.
- [35:50]
A
Dick. Don't be a dick. There are people there. I will say this, everybody. You might have an actor or performer that you really love, and you're like, you're so talented. And. And you go, why aren't they working more?
- [36:03]
B
Not nice.
- [36:04]
A
Not nice. Or. Or, like, not even not nice. It was like, sometimes it's like they've just made too much tension and their talent wasn't worth it.
- [36:14]
B
Right.
- [36:15]
A
And it's not always everyone. Sometimes it's just like they left the business for their own reasons. Sometimes they, you know, their type gets phased out over the years. But a lot of times, if you go, why isn't so and so a bigger star? Why isn't so and so not working more often? They've caused a lot of issues.
- [36:28]
B
When was the last time you saw Shia LaBeouf in anything?
- [36:32]
A
Exactly.
- [36:33]
B
Mm.
- [36:34]
A
So here are some people that were up for roles.
- [36:36]
B
Okay.
- [36:37]
A
Billy Flynn was first Offered to John Travolta, who turned it down.
- [36:41]
B
Okay. That could have been great.
- [36:43]
A
Could have been great. It's like the big what if. Yeah. As far as I can tell, he's the only person who was like full blown offered. There are rumors that Hugh Jackman was offered and he turned it down. I don't buy that. But I. I buy that he could have been considered.
- [36:57]
B
Yeah, I don't buy that he would have turned down a singing role.
- [37:00]
A
When is that man ever turned down an opportunity to sing?
- [37:03]
B
Hugh Jackman is. He will never.
- [37:06]
A
Hugh Jackman will be at ground zero for next year's 911 memorial. And he's gonna sing I Am not the Boy Next Door from the Boy from Oz. And we're gonna be like, girl, not the time, not the moment.
- [37:17]
B
And he's gonna fly in.
- [37:19]
A
He's gonna fly in with Son Foster by his side, tap dancing up a storm and. But yeah, I don't buy that. There's also a story that Rob Marshall was interested in Michael Jackson. So this was seven years, I think, before Michael Jackson died.
- [37:33]
B
Oh, that wouldn't have been good.
- [37:34]
A
It would not have been good. I think Marshall was a little high on his own supply with that one. And he liked the idea of a showman like Michael Jackson doing it. And this is one of the few times Harvey Weinstein actually came in and said, no, absolutely not. Because the truth is. Because we'll talk about this more as we get to sort of the Oscars of it all. There's this narrative that Harvey Weinstein was more involved with the making of Chicago than he actually was. He was involved in getting at Greenlit. He was involved in getting Marty Richards to give, you know, the rights to Miramax. He was not an active producer on it. Marty Richards was. Weinstein basically vetoed like two casting decisions and pushed for two outside of that. He. He. Once the movie was getting made, he had no say. Yeah, because he didn't. Not because he was shut out. He didn't care. This wasn't his baby. Gangs of New York was his baby, which was another Miramax film. But so that was one. There was. Okay, these are women who were confirmed to have auditioned for Roxy Hart, two of which you can see their screen tests.
- [38:34]
B
Oh, my God. Okay. I love it.
- [38:35]
A
Mira Sorvino auditioned. There is footage of her screen test. There is. You can watch Toni Collette Screen Test.
- [38:43]
B
Love Toni Collette. Don't think that this would have been right for her.
- [38:46]
A
Correct here. So there's a giant conspiracy around Toni Collette. Not Getting this role, including a video on a YouTube channel that I love very much. I think it's incredible. Called Be Kind Rewind, which is a very well researched account. She has a video about Toni Collette and sort of like how Hollywood has never really been able to do her. Right.
- [39:04]
B
Right.
- [39:05]
A
And this is a case where Toni Colette is always working. So it's not that she's constantly. So when people like. So when we talk about why is someone not a bigger star? And saying like, oh, well, they must be bad juju. No, Tony Collette is always working. Toni Collette is not a bigger star because Toni Collette doesn't do the. The roles that would make someone a star. Toni Collette doesn't do the rom com that gets you.
- [39:26]
B
She does everything she does. Like, she's. She's. She can really do anything that.
- [39:31]
A
And she has no ego about it. So she's willing to play a small supporting role in an amazing movie because that's the juicy role. She has one scene in the Hours and she is incredible. She does hereditary. Like she just does all this stuff. But there was a narrative that she is who Rob Marshall wanted and that Renee Zellweger is who Weinstein wanted and. And Weinstein got his way. This is not correct and I will not endorse this conspiracy.
- [39:57]
B
Was this before or after or around the same time as Wild Party?
- [40:03]
A
I love that you asked that question.
- [40:04]
B
Okay, great.
- [40:07]
A
So Chicago was filming, I believe, from December of 01 to January of 2002. That's like around the area area that they were filming in.
- [40:16]
B
Okay.
- [40:17]
A
They were auditioning for all of 2001 and the second half of 2000. I'm not entirely sure when Toni Collette auditioned, but whenever she did, it would have been at least three or four months after Wild Party, at most a year, but still pretty close to it.
- [40:35]
B
Okay. So she still was kind of. So that was before. So there was a little bit of like her name attached to like, okay, we can do a musical with her.
- [40:42]
A
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's absolutely why she got the screen test is because she was Tony nominee for Wild Party. But I also love that you ask that question because when you watch her screen test as Roxy, she's giving a. She's an amazing screen test. And she would be a killer Roxy on stage. There's a little too much of Queenie in her still at that point. Okay. She's giving a little bit of that welcome to my party vibe. And the thing that Marshall has talked about a lot in interviews when he was casting the movie, which I agree with, is for the movie specifically, he wanted two women who could not be interchangeable, who could not do each other's roles. And Tony Colette, he said the big. He. I can't find the quote, but I remember him saying at some point, the issue with. He had with Toni Colette was that she could play Velma or Roxy. Incredibly, I could see the. That. Yeah. And he's like, I needed. I needed a Roxy who could never be a Velma, and I needed a Velma who could never be a Roxy.
- [41:30]
B
O. Okay.
- [41:31]
A
Yeah.
- [41:31]
B
Okay.
- [41:32]
A
So I. I understand that the conspiracy is that Marshall really wanted Toni Colette. And Weinstein was like, she's not famous enough. You're going with my girl. That's not. Other women who supposedly were auditioned. There's no video footage, but supposedly screen test. Christina Applegate. Jennifer Jason Lee.
- [41:50]
B
Oh, okay.
- [41:52]
A
And Jennifer Jason Leigh would have been about two years post her stint in Cabaret at this point, which also has the Rob Marshall connection.
- [41:59]
B
Okay.
- [41:59]
A
There are a whole lot of women, whole lot of women who were rumored to be considered, whether they came in, whether they were just like, their reps were called, and they said, no. Who's to say? But, like, this includes Jennifer Aniston. This includes Jodie Foster, Gwyneth Paltrow, like, every. Basically every white woman in Hollywood between the ages of 20 and 40. Catherine Zeta Jones didn't actually audition. Catherine Zeta Jones was hosting a Christmas party that Marty Richards was at, and she sang carols around the piano. And Marty Richards was like, you sing? And she's like, yeah, I made my start on the West End. I was in 42nd Street. He's like, you danced too? She goes, yeah. And so he actually offered her, without consulting Rob Marshall, he said, would you be willing to play Roxy Hart in Chicago? And she goes, does she sing all that jazz? He goes, no, Velma does. She goes, well, that's who I want to play.
- [42:52]
B
Love that.
- [42:53]
A
Yeah. And then when Richard's approached, Marshall's like, well, Catherine Zeta Jones is interested in playing Velma. Rob Marshall's like, yeah, great. She's a total Velma. Like, why would you offer her Roxy?
- [43:02]
B
Like, duh, duh. And it's like when you watch it, you're like, yes. Like, she, like. Like I said, I was noticing even the way the two of them move. Like when I said, like, Renee Zellweger's bouncy. And. And Catherine is like. She's like. She's like, growling. She's, like, crawling through the role. You're like, yes, this is exactly perfectly cast for the two of them.
- [43:22]
A
It's perfect in a lot of ways because Catherine Zeta Jones, having that theater background, when you watch Chicago, it has a little bit of that ease of like, oh, yeah, I'm back home. This is like, I'm in my sweet spot again.
- [43:34]
B
Flawless in it.
- [43:35]
A
Flawless. And Renee, who's new to musicals in this point and when they cast her, I'll get to her casting moment in a second. But she wasn't a dancer. She had experience being a gymnast in her youth, but she wasn't a trained dancer. And you see it in the movie. Cuz she's very, she's. She's so game. But it's not a super flawless dancing. And it makes sense in the movie because Roxy's the wannabe, Velma's the professional.
- [43:58]
B
Yes. And it plays that way.
- [44:01]
A
Absolutely. All other people I know were considered. Rob Marshall wanted Kathy Bates for Mama Morton because he had just done Annie with her. She was unav. She was, she was unavailable. I feel like there were a couple other people interested. They eventually go with Queen Latifah. I don't. After Hugh Jackman in quotes. And Michael Jackson and John Travolta. I don't know how they came up with Richard Gear other than knowing that Richard Gere had been on Broadway in Greece at one point in his youth. I don't know how he came across their desk. I'm glad he did. John C. Reilly actively pursued his role. He sent them constant audition tapes of him doing this for cellophane. And finally they're like, okay, fine, you can do it. Jesus Christ. Christ. The guy from Boogie Nights can do it. Love it. I love it. And so they film the movie in Toronto. It's on a $40 million budget, which is, you know, sizable for that time. It's half. It's actually less than half the budget of Gangs in New York, which again, like, that was Miramax's Oscar, baby. And then Chicago opens to incredibly strong reviews and exceptional box office.
- [44:59]
B
Yeah.
- [44:59]
A
And just becomes this cultural phenomenon in a way where, like, Harvey Weinstein is Gretchen Wieners and Gangs of New York is fetch. And the Oscars in America were like, stop trying to make Gangs of New York happen.
- [45:12]
B
It's not going to happen.
- [45:14]
A
It's not going to happen. And it blanks at the Oscars completely. And Chicago wins. And I'll get more into the Oscars later. But that's sort of how we got here to Chicago. Let's do a. Let's actually now elaborate on what we have. Oh, I didn't mention how Renee Zeller got cast. I do. Weinstein did put her name forward as a candidate. And Rob Marshall had lunch with her and Martin Marty Richards at the Four Seasons. And she sat down and she was like, I can't do a musical. I can't sing, I can't dance. I don't know why I'm here. But Rob Marshall liked her. He was like, oh, you're good people. So he was like, you know what? Like, he's like, let's just sit and talk. Let's gab and, like, bottles of wine later. Yes. He goes. He's like, oh, God. He's like, would you just, like, indulge me? I'm like, sing a couple of bars or something. I just, like, want to hear, hear. I want to hear you out, girl. She goes, I don't know. I know. Over the Rainbow. He's like, yeah, say go for the rainbow. She sings half of over the Rainbow. And he goes. And the next day, he calls her reps and he's like, so she's not auditioning. She's Roxy.
- [46:14]
B
I love. I just got chills as if I was at the lunch.
- [46:18]
A
He. It's the only time a man's allowed to manipulate a woman.
- [46:21]
B
And he is.
- [46:22]
A
He's. He's. But, like, that's how gay men do it. We're like, oh, my God, honey, don't worry about it. You're not auditioning for this.
- [46:29]
B
Let's God, talk and talk. Yeah.
- [46:30]
A
Oh, my God. Just like, okay, it's 2001. I'm not allowed to get married yet. Like, can you just, like, sing me a little song for gay rights, please? Harvey Milk's dead. Harvey Milk's dead. Sing a couple of bars of Judy Garland just for me.
- [46:44]
B
Just for me.
- [46:46]
A
I also love that that's what she's saying. And then she eventually would win her second Oscar for playing Judy Garland.
- [46:50]
B
100%. What a full circle moment.
- [46:52]
A
Renee Zellweger is a gay icon, and I will not hear other wise.
- [46:56]
B
Dude. She's in. I love that she's in Only Murders now. That is like reviving. People love that.
- [47:01]
A
Ch I I I. I looked this up this morning because I haven't been watching this season because I was disappointed in the last season.
- [47:07]
B
Okay.
- [47:07]
A
And I've been tempted to watch because I love my riri.
- [47:11]
B
Just do it.
- [47:11]
A
And I'm so here for her comeback. So I was like, online and go, hey, are people into Renee? And only murders in the building. And they are they are. Everyone's in agreement. She's great, but, like, of course, she. She's. She's.
- [47:23]
B
Usually.
- [47:24]
A
She's actually.
- [47:25]
B
She was in everything. There was a moment where you could not turn a fucking eye and not see Renee Zellweger in a goddamn movie. And then it was just like, I don't know. Then. Then it was like, now she's too skinny, but now her face is too big, but now this and that. Now what is like, she's got too much plastic surgery. Like, she went through a thing. She took her moment away. She's back.
- [47:45]
A
Yeah, she. She. And she had said when she came back with Judy, she went. I. What had happened was I was everywhere. I was exhausted. I was over scrutinized.
- [47:51]
B
She was.
- [47:51]
A
Everybody. She was like, my personal life was falling apart. I was married for five seconds.
- [47:55]
B
And she went to Kenny Chesney.
- [47:57]
A
Of all the people, please let us not forget. I like to think that was her rock bottom, where she went, what am I doing? And then she thinks.
- [48:04]
B
She thinks my tractor's sexy. I gotta take a break.
- [48:07]
A
I gotta take. I gotta take a break. And she goes, I'm in a rom com with Harry Connick Jr. She goes. She looks around. She goes, I have enough money. I'm gonna. I'm gonna step away. This is not good for me.
- [48:19]
B
Yeah.
- [48:19]
A
She steps away, comes back. Oh, God. It was she. And now, yeah, she gets a lot of flack because she has two Oscars for what are arguably one of her weaker performances. She is okay in Cold Mountain, which is such an obvious Oscar bait film. It's not her fault she won. She did nothing wrong. She simply gave a performance. People voted for her. They. That's not her fault. Judy. She is good in what is a bad movie. Also not her fault that people kept voting for her. If history were correct, she would have won her first Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in Jerry Maguire, and she would have won her second Oscar for Chicago. She wasn't nominated for Jerry Maguire, but again, people won't allow me to rewrite history because I. While I am a white man, Casey, I'm not a straight white man, so I don't get to do that, but I can keep writing this narrative for myself.
- [49:11]
B
Yes, well, and they also say there's all those games that, like, you don't win it one year, but then they're gonna give it to you the next year. No, you don't like that. There's all this, like, payback stuff with the Oscars. Like, we're gon give it to you for this. Even though it's not your best one, you should have won it for this. But you do deserve something. So here it is. Which is just makes it all feel kind of cruddy.
- [49:28]
A
Yeah. Kate Winslet for the Reader found dead in a Ditch. So on that note, let's take a quick break and let's talk about this movie some more.
- [49:34]
B
Let's do it.
- [49:35]
A
Billy, I beg to differ with you. How do you mean?
- [49:37]
B
You're the top.
- [49:37]
A
Yeah.
- [49:39]
B
You're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a Coolidge doll.
- [49:49]
A
And we're back. Okay, so, Casey, if you had to pick a favorite number in this movie, like just to watch, what would it be?
- [49:59]
B
There's two and I. And the thing is that I almost don't count all that jazz. Cause I'm like, this is the intro. You kind of have to watch it, you know? Like, it is arguably a fantastic number. It is Cell Block Tango and it is the gun, the gun, the gun, the gun, the gun that has always been my favorite. I just think it is so all of the choreography throughout, like the dance that he does between the numbers and what's going on in real life is like. Or what's going on in like, you know, the movie world is just brilliant. And I just. That so for. With a. They both threw each other gun that. I love the intersping, but Cell Block Tango, just the dancing with the scarves. With the red scarves. Are you kidding me? It's magic. And it is just. I don't know. Those are my. Those always are my 2 favorite. Which is funny, cuz they're not my favorite like songs, but they are absolutely the fa. My favorite ones to watch.
- [51:02]
A
Yeah, no, they, they work beautifully cinematically, I would say. I mean, talking, listening. I do listen to Cell Block Tango a lot. I do love how they enter into that. So. Yes, because that's not how. Normally it just goes ba da ba ba da da da. But this. They come in with a percussion intro, which I think is so great. Keeping in the track of. It's all in Roxy's mind and her disassociation. So she's sitting alone in her prison cell and she hears the water drip. Then she hears the stepping of a guard and then the nails on the. On the rail and it becomes an intro. And it's so. It fucks so hard.
- [51:36]
B
Yeah. I actually do like that song better than I. Well, I, you know, I do like both those songs, but like, I, I, I. The one that I would find myself Singing a lot is cellophane, of course.
- [51:47]
A
Well, like, there are songs you would sing at karaoke with friends, like. Like all that jazz, but you like. Yeah. No one's really doing We Both Reach for the Gun at karaoke. No one's.
- [51:55]
B
You're doing it at Maurice Crisis. They're doing it a lot at Marie's Crisis.
- [51:58]
A
And I. Oh, they sure do. They also. I know they do sell black tango at Marie's Crisis a lot as well, because there are multiple parts. Everyone can have a solo.
- [52:06]
B
Yes.
- [52:06]
A
And you don't have to worry about how you sound because it's mostly monologue.
- [52:09]
B
Yes, yes, yes, yes. But those, I think, are some of the most fun to watch. For sure.
- [52:16]
A
Yeah. It's. I love the visual that they could do in Cell Block Tango where they're tangoing with their victims.
- [52:22]
B
Yes.
- [52:23]
A
And also that with the red. Not just the red scarves, but the Hunyak having the only non red scarf because she's the one who didn't do it.
- [52:29]
B
I know, I know.
- [52:31]
A
Basically, with that soundtrack is I kind of hit play, similar to. Great comment. I hit play at the beginning. I just sort of let it ride. Uh, and same thing with watching the movie. I'm. I am excluding all that Jazz as my favorite number to watch because it is, as you said, it is the opener. It is also just, like, on such an amazing level, I can't even count it. Yeah. I would like to talk about that number, though, in a second. Sort of like lessons that I want people. If people want to make movie musicals, the lessons they can learn from this movie and those numbers. God, this really is just gonna be me adoring Riri here. But Roxy, I think, is iconic and incredible and stunning and might be the best shot number of the movie. I like. I think that it's filmed so incredibly. And it's not just that it's stunning in terms of her and the little slip with the mirrors, but, like, the whole point of that number is the narcissism of it all.
- [53:27]
B
Yes.
- [53:28]
A
And how much she's, like, in love with herself in this image that the world has. And with each mirror, like, she's multiplying and like, I. She's just gonna be everywhere.
- [53:38]
B
And the way she says boobs. I always love that my boobs.
- [53:45]
A
Riri has so many line deliveries in this movie that I'm obsessed with.
- [53:48]
B
Oh, son of a batch. Son of a batch. I wrote son of a batch because I was like, it's iconic. That's. That's what me and my Friend would always do like you. Son of a batch.
- [54:02]
A
I also love her, her final scene with Catherine right before they get into the Nowadays finale and they're, they're having the, you know, she's pitching her, we should do this. And at the end she goes, oh, forget it, it'll never work. Why not? And she goes, because I hate you.
- [54:16]
B
Because I hate you.
- [54:17]
A
Yeah, because I hate you. Like she, she's so the thing about the movie that I also really love is in the stage show, Roxy is pretty much a manipulator from the get go. Like her soul's already been sold to the devil from the beginning of the show because the show is a very cold, cynical piece. The movie doesn't start that way with her, which I know some fans of the stage show don't enjoy, but I actually think it makes her arc more interesting and makes the movie more interesting to watch because she starts off as kind of just a dummy. Like she's, she's not mean spirited, she's just, she's kind of still a child. And she's having this affair with Fred Kisley a cause he looks like Dominic west and who wouldn't? But also because he, he claims to have a connection to get her a job at the club to perform. And so it's a little bit of tit for tat. When she kills him, it's not just because he's walking out, but because she discovers that he's been lying to her this entire time, which feels like a violation. He's becoming very physically aggressive with her, like to the point of almost danger. And in her delusion and anger and impulsiveness, that's when she shoots him. As opposed to the stage show of nobody walks out on me, nobody walks out on me.
- [55:26]
B
I gotta pay.
- [55:28]
A
Talk about, talk about the line deliveries and ranking. Oh, I gotta pay. That's how she says, I gotta pay. She goes, oh, I gotta pay.
- [55:38]
B
Oh my God. Love in ranking, of course.
- [55:41]
A
But so then we, and then we watch her in prison, we see sort of how she's out of her element. She's. She's kind of retreating into herself. She's a child. She's uncomfortable a little bit by the attention she's initially getting. And then one time, once Billy Flynn comes into the game and she gets a little bit of confidence, gets that attention, we see it go to her head. But then we also see that she can rise to the challenge. She is more clever than we give her credit for because she comes up with the baby idea and I totally.
- [56:06]
B
Forgot about this storyline. So it was like a fun resurprise to be like. And then as we were talking and I was like, oh, so if this role is that.
- [56:15]
A
That is.
- [56:16]
B
That makes the whole thing that it can be an older woman play so much more funny.
- [56:21]
A
Yeah.
- [56:21]
B
That now there's this 45 year old woman being like the baby, you know, like it just.
- [56:26]
A
I'm a baby. And. But also like everyone just believes her hook, line and sinker. Only the people on the inside know it's a lie. Oh.
- [56:32]
B
I mean that when Richard Gere is like, they're laughing and Amos is like, why? He's like, cause they can count. I was like, why did I never see how cutting that was? Also, I hope we're going to talk about him not getting nominated being an absolute 1000% joke.
- [56:47]
A
Absolute joke. I. It's so. Yeah. Okay, let's. Let's. We'll get into the Oscars. That's. That'll be. We'll get to that. I want to, I want to keep gabbing about this though.
- [56:54]
B
Because the way that he delivers that line though, when he's like. Because they can count. And he's like, what September? Never mind. Like, it's just, he's. It's just, it is that the whole pregnancy storyline I just completely forgot about. But yes, we realize that Roxy is no dummy.
- [57:09]
A
No. So one of my favorite shots in the movie is Cell Black Tango when. Because they're inter. They're going in and out of Roxy's mind and what's happening in reality. They. Because they have to, to. They have to establish why these monologues would be happening in Roxy's fantasy in real, in real time. So she's hearing these stories either like while the women are playing cards or they're doing the ironing or when Velma has. Reporters are in her cell and she's telling a story and she's doing the. And we run out of ice. So I go out to get some. And she's lounging on her bed in her kimono with a cigarette in her hand. Reporters to her left, photographers on her right. And she. And she's talking to the, to the reporters and going. So we run out of ice. So I go out to get some. And she turns over her shoulder and poses immediately as the camera flashes. Just like I go out to get some. Click. And it's so, it's so good. Roxy has a similar moment in the trial during Razzle Dazzle. I'm getting chills thinking about it. Cause I forgot about this moment, because Richard Gere, as Billy Flynn, he does the whole they know how to count thing. And during Razzle Dazzle, we go in and out of the trial before Roxy's testimony, and he's talking. He talks first to. To the neighbor and he talks to the forensics, and then he talks to Amos. And we watch him re. Manipulate Amos out of thinking that the baby's not his, into the. That the baby is his. Because he basically saying, like, you listened to experts, but you didn't bother to ask your own wife, who is insistent that the baby's yours. And Rene is like, oh, yeah, yeah, it's his. And when he comes off the stand and he goes up to Roxy and he's like, I'm so sorry. And she gets up and she hugs him, and then she pivots so that the hug is in profile of. Because at first her back is to the photographers and then it just goes. And once they. Once you see her pivot, that's when they cut to Richard Gere smiling of going. She got. She knows what to do.
- [58:59]
B
Yes.
- [58:59]
A
Yes.
- [59:00]
B
The whole thing, like, the whole play between the two of them is just Chef's gift.
- [59:06]
A
Cause he's so proud of her. Not because, like, oh, she, like. It's not a. It's a you done good kid moment, but not in a way that's good. In a way. It's like she, like, she found her light. Like, I don't. I didn't have to teach her to. To. To. To cheat front. She did it on her own. That's. The student has become the teacher. So the opening. Let's. Let's kind of just sort of like go through this for a bit. Because there are lessons that I've spoken about in past episodes that I kind of just want to have hardcore in this episode about. If you're gonna make a movie musical, you need to know this. And I hope AI is listening as they are putting together clips for Instagram about this. I want them to know that, like, this moment, we don't have to do the whole thing, but, like, there are things you have to always do when you're making a movie musical. And Chicago does it all and just watch it and take notes. As a movie musical, you have to establish very early on, this is a musical.
- [59:58]
B
Yes.
- [59:58]
A
Have a song immediately establish a world where singing makes sense. You have to tell us how songs are going to be used in this movie. Are they diegetic or are they not diegetic?
- [60:11]
B
Hundred. One hundred percent. Yes.
- [60:16]
A
Chicago informs us immediately that it is a musical. Music is going to be happening non stop to the point that this overture is happening and we're watching action happen in time with the music. Like things are getting choreographed to how the music is being played.
- [60:31]
B
It's so brilliant.
- [60:33]
A
And it is. Anytime there's a song, it is performance or it's in Roxy's mind. And it's just that one shot in all that jazz. But it establishes for us that we will be seeing things that way most of the time. It's the. Once Velma's on stage and we see Roxy in the audience watching her, and they cut back and forth to the ta. Do cut that cut. And when Velma turns around, the new cut is Roxy on stage singing that one big note.
- [60:58]
B
Yeah. It's so. It's almost shocking because it become. It's a totally different sound. I always have. Not like her jazz there. It's like. It's almost grating. But it was. Works so well because they're. Because she's the baby and this is the seasoned performer she is.
- [61:16]
A
It's also. It's a higher key on jazz. Like it's a full blown. Just pivot.
- [61:20]
B
It's a screech. Yeah.
- [61:22]
A
And they work. And it also works again because it's fantasy. We have to establish this moment is not in real time. And we have to differentiate it. So they don't differentiate it by aesthetic. It's the same color palette. It's the same. She's wearing the same outfit as Velma, but the sound is different. And that's all we need to know. Yes. And we cut right back out into reality. And again we start seeing things mimic the choreography the way that they. So the opening scene alone, we establish the aesthetic, the vibe. We see the jazz club. We see the quick cuts. We get the sort of chaotic energy of it all. We hear, has anybody seen the Kelly Sisters? So we know that something's already off backstage. This is a showbiz movie. We're in a theater. We get the shot of Velma's feet as she's walking out of the cab. She sees the Velma and Veronica poster. She rips off Veronica's name. We already know there's bad blood. She walks in. Veronica's not coming in tonight. She goes in her dress.
- [62:12]
B
She's not herself.
- [62:13]
A
She's not herself tonight. We don't sweat it. I can do it alone. Call back till later in the movie. She goes into her dressing room, hides the gun, washes off her. The blood off her hands, which we also are going to hear about later gets on stage and we see in the first minute of all that jazz how it's supposed to be a two person number, but she. She tells the spotlight guy on me. She's like motioning to the dancers like that they're all gonna be surrounding her. And then as we leave Fred and Roxy from the club and we go to Roxy's apartment and we cut back and forth. This is the choreographer and Rob Marshall. Actions that they have mirror actions that.
- [62:47]
B
Are happening in stage. Yes.
- [62:48]
A
Fred Kisley slapping her.
- [62:50]
B
Brilliant.
- [62:51]
A
It's so brilliant. Fred Kisley slapping her ass, which becomes a slap on stage. The arms over the head. It's so good. And then. Oh, my God. God.
- [62:57]
B
It's just. Nothing like that has ever been done. And it's so stupid. It's like, this is the formula. And like, granted, yeah, not all of the music works in this, like, jazz setting, but this is the fucking formula. Like, it's just. It's so. Again, like rewatching it. I was like, this is. It's an absolute masterclass in what exactly what you said. It's like, tell me it's a musical. Make sure the music makes sense where it is. Because I think that that's what. Why some of them haven't been as good. Like, obviously when you're watching a musical on stage, it makes sense that they're just going to start singing. That's what. But when you're watching a movie, you kind of want it to be a little different. And I think that's where so many of the musicals have got it wrong that it just doesn't make. It just doesn't. For some reason, it doesn't make as much sense to just be singing on the street in a movie as where it does in a musical. You know, like, so this. It's just. It's so perfectly.
- [63:48]
A
Well, film is such. A. Film is a harsher medium and a more realistic medium. And I will also argue the majority of movie audience audiences won't allow themselves to go that extra realm of disbelief as you can on stage. You enter a theater and you already know it's fake because you're. There's a proscenium. There's a distance.
- [64:05]
B
Yeah.
- [64:05]
A
For film, for some reason, it doesn't matter what the genre is. People always go, well, that's not realistic. And so you have to establish early on what kind of movie we're watching and how. And you have to get the audience on board so fast, especially with a musical. So that's what makes the Opening so good is that it's so airtight, there's no time to think because so much is happening, happening.
- [64:23]
B
And you know what I think also is, though, is is a good newer movie musical. And it, and I know people feel a certain way of it, but I think the Greatest Showman actually, I enjoyed that. You didn't. I could tell by your response.
- [64:38]
A
Well, I, I, I will say the thing that Greatest Showman does do is everything I said about like, it establishes a world for singing makes sense. It tells you it's a musical immediately. It's consistent about how songs are used. What I don't like are the songs. And what I don't like is, is, is how they totally rewrite PT Barnum to be like, be yourself.
- [64:55]
B
No, he was not a nice guy.
- [64:57]
A
But, but I, it's actual material I don't like. But how they, how, how it's filmed.
- [65:01]
B
They do the same type of thing where that's, it's, I, I think that they did a good job in that same thing where it's like, if you're gonna do it, like, let's not just pretend like we're like walking in the street. Like you kind of have to. Yeah. Go a little bit over the top with it. And I think that it plays in that world just like the same it plays in Chicago.
- [65:18]
A
Absolutely. I know. I, I agree with you on that. I don't think, I don't think Greatest Showman is like garbage in terms of how it's made. I, my issues with the material. But in terms of that, in terms of making a music all that ways, you're absolutely correct. I also have said this about the Sweeney Todd movie, which because theater fans are theater fans and they cut all like the ballads and whatnot. And because it's more like whisper singing, a lot of theater fans have issues with that movie. That movie establishes a world where singing makes sense. It is a heightened noir London. And anytime Anthony's walking down the street singing Joanna, I'm like, I buy it. This world. Yeah. People be singing here.
- [65:51]
B
People be singing. I have to see it again. Cuz, you know, I actually watched that in the theater when I was, I was in Thailand. And so they blur everything. And at the beginning of the movie, you have to get up and like, they put something on about like, what is he, a king in Thailand? I forget this is going to make me sound so stupid, but whatever. You have to like everybody in the movie, the rest stand up and they do like a whole, like, political thing. And then you sit down, and then they blurred everything. So I need to rewatch Sweeney Todd.
- [66:15]
A
You do. Sweeney Todd is a wonderful movie that represents the stage show terribly. But you have to put it a separate. We've got. We've got three professionally filmed versions of the stage show. Like, we are allowed to have this movie. It's fine.
- [66:26]
B
Yeah. Also Helena Bonham Carter. Like, I'm sorry. You can't make me hate her.
- [66:30]
A
You. You know, I. I love her. She's a little humorless, but she has moments that no other Lovett has done. And, like, you watch the moment where she realizes she's gonna commit to the lie about Lucy, and it's. Oh, God, it's so good. But as we talk about Chicago, like, I can also. I can point to you. You. Most movie musicals of this century, specifically movies adapted from stage musicals, of mistakes they make that Chicago does not make. For example, Dream Girls is a movie that actually fully violates one of the rules I talked about, which is establishing a musical vocabulary and keeping to it. Dream Girls violates this so hard.
- [67:08]
B
Okay.
- [67:09]
A
Because Bill and I. Guys, I know I said it before. I don't care. Bill Condon in Dream Girls is so deathly afraid of genuine musical numbers. Numbers. Because he wanted. It was 2006, 2007. It was very like, oh, it's a musical. But we also want to be taken seriously as Oscar bait, and we want it to be a big hit. And not everyone's on board with musicals. So, like in Dreamgirls, it's a lot of stage performances and TV performances and whatnot. So that's how they get away with the title song and heavy. But you can't do Dream Girls without. And I am telling you, I'm not going. The problem is, is that song is a non diegetic song. It's in a scene. It's not Effie at the mic singing to the masses. And so you have to keep it as is.
- [67:49]
B
Didn't they still put her on a stage for it in the movie?
- [67:51]
A
He's still on a stage for it, but it is a scene number. That's the other thing he was trying to get around was like, oh, everything's in a recording studio or on a stage now. He tries to get away with this by establishing that people will be singing in Dreamgirls. That's not a performance number 30 minutes into the movie. So after 30 minutes of fake your way to the top and Cadillac car and move, where everything is a performance, step into the bad side happens, and there's 15 seconds very quickly Shot in dimly lit, where Jamie Foxx is singing a couple of lines in an alleyway with people. And it's non diegetic, but it happens so fast, most people don't clock it.
- [68:25]
B
Right.
- [68:25]
A
And we don't get another non diegetic number for about 20 minutes until we get to family. And that is a harsh lens on Jennifer Hudson looking at Cece and just going, what about what I need? And every time I saw it in theaters, all three times, people laughed out loud because it came as such a shocking sense. It was such a violation. We hadn't established that for so long.
- [68:47]
B
That we were singing just in windows.
- [68:49]
A
Yeah. Yes.
- [68:50]
B
Yeah.
- [68:50]
A
The other. The other thing that a movie musical needs is it needs pacing and you need a. You need numbers sort of back to back for your first 40 minutes to constantly remind people that this is a musical. Yes. Because then eventually, as the story takes over, it'll be more spaced out and you've earned that. But for the first 30, 40 minutes, you need, like five or six numbers.
- [69:10]
B
Yes.
- [69:11]
A
And that is actually something where I think that Wicked and the new west side Story fail. They take too much time in between numbers.
- [69:18]
B
Yeah, well, because Wicked, they decided to kind of do a lot from the book, too. So it's like, not like a lot, but, I mean, they were going a little bit more dialogue heavy than it. Are you talking about, like, Wicked on stage? No. You're talking about Wicked, the movie?
- [69:32]
A
In the movie.
- [69:32]
B
Yeah, yeah, because that's the thing. But I still. I just all of a sudden, like I had a brain fart. But, yeah, the movie, like, I. I know that they took a bunch from the book. I. I still think Wicked plays, but I think more because it's a spectacle. It's not even in the same. I don't even consider it in. As the same thing as what Chicago did. You know, it's like. Cause we all knew what Wicked was, so we knew it was gonna be fucking cuckoo bananas. And there was so much hype and we knew there was gonna be this magic and they planted, what, 15 million daffodils and, like, they made it. This thing work. It's the flowers or the fucking. They should also be nominated for a goddamn Oscar. But. But I don't even consider it the same thing. So it's like, I can't even be like, to me, even if they took a long time since Wicked was so well known and it's got this cult fan, all this stuff, it's not even the same thing, but I will say, like, west side Story in the Heights. All these other ones kind of. I don't know, they don't play the same. Whereas, like, west side Story, the original. They're dancing in the street. They're doing the same thing, but it just. Just doesn't. I don't know. It just.
- [70:41]
A
We've had. We've had a few movie musicals in the last 30 years that are good, quite good, in fact, have moments of greatness, but are not completely great, in my opinion.
- [70:52]
B
Right.
- [70:53]
A
West side Story and. And Wicked both have this. Have a similar problem of there's too much air, they're not as tight as they should be, especially in the first 30 minutes where you need the music to keep going, because, again, you have. You only have so much time to get an audience on your side with a musical these days, so you have to sweep them up. And then once they're in the story, we're good to go and you can take some more time. West side Story, this remake, and it is a good remake overall, but it is overwritten. That script has far too much dialogue for a story that is meant to be lean and mean and about people making impulsive, irrational decisions. Kushner and Spielberg are like, what if we have them talk through why they're making these bad choices? I'm like, no, they're teenagers. That's not what they do. That's. They're non. Therapy. I also think west side Story fumbles the last 30 minutes. I think that everything after the rumble is either weak or bad. Like, I think the last 10 minutes of west side Story, the remake, are bad. When. When Tony learns of Maria's death and he gets shot and she has the monolith, it's bad. It's rushed. It's bad. It's also kind of overly beautifully shot to the point where I'm like, okay, another. Enough. It's where. You know what I mean?
- [72:03]
B
Like, it's, for some reason, trying to do a lot.
- [72:06]
A
It is. It is very like, this is my moment, so I'm gonna, like, throw everything at it, and we get some beautiful shots. I wish the choreography were better. I. I maintain Justin Peck's choreography in that movie is adequate at best. It. It has no build. It has no character. It's just like agitated ballet.
- [72:25]
B
Sure.
- [72:27]
A
Wicked, again, I think, is very good for the most part. I think every scene has 20 seconds of dead air that can be sucked out, and that movie will be 20 minutes shorter. It's also sometimes ugly to look at. Like the. Not just the coloring and. And the lens flare, but it's like sometimes the. Like, the design will be off. Sometimes there are times when it's stunning and the times when I'm like, that's weird. That's not attractive. Trying to think of other ones. Hairspray, I think, is the movie musical of post Chicago that comes closest to being as good as Chicago.
- [72:58]
B
Sure.
- [72:59]
A
It's still not in, like, Chicago's top five best movies adapted from stage musicals ever. I would say HairSpray's the next five, but there's, like, a solid mile between them. It's the closest distance, but they're still a mile.
- [73:12]
B
It's like. It's fun in the sense that, like, those movies, like, he's just Nothing in two and Love actually are fun where there's just like, a bunch of stars. There's all these little things, but. Yeah, but you're like, ah, it's. It's. I wouldn't. You never would take it as seriously as you take Chicago. Can I tell you what's actually really fun? And it's again, not in the same, like, thing, but the Cinderella with Camilla Cabello. Camila Cabello. Have you seen that one?
- [73:36]
A
Yes, I have. Careful how you tread. What are you gonna say? I liked it in a Diana the Musical kind of way or like, in a. Oscars. Oscars. Oscars.
- [73:45]
B
I was on a plane and the kid next to me was watching it, and I decided to watch it and was like, this is really stupid funny. Fun. It makes. It is stupid. But I think that the world and the way that they like. It's just. It. It's fun. Where is it supposed to be fun? It's not supposed to be taken seriously. But, like, the way that they set it up as, like, a musical, I. Or like, you know, the music in it I thought was silly and stupid. Diana the musical. You know what? I watched the stage version and I'm actually kind of sad. I didn't. I mean, I watched the. The movie. The. The movie the Perfect. And I actually am kind of sad. I missed it on stage because I know that people were like, there was nothing in the middle. Like, there was no middle. It felt like people were like stands of Diana the music. Or people were like, get this away from my face.
- [74:36]
A
I don't know how anyone could be mid about it. I. I watched it on Netflix and went to Broadway World to see what the. What the talk was when it was in previews pre Covid and was shocked to see all this. Were like, it was okay. It's nothing special. It's like, nothing Special. James hewitt opens Act 2, rising from the floor, bare chested, lubed up for the gods, singing his own name in falsetto. And that's nothing special. That's nothing memorable. Diana the Musical is two hours of non stop strong and wrong choices. I miss it every day. I saw twice on Broadway, dude, it.
- [75:11]
B
Was open for like a week. And I know people are like, I saw all eight shows.
- [75:15]
A
Yeah, because it's. And here's the thing. It's not good. It is not a misunderstood.
- [75:21]
B
No, but it's good, bad.
- [75:23]
A
It's exactly.
- [75:24]
B
Yes.
- [75:24]
A
I would see Diana the Musical every day for the next two years, then see Paradise Square once in the next ten.
- [75:32]
B
Dude. Paradise Square. Paradise Square. When she is singing that song, it made me question my thoughts about the whole musical. And then I went, no, it's still a bad music musical. That was incredible. But, like, it was. Yeah. No, I would never watch paradise where there's so many musicals that I watch that I would ever, never, ever watch again. And I. And I see musicals more than once usually, but Diana. Yeah, I. I'm sad I missed the stage version because I feel like in its short run, it made it made, like, super fans. And I think that would have been very fun to be watching it with people that were, like, so into. And I just think it would have been fun to watch on stage. Did you not like the cinder Cinderella with Camila Kapoor?
- [76:13]
A
No, of course they didn't. But we don't have to go into that. The.
- [76:17]
B
Tread lightly. You're like, tread lightly. What are you gonna say?
- [76:20]
A
That was a joke. There's. There's. There's so little I care about in terms of, like, what if. If I like something or don't like something. There's very little where I go, oh, is this where we're gonna fight even Greatest Strowman? I'm not gonna fight you on that. I have my things. But I know plenty of people who like it. Paradise Square would have been a fight if. If you were like, oh, my God. Bet my favorite musical. I did have some. Someone DM me once and say, because I made a joke. I always make jokes about it. That's what that Jagged Little Pill and Finding Neverland are my three big punching bags on this podcast.
- [76:46]
B
Okay, I. That's a. That's a very eclectic array of punching bags.
- [76:52]
A
Well, it's all just. It's. I. All three were shows where I just sat there and I went like Goldie Hawn said to Harvey Weinstein when he said, oh, we're going to make Roxy Hart 20 again. And she said, I see what you're doing. I'm watching these shows. And Harvey Weinstein famously produced the musical version of Finding Neverland. I sat there going, I know what you're doing. I know how you're trying to manipulate me. No, I'm not. I am not an easily persuaded white person who will sit here and go, yes, absolutely. A musical championing the underdogs of society. Thus, if I want to be an ally, I shall champion. I'm like, no, no, no, no. If I'm a real ally, I will see something that challenges me to question if I'm doing enough, if I even have the right mindset. How am I being an ally? What am I even on the right side of history? Like, that is what it is to be a brave show. Not to go, hey, hot take here. Racism bad.
- [77:43]
B
Hey, Drug use not great.
- [77:47]
A
No. Hey, hot take here. Rape, no. And I'm like, you know, other than Weinstein and like every subject of a true crime documentary, most people aren't really on board with it. So, like, yeah, like, there's a reason why Roman Polanski is not allowed back into the U.S. so speaking of this year's Oscars. So. So the thing is that as we slowly make our way back to Chicago, but that's like the thing with, with Paradise Square, I was just sort of. I had someone say, like, well, that's my favorite musical. I'm like, it's your favorite musical from that moment in time, probably because of Wakina singing her Face Off. I actually hate that song. But her doing that number was me going, I'm watching someone with an immense amount of talent doing a herculean effort of pushing it up, saving just, just like my voice and my ability to go within myself to get to this emotional place will make you forget everything you're watching. As it did with you.
- [78:35]
B
As with me.
- [78:37]
A
She razzle dazzled you, Casey.
- [78:38]
B
She bamboozled the out of me. I want. I'm telling you, it. It was exactly that. I go, did I like the show? And I did not. But I saw that and I left going, you. I. I don't know. I don't know.
- [78:51]
A
You were Amos Hart and she was Billy Flynn. And she said, are you sure you're not the father of the baby? Are you sure you are the father of the baby?
- [78:58]
B
She can't counted me what she didn't.
- [79:01]
A
What she wanted, but she didn't do what she wanted. Wait, I'm confused here. That was you and that. And she was The Billy I would pay to see Wakina play Billy. Um, so, yes, this is all to say, like, that whole opening section, it just establishes everything. And we go and. And the next scene with Fred Kasley is like less than two minutes, maybe. And we go straight from that into the follow up with Amos being interviewed by the police. But there's still a rhythm. There's a tempo to it. There's a flash to it. We keep the aesthetic consistency of Roxy's mind.
- [79:31]
B
And the jazz agency is a dance. The whole movie is a duet between not only the two stories, but also with. It is. Every part of it is just so there. I don't think there's a single part where I go, oh, that didn't play, or that doesn't make sense. It all felt the same. There's not a single moment where it felt conflicting with itself.
- [79:55]
A
Part of the reason why I wanted to do this episode is I do listen to quite a few movie podcasts with critics and actors and whatnot and them doing deep dives on films and movies of today. And similar to the way that Finding Neverland, Jack Gillipill and Paradise Square are my punching bags, Chicago is often a punching bag on those podcasts. Not that they think it's bad, but that they. The narrative with a lot of film people is, well, Chicago wasn't the rightful winner that year. It won because it was a year after 9, 11. It was a big narrative of the movie musical is back. And, like, people wanted a good time. There were better options that year. So. Ms. Casey, can I tell you something of how I prepared for this podcast?
- [80:33]
B
Podcast, please.
- [80:35]
A
You watch Chicago again.
- [80:36]
B
You watched all the movies.
- [80:38]
A
I watched all of the best picture nominees of that year.
- [80:41]
B
Okay, what were they all? Because I was. I was looking a little bit. Because it was Lord of the Rings, right?
- [80:45]
A
It was the second Lord of the Rings, Two Towers.
- [80:47]
B
Fuck off.
- [80:49]
A
Oh, I did hold on to that feeling because I want to talk about that for a second.
- [80:52]
B
Okay. Okay.
- [80:54]
A
I had never seen Lord of the Rings before. I even watched Fellowship of the Ring to prep myself for Two Towers. So I knew what the fuck was happening.
- [81:02]
B
But you still didn't.
- [81:05]
A
I understood what was happening eventually because I call, I talked with a friend afterwards and said, am I missing something? Like, this happened and this happened. Like, yeah, no, those are the only two main things that happen in Two Towers. I was like, oh, so two major things happened in three hours and a whole bunch of battles that ultimately lead to nothing. But. So it was Lord of the Rings, Two Towers The Hours, the Pianist and Gangs of New York. Now, there is a narrative that if Roman Polanski had not raped a 13 year old and fled the country, the Pianist might have won Best Picture because he did win director and they won actor in adapted Screenplay. It's entirely possible. And I watched the Pianist this morning and then followed it up with Chicago. And I'll say the Pianist is a very lovely film. It is also a Holocaust movie which tend to do well at the Oscars.
- [81:55]
B
It's Adrien Brody Lane.
- [81:56]
A
It's absolutely. He has won an Oscar twice for playing a Holocaust survivor and being the titular occupation. He's the pianist and he's the brutalist. Like, he's, he's. He's the. Adrien Brody wins Oscars for playing Jewish ists is what he does.
- [82:14]
B
Yes, he does.
- [82:14]
A
Who survived World War II. But it is, it is a good movie.
- [82:18]
B
It.
- [82:18]
A
It does. For me watching it, I was like, oh, the first hour is very much torture porn of just like constant atrocities that the Nazis are doing in Warsaw. And like, it's sort of each one, after a while you're just like, I get it. And it's a lovely film. But like, I watched it, I was like, not to be that asshole. Like, Schindler's List is better. Zone of Interest is better. The Pianist is lovely. It's better than the Reader, but it's not as good as these other two. And I think that's also the problem is Schindler's List is such like the, the golden star of, of that era, of that genre of film. And it's hard not to make it torture porn. And, and so people are just going to compare it to that. That's that Lord of the Rings, two Towers. I'm sorry, but anyone who says that that desert, that, that could have won Best picture can fuck off. I will allow them Fellowship of the Ring if they really need it to. I'm not a fantasy person, but I would allow that to be Beautiful Mind. I'd have no issue. The hours actually quite nice. It's better than I remembered it being. It's mostly just actresses, actors.
- [83:17]
B
That's what it is. I need to rewatch it. But it is just, it's just like. It is, it's. It's like, here's your Oscar performance. Would you like this Oscar performance role? Here it is.
- [83:26]
A
Exactly. It's nothing but Oscar clips for everybody.
- [83:29]
B
That's it.
- [83:29]
A
Um, it is under two hours, which was a pleasant surprise. The hours is kind of dripping in Oscar prestige. Like you, you can hear from the score and the way it's shot. You're like, oh, this was a hard push for Oscar baiting.
- [83:42]
B
You can tell when they come out, and they come out at a certain time, and you can just tell. And it's always just like, all. Just be a. It's kind of like. It's like when somebody's always on. You're like, just be a person. Yeah, just be a fucking person.
- [83:55]
A
Be a person. Be the movie that excites me. You don't have to be. You don't have to be like the. We want the Oscar glory. Be a movie that everyone's excited about, which used to kind of be how the Oscars were. If you look at Best Picture winners From, like, the 40s through the 60s, a lot of times, it was what was one of the more popular pictures of the year, which didn't always lead to the best of the year, but sometimes it would line up. There would be movies that, like, America was obsessed with, and the Oscar was like, well, yeah, it's a great movie. Yeah. That's actually what. How It Happened One Night, which was one of the few movies to win the quintuple crown of picture, actor, actress, director, and screenplay that became the juggernaut because America fell in love with that movie.
- [84:35]
B
Yeah.
- [84:35]
A
And the Oscars were like, oh, well, I guess we'll give you the quintuple crown. And it's become one of the best movies of all time. But that wasn't a movie where everyone was like, oh, my God, the prestige. It was America collectively going, no, no, no, we loved this.
- [84:49]
B
Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because that.
- [84:50]
A
Has.
- [84:51]
B
It happened since then.
- [84:52]
A
I mean, it has, but just differently. Usually the critics will line up with it as well. It's. I'm trying to think of something like the Sting was a critically acclaimed movie that was also, like, the biggest movie of the year, and that's why that won Best Picture Chicago. Oh, sorry. The other. The fourth nominee that, before we get to Chicago this year is Gangs of New York.
- [85:11]
B
Great.
- [85:12]
A
Ms. Casey.
- [85:12]
B
His other one.
- [85:13]
A
That was Martin. That was Martin Scorsese's, like, Pet Project and Harvey Weinstein's big, like, this is my movie.
- [85:20]
B
And that's the. Leo and Cameron Diaz.
- [85:23]
A
They're playing Irish.
- [85:24]
B
Yeah, yeah. Okay. So you live in a hole for a little bit. Like. Okay, yeah.
- [85:30]
A
Can I tell you something, Ms. Casey? Baltim?
- [85:32]
B
Please.
- [85:32]
A
I listen to these movie podcasts, and I listen to these very nice, nice, but still boys, boys, young boys. Talk about Gangs of New York and, like, I saying, I love this movie. It slaps. It's, it's, it's finally becoming appreciated in the Scorsese lineup. And I had spent 23 years never seeing it and going, eventually I will watch this movie and I, and I'm looking forward to it. I will see what these guys are talking about. Let me see if this really is the film that should have beaten Chicago. And when I tell you that movie blows, I am angry about it.
- [86:09]
B
It's just boys being like, I can't believe a musical beat my big strong boy movie. And it's like, yeah, because it's better. It's better. It doesn't make Scorsese bad. It doesn't make anything. It just makes that Chicago was a good fucking movie. And it was better.
- [86:25]
A
It was better. The thing about Chicago is, is Chicago represents how I actually can't trust most art commentators, especially of our generation, because they, what people really love to do is they love to do the sort of like off the beaten path take of, you know, what's, you know, what's secretly amazing, you know, who's secretly giving the best performance in this movie? Everyone always likes to do that. Of the. I'm acknowledging the thing that maybe is under championed. And a lot of the nice indoor boys of film podcasting worlds, they'll say things like, oh, my God, well, if the Oscars had any guts or glory, they would have nominated Alicia Silverstone for Clueless, which is a phenomenal performance and should have at least been given a Golden Globe nomination. But then when the thing that's fun and great at being fun and, you know, maybe isn't trying to be a holocaust movie, but has a target, nails it exactly to the point that a whole genre is revived from, from it. If it has the audacity to actually get the Oscar nomination. And not only that, but actually win. The backlash is immediate every single time. Of course, because. Because then they go, well, did it ever really deserve to be my beloved thing? The same thing happened with Titanic, which was the biggest movie we'd had in decades, undeniable, and wins all of the Oscars. And immediately everyone goes, but it did really deserve it over LA Confidential or Good Will Hunting. We all know that those are secretly the better movies. And I'm like, you're not smarter for thinking that.
- [87:54]
B
Also, Titanic was good. It also wasn't boring. It was a long movie that was not boring. Titanic was. I mean, there's a reason it was number one. For how long?
- [88:05]
A
Six months?
- [88:05]
B
Yeah, like fucking forever. I remember I kept waiting it like, remember, remember back in the day when movies would go to the cheap theaters when they were, like, when it had been a while, like, I kept waiting for it to be at the cheap theater and it was like a year later, I was, like, insane. And then I remember finally watching it and being like, holy shit. Like, crying for two days after. I also thought Good Will Hunting was incredible. Was it? They're both incredible films. But, like, just because Titanic, one doesn't take. Yeah, I don't know. Like, people are just.
- [88:35]
A
But you know what I mean?
- [88:36]
B
Like, yes.
- [88:37]
A
I'm not putting down Goodwill hunting. That's actually it. That year is actually a great Oscar lineup because it's Titanic, LA Confidential, Goodwill Hunting, Full Monty, and as Good as It Gets. All five Slap.
- [88:45]
B
Amazing. Yes.
- [88:46]
A
I love that lineup.
- [88:47]
B
And what a fun lineup. I don't see a holocaust in there.
- [88:50]
A
Not a single one. Unless you count the Full Monty, which is a holocaust of dick. But the. The whole thing about this podcast that I really try not to do, I always talk about my opinion, how not necessarily is a narrative that I'm trying to put forward. And when I love something, I explain why. When I hate something, I explain why. Sure, I listened to a lot of these movie dudes, but they have similar tastes, which is like, Spielberg can do no wrong. Scorsese can do no wrong. Nolan and Paul Thomas Anderson can do no wrong.
- [89:23]
B
Do you think that's just what they're, like, taught in film school? Like, that we have to worship at the altar of these, like, certain guys. And even when they put out stuff that is, like, fine, we have to be like, masterpiece. And it's like. Well, not everybody agrees. And if it was a masterpiece, I think most people would agree. That's the thing is, like, it's like the. The Tony nominations and what people actually, like, have strain have gone really far apart where I think it used to be a little bit more aligned. And now, like you said, it's like, you can obviously tell when something is going for an Oscar because it's supposed to be. It wants all these artsy fartsy people to be like, whoa, did you see how they went really into an. Into a droplet of water? Like that. What's that one where she's fucking the fish that won?
- [90:05]
A
Oh, Chap of water.
- [90:06]
B
Yeah, no thanks. No, thanks. Like, like following just a droplet into this, like, la La land. No, thanks. Like, you know, all, like, just. It's like, just be. Just be a movie.
- [90:17]
A
Yeah. The thing about Parasite, I care about a water droplet. Parasite is a movie that has a lot to say about class disparity and whatnot, but ultimately is. But it's. Parasite is a compelling film about people. It's not pretentious about what it has to say. It's about grabbing you. And then after the fact you go, oh, now that I think about. About it, that had a lot to say. But in the moment, you're just engaged. And that is ultimately, those are the best stories of the ones that grab you. And when it's over, you can have a conversation about it and you recognize all the layers that it has. Chicago has layers. It's not a super nuanced take, but that's not the point. The point is kind of how obvious it all is and how easy people can be manipulated gangs in New York. I will never understand the love outside of it's dudes fighting and blood and like, it's Scorsese being messy with his soundtrack. But I got angry because I had spent so many years going, oh God, I really hope, hope that like, I don't see this movie. And I also realize, oh my God, I was wrong the whole time. Chicago should have been the runner up or whatever. But no, it's a lot of people with these takes that I watching. And, and then also not only that. What infuriates me even more, Casey infuriates me even more is that they then go to bat for movie musicals after Chicago that are not nearly as good. And. And I sit here going, I am not a film scholar. I love movies. I do have a knowledge of them. I would never go into these movie podcasts and be like, let's talk about Frank Capra. I, I can't do that the way they can. But I hear them talk about west side Story being unable to identify how that those last 30 minutes disintegrate in your hands. I hear them talk about in the Heights, which has a messy ass screenplay. I hear them talk about Dreamgirls, which is bumpier than a 14 year old's face before they go on Accutane.
- [91:56]
B
I think we both know and I think you already nailed it, why these people have a problem with it. Again, it's true female leads and they're not, they don't want to like it it.
- [92:03]
A
But also it's the, it's the fun thing with two family leads that had the audacity to win. It would have been something if Chicago had been nominated or if like Chicago, you know, ran the field with the Golden Globes and sag, but then like underperformed at the Oscars. And then there would have been the talk of, well, Chicago secretly slaps and the. And the Oscars are stupid for not recognizing it, but it.
- [92:24]
B
We're never satisfied.
- [92:26]
A
It led the board with nomination. Yeah. Yeah. It's the. The things that was supposed to be a cheeky idea actually happened, and then people had backlash towards it. And that is the thing that pisses me off the most because it's so predictable. It's so predictable.
- [92:40]
B
Yeah.
- [92:41]
A
If it's what happened when Barbie got a best picture nomination, everyone. Because before that happened, everyone's like, oh, my God, is. Is Barbie going to get the best picture nomination? Are we gonna. Are we gonna secretly make that happen? And then it did. And everyone's like, we didn't have to do that. I'm like, it was the biggest movie of the year by a lot and was made by Greta Gerwig, who's one of our best directors right now. Of course it was gonna get nominated, you all.
- [93:01]
B
Yeah. And it did better than Oppenheimer.
- [93:04]
A
It did. It made more money by far.
- [93:07]
B
By far. And I just think that pissed people off.
- [93:12]
A
It did. But at the end of the day, go. Oppenheimer won all the Oscars. It was meant to win. Like, can't we just shut up and just let Barbie have this wonderful win? That is crazy that it was able to happen. And wonderful that it was able to happen.
- [93:23]
B
Yeah.
- [93:25]
A
When people talk about movie musicals since Chicago, that these film bros will tell you are better or people on Instagram will tell you are just as good. Awards don't necessarily mean something. Box office doesn't necessarily mean something.
- [93:37]
B
Right.
- [93:38]
A
Reviews don't necessarily mean something. But we have yet to have a movie musical since Chicago that has been able to do that triple crown of getting good reviews, making money, and winning Oscars.
- [93:49]
B
Yeah.
- [93:50]
A
And. And also still being relevant because it's still around in the pop culture. The musical still running on Broadway because of this movie. Movie musicals are back of this movie. We still come back to it. Wicked has the box office. It has, you know, solid critical acclaim. Did not get the Oscar love. Maybe Part two will. But I'm just saying, Lez had box office, won some Oscars, does not have the critical acclaim, and very much its reputation has tanked since it came out.
- [94:20]
B
But that was such a fun one because I think didn't it come out, like, the day after Thanksgiving? I remember, like, it was like. And so it was just a fun. It was really fun to watch. And were they the first ones to kind of do the Singing live in the movie publicly.
- [94:36]
A
There are other movie musicals that had done it, not to that extent and.
- [94:39]
B
Not that poorly, but that's what kind of made it really interesting, I thought, because halfway through you'd be like, are they. They. Wait, they are. Wait.
- [94:49]
A
Yeah.
- [94:49]
B
Is she.
- [94:50]
A
Wait, it was that angle. Yeah, it was that angle.
- [94:53]
B
It was.
- [94:54]
A
Yeah. I will also. I will actually. I will say, other than Hairspray, another movie musical of this century, that I can't believe I forgot about it. It's because no one saw it. It's on Netflix to watch still, and Netflix just chose not to promote it. I couldn't tell you why. The movie version of Matilda is actually.
- [95:09]
B
Yes. Oh, shit. Yeah. I had written that down. I. Yes, the movie version of Matilda. The newer one. Yes. Right. Not the Mara Wilson one. Yes, the new, newer one. Fantastic.
- [95:21]
A
It's. It's great.
- [95:22]
B
It is fantastic.
- [95:23]
A
And does all the things we talked about that Chicago does. It establishes it's a musical up front. What kind of musical? How weird of a musical. It's gonna be weird. It's so weird. Like, with the. The babies on screen with voiceover, singing. Like, that is weird. And tells you up front, like, just strap in. Like, you're. If you're not in on this moment, you will not be in on the rest of the movie. But if you're in on this moment, the movie will make sense.
- [95:46]
B
Yes, but get on board.
- [95:47]
A
But get on board. Like. And songs happen consistently, both for character development, for storytelling purposes. It uses songs in real moments where, like, the action stops as well as progressing things forward. Like, Chicago's really big on montages, which I really appreciate. It helps move things along and keeps the pacing up. Yeah. I don't really have anything else to say. I just think this movie is incredible.
- [96:08]
B
I think it did what I did some. It did something smart because it kept that choreography knew. And that's when, like. So it's like that. That sequence of the kids dancing that went super viral. It's like, yes, you. Yes.
- [96:20]
A
Yeah.
- [96:21]
B
Like, that was correct to do that.
- [96:24]
A
Talk about a performance that is game. Emma Thompson in Matilda is so. She's so game as trunchable. It's brilliant.
- [96:29]
B
She's amazing.
- [96:30]
A
She's amazing. And it was supposed to be Ralph Fiennes. You know that.
- [96:34]
B
Also amazing.
- [96:35]
A
Yeah. Well, he. He. He pulled out, so apparently it was supposed to be Ralph Fiennes and Emma Stone, and then Ralph Fiennes pulled out because there was a lot of backlash from the community at the time. There was no. People didn't have a lot of knowledge that on stage it's panto, and it's typically a cisgender male in drag to add to that, like, otherworldliness of Miss Trunchable. And people weren't doing their research on that. They just saw that and they went, how dare.
- [96:59]
B
As people do.
- [97:00]
A
As people do. And so. But that. And Rafe would have been fantastic. Would have probably been scarier than Emma Thompson is in the movie, but Emma Thompson is hilarious.
- [97:09]
B
She's amazing.
- [97:10]
A
She's amazing. I love it. Yeah, that's. If you haven't learned anything from this episode, guys, just watch Matilda. It's. I'm telling you, it's better than so many other movie musicals that people want to tell you are good. People will be like, phantom's actually great. Rent is actually great. I'm like, no, they're. They're not. And Matilda buries them into the ground.
- [97:27]
B
Absolutely.
- [97:28]
A
Yeah. Phantom and Rent also do something that I hate that Chicago doesn't do and I appreciate is taking recitative, sung dialogue in. In. In shows and just turning them into dialogue in the beginning movie Rent.
- [97:40]
B
I was very disappointed with her. Like, I. Like, I will still go back every couple of years and watch it just as, like, a nostalgia. Like, I still love the music, but did so much that made me so sad.
- [97:53]
A
It's. Yeah, it's. It's very sad. And I appreciate Rob Marshall understanding that that was not meant to be his because he's able to walk away from that. But Christopher Columbus, he who made Home Alone and Harry Potter won it, too.
- [98:08]
B
Yeah.
- [98:08]
A
And Mrs. Doubtfire was like, Let me at them. AIDS. He's like, I know what to do with AIDS.
- [98:12]
B
That was not for you either, Chris. Not for you.
- [98:16]
A
You know what we. I just saw finally.
- [98:18]
B
Which one?
- [98:19]
A
Sinners. I saw Sinners last night in imax. Have you seen it? I want Ryan Coogler to make a movie musical so badly now.
- [98:28]
B
I mean, it was. There was so many parts where you're like, that was another one. We were both kind of like, me and my husband were watching it. Like, what? But, like, the campiness like that when it got to, like, the. The meat of it. I think he act. That actually could be a fun musical. Oh, not as Sinners, but like, whatever that. That feel of that movie, definitely, the.
- [98:51]
A
The. The two moments where I was like, oh, Coogler needs to do a musical were when Sammy the cousin is playing music and sort of brings the spirits back, which is sort of campy in its own right, but intentionally so. And then Also, when the woman that he likes does her name number, as we're cutting between Hurst performing and Hailee Steinfeld riding Michael B. Jordan to death, like, all those cuts, I was like, I'm like, coogler. I'm like, oh, Coogler watched Chicago and watched all that jazz and, and, and. And remembered Catherine, zg, Catherine, CJ performing all that jazz while Renee Zeller is getting plowed by Dominique West. I'm like, that is. He watched that and he said, I'm gonna do that for my thing.
- [99:28]
B
I got that. But add vampires.
- [99:31]
A
Ryan. Everybody was like, oh, Ryan Coogler. You want a musical sequence? Watch Spielberg's west side Story. He's like, no, I'm Marshall's Chicago. And he got all the lessons.
- [99:38]
B
As anybody should.
- [99:39]
A
As anyone should.
- [99:40]
B
Yeah. If there's anything besides Matilda, is that, like, truly. No notes Chicago. Except for, yes, Richard Gere should have gotten nominated. And that was a bummer.
- [99:49]
A
Yes. I forgot to bring that up. Yes, he is.
- [99:52]
B
He is incredible as Billy Flynn.
- [99:56]
A
He's great. And he was, I believe, was nominated almost everywhere until the Oscar, which is upsetting. It was Adrien Brody for the Pianist, Jack Nicholson for About two Schmidt, Nicolas Cage for Adaptation, Daniel Day Lewis for Gangs of New York, and the fifth one was Michael Caine for the Quiet American.
- [100:14]
B
Okay, so it's like all these, like, okay, these guys get nominated, but, like, Richard Gere was phenomenal in that movie.
- [100:22]
A
I would. Having not seen the Quiet American, it's hard for me to say that I would take out Michael Caine in place of Richard Gere just because I haven't seen it. But I've heard no one speak about this performance. No, I remember when the movie came out, it was. It felt like a big nothing. So I would do it. I also would probably take out Jack Nicholson for About Schmidt as well. If, like, if I. If you're like, you are not allowed to take out Michael Caine, I would take out Jack Nicholson for About Schmidt, which is a perfectly fine movie. Kathy Bates is the best thing about it, and she was rightfully nominated.
- [100:51]
B
But they just took the big names.
- [100:53]
A
They did well and they.
- [100:54]
B
In, like, the serious films or whatever. Well, wasn't it like half and half? Like, it was like a meltdown. Felt kind of funny.
- [101:00]
A
Adaptation is. Is funny. Adaptation is also very weird.
- [101:03]
B
Adaptation is also. Yeah, it's its own thing.
- [101:05]
A
I will say Brody can stay. Cage can stay. I will allow Daniel Day Lewis to stay. I don't think he's great in Gangs of New York, but he's the only Reason that movie is remotely watchable. It feels like the out of town tryout for what he's gonna do for There Will Be Blood. It feels like the workshop. Yeah. But he's committed and it's big and it's Scorsese, so I get it. Like gear. But no gear should be in here. 1,000%.
- [101:29]
B
1,000%.
- [101:30]
A
Yeah. I remember at the time there was a little bit of the two people at the time when that movie came out where it was like a little bit of. I don't know about them were gear for Billy Flynn and Renee. People could not everyone was understanding of what made Renee work as Roxy with the dancing. Because compared to Katherine Zeta Jones, again, people go like, well, Katherine can dance, Renee can't. I'm like, renee can move just fine.
- [101:53]
B
But it worked very well for the film.
- [101:55]
A
The disparity makes sense. Gear. I think a lot of people had this, this imagination that Billy Flynn is actually like a super macho, heavy baritone singer. He's not. He's a smarmy lawyer and like, he's. He's sort of. He's the class smartass and he. And he like has a masculinity about him, but he's not like a barrel chested bro. And so I just remember that was one of the things some people were like. Well, he's a little slight in it. Like, that's the point. He's light on his feet. He gets away with everything. Literal murder.
- [102:26]
B
He walks into. He, he. They're literally razzle dazzle. Is it. It's a circus. He's a. He's a. He's a puppet master. He's a circus performer. He is not. He's a. He's a. He's a shapeshifter. He's a sleazebag.
- [102:38]
A
One of my favorite moments in the movie, both his performance and the cutting of it, is when he's telling the go to hell kitty story, the Lucy Liu murder story, which in this again, in the stage show, it's done very, very presentational and it's very wise. Assy. When Flynn is telling the story of the Pineapple heiress who killed her husband and the two women in bed with him in the stage show. She's got like a machine gun. And the joke is, you know, are you gonna believe what you see or what I tell you? And she goes, what I see? And then she shoots them all. And. And it's all very cheeky. In the movie, he's telling the story to a bunch of friends at a supper club and it's like, again, it's entertainment. As we cut between that and the real thing happening with Lucy Liu. And it's not like it's played as Oscar bait, but like it's played real. And so you're watching Lucy Liu lose her mind and you watch a. You watch one of the mistresses run out of bed and hide behind the curtain trying to like hold on for life for as many seconds as she can. And terrified. And when she gets shot dead, it ends with, with Richard Gere at the table laughing with his friends, like, will you believe this story? And he does the monologue so well.
- [103:41]
B
Yeah.
- [103:42]
A
And it. And the scene, the crossing wouldn't work if he wasn't so good at it.
- [103:46]
B
He. Everything that he does in that. Every little eye thing. Every little. Like I loved when she goes, maybe we can. Like when Renee first meets him, she's like, maybe we can work on arrangement. He's like, good, you got that out of your system. $5,000. Like, it's just, it's so you get that like every single woman has tried to do that. Like he's just every choice that he makes is spot on.
- [104:06]
A
Yeah. People will. This is the issue with award shows, and I love them very much. Not because they are actually are merit based, which is because it's. They're a great launching pad to talk about art.
- [104:17]
B
Sure.
- [104:18]
A
Because it's hard to compare and contrast. But people often look at award worthy performances as what's the biggest. What's the loudest. Right. It's the Daniel Day Lewis and the early blood.
- [104:30]
B
I've.
- [104:31]
A
I've abandoned my boy. I've abandoned my boy. It's. Which is. Works for the temper and the temperature of that movie.
- [104:38]
B
Yeah.
- [104:39]
A
But people will look at Richard Gere in Chicago and go, well, I mean, that's not really acting. What Daniel Day Lewis is doing is acting. I'm like, what Daniel Day Lewis is doing is acting that you can clock. That you can clock.
- [104:51]
B
It's also acting like Daniel Day Lewis. You know what I mean? Like, Daniel Day Lewis is always kind of this thing, but like, you see a guy like Richard Gere, who you've seen in rom coms, who have you seen in Primal Affair, who you've seen in all these things and now he's doing this. That is acting. Because he's done all this other shit. Daniel J. Lewis is always like, he's not. Never like you're not. Daniel Day Lewis would never be Billy Flynn.
- [105:12]
A
No. If I can't see the work, that's how I know, it's good. And Daniel Day Lewis tried to do the musical thing with Rob Marshall in Nine, and he didn't do it. Well, there's. Which isn't a harsh thing to say. We all know it.
- [105:24]
B
I haven't seen it.
- [105:25]
A
He's Guido in it. Yeah, he actually doesn't. His singing isn't terrible, but he does not have. Charm is the thing.
- [105:32]
B
No.
- [105:32]
A
Daniel Day Lewis can play the scum of the earth in really captivating ways, but he cannot do it with charm. And Richard Gere uses his romcom charm against us.
- [105:42]
B
Yes.
- [105:43]
A
It's so well done.
- [105:44]
B
Yes, he does.
- [105:45]
A
Yeah. And. But everyone, Everyone in that movie, you don't see the work. It's just everyone is such a natural fit. And because we don't see the work, people will wrongfully assume that there is no work involved. And there is so much work to make it look that effortless. And again, this is not me here praising everyone involved as masters of the craft who everyone should adhere to for all of their projects. I'm talking about this project in particular. Particular because, again, Ron Marshall and Bill Content have not been able to reach this height remotely ever since. But that's okay, because we have this.
- [106:16]
B
Because we have it. They did it.
- [106:17]
A
We did it.
- [106:18]
B
They peaked.
- [106:19]
A
They peaked. And I, I listen, if this were my peak, at least it's, you know, preserved.
- [106:24]
B
Yeah. At least it won something. Wait, okay. Can we do the Dreamcast?
- [106:28]
A
Yes. Yes, yes.
- [106:29]
B
Okay. Because I, I, it's so funny. Cause as we've been talking, I was like, oh, my God. I'm questioning some of my choices because I did pick a couple people with voices, and I actually picked two people think could each play either role.
- [106:42]
A
Are we talking if we do a remake or the stage show?
- [106:45]
B
No, a remake.
- [106:47]
A
Okay, cool.
- [106:48]
B
Of the movie. Because I was, I was trying. Because I was. At first, I was. I was thinking of Broadway people, but I was like, you know what? No, because it's on Broadway and it, you know, whatever. But one of the persons is kind of in both, both worlds. But I thought Roxy or Velma. And I have Renee, Rob rap. And I have Janelle Monae, which I think could easily. But then they're both have such a good voice that it is kind of, like, interesting. But I also, for Velma, have Sheena Shay, because Ariana got her moment. Let's give it to another Vanderpump girl because I think it could be so terrible that it would be so fun.
- [107:24]
A
I'm glad you said Vanderpump, because you said Sheena Shannon was sort of like, who?
- [107:28]
B
Sheena. Sheena, the one that's just so jealous of Ariana for Mama more. I really was liking the idea of Jinx, so I just said RuPaul. I mean, if we're gonna go mama, let's get, let's get the main mama. Let's get the main mama. And then Billy Flynn. This is where I'm kind of flipping it on set because I think you can do a Billy Crudup, but I also, in a new world, think you could do a Kate Hudson.
- [107:51]
A
Oh, Blake Hudson.
- [107:52]
B
Kate Hudson.
- [107:53]
A
Oh, Kate Hudson.
- [107:54]
B
Yeah. When we were talking about kind of gender bending and things like that, I was like, I could also see Billy Flynn being like a Kate Hudson, like a kind of like played by a woman in this. In, in a certain thing. It would change the vibe. But I also think it could be kind of interesting.
- [108:13]
A
So today as I was watching Chicago, I literally did a double feature the Pianist into Chicago and then came right on to do this. Yeah, I posted on Instagram and, and. Cause I was talking to my friend John Wiscavage who used to be my co host of this podcast when we started it a few years ago and has since left and we're still CL close and he comes on every now and then. But I was like, what if you and I did a 54 Below concert of Chicago and like a super gay version. It's like we could even do two shows. I said we could do two shows. In True Wested, we're like, you're Velma, I'm Roxy. And then the next show, I'm Velma, you're Roxy.
- [108:46]
B
Please do it well.
- [108:47]
A
So we were joking and I put it on Instagram as a poll and when I tell you within an hour I already had like over 100 votes about it. I was like, John, I think we might have be onto something because then people were dming me going like actor friends of mine going, going, can I be in it? I want to be one of the cell block tango people. And so then we're pitching it. So we're already thinking of sort of just a full on gender bent of the whole thing.
- [109:07]
B
Yes.
- [109:09]
A
So already you're saying Kate Hudson. First of all, I. My hot take is I want Kate Hudson to star in a revival of Mame. I think she would be a stellar Mame in that musical, but she'd also be a great Billy Flynn. We can't get her for 54 below. We can't afford her. But now, but now we're kind of Dreamcast. And it will be for the next year because John's booked through New Year's. But yeah, I think, I think we're gonna try can get Gent ever to agree to let us do a 7 and a 9:30 Chicago and then flip. Yeah, gay ass Chicago.
- [109:38]
B
I. Gay as Chicago is. I'm in.
- [109:41]
A
I'm coming. We're not calling it gay as Chicago. We're calling it Chicago.
- [109:47]
B
I'm in. I'm coming.
- [109:48]
A
Fantastic.
- [109:49]
B
I love it.
- [109:50]
A
It's. I. Yeah, I. You'll get an invite, don't you worry. You're perfect.
- [109:53]
B
Thank you so much.
- [109:54]
A
Yes, yes, yes. No, we're, we're. I think we're going to do it and yeah, we're, we're pretty pumped. The number of people I had DM me who I haven't spoken to in nine months who are like on Broadway or national tours, like, I'll be back in the new year. I wanna, I want you to think of me for. Yeah, yeah, I want in. I was like, that's the thing is everybody loves Chicago. They just do. Yeah, they just do.
- [110:17]
B
Yeah.
- [110:18]
A
And movie journalists who keep on publishing articles with the same punchline about Chicago not deserving a best picture. And I just go, you know what? If these other movie musical stuff since then were gonna be the thing like Chicago was, they would be the thing already.
- [110:30]
B
It's also 23 years ago, to quote.
- [110:32]
A
Jesse Eisenberg, if you were the inventors of Facebook, you would have invented Facebook. If you were the next Chicago, you would be the next Chicago.
- [110:38]
B
You would be the next Chicago. That's a perfect quote.
- [110:43]
A
Thank you, Casey. This has been delightful.
- [110:45]
B
But you and I thank you so much.
- [110:47]
A
You. You and I have busy schedules. I need to let you get back to your children. They're wondering where mom is.
- [110:50]
B
They are. They. They.
- [110:52]
A
It's.
- [110:52]
B
But sometimes I'm like, hey, but Broadway calls. Go downstairs.
- [110:55]
A
Thank you so much for coming on. This has been an absolute blast. Where can people find you if you want them to find you?
- [111:00]
B
I am at, well, on Instagram and TikTok, it's Broadway Bitch. And look for the one with the pink thing, because I think there was a Broadway bitch podcast like a couple years ago. Anyway, I'm the new one. I'm at K Space B, also on Instagram, so find us there. And our podcast is Broadway, which comes out every Monday. Matt's going to be on pretty soon. So listen, tell your friends. Friends and yeah, message me. I'm here. I'm available.
- [111:26]
A
She. She is around and you can hear me on It's Broadway bitch. At some. I think this is coming out in early January, so I don't know when my episode will be coming out, but I'm recording in like two weeks.
- [111:36]
B
We are recording soon and you'll probably come out. It might almost come out around the same time because I'm about a month. A month or so.
- [111:44]
A
Fantastic.
- [111:45]
B
Okay, great.
- [111:45]
A
I, I, I, I, I love the symmetry of that, the synergy. Even when I say Chicago, we are Chicago.
- [111:52]
B
We are the Roxy's mind and real life.
- [111:55]
A
Well, okay, if we were to do Chicago, you and I, who would be who?
- [111:59]
B
I may miss off. I may miss.
- [112:06]
A
I love it. I love it.
- [112:08]
B
I want to sing Cellophane and Cellophane.
- [112:11]
A
I will say the. So the year of Chicago was. I was in seventh grade, so that was the bar bat Mitzvah year for a lot of people. And my friend at the time, Natasha, had her Bat Mitzvah and her. I went to a school with a lot of performers and her mom asked that I perform at her bar Mitzvah party. And I sang Cellophane because Chicago was like so huge that year. I just won the Oscar and that's one of my happy memories was being 13 and performing cellophane at her bar Mitzvah party. Looking back, I go, oh, free labor. You had free entertainment. I got it again. Pay us the things we, Pay us the things we do.
- [112:44]
B
Pay us.
- [112:45]
A
On that note, guys, if you want to follow me, I am on Instagram at Matt Koblek usual spelling. If you do like the podcast, please give us a nice 5 star rating or review. It all helps with the algorithm. Join us on the substack where we have articles that are published from each episode. So like if you're not a huge podcast person but you like my writing, you. There's a companion article for every episode we do on the podcast. We also have a Discord channel. Make sure to join NAR with a bunch of listeners over 300 members on the Discord, almost 300 members on the the substack. It's a really wonderful space. Kasey. We close out every episode with a big old diva, either who's been on Broadway or Broadway related. Who would you like to close this out with today on your episode of Broadway Breakdown?
- [113:27]
B
Oh, what do I. How do I close it? What do I do I.
- [113:29]
A
So you just, you just say which diva you want to close this house with. And then in post I will put in their. Their audio. So you can, if you want, you can even say what song you want. Or you can just say the diva, and I'll pick the song. And when you listen to this episode in two months, you'll hear her singing as we close out.
- [113:43]
B
Oh, okay. I mean, I'm sure that she's been picked before, but you got to go. Bette Midler, we love her.
- [113:49]
A
I don't think she's been picked since, like, 2018. So you know what? There we go.
- [113:53]
B
Because I feel like there was just something honoring her that I saw on Instagram, like, a couple people. And you just remember that she is so violently funny and aggressive on Twitter or on threads or whatever. And it just. You. She's. She's around.
- [114:07]
A
She.
- [114:07]
B
She's here.
- [114:08]
A
She's great.
- [114:09]
B
She's tiny. She's here. Bette Midler.
- [114:13]
A
Bette Midler. Like Riri. She's tiny and she's here. Bette Miller. Okay, I will close this out with Bette Midler. That's it, you guys, thank you so much for stopping by. We will see you next week. Take it away, Bet. Bye.
- [114:24]
B
Goodbye to blueberry pie Good friends to all the socials I had to go to all the lodges I had a play all the Shriners I said hello to hey, la, I'm coming your way Some people sit on their butts Got the dream yeah but not the guts.
- [114:47]
A
That'S living for some people.