West Side Story (w/ Jean-Pierre Boudreaux)

Eli (00:01.745)
Hello and welcome to the establishing shot a podcast where we do deep dives and two directors and their filmographies I am your host Eli Price and we are here on episode 113 of the podcast And yeah, we're in Spielberg still but not for long because this is the second to last as of now Spielberg movie Hopefully another one coming out next year but

As of now, this is the second to last. So we're talking about West Side Story today. I'm really excited to get into this conversation. to join me for this conversation is our honorary, I guess, co-host in a way, our JP Boudreaux. And what I wanted to say about JP for this episode is that when he's a Jet, he's a Jet all the way.

Jean-Pierre (00:47.384)
Yeah, but at this point, yeah.

Eli (00:59.635)
That's great. I don't even have to add in the snapping in post. Yeah, it sounded good.

Jean-Pierre (01:05.036)
No, no, no. We're just one step away from just going full on dance fight. You know what mean?

Eli (01:12.039)
Yeah, if we break into song or you see us doing some like pirouettes or whatever, know, just roll with it.

Jean-Pierre (01:19.136)
gonna be so hard not to start singing some of the stuff like Spielberg's second to last fill you know just just throw it out there

Eli (01:22.717)
Yeah.

Eli (01:28.979)
Yeah, it's I'm excited to do this before we get into West Side Story though. Yeah, just JP's been on plenty of times. He's he's shared his film How he got into film he shared how he got into Wes Anderson and Christopher Nolan and Spielberg He's been in all the series. So I just wanted JP to kind of share maybe some projects

I know he's, is it, did your latest project release like between the last episode and now or was it already out? I don't remember. Cause it was just a few episodes you were on Lincoln with us ago, but.

Jean-Pierre (02:09.997)
Yeah, probably so. mean, most recently, you know, I got to kind of put out a little documentary in Guatemala for kind of a family friend of my girlfriend to like story of his grandpa's life, which is really fun just being able to do that together. I think it came out really great. And then I just recently put out a little video kind of like

Eli (02:28.21)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:35.054)
It's kind of like partly a doc, partly a vlog kind of style of a local MMA fighter who just had his professional debut. just was there. Yeah, I was there. Thank you, man. I was there on fight night. And that guy especially, Jason, he's just...

Eli (02:43.249)
Yeah, I watched that one. It was good.

Jean-Pierre (02:54.188)
man he is a character like I really do feel like he's he's got the personality we're like the dude's gonna go far in this business if he keeps it up because like obviously he's got like the talent when it comes to fighting but he's just got that that personality where you just you just know he's gonna be a big deal if he if he's able to make it to you

Eli (03:00.051)
Yeah.

Eli (03:08.594)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (03:14.894)
you know, the UFC, which is like kind of the biggest stage for professional fighting. There are apparently a couple other like bigger leagues, but obviously the UFC is like the one. So yeah, so that was fun. And

Eli (03:19.709)
Right.

Eli (03:24.211)
Right, right.

Jean-Pierre (03:30.27)
Yeah, should be able to be wrapping up my documentary from Chile pretty soon. Just got a couple more little tweaks to make to it and when that's out, I will be blasting that everywhere because that's like a dream come true project.

Eli (03:39.987)
Sweet.

Eli (03:45.585)
Yeah, yeah, I'll be looking forward to seeing that one for sure Yeah, JP has like if you if you follow him on socials he's like he'll post like those projects or like you're on YouTube too, I think is where I watched

Jean-Pierre (04:01.942)
Yeah, yeah, I post most updates on Instagram, as far as like, you know, I usually put any project I do, it'll go on my Inhabit Creative Co. like YouTube channel. Just kind of have a placeholder for it.

Eli (04:07.446)
Right.

Eli (04:15.803)
Yeah, yeah. yeah, so yeah, I'll be looking forward to the Chile one for sure. But yeah, other than that, have you been, do you have any like recommendations? What have you been watching recently?

Jean-Pierre (04:31.84)
Yeah, yeah, think, I'm not sure how, like, delayed the release of this episode would be, but I've kind of been on a... Yeah, I've kind of been in a bit of a TV show, kind of, kind of, mode recently. And so, by the time this episode airs...

Eli (04:41.811)
It'll be a few weeks.

Jean-Pierre (04:55.534)
you know the couple shows I have to recommend probably be fully available to binge but I will say recently I finally watched the pilot episode of The X-Files

Eli (05:08.091)
Hmm.

Jean-Pierre (05:08.374)
and I'm thinking about making that my new like I don't really have anything else to watch I just want to kill some time watch an episode but two shows more recent shows I've been watching that I've been really enjoying that I recommend is number one on Apple TV Chief of War with Jason Momoa so far I've really loved it I love like historical drama for any of your listeners if you loved Shogun this is right up your alley also super

Eli (05:15.377)
Yeah.

Eli (05:26.631)
Hmm, okay.

Jean-Pierre (05:38.198)
cool like most of the cast is either Hawaiian or like Pacific Islander you see some people in there like his name escapes me but is it Tamar Tamarisen the guy who plays like Boba Fett

Eli (05:55.859)
I don't know. I'm not... I couldn't tell you. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (05:57.614)
I can't forget how it exactly pronounce his name, but that guy's in there. You got Cliff Curtis, which so funny with Cliff Curtis because he's played, even though he's like literally Maori, he's literally with a New Zealand accent. He's literally played like.

so many different like either drug cartel leaders or like Middle Eastern terrorists, because he is a little ethnically ambiguous, but he is actually a Maori from New Zealand. And so you do have a couple other cultures in there. But what's really cool is that so far the majority language spoken in the show is actually Native Hawaiian. So it's and it's about the wars of it's about the Hawaiian war unification, like kind of in like the kind of late late 1600s, early 1700s, somewhere around there.

Eli (06:21.095)
Yeah.

Eli (06:30.402)
That's cool. Yeah.

Eli (06:41.597)
Gotcha.

Jean-Pierre (06:42.384)
Jason Moe is in it and he's great. It's not exactly the most original character he's ever played necessarily. But so far I've been really enjoying that show. Some really brutal action, just like the kind of weapons that they had in these native tribes at the time. But also...

Eli (06:57.842)
Right.

Jean-Pierre (07:01.166)
Hawaii, beautiful landscape. A lot of the landscape shops are amazing. And the cinematography is like, it's right up there with Shogun, where it's just absolutely beautiful. Really loving that. And then kind of on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, if we go from historical drama to science fiction, I know, from what I could tell, it's a little here and miss for people. I've been loving Alien Earth. It's kind of weird.

Eli (07:09.523)
Mm.

Eli (07:27.065)
Okay.

Jean-Pierre (07:30.956)
but like in the best way. And so far I'm having a great time with that show.

Eli (07:34.279)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (07:39.326)
So yeah, and I'm excited to see where it goes. I am interested as a fan of the franchise just to see how it ends. pretty sure it's gonna be a limited series because there's a pretty... It's kind of like the Obi-Wan TV show where it's like there's a pretty narrow window where you can believably tell a story in this particular context and not like ruin the continuity of the entire franchise, which...

Eli (07:49.49)
Yeah.

Eli (07:55.601)
Hmm.

Eli (08:03.175)
Gotcha.

Jean-Pierre (08:07.95)
I I've heard Noah Hawley who's behind the show is unlike didn't really care necessarily about what's canon what's not canon per se but still it's like okay but you know if if the the xenomorphs take over the earth at the end of the show that would cause some problems probably but anyway for the most part it's been great it's it's never been more like

Eli (08:24.017)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (08:35.521)
There's never been more of a Blade Runner vibe in the Alien movie. it's like, you know, there's, it's like Blade Runner, Predator and, and Alien. Like there's always been like a little bit of, a little bit of secretive fan crossover with these films. So this, there's some stuff like that. It kind of feels very familiar, dude, it's, it's brutal. It's, it's kind of funny at some parts. I don't really want to spoil anything. I think people should go in blind, but there's great.

Eli (08:50.93)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (09:04.766)
acting in the show where characters are portraying themselves as a certain thing and they're doing a great job at it. yeah, I highly recommend.

Eli (09:12.689)
Hmm who's who's like the main big name cast it seems like I remembered

Jean-Pierre (09:19.054)
Honestly, honestly, it's a lot of like not well-known actors, which I kind of love Timothy Oliphant is in it and kind of a more supporting role He plays he plays a synthetic which is an Android in the alien universe The main character I can't the two kind of main characters right now is you have

Eli (09:25.327)
Okay, I thought I remembered seeing like some... Okay, I know... Yeah, I know him.

Jean-Pierre (09:47.456)
one character whose name is escaping me in the show. What is the name of the of the oldest sister from Peter Pan? Wendy. So the character Wendy is paid by Sydney Chandler I believe her name is who is the daughter of

Eli (09:56.655)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (10:05.358)
Gosh the actor whose first name is escaping me Chandler. He's in like King Kong. He was in Godzilla King of the Monsters Kyle Chandler. That's his name. He's gonna be in he's gonna yeah, so it's to Kyle Chandler's daughter. She's doing great The guy there's a guy who plays her brother and the show whose name escapes me, but he was Most recently in season 1 of and or he's the guy who writes that manifesto that and yet you can watch the indoor, bro

Eli (10:15.941)
Okay.

Eli (10:31.055)
Okay, I've been meaning to watch Andor. Not yet.

Jean-Pierre (10:35.852)
Okay, forget everything I just said watch and or everybody Masterpiece as a masterpiece, but he's using that show and he's like her brother and So far Yeah, it's it's it's violent. It's kind of crazy You know, it's like xenomorphs, you know anything about xenomorphs. They're very vicious Creatures and they've never been more vicious than in the show But yeah so far it's been great. So I recommend that

Eli (10:53.039)
Yeah, it's supposed to be, you know? Yeah.

Eli (11:05.331)
Cool. Yeah, I haven't heard a ton about Alien Earth, but I've seen it popping up here and there. And yeah, I really love the Alien movies. Even the bad ones, I still kind of enjoy. Like Alien 3 and...

Jean-Pierre (11:23.704)
Well, here's something interesting for you. I would think that the movie, I would think that the film this show feels most inspired by, in a way, as far as the vibe, I would say is Alien Resurrection. And I mean that as a complete compliment. I mean that in the best way possible. Dude, I don't necessarily love the whole Ripley clone thing.

Eli (11:35.805)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (11:42.439)
I like it. I like Alien Resurrection OK.

Jean-Pierre (11:52.364)
But the overall vibe of that movie, was like, dude, this is like Alien meets Jurassic Park, and I kind of love it, actually. Like, it was...

Eli (11:58.735)
Yeah, the worst part of Alien Resurrection is like whoever wrote the dialogue for that movie just needs to never have it Yeah, just I don't know it. It's terrible. but but yeah, I like what I like about Alien Resurrections is I like the ideas it's going for even if it doesn't hit them and so like

Jean-Pierre (12:05.026)
Trust we didn't, actually.

Believe it or not.

Eli (12:22.695)
Sometimes with bad movies I can see what they're trying to do and I probably give too much grace to them because I can see what they were going for even though they didn't hit it and

Jean-Pierre (12:30.614)
Yeah, Alien Earth is like the same kind of weird vibe of Alien Resurrection, but like done much better, with much better writing, in my opinion.

Eli (12:36.935)
Okay.

Gotcha. Gotcha. Cool. Yeah, I think three is the, I like resurrections a little bit more than three. So, but yeah, those are definitely the worst too. The rest of, all of the rest of them are good movies. Like I, yeah, I do too.

Jean-Pierre (12:49.104)
yeah.

Jean-Pierre (12:58.958)
I think I prefer Alien over Aliens very slightly. Aliens is like 4.5, Aliens is a 4, Alien Resurrection is like 2.5, 3, then Alien 3, I'm sorry, like a 2.5, 3, and then Alien Resurrection for me is like a 3.5.

Eli (13:09.244)
Right.

Eli (13:14.639)
Okay. Yeah, and what about Prometheus and Covenant?

Jean-Pierre (13:19.64)
Prometheus? I think Prometheus is like a three and a half or a four.

Eli (13:26.771)
Covenant? like, I'm one of the few people that like Covenant a little bit more than Prometheus. I like Covenant. It's beautiful.

Jean-Pierre (13:30.304)
It's okay. I think I prefer Prometheus, but mostly because I think Prometheus would be remembered much more fondly if it was just, if it wasn't attached to the alien universe, because it was originally its original film, its own original film. And then really Scott was like, well, let's just make this a backwards prequel. And it doesn't really work. yeah. With the stupidest science, scientist characters of all time. just, that's like the biggest thing about that movie.

Eli (13:49.221)
It may be the most beautiful, the most beautifully shot of all of them, I think.

And Robby Romulus is really good, too

Jean-Pierre (13:59.831)
Ramius is fantastic, yeah.

Eli (14:01.519)
Yeah, Romulus was great. Okay, Alien Earth, go watch it. I just don't watch a lot of TV, and so it just really takes a lot of time for me to get around to watching shows. Even ones that, even ones I'm interested in, but.

Jean-Pierre (14:18.19)
I totally get that with the family and everything. It's convenient for me where I come home from work, I just want to sit down and relax and watch an episode and then go about the rest of my evening. That's usually how I approach it.

Eli (14:30.333)
Yeah.

A of times the shows I end up watching are when I know it's a miniseries and not like, this is going to have several seasons when I can go in knowing, OK, can start. Like Devs, I watched that whenever that came out because I knew it was a miniseries.

Jean-Pierre (14:39.799)
No.

Right. Right.

Jean-Pierre (14:54.126)
I'm also a big supporter of like wait for the show to come out and then watch it at your own pace. Like I don't, I don't really love waiting for episodes.

Eli (14:57.777)
yeah yeah what what was the show the show i watched it's the guy that did like hill house haunting at hill house with the priest

Jean-Pierre (15:13.102)
Mike Flanagan. Midnight Mass? Dude, that show is a masterpiece. That is literally... That is one of my favorite, like, series I've ever seen in my entire life. Honestly, dude, if you ever want to do like an offshoot episode just talking about that, literally, I will be there because there is so much to talk about with that show. A masterpiece. I loved it.

Eli (15:16.889)
Midnight Mask, that was a freaking great show. Yeah. But I knew it was a mini-series, so I knew, like, there's a start and a finish.

Eli (15:30.235)
it's very good.

Eli (15:34.419)
We might have to.

Eli (15:40.795)
yeah. man.

Jean-Pierre (15:43.116)
I haven't even seen Bly Manor and Hill House, but Midnight Mass was like much more of my vibe and that show was incredible.

Eli (15:47.537)
I haven't either.

Eli (15:51.889)
He also did Fall of the House of Usher. I haven't seen that either. I want to say he had a movie.

Jean-Pierre (15:54.796)
Yes, yes.

Jean-Pierre (16:00.002)
Life of Chuck. I haven't seen it, but it's his first non-horror related thing.

Eli (16:01.843)
He did do it's Mike Flanagan. He did do Life of Chuck and I loved Life of Chuck. Did you see it? I'll Yeah, I loved it it was it's just it's very it's like it's very unique in Several different ways. But yeah Yeah, we should probably jump in to we could ramble like this forever and I'm

Jean-Pierre (16:07.466)
I did not, I did not, but I've heard, I have a friend who saw it and loved it.

Jean-Pierre (16:24.75)
Yeah, maybe. Right now, feel like that was like our overture to open up the episode. And now we get to the first set piece.

Eli (16:32.593)
Yeah, it's the overture. Yeah. Now it's the prologue. Yeah. Yeah, this is when, you know, this is the camera swinging through a demolished set. Snapping begins whistling the whole like...

Oh man, so good. Oh yeah. Okay. West Side Story. We are obviously talking about the 2021 film by Steven Spielberg today, but West Side Story originally opened on Broadway in 1957. book, which I had to look this up. I was like, there was a book, but it's actually like, apparently like musicals will have

Jean-Pierre (17:01.432)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (17:23.687)
these things called librettos and they're either called that or they just call it the book and it's what has like kind of the story and dialogue and

Jean-Pierre (17:33.332)
is it like when a movie gets turned into a novelization? Is that kind of vibe?

Eli (17:40.261)
It not exactly because the you write you write this like it's kind of the opposite you write this as like I Didn't look into it a whole lot, but the vibe I got was this is like the concept so like you write out the story and And the care like the care about the characters Yeah, almost like dialogue

Jean-Pierre (18:01.656)
Like the script almost.

Eli (18:06.287)
It's not the lyrics because Stephen Sondheim wrote the lyrics for the songs, but kind of like this. The story is.

Jean-Pierre (18:12.664)
Hmm the flavor the play the play aspects of a musical play, right?

Eli (18:18.659)
Right, and even like, yeah, so sort of like the screenplay without like the lyrics of the music, but...

Jean-Pierre (18:27.15)
So what it, well you say research massive, but what it be like you're leaving those segments for the musical numbers that are supposed to involve the themes? Okay. Come on, bro. You never, you you never written a musical before.

Eli (18:36.019)
I don't know. This is beyond my pay grade as far as Broadway musicals and how they work go.

I was focused on researching the movie version and so my research into the Broadway play is very minimal. But Arthur Lawrence wrote the book or basically like he wrote, you can think of it as he wrote the story. And so yeah, he wrote the story. I just mentioned Stephen Sondheim wrote the lyrics at like 25, 26, 27. That's how old he was, pretty young. Leonard Bernstein did the music.

Jean-Pierre (18:54.072)
There, there.

Eli (19:16.083)
And it was directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins. So those are like the four dudes behind West Side Story. And obviously like big hit on Broadway. I don't know how, I didn't look up how many years it ran, but it was a long time. And then just what, would it be four years later? Oh yeah, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (19:22.744)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (19:33.198)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (19:37.595)
That's like the heyday of Broadway, too.

Eli (19:41.843)
And then just four years later, the film adaptation by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins in 1961. It won 10 Oscars, which is crazy, and Best Picture being won, and Rita Marino as supporting actress, as Anita being another one, related to this version we're talking about. But yeah, big deal. Let's just say that, West Side Story.

Jean-Pierre (20:02.125)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (20:09.203)
Before we get into the new one, how long has it been since you watched the original? Because I'm assuming you've watched the original.

Jean-Pierre (20:17.87)
Oh yeah, yeah. It was very interesting. I see in your outline here the next thing we'll talk about because it sounds like Spielberg and I had some very similar experiences growing up. But it's definitely been a while. It was one of the DVDs that we had as growing up and we would definitely watch it. I was very familiar. Like I have very fond memories of watching it and I love.

Eli (20:23.955)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (20:41.224)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (20:44.77)
I mean, I've always loved the song America, like just the vibe of it. Like, I mean, you want to, you want to talk about, like, it will get into the lyrical content of some of these songs, but like, just to take a moment right now and talk about like just the music that Bernstein wrote for this musical. mean, it is some very, very catchy stuff. So I have very fond memories of watching it. It definitely has been some time.

Eli (20:47.729)
Yeah.

Eli (20:51.153)
yeah.

Eli (20:57.915)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (21:04.309)
Yeah. Yeah.

yeah.

Jean-Pierre (21:13.866)
Since I can't tell you the last time I watched the 61 version, I did watch the one we're talking about today just a couple days ago, just to kind of refresh my memory. Because I saw it when it came out in theaters. But the 61 version, I honestly can't tell you the last time I saw it. But I do know that there are a lot of differences between that and this.

And I would say most if not all of those differences from what I can think of I think are actually beneficial, but

Eli (21:40.775)
Yeah.

Eli (21:46.993)
Yeah, yeah, and yes, I did not grow up with West Side Story. And so I think I watched it for the first and only time I've watched it, like five or six years ago. And I haven't I haven't revisited it. And I I have mixed feelings about the original. Obviously, like the music and the songs I really enjoy.

I don't really I think it's more like the Some some of it is like the acting and the casting some of it is Just the kind of story in general It's like the it's kind of like the Romeo Juliet problem like you eat you either like buy into it or you don't sort of thing and So yeah, I'm not like a huge

Jean-Pierre (22:37.144)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (22:41.178)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (22:46.333)
fan of the original. And maybe, maybe like if I went back and watched it now I would probably like appreciate it a lot more. Just coming off of the high of this version or maybe it would make me like it less. But I don't know. But yeah, it's just interesting. I just wanted to hear how, hear how you kind of came into.

Jean-Pierre (22:48.344)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (22:59.608)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (23:07.852)
Yeah, I think...

Jean-Pierre (23:11.894)
Yeah, I think it's definitely one of those movies you watch it and you're like, it's definitely a product of its time, not just in the terms of casting, but also just like in staging and directing. I don't think, I don't think it's, yeah. But, but I think I do think that this, this updated version for 2021, not even just getting into like the casting decisions, but just the general presentation I do think is like a very worthy upgrade.

Eli (23:17.403)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's well made, but yeah.

Eli (23:39.141)
yeah, yeah for sure. so Steven Spielberg, he grew up in a very musical home. His mom was, as we feel like we've probably talked about at some point, was a classical pianist before she kind of ended up at home with the kids. But yeah, so he grew up with his mom playing classical piano, listening to classical music at the home.

And he said that West Side Story, the vinyl record his parents brought home and that was the first popular music record in his home. And he was 10 years old when that happened. And so...

Jean-Pierre (24:24.462)
That was like his little Wayne mixtape or something like that, you know?

Eli (24:27.439)
Yeah, yeah. And so he obviously like when you have a lot of classical music and then you have this one, the one thing that's different, he listened to it a lot. He even talked about when he was 10 or 11 or something, he started like singing some of the lyrics to Officer Krupke. That song, like, you know, my father's a bastard. And his parents like freaked out and like what?

Jean-Pierre (24:48.75)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (24:55.517)
What's going on? Where did you hear this? And he's like, it's that record you brought home, you So, and then he even talked about when the movie came out, he saw it in theaters like five times. And so he has a very strong relationship to this movie. This is like, if you go like all the way back to like Temple of Doom, like the opening scene in Temple of Doom or like the

Jean-Pierre (25:07.31)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (25:14.126)
Mmm.

Eli (25:24.179)
the dance sequence in 1941, all of those are him, like, he's always wanted to make a musical and he's always had, like, in the back of his mind, like, what if I was able to make a new West Side Story? So it's kind of like, this is kind of like his passion project in a lot of ways. Like, the thing he's always wanted to do but has never,

Jean-Pierre (25:26.552)
Mmm.

Eli (25:50.995)
one had like the chance to do and two like had the guts to do because it kind of does take a lot of guts to redo like a classic especially like a musical and so yeah he he worked really hard to get the rights in 2014 Kevin McCollum held the rights and him and 20th Century Fox approached

Jean-Pierre (26:05.198)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (26:19.335)
He had to do a lot of meetings with Sondheim and then Sondheim was at that point was the only of the original four creators that were still alive. so met with Sondheim and then met with the states of the families and really had to earn their trust to do it, that he was gonna do this right. And yeah, they eventually, he eventually got the rights.

Jean-Pierre (26:30.424)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (26:48.979)
They allowed for change in the dialogue, but not for like the story or lyrics Which they did change? The dialogue he I think Spielberg said they only used like 5 % of the dialogue from their original So they they did a lot of work there, but yeah, and then yeah

Jean-Pierre (27:02.85)
Hmm.

Jean-Pierre (27:07.662)
Which makes sense because...

like a play is such a different format than a film. And so like the kind of things that you would say and the way you present them in a play won't always translate to a film. Because like, you know, they say like when you're doing a play, you're always trying to project to the furthest back row.

Eli (27:15.433)
yeah.

Eli (27:23.804)
Right.

Jean-Pierre (27:33.678)
So you can't have like some of these more subtle moments where someone's like whispering necessarily in a play unless, you know, at least traditionally when no one's using microphones or anything like that. So it would, it would make sense. The combination of that, but also just wanting to like, I do think that the movie really has a good line between like, like it, it does kind of still feel like it's like at the fifties, but like the dialogue isn't like extremely antiquated.

Eli (27:38.343)
Yeah, sure.

Eli (27:43.035)
Right.

Eli (27:57.405)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's like period if still feels period but like it has a modern sensibility Yeah, Yeah for sure and so Which a lot of that so Could Tony Kushner is who he brought on as the writer so he and when he first approached him Tony Kushner was like I don't know about that like redoing West Side Story

Jean-Pierre (28:09.006)
It's like retro futuristic almost in a way, I guess.

Eli (28:29.651)
But he eventually came on What's funny is it seems like Tony Kushner is always brought on to collab with Steven Spielberg when they're doing movies that kind of echo the past into the present So you think about like Munich Lincoln and then this are all movies that like are set in the past But like kind of really echo into like present-day

Jean-Pierre (28:30.424)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (28:50.147)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (28:59.571)
moment the present-day moment issues that you're facing in the present like cultural political Times that we're in All three of those are like very much. So that sort of thing. So he was the right choice in that way, but also He I don't know it seems like Tony Kushner really like did it worked hard to to make this story flow well and

Jean-Pierre (29:29.016)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (29:30.093)
So yeah, I think he did a really good job and he talks about he didn't he Basically like they didn't want this to be like this is a remake of The the adaptation the film adaptation. This is a new adaptation of the original material and so and that's kind of I mean Think anytime there's like an another like little women

Like, you know, there's been lots of little women. And you want to start with the source material, you know.

Jean-Pierre (30:02.624)
Or I mean even even with this word.

Yeah, I mean even with this, it's technically just Roman and Juliet essentially.

Eli (30:09.683)
Yeah, a lot of ways it's the foundation of the story is Romeo and Juliet. Like the skeleton of the story is still that. But yeah, they kind of used Arthur Lawrence's libretto or his book of the story as the launching point and really melted it together from there.

And in a lot of ways too, kind of, and we'll talk about this when we start like going through like the songs and the structure of the movie. But the original adaptation from 61 did some like mixing around of some of the structure of like when the songs happen. this, this did in some ways like went back to their way originally was and in other ways like

Like mixed it around in ways that the original didn't So it's it's funny like they both adaptations kind of chose different ways to restructure like the songs So like the examples I can think of are In the original stage play tonight, I mean Maria goes right into tonight just like it does

Jean-Pierre (31:22.464)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (31:37.203)
In this Spielberg adaptation well in the original adaptation I think they broke it up with America in the middle of tonight and with Maria and tonight and then And then the the cool in the original adaptation is just like it is in the stage play it's right after the rumble and so it's and it's not like

Jean-Pierre (31:47.564)
Hmm.

Eli (32:06.983)
Tony and Riff singing it, it's after Riff has died. And in this, they move it before the rumble and it becomes kind of like this, this like kind of like struggle of the old and the new. Right. So those are like some of the, it's just interesting to me how like they kind of mixed the song structure up in different ways. And so, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (32:11.086)
Mmm, yeah, you're right.

Jean-Pierre (32:19.308)
He's like singing it, yeah, singing it too, Riff, like, yo, you gotta cool it down, bruh. Right.

Eli (32:38.3)
Yeah, so let's let's talk through the crew and the cast The crew of this movie is obviously in some ways the typical Wow, I totally typo'd One of the names I just noticed In some ways is the typical like Spielberg crew and obviously in other ways like that's not really possible because you're making a musical so we'll hear some

Jean-Pierre (33:03.799)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (33:06.855)
familiar names and some new names. But Kristi McCosco-Kreiger and Kevin McCollum, who owned the rights at the time, produced it along with Spielberg. Kreiger is his kind of like Amblin producer. She's producing a lot of the Amblin stuff. Obviously based on the Broadway show and Arthur Lawrence book that we've talked about. The screenplay is by Tony Kushner.

and the DP or cinematographer Janusz Kaminski of course. I added an extra A in my notes so it says Kaminski. And the editors are Michael Kahn and Sarah Brochar. So this is Michael Kahn's last movie with Spielberg. Sarah Brochar has been kind of co-editing with him for the past few movies and I

Jean-Pierre (34:09.966)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (34:19.169)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (34:23.582)
Sound is the typical Spielberg guys with Andy Nelson and Gary Rydstrom.

Eli (34:34.387)
But David Newman does some like the new arrangements for this this adaptation and the conductor is Gustavo Dudamel he is conducting with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra John Williams the man himself advised Spielberg to hire him and Dudamel talked about it was cool to hear him talk about how at

15 years old, he was in some conducting classes and they actually were doing some arrangements of I Feel Pretty in his conducting class. So he has like kind of a close connection to the material. And then I thought this was, this is like after this was made, but he did become the musical director of the Paris Opera in April of 2021. So I threw that in there just to show this guy's a pretty big deal.

Jean-Pierre (35:30.222)
That's a dope.

Eli (35:34.643)
I personally don't know much about the Paris Opera, but I have the feeling it's a pretty big deal. but yeah, lyrics, of course, Stephen Sondheim. And then we have some kind of people that are helping make the the new the musical aspects happen. Jeanine Tesori does the vocal production. She's she's huge.

Jean-Pierre (35:43.886)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (36:04.359)
I enjoyed seeing her. She's in a lot of the special features on the Blu-ray. So I enjoyed hearing from her. Matthew Rush does the music production. Matthew Rush Sullivan, I should say. And Justin Peck does the choreography. Now I should say he's connected to the New York City Ballet Company. So he's like a pretty big deal too. But I should say about the choreography.

Jean-Pierre (36:12.056)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (36:33.885)
think in the credits it also has Jerome Robbins, but I think the more accurate thing would be to say it's based on their original choreography from Robbins, because Justin Peck does a lot of different stuff with the choreography. It's not, it is not their original choreography. It's inspired by it and based on it, but it's not their original choreography. So I say that just because I feel like he needs to get like the credit, like

Jean-Pierre (36:46.872)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (36:54.488)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (37:02.478)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (37:03.845)
more credit than he got, I guess, in the actual credits of the movie.

Jean-Pierre (37:07.554)
Yeah, there's some phenomenal dance choreography in this film for sure.

Eli (37:11.811)
yeah, yeah, and we will certainly talk about it. The production designer is Adam Stockhausen. Spielberg's been stealing him from Wes Anderson for a few movies here and there, and art direction by Arena DiAngelo. Costumes were by Paul Taswell, who worked on Hamilton. He did the costumes for Hamilton. So another guy, that's a big deal in the musical world. And then...

I meant every once in a while I'll mention like the first assistant director or or assistant directors. Adam Somner has been Spielberg's AD for like forever and I always mentioned his name but I don't really talk much about what he does what what like first ADs do because it doesn't really come up much in my research but it did this time. So here's an example because I know if you've been listening through the series I know

Jean-Pierre (38:00.738)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (38:08.465)
that you've heard Adam Somner's name before. Here's an example of how big of a deal he is for Spielberg and the production of the movie. So if you think about the kind of quintet version of Tonight where you have leading up to the rumble, you have all these different aspects of that song. You have the sharks getting ready, you have the jets getting ready, you have Tony

you know, headed to meet Maria. You have Maria headed to meet Tony. I think you even have like some Anita stuff thrown in here and there. So you have like five different things going on. I don't what Adam some one of the things Adam Somner did is he said, okay, let's map out the shooting schedule for this because they're they're doing they're doing all of these this. It's not split up when they're shooting this. They're they're shooting this all, you know, together.

Jean-Pierre (38:42.616)
Okay.

Eli (39:03.901)
But they do have to figure out, okay, when are we shooting this part of this group singing this part? Because at one point, for instance, Maria passes the jets in the street. So you have to have their paths cross and you have to match the shooting schedule up so that you have the right people in the right spot. There's all. If it sounds confusing, it's because it is. And it takes someone like Adam Sommner, Spielberg's go-to first AD to like,

Jean-Pierre (39:11.276)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (39:19.533)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (39:26.924)
Yeah.

Eli (39:34.003)
put that on paper, match out everything. It's a big deal, for sure.

Jean-Pierre (39:36.014)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (39:39.854)
And I'm sure Adam and Stephen have a unique relationship because they've been working together for so long. yeah, having been on sets, that is typically the first 80s job is to make sure everything is on schedule. that's a lot of what you're doing in prep is, hey, we're going to have Ansel Eagort for these. These are the shooting of our full shooting calendar. These are the days that we have him. When do we need to film? What? When?

Eli (39:45.555)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (39:54.803)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (40:09.383)
Uh-huh.

Jean-Pierre (40:09.968)
What they call the sides which is basically the segments of the script that you are shooting that day You know everyone gets a copy of those like as a PA that's one of your main jobs is making sure everybody can get a copy of the sides which is like literally just a part of the script that we're shooting for that day and for instance if you've ever seen in a movie or TV show where they're showing you like behind the scenes of something and you hear somebody go and Action that's usually the first ad like they're

Eli (40:19.243)
Yeah.

Eli (40:39.34)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (40:39.728)
the ones who yell action and cut they're the ones who will run back and forth the director ask if there's any notes you know because the directors usually like living in video village which sometimes could be very far away from set so you know that that's like they're right I'm in right right right right

Eli (40:50.833)
Yeah, it's not with Spielberg, yeah. But yeah, that was just like a really good example of like the absolute chaos of a shooting schedule, just thinking about shooting that sequence. Yeah, a lot of moving parts and that's the guy that's making sure it happens. And so, yeah, he...

Jean-Pierre (41:05.6)
Mm-hmm. Especially one that casts this size, for sure, yeah.

Eli (41:19.035)
He doesn't get like a lot of credit, but he is a big deal for Spielberg. And he never really pops up in the special features, so he just must not be like an in front of camera sort of guy. Yeah. Yeah. The only other crew I wanted to mention was Cindy Tolan, who did the casting. I thought she deserved a big shout out for putting this cast together.

Jean-Pierre (41:29.762)
Real, yeah, he's like, nah, behind the scenes only.

Jean-Pierre (41:42.968)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (41:47.427)
But yes, speaking of the cast, this movie took a whole year to cast. Partly because they took a while to like find some of the characters and partly because there's a lot of people to cast in the movie. But one of the few things before we get into the actual cast members that I thought was was cool to point out. The main thing is that Spielberg was determined to have all the shards.

be Latinx actors and he was very, very focused on that. And he was successful that they had all the sharks were of Latin origin and I always appreciate when people are intentional about that, especially like.

Jean-Pierre (42:40.771)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (42:43.897)
with the first with the casting in the first film. know, Natalie Wood is not by any stretch a Latino woman. so, you know, it's just nice to see people being very intentional about that sort of thing. And then on top of that, out of the 50 Latino actors, 20 were New Yorkans, which are Puerto Rican immigrants to New York.

Jean-Pierre (42:55.278)
Hmm.

Jean-Pierre (42:59.937)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (43:12.339)
That's kind of what they the term they call themselves. So yeah, I thought that was really cool. Another casting fact, Spielberg did not want any vocal dubbing, which you have in the original adaptation as well. So all the actors had to be able to sing. And on top of that, go ahead.

Jean-Pierre (43:12.814)
Hmm.

Cool.

Jean-Pierre (43:33.612)
Which I would say a slight benefit of that is that a lot of these songs for most of the quote unquote bit parts, they're all singing together. So it's like, you just have to sing, you don't have to sing well because when you have like 20 people singing the same lines, you know, you'll it all blends together. It'll sound all right. You know.

Eli (43:44.552)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (43:49.713)
Yeah.

Eli (43:53.427)
Yeah, well like, yeah, so what happened with this movie though is 50 of the cast members are first time, this is their first time in a film. And the main reason for that is because a lot of them are coming from Broadway. So they're sort of, you know, Broadway or stage act, maybe not necessarily even Broadway, but stage actors that are singing on a regular basis. So that helps.

Jean-Pierre (44:21.228)
Right, right, right, for sure.

Eli (44:22.587)
But you'll have a lot of people that aren't used to being in front of a camera too. So there's some getting used to there. Yeah, let's talk about the cast members. Ansel Elgort, who plays Tony. So here's the thing. The first time I saw West Side, well, let's get into what we think about him after I give the breakdown. So he.

Jean-Pierre (44:27.96)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (44:37.485)
Love them.

Eli (44:49.139)
Elgort is the son of an opera director and a fashion photographer. So he's kind of Used to both the camera and the the music side of things in a lot of ways He he got his his I guess his breakout would have been fault in our stars Would have been his kind of like breakout role and then I would probably say the role that

showed that he had this sort of movie in him would have been Baby Driver. He's doing a lot of movement in that movie, like synchronized movement. That kind of matches well with a musical style choreography. so, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (45:39.686)
I would maybe even argue that Baby Driver was his true breakout role. I think I did, because I know that they had a movie of The Fault in Our Stars, but I didn't even realize he was in the movie.

Eli (45:47.143)
for certain audiences.

Eli (45:52.603)
Yeah, well it was a pretty big deal for like a certain segment of audience. Yeah, and so So he it might not have been like his breakout for you know, all audiences but for like Yeah, it's yeah the fault I would still say the fault in our stars was like his breakout because it was a bit like it was a pretty big movie for certain audiences, but

Jean-Pierre (45:57.826)
The tweens. Yeah.

Eli (46:21.243)
Yeah, I did not see that. Baby Driver was my first time seeing him too. Yeah. And he's great in it. Yeah. And so, and you definitely, when you watch that, if you watch this and you go back and watch that, you can be like, yeah, he's, he kind of has that, the vibe that shows he can be in a musical. But the problem was less like his movement and more his vocals.

Jean-Pierre (46:23.426)
me neither. Baby driver is my introduction to him for sure.

yeah.

Eli (46:49.799)
He had he talked about he sent in tapes to Toa and the casting director and He sent in tapes of him singing Maria he won't he wanted to choose the song he felt like was the hardest of Tony songs to sing and so She the first times he was sending tapes in she would send back a message to him saying I'm not showing these to Spielberg, but keep trying so Obviously his first tapes were not good enough

but he did like vocal coaching for several months I think and yeah he came the funny thing is he came in and he had a sinus infection but he did his audition anyway and Spielberg found out he had a sinus infection and had him come back in once he was better to do another audition and that's when he finally got the part so

Jean-Pierre (47:32.558)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (47:47.173)
It wasn't easy going for Ansel Elgort to get this role. Yeah, so I should, this is an interesting discussion because most people, when you go and like read critics or kind of just hear the general buzz around the movie when it came out was that Ansel Elgort was like the weak point of the movie.

Jean-Pierre (48:12.974)
There is also some personal controversy that was around the same time, which, because I, because I will say when I was looking at, like when I was going to like kind of make a new review on letterbox, a couple of the people I follow who watched it, you could see the date was right around when the movie came out and quite a few of them were like saying some things.

Eli (48:17.543)
There is that too. Yeah, and we can mention that.

Jean-Pierre (48:40.174)
that about Ansel E. Gordon how he should have been recast, he shouldn't even put them in this movie. We don't necessarily have to get into the details because that particular instance feels like a very like he said, she said. I don't really know if it's ever been said for sure what the actual situation was. But obviously, I always want the best for...

Eli (48:46.013)
Yeah.

Eli (48:54.738)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (48:58.801)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (49:08.654)
out of a situation like that. But yeah.

Eli (49:10.355)
Yeah, Yeah, I mean, just to say it, was accused of sexual assault. in June of 20, we're kind of jumping ahead a little bit, but the movie was set to release originally in December of 2020, and it got pushed back a whole year because of COVID, basically, the release. But in June of 2020 is when he got accused of sexual assault.

There were like, I want to say there were some text messages that got put out like on social media and stuff that didn't look good. And he, I don't think from what I know, he never like, he always denied the charges. And so I didn't really do.

Jean-Pierre (49:57.294)
Well, it wasn't like I don't I don't believe he was brought up on criminal charges it was the allegations from the individual

Eli (50:02.851)
Right, the allegations is a better, the right word, but yeah. But basically like at that point, you're talking June 2020, they, I mean, they had shot the movie and edited it, like the movie was done. And this is, not only is this like a big production movie, it's a musical.

Jean-Pierre (50:20.812)
Yeah.

Eli (50:27.891)
And so even if like it came out and it was like true he had like criminal charges It's kind of like you can't recast him now like the movies made you would have to start from scratch and and redo the redo all of his all of his scenes Yeah, and

Jean-Pierre (50:43.298)
Unless you're...

Jean-Pierre (50:47.246)
Unless you're Ridley Scott, I guess. I don't know. And you want to reshoot a movie in like 16 days.

Eli (50:54.169)
Yeah, well, I don't think Spielberg is Ridley Scott. So I don't know, there's there's. There's certain things like that where it's kind of like, OK, you can't you can't really like put this on the movie and read this into the movie. They obviously like didn't know this was this stuff was going on when they cast him.

when they were on set, like if there was stuff going on on set, you would hope that it would be addressed. you know, it just, yeah, it just was, you can't put that on a movie and critique it based on something that has nothing to do with the movie. So, I...

Jean-Pierre (51:29.09)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (51:45.834)
It's a very like damned if you do, damned if you don't kind of situation.

Eli (51:48.931)
Yeah right. mean you can say it's just kind of one of those you in certain ways you have to separate like the art from the artist and in this case it's like it's not even really like the artist it's just like one piece of of the of the whole so I don't know

Jean-Pierre (52:05.24)
Yeah.

And I think for the most part, it's interesting that people say he's the weak point of this movie. Outside of that whole situation, I think for me, and maybe it's just the goodwill that he built with me as a viewer in Baby Driver and also thinking that I saw him in like Tokyo Vice, which he's been in most recently on HBO and he's really good in that show. Like I think.

He's a pretty solid actor and so it's interesting to hear that he's the weak point of this movie from some people's perspective because personally I think he's very charming and likable in this film. He's got like those kind of boyish good looks vibes. He seems like the guy that a girl could fall into the instant they meet her essentially. Like that's the vibe he gives off.

Eli (52:35.548)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (52:43.515)
I think so. I think so too.

Eli (52:51.011)
Yeah Yeah, and I agree. I think my theory is that It's not necessarily an Ansel Elgort problem. It's a Romeo problem. It's the character of Romeo And and I think like no matter who you put

Jean-Pierre (53:05.87)
Mmm, yes, yeah, I could I can understand that completely

Eli (53:13.595)
It can be Leonardo DiCaprio, can be Anselmo Elgort, like whoever you put in the character of Romeo, he's just like a hard character to really like buy into. His motivations are weird, his... Yeah. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (53:15.862)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (53:23.234)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

either comes off as too arrogant or too immature, like it's...

You know, is there, mean, he feels like a character that was written in the 1600s because he is. you know, like, and so if you're, if you're basing your, if the spine of your project, of your story is kind of inspired by that kind of character, then, yeah, I totally agree. I do. I do think it is more so a, a Romeo problem because the character itself has a very limited,

Eli (53:51.185)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (54:02.446)
He's like a plot point more than a character, at least.

Eli (54:04.167)
He's not, yeah, he's not very dynamic as a character. Now, I would say like, they give him, they do their best to give him at least like a backstory that shows some dynamics, even if you don't see those dynamics play out on screen, there's at least like a backstory that you can kind of like fill in the blanks in your head. And I think that is,

Jean-Pierre (54:19.054)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (54:22.636)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Eli (54:30.245)
It's just, to me it's a question of can you do that in your head while you're watching the movie so that you can like buy into it? Because I was talking to, I watched it with Robin, my wife, she was just like, I don't buy him as like the tough guy. She's like, I can buy that he like loves her, but I have a hard time buying that he's like the tough guy. And.

Jean-Pierre (54:47.96)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (54:55.64)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (54:56.659)
What I told her was like this time when I watched it because I had the same problem the first time because I went back and read my review from back then and I was like, oh I had that same problem back then. I think this time I was able to like read the backstory into things. Okay, he's been to prison. He's like he like legitimately 100 % wants to be a different person. And so he's he's kind of he has he's had this kind of

Jean-Pierre (55:23.564)
He's quite literally cleaned himself up.

Eli (55:25.779)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. He's had this off-moment, off-moment, he's had this off-camera epiphany before the movie started that you don't get to see, but if you can like fill that in in your mind while you watch, it makes sense. But to be fair, if you can't fill that in in your mind, it's not really on the viewer to have to do that necessarily. So I do understand the critique.

Jean-Pierre (55:51.298)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (55:55.667)
It's just a matter of, it's kind of a subjective thing of if you can or are willing to fill in those blanks for the character in your mind. I was this time around, and so I didn't really have those problems. But it is a understandable critique to me.

Jean-Pierre (56:17.43)
I think he looks more believable as a tough guy than Mike Fice or however you say his last name personally, but we can get into that too. Yeah.

Eli (56:24.423)
Yeah, I think, yeah, I think they're different. They have like the tough thing in different ways. yeah, I mean, we can talk, we can jump into Mike Feist as riff. He actually auditioned for Tony at first and then he got called back to audition for riff. I think so, too.

Jean-Pierre (56:43.832)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (56:48.814)
Which I think was the right call. I think he's a great riff. He looks like a riff. Like he looks like a guy named Riff. He just does.

Eli (56:54.673)
Yeah, he's phenomenal. He is to me, like, one of the really strong points of the movie. I think what feels dangerous about Riff is he's kind of, he feels more unpredictable. He's kind of got that like wiry, scrappy, unpredictable. And then on top. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (57:15.308)
He's like a wire haired dachshund. You know? Just ready to go. At all times.

Eli (57:21.797)
And the other thing that feels dangerous about him is he feels more insecure than Tony. They don't really over emphasize this in the story for this movie, but I think there is a bit of like, don't know if I can lead the Jets, like you led the Jets kind of thing going on with Riff. Like this insecurity and sometimes those

Jean-Pierre (57:29.571)
yeah.

Jean-Pierre (57:43.832)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (57:49.875)
those sorts of insecurities make you even more like dangerous and more like likely to lash out. And so he has that kind of energy and that he kind of carries through the movie to me. Which is not easy to do. It's it speaks a lot to like how good Mike Feist is in the movie. Yeah, apparently he doesn't really do. Like like he's.

Jean-Pierre (58:14.371)
Yeah.

Eli (58:19.495)
He was never like, doing, his Challengers. he was in the Bike Riders too, I forget that. There was a while where he kind of went off the grid though. And so, he is, he's phenomenal in Challengers. Him and Josh O'Connor. Have you seen Challengers? you've gotta watch it. It's so good. But,

Jean-Pierre (58:19.822)
I he... I think the only thing he spit in recently was... Challengers. Yeah.

Eli (58:49.405)
We don't have to follow that bunny trail, just when you get the chance to watch challengers, it's very, very good. But yeah, I think Mike Feist is one of the strong points of the movie. He's a product of like Broadway. was, did he, I know he was Tony nominated for Dear Evan Hansen, but I can't remember if he won the Tony for it or not. But he was at least Tony nominated, so.

Jean-Pierre (58:55.253)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (59:02.018)
for sure.

Eli (59:19.187)
talented dude yeah he he's great and then going back to Maria Rachel Zegler you know think whatever you want about Rachel Zegler she's she's like she has

Jean-Pierre (59:21.678)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (59:38.403)
Interestingly enough, has had her own string of controversy in recent years.

Eli (59:43.366)
Yeah, a little less like a little more just like personality based than than anything like bad But she This in this movie so when she was cast I think she was 17 by the time they were filming she was 18 It's her first ever film Kind of a girl that grew up like

Jean-Pierre (59:46.22)
serious for sure.

Eli (01:00:10.353)
performing. She had actually just played Maria on stage for a few performances when she was 16 in New Jersey where she was from. Spielberg said she was on the first day of casting, she auditioned and blew him away. But then they went through like hundreds of more girls for Maria and they ended up going back to her.

Jean-Pierre (01:00:38.382)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:00:38.739)
Tessori, the vocal producer said she had never been in a recording session before when she started with her. just very inexperienced in a lot of ways and she's like, she might be the best performance of the movie. She's incredible.

Jean-Pierre (01:00:50.19)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:00:55.154)
yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:00:58.71)
Yeah, I'll say putting the whole Snow White thing aside, she's very likeable in this movie. I will give her that. She's incredibly likeable in this movie.

Eli (01:01:02.902)
Yeah.

Eli (01:01:06.631)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:01:09.984)
She just really envelopes that like kind of like sweet innocence of a character like Juliet slash slash Maria young love exactly. Also huge props to her. And I think a lot of the the kind of Latino side of the cast.

Eli (01:01:15.065)
Young love.

Jean-Pierre (01:01:29.1)
that don't naturally have a, you know, cultural accent. Like, she's, not only is she speaking with a pretty heavy Puerto Rican accent in lot of scenes, because she's kind of a little, a little kind of more fresh off the boat, so to speak, when it comes to getting into New York. But she's like singing with that same accent, which I can't even imagine how much more difficult that is when it's not your normal kind of diction, so to speak.

Eli (01:01:32.913)
The accent, yeah.

Eli (01:01:39.804)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:01:46.418)
Right.

Yeah.

Eli (01:01:56.007)
Yeah, yeah, incredible. She's, she like is throwing out so much like energy that I think I remember who played, who's the guy that plays Gino, Josh Rivera. He talked about how in that finale scene, like he wasn't even really acting anymore per se. He was just like feeding off of like,

Jean-Pierre (01:02:22.926)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:02:23.037)
the crazy energy she was putting off. And so like, like the, he was saying like, the look that you see like in my face is just me reacting to her like legitimately. I'm not even like acting. Yeah. so, and I'm going to say more about how good I think she is later when we start talking about like the songs and the plotting and all that. But yeah, can't

Jean-Pierre (01:02:26.51)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:02:32.866)
Now, she's that the ending scene is so powerful. She's great.

Eli (01:02:52.317)
can't say enough about how good Zegler is. I didn't see Snow White but I did see a few scenes and from what I can tell she's fine in Snow White. Like it seems like she's not the problem with the movie. It's other other casting choices and just the general the general like re- live-action remake of it all. She sounds great like if you listen to

Jean-Pierre (01:02:54.659)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:03:09.846)
You

Jean-Pierre (01:03:19.086)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:03:20.551)
the soundtrack or go watch some scenes of her singing. She still is an incredible vocalist.

Jean-Pierre (01:03:26.542)
Mm-hmm or even like the bowed at song birth snakes, which I still haven't seen but I've seen a couple clips of her in that movie again singing in an accent that is not her own because I think her character's got like a southern drawl in that movie so very interesting

Eli (01:03:31.836)
I haven't seen that either.

Eli (01:03:40.455)
Hmm. There you go. Yeah. But like that, I guess like this is just me thinking off the top of my head, but people that can, that are like great vocalists probably have a better like, a better palette for being able to like do different things with their voices. I don't know if that's true, but the hypothesis makes sense in my head.

Jean-Pierre (01:04:01.868)
Yeah, probably soon.

Eli (01:04:10.147)
Moving on down the cast, Ariana DeBose plays Anita. Her dad was Puerto Rican, so she talked about connecting to her roots with this role. She is also a product of stage plays and Broadway, so that's kind of her background coming into this movie as well.

Jean-Pierre (01:04:31.822)
She's great.

Eli (01:04:35.781)
She's so good, she won an Oscar.

Jean-Pierre (01:04:38.4)
I honestly can't think of a single person that is not good in their role in this movie. I think, like you said, props to the casting director, they really nailed it.

Eli (01:04:44.113)
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. She is, she was in Hamilton. Do you know what she is in Hamilton? This is a pop quiz.

Jean-Pierre (01:04:52.238)
Is she just like a part of the chorus in Hamilton?

Eli (01:04:57.275)
sort of, but she's something specific. She is the bullet in Hamilton. anytime... yeah yeah so when you see the person like going across with the bullet that's her. Yeah uh-huh. So she was a bullet in Hamilton and she's the bullet with her acting in this movie I think.

Jean-Pierre (01:05:05.599)
no way.

Jean-Pierre (01:05:11.458)
Wow, I never even noticed that. Yeah, okay.

Jean-Pierre (01:05:19.95)
Yes.

Eli (01:05:24.689)
Yeah, she's great in the movie. I mean, everyone's great. David Alvarez plays Bernardo. He's great. He seems like he's just like a really fun guy from watching him in like the special features.

Jean-Pierre (01:05:38.552)
Dude, I think my favorite part from Bernardo is in the very beginning when the detective calls somebody muchacho. Then he goes, well, it seems to be muchacho. He's kind of mocking him back with the guys just murdering the Spanish language. He's just hitting back with that. He's got a great kind of like.

Eli (01:05:56.294)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:06:03.278)
like a a like a he's a boxer like he's kind of his backstory he's got so he's got like this kind of like almost like pitbull like energy in this movie where he's like he just like ready to go at any at any moment

Eli (01:06:05.873)
Uh-huh.

Eli (01:06:11.068)
Yeah.

Yeah, and he does really good to like switching back and forth really fast between like playful and like intimidating Like he has this kind of like This boiling like anger intimidating anger that kind of pops out but when it's not like he he plays like playful and and fun really well, too But yeah the other like big

Jean-Pierre (01:06:20.206)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:06:29.527)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:06:35.682)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Eli (01:06:43.437)
role I think is Rita Moreno as Valentina. So I already mentioned it I think but Rita Moreno played Anita in the 61 adaptation and I believe she won the Oscar for supporting actress for that role so that's to Anita's winning supporting actress now but yeah it was actually

Jean-Pierre (01:07:08.52)
I think you could argue Anita gets the most to do in the play in a way. As far as performance wise, because it's just the arc her character goes through.

Eli (01:07:14.955)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, like we said, you have Tony and Maria are kind of like the Romeo and Juliet, like, stand-ins. And so they, those characters, it's just, they, those characters just are what they are. And kind of like in Romeo and Juliet, some of the side characters are a little bit more interesting. And so...

Jean-Pierre (01:07:30.21)
They're kind of locked in to what they're going to do.

Jean-Pierre (01:07:41.88)
Exactly, like two bolts.

Eli (01:07:44.517)
Yeah, and so that that holds up with with Anita too, I think. And but yeah, Maria Val so Valentina who Moreno plays was not in the original material or the adaptation. That character was Doc, who owned the shop. And it was actually Tony Kushner's husband, Mark Harris, his idea to

Jean-Pierre (01:08:05.582)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:08:12.551)
kind of take the Doc character out and put in a Puerto Rican woman in that role. That kind of idea of having Doc and Valentino were like a mixed couple, interracial couple. so, yeah, that was his idea. And it works really well, I think. And then on top of that, coming up with that idea and then bringing Rita Moreno back in.

Jean-Pierre (01:08:36.547)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:08:42.979)
You know theater is a very like it's all about legacy And so to be able to like bring her back for something like that is just like perfect And then on top of that like she's a real New York in She moved from Puerto Rico to New York when she was five. So she just has that that background He like just huge and then she

Jean-Pierre (01:08:51.543)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:09:06.84)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:09:10.515)
She just brings incredible energy on set. Anytime she pops up in the special features, I'm just like, give me more of her. Because I mean, at this point, she's over 80 years old. And she just somehow has so much positive energy that she brings. Really, really incredible. But yeah, we'll definitely dive more into her later. I'll mention a few others.

Jean-Pierre (01:09:18.84)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:09:28.174)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:09:40.497)
You have Brian to RC James playing Officer Krupke. Corey Stahl playing Lieutenant Shrank. And Josh Rivera playing Chino. Those are kind of like a few other characters that have a little bit more to do. Should I run through all the sharks and jets? There's a lot of names here. I should definitely. Go ahead.

Jean-Pierre (01:10:03.726)
I think.

I mean, it's your show, but we got a lot to get through.

Eli (01:10:11.475)
I'll mention a few people so Iris Menus plays anybody's Who was kind of had the more like tomboyish feel in their original apparently Apparently when he wrote their original his idea was to have a trans person But just the way you did that back then I think was just like tomboy

And so Iris Menace is actually a trans person that plays in this role. another example of like actually casting someone to play the sort of character you're casting. So I thought I would point that out. There's not really any other big names or big things to point out with the rest of the cast. Yeah.

You can go look it up. The best way to look it up is there's the fan wiki for this. And if you want to see the breakdown of who all are the sharks, who all are the jets, that's the easiest way to see the casting breakdown. But they're all really great. The jets get a little bit more to do than the sharks do. I think they did.

Jean-Pierre (01:11:17.102)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:11:28.91)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:11:40.125)
They tried to do a little bit more balancing with this adaptation from the original, but it still leans toward the Jets side of things. mean, you get America and then you get G-Officer Krupke, but I think just in general, you get a little bit more leaning toward the Jets as far as the amount of material you have to work with, the amount of connection you have with the characters.

Jean-Pierre (01:12:03.234)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:12:10.225)
But yeah, did you kind of feel that as well?

Jean-Pierre (01:12:13.61)
I mean, maybe a little bit. And I think it's just because of the nature of the story, because it is so, it is so kind of built around Tony and like Maria is not involved with the, with the sharks, but Tony is the former leader slash co-leader of the jet. So it does kind of make sense that it leans a little bit more on his side, because part of the story is him trying to prevent the rumble from happening and things like that. You know what mean?

Eli (01:12:25.693)
Right.

Eli (01:12:29.372)
Right.

Eli (01:12:32.743)
Yeah. Like you'd.

Eli (01:12:41.211)
Right, yeah. And like, you just don't have, like you don't have a cool song for the Sharks, or you don't have like a jet, like the opening Jets number for the Sharks. Right.

Jean-Pierre (01:12:55.18)
and it's also one of those things, you gotta pick your battles, like you can't do, if you do each side completely equally, I don't think it would be well, so you gotta kind of, you gotta frame the story a little bit more through one side or the other.

Eli (01:13:06.848)
Right.

Eli (01:13:10.481)
Yeah, yeah you do one of the things they did add which I thought was really cool was actually the first thing that's sung in the movie is La Barancana which is a Puerto Rican like rebel anthem and so that was the first thing so I thought I do think that was cool and that was like a powerful moment, you know with them all raising their arms and and singing that that anthem

Jean-Pierre (01:13:32.491)
Mm.

Jean-Pierre (01:13:38.68)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:13:41.043)
And the anthem is like all about like freedom and claiming freedom and rights So it you know, works because they've a lot of the Puerto Ricans came to New York because they Were their freedom and rights were being taken away there and they come here and they're still having to fight for their freedom and rights so there's a lot of like there's a lot of like I Don't know just powerful

Jean-Pierre (01:13:58.595)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:14:09.907)
thematic stuff going on with that. But yeah, let's talk about the production. There was the same amount of time put into rehearsal as there was into the filming. Spielberg talked about this is the most like rehearsed thing he's ever done, which I guess is kind of obvious, like yeah, of course.

Jean-Pierre (01:14:35.768)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Eli (01:14:38.247)
But yeah, it's like four and a half-ish months of rehearsal and prep that they did. So that includes like choreography, orchestration, vocal coaching, doing the vocal session, recording sessions, dialect coaching, all of that stuff is like four to five months worth of work.

and then they did as they got like closer to filming they did about three weeks of pre-recording for vocals so about I think I don't know what percentage was shot and recorded live but they did shoot and record some of the songs live so some of the more like intimate songs so I think the ones I remember Spielberg saying are somewhere was

Jean-Pierre (01:15:22.126)
Hmm.

Eli (01:15:31.443)
was filmed a lot, filmed and recorded live. A Boy Like That, I think it's A Boy Like That slash The Love I Have or something, what is it called? I think I have it written down. Yeah, I Have a Love. I think that was recorded and filmed alive. One Hand, One Heart was recorded and filmed live. And then about 75 % of tonight,

Jean-Pierre (01:15:57.506)
Noah.

Eli (01:16:00.869)
was. He said like anytime there's like wide shots in tonight it's playback, which is a term that just means it's they pre-recorded it and they're playing it back while they record the while they film it. So yeah, so they did do right, exactly. And the way they do that is the actors will wear earpieces in their ears that's playing back

Jean-Pierre (01:16:21.25)
basically live lip syncing essentially.

Eli (01:16:30.899)
The song as they film so I thought that was cool But yeah, so I thought it was cool that they did like whenever they possibly could They did do some like live recording for the for the vocals, but But they did a bunch of pre recording beforehand So yeah, I the cool thing about that is by the time it when you have a film where you have so many

Characters like interacting and they have to bring this like energy of camaraderie on screen You've been working and like being around these people for like long days and long hours for Almost half a year, you know And so by the time you're filming like you don't have to act like you love these guys anymore. You're just You've been hanging out with them for five months. So it just kind of comes naturally

Jean-Pierre (01:17:01.688)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:17:24.046)
Yeah, just for reference.

you know, most, most movie productions, like a, like a film production is usually going to be one to three months. And you're, and so if it's a one month, you're maybe doing like a week of prep and that's mostly just like scheduling stuff, you know, maybe, maybe a little bit of stunt work. a TV show is like six months. they, they're, they're prep. Just the prep work was almost as long as a full TV shows production. So, so by the end, like an even end,

Eli (01:17:30.867)
Yeah.

Eli (01:17:54.619)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:17:57.821)
know, a couple of months working with people. mean, they become...

Eli (01:17:58.195)
Yeah. huh.

Jean-Pierre (01:18:01.742)
You know, I mean, I still have some people that are really good friends of mine that I've met through through some sets that I worked on. So you really especially, you know, depending on your role, like working with second team, which is the stand ins any time they're trying to set up a new camera shot, you know, these people who they kind of match the height and build of the actor. So the actors don't have to just stand around waiting for the cameras to be reset, because sometimes it can literally take hours to get everything right. And so especially those people, we spend a lot of time for on stage.

kind of hanging out somewhere off camera waiting for them to be called and you know you get to talk and you get to get to people you're there for 12 13 14 15 hours a day five days a week for a month or two straight I mean you you pretty close

Eli (01:18:42.57)
Yep. Yep. Yeah, absolutely. yeah, and so I did love that. And...

Yeah, then they they get into filming. They do they film from July 1st to September 27th and 2019. a long time between finishing filming and it releasing thanks to to our good friend Mr. Covid. But yeah, they so location wise Stockhausen really like honed in on New York like this is a very New York movie.

Jean-Pierre (01:19:25.144)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:19:25.233)
You want it to look like New York, but it's also period. So you kind of have to like find stuff that looks like the period New York. So they did do some like on location stuff. So they filmed the first thing they shot was the cool sequence. And they shot that at Bush Terminal, Piers Park in Brooklyn. And that set is incredible, I think.

Jean-Pierre (01:19:48.622)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:19:53.671)
It looks really great. A lot of fun stuff to move around and hang on.

Jean-Pierre (01:20:00.149)
Mm-hmm. think one thing that did stick out to me about that scene is at the very end and I never noticed it when I saw it in the theater obviously but watching it kind of on the same monitor I'm looking at now here at home when I rewatched it recently something that stuck out to me and I couldn't unsee it is at the end of that sequence when they've kind of wrestled over the gun and Riff has it back and they're all going bang bang, you know

Eli (01:20:27.755)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:20:29.92)
Like, I was looking at how they were standing on what was supposed to be like a brick.

like road and I'm looking into something. don't know what it was about it that caught my eye, but I'm looking, I'm like, I'm pretty sure that's like a flat flooring that just has a print of like a brick walkway on it. And it's very obvious because of the way it looks and the way the light is hitting it. It's very obvious. It's like a completely flat, smooth surface, which it makes sense cause they, they were just doing some dancing on it. Like you don't want to trip, but, but it was something that like,

Eli (01:20:41.363)
Right, they're dancing, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:21:03.776)
I don't know what about it caught my eye but stuck out to me and I couldn't unsee it once I saw that so it just shows to show you that the movie trickery is very interesting. Now you have to go back and look at it, I'm telling you. But it's crazy.

Eli (01:21:07.431)
Uh-huh I didn't even I didn't notice that so yeah, I Know I'm gonna have to go back and look I have I have a blu-ray player, but I have the disc I bought Has the 4k too, but I don't have a 4k player. So now I'm have to go buy a 4k player and rewatch that scene

Jean-Pierre (01:21:30.766)
Just buy an Xbox,

Eli (01:21:37.282)
But yeah, they do other location shooting. They do some in Harlem, in Washington Heights, which is also, Washington Heights is Brooklyn. They do some in Queens. There's a church in Brooklyn that they shot the G Officer Krupke song in. The sanitation shack with all the salt and stuff for the rumble, that was...

Jean-Pierre (01:21:57.358)
This is crazy.

Eli (01:22:07.013)
at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, that building. So that's an on location thing. The whole demolished area is supposed to be a stand in for this place called San Juan Hill, which was an area that was heavily Puerto Rican in residence and got demolished and Lincoln Center.

got built there. So when you're seeing like the plans that is showing like that's Lincoln Center, which was built there. so, which ironically the movie premiered in Lincoln Center. So there's a little bit of like, I wonder when the people saw that there was kind of like some nervous chuckling going on of like, yeah, yeah. but, that whole sequence was done in Patterson, New Jersey. so

Jean-Pierre (01:22:53.676)
Kinda sad. Yeah.

Eli (01:23:05.109)
Kind of looks like period New York there around in that area and whatnot so

Jean-Pierre (01:23:10.284)
Yeah, it reminds me of here in New Orleans. Supposedly at one point we had the largest little Saigon, like Vietnamese kind of community outside of like maybe New York here in New Orleans. And a lot of that got supposedly got demolished and they so they could build stuff for Tulane like way back in the day. So I remember reading that once. Don't quote me on that, but.

Eli (01:23:18.485)
Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:23:37.518)
have to find somewhere. So it just, it's one those things that it happens at the time and you couldn't really do much to stop it.

Eli (01:23:41.827)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you still can't do much to stop a lot of that stuff, but yeah, it's so there's that kind of like sad thing going on with with that scene. If you if you kind of are familiar with. With what was going on back then, Patterson was also about half of America was shot in Patterson, and then the finale was shot in Patterson as well.

So the whole Tony getting shot and the procession and all that was in Patterson. look out. He dies. Yeah. And Patterson, also the location for the great Jim Jarmusch movie starring Adam Driver. So shout out to that. Yeah, that's what Patterson is.

Jean-Pierre (01:24:19.574)
spoilers.

Jean-Pierre (01:24:25.868)
which, which, start.

Jean-Pierre (01:24:35.89)
the Saint Patterson, yeah. Okay, I was gonna say a little side note. Look at that, Patterson squared.

Eli (01:24:40.563)
His name is Patterson and he lives in Patterson.

Jean-Pierre (01:24:45.666)
But a little side note is, you you watch this with your wife. I rewatch with my girlfriend and she was really excited for it. She, you know, she's like musical. She'd never seen it. And at the end of it, she tells me, she's like, I'm upset with you. I'm like, why? She's like, I thought this was going to be like a fun, like cute romantic movie. tell me it was a tragedy. was like, I, told you it was based on Romeo and Juliet. You know what happens at the end of Romeo and Juliet, right?

Eli (01:25:01.717)
I

Eli (01:25:18.845)
Yeah, yeah. Luckily we, my wife had seen it before so there wasn't that surprise for her. Yeah, she was prepped. Normally when she watches something that does not have a happy ending she'll proceed to go in the bedroom and get in bed and turn on the office on her phone to lighten the mood. Yeah, yeah. So that's a fun fact. I think it's, I think that's.

Jean-Pierre (01:25:24.686)
She was prepared. She was prepared.

Jean-Pierre (01:25:40.258)
Just to cheer herself up so she can go to sleep.

Eli (01:25:48.169)
that's healthy I guess you know she is not I don't know if I don't know if you can call that anything related to the office to be honest have you watched some of it

Jean-Pierre (01:25:50.876)
You sure she hasn't watched the paper?

Jean-Pierre (01:26:00.75)
No, it's it. it's I know I just see the trailers and the few clips they put out and I'm like they forgot to make it funny

Eli (01:26:07.401)
Yeah, it doesn't look good. man. Yeah, the only other two locations I have are the gym was shot at St. Thomas Aquinas College, which is like kind of just outside New York City, I think. And then.

Jean-Pierre (01:26:27.712)
It's certainly the most gymnasium looking gym. Perfect.

Eli (01:26:31.381)
Yeah, it is. And then they did some shooting at Steiner Studios, which is a studio in Brooklyn. The behind the bleachers part of that scene was in the studio. Maria's alley. when Tony gets into the actual alley where they're talking and he's climbing up the... That was just a huge set they built at Steiner Studios.

Jean-Pierre (01:26:54.99)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:26:59.911)
And then like I know the Gimbals was a set that they built there for I Feel Pretty. Yeah, I'm sure there was some other stuff that they that they built at Steiner Studios, but yeah. Yeah, like the shop, the Valentina shop was probably.

Jean-Pierre (01:27:11.746)
yeah, pretty much any interior shot is going to be in a studio inside the apartment probably, probably built there.

Eli (01:27:21.365)
Yeah, probably. So that just didn't come up in my research, so I didn't write it down. But yeah, obviously, we talked a little bit about the camaraderie. One of the things that I came across was that in 1957, Jerome Robbins didn't let the Sharks and the Jets intermingle when they were offstage.

It was like this kind of like creative choice, I think, to kind of keep that antagonism, yeah, between them. Spielberg was like, forget that. They are going to have fun. He was all about celebrating the diversity. And some of the actors and the special features are like, it's really crazy to be playing basketball or like.

Jean-Pierre (01:27:57.314)
the animosity.

Jean-Pierre (01:28:03.214)
You

Eli (01:28:17.449)
you know, having fun, like laughing about something and then we have to like get on screen and like hate each other. But I do appreciate like the different approach there like, but that's kind of, that's kind of the atmosphere Spielberg always tries to set on, on his sets. So set on a set is kind of a weird sentence structure, but well.

Jean-Pierre (01:28:23.182)
Thank

Eli (01:28:44.959)
Yeah, and then like several of the actors and crew members talked about how like we kind of talked about Spielberg's like passion and love for the material kind of like sets the tone for for the set and just the energy and not just like the energy and the love for it, but also like wanting to do it right, you know, everyone knew Spielberg loved it and wanted to like make the best version of it he could. So it kind of like

Jean-Pierre (01:29:07.032)
Mm.

Eli (01:29:14.665)
brings out the A game in everybody sort of thing. But yeah, let's talk before we get into some of the other stuff. I want to talk through the songs and we can just talk about which songs we liked, what was our favorite stuff there.

Jean-Pierre (01:29:17.646)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:29:35.123)
cough cough

Let's talk a little bit about the cinematography and camera work. Because I think you'll have some fun insight here. So I guess a good place to start. I see that you're there in the notes. Spielberg was there for all the rehearsals. So him and Justin Peck for the choreography were working hand in hand through the rehearsals. He was there

Jean-Pierre (01:30:01.102)
Yeah.

Eli (01:30:08.711)
I saw him recording on his iPhone. I saw him recording with like a little handheld, like home video camera. Yeah. yeah. Dad cam. Exactly. yeah. Which funnily enough, I think I heard Spielberg, and the director's cut podcast, which is like a DGA thing. talk about how he has like home videos of his kids, performing like parts of West side story.

Jean-Pierre (01:30:16.106)
Or did you cam? Yeah, look at that cam. Just a proud dad watching his kids performance, you know?

Jean-Pierre (01:30:37.902)
That's cool.

Eli (01:30:38.901)
So yeah, he was there doing like filming at the rehearsals to it's basically like storyboarding with your iPhone during during rehearsals, so he's he's basically like figuring out how he wants to shoot certain scenes like based off of the Choreography that Justin Peck is putting and then sometimes it would happen in reverse Spielberg would like go up to him and say hey I think it would be really cool to get this shot

Jean-Pierre (01:30:48.856)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:31:02.101)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:31:08.541)
And so Justin Peck would adjust the choreography so that that shot could happen. And that's all happening during rehearsals. And then on top of that, he's also like storyboarding. And so they're getting the orchestration done. And he'll even he even did some stuff where he was like taking a camera and moving it down like storyboard piece to storyboard piece as the music is playing to kind of like plan out like

Jean-Pierre (01:31:20.398)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:31:38.259)
the shot sequence, when are we going to this part in the song, when are we going to this part, this shot. Just a ton of like, work on the front end of like mapping out all of this. And I just, I don't know like if there's anybody better to do that sort of thing than Steven Spielberg. He's like, he jokes that his like,

Jean-Pierre (01:31:38.414)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:32:01.87)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:32:07.509)
He has his stick figure storyboards. quality of drawings aside, just the mapping out and planning of that sort of thing, he's just masterful at. And then on top of that, I was kind of thinking about, is there another genre of film

Jean-Pierre (01:32:21.313)
Yeah.

Eli (01:32:37.637)
that kind of like forces you to utilize the full extent of what a film can be more than a musical. I mean I think probably so but it's up there you know of like

Jean-Pierre (01:32:53.41)
I think it'd be hard to argue there's another that... Because it's like, it gives you such a wide range of different things that...

Eli (01:33:04.008)
Right.

Jean-Pierre (01:33:04.918)
Like like for instance like the choreography part like an action movie might do it better But having but having to do have all these different because it's like a musical number It's like a it's like a great action set piece where you have all these moving parts You got to move the camera in and out of and people are like I love seeing the behind the scenes of like a really good fight scene just seeing like how many people are like ducking behind the camera man or and stuff like that and there's a lot of that same kind of stuff and like and I get it, you know the same thing with like

Eli (01:33:07.431)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Eli (01:33:17.011)
It is.

Eli (01:33:28.979)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:33:34.832)
like any action film like your John Wick films and stuff like that. Like everything has to be timed. It literally is like, I think actually I want to say it was the guy who is in the most recent Karate Kid film whose name is escaping me right now. But he was on the show.

Eli (01:33:38.207)
That's what I was thinking of, yeah.

Eli (01:33:51.746)
Okay.

Jean-Pierre (01:33:58.894)
from Corridor Digital, think it was Stuntman React, I want to say. He went on there to promote the movie, because that show's gotten popular enough to where people go on there to promote their stuff now. And they were looking at some fight scenes from Jackie Chan and stuff, and some stuff from the new movie. And he was talking about how his background is actually in musical theater growing up, and how that actually learning dance routines actually helped prepare him for learning the choreography for Karate Kid Legends.

Eli (01:34:03.235)
and

Eli (01:34:09.011)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:34:28.848)
because it's the same kind of process of like learning the rhythm and learning the steps and learning the timing. But also with most musicals you also have these really great kind of more intimate character moments that allow you for a complete different approach. Most musicals you're have some like comedic timing you have to learn how to do and so I think there is something to it to where they have like all these different kind of

Eli (01:34:33.361)
Right. Yeah.

Eli (01:34:45.89)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:34:50.666)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:34:57.304)
bits and pieces coming together.

Eli (01:34:59.059)
Yeah, and you know, I was thinking about like so I was thinking about that too like okay a big action set piece is maybe like the closest the other closest thing to like you have to really Utilize every aspect of what a film can do as far as like camera movement like Care like you want a good action set piece also is all doing something with the character the best ones at least

You have a lot of moving parts. have, you know, things exploding or things like coming in and out of camera a lot. there's a lot of camera movement. and, like that, like a musical number has all of that stuff, but also like there, you know, there's people singing and like, like dancing and,

I just, I don't know. was just thinking like, man, this is, I think musicals really do like force you to do all the things that a film, if you're doing it well, in other words. And I think, you know, I think the forerunners of like how to shoot a musical, like you think about like, like Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers,

Jean-Pierre (01:36:10.062)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:36:26.933)
films and then think about Stanley Donnan films, like Singing in the Rain. They did a lot to push the form forward in the sense of, we're not just going to film people doing dance numbers on screen. We're going to actually utilize the film art form and move the camera and make directorial choices with how we're shooting something and the angle and the way the camera's moving.

Jean-Pierre (01:36:27.139)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:36:34.542)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:36:56.565)
And so I think those are like, there's some great films in there. mean, singing in the rain, I think is a masterpiece and I probably still would like put higher than this movie. But in the sense of like how to move the camera around a musical sequence happening, I don't think anyone has done anything near what Spielberg does in this film.

Jean-Pierre (01:37:19.723)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:37:25.543)
It's incredible.

Jean-Pierre (01:37:26.016)
No, at least not with like a very like classical take on a musical. think...

Eli (01:37:31.605)
Yeah, Mm-hmm, sure.

Jean-Pierre (01:37:34.188)
I mean, there's a lot of more modernized musicals that have a very different approach. But as far as a very classical kind of version of musical like this, I think that is one of the biggest reasons that this kind of re-adaptation, so to speak, just works so well, is that it literally, it's taking like...

Eli (01:37:54.045)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:38:01.39)
you know what like almost like 50 60 years worth of learning how to of like changes in filmmaking technology and new techniques and like like they're just simply able to do things in 2019 when this was shot that they literally couldn't do in the 1960s when the original film version was shot because of the weight of the camera the size of the camera the needs of the camera you know and I don't know if this was shot on film or digital either way

Eli (01:38:18.871)
Right, right.

Eli (01:38:25.626)
mm-hmm yep film there's shot on film yeah yeah probably a lot quicker to change out the cartridges too

Jean-Pierre (01:38:31.344)
phenomenal. Okay, but even with being shot on film, like the modern film cameras are so much smaller and lighter and easier to work with.

for sure, for sure, for sure. And also just all the kind of additional equipment. I don't know if you mentioned it, but your notes, the lights are brighter, but also lighter and smaller. You can put them places you couldn't before. I think you said in your notes about the crane work, like the big giant crane arms, which they had that kind of stuff back in the day, but just the stuff we have now with the hydraulics and the controls.

Eli (01:38:54.743)
with lighting even.

Eli (01:39:00.401)
Mm-hmm. Yep. Yes. Right. The smoothness, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:39:14.528)
There's just so much more tools available. Add on to that having somebody who is a master of movement and timing and is at the height of his powers in a lot of ways. I will say, I think what I appreciated when I saw this movie, as opposed to the last couple of Spielberg movies that had come out in the more recent years, is

Eli (01:39:26.484)
Uh-huh.

Eli (01:39:31.278)
Yeah.

Eli (01:39:41.117)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:39:42.794)
And kind of learning about how special West Side Story is to him, really makes sense because I think I remember seeing Ready Player One and maybe some of the others, more recent Spielberg movies.

Eli (01:39:52.371)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:39:56.298)
I wouldn't put him up there with someone like Ridley Scott, who I'm really like, think he really needs to retire because his last couple movies have felt very phoned in, in my opinion, but that's a whole other conversation for another day. But I think Ready Player One especially, it didn't feel like that Spielberg magic just wasn't there. And this movie, on my rewatch, it's hard not to just be smiling the whole time you're watching this movie, because it is just a spectacle to behold the color.

Eli (01:40:03.424)
Ha.

Eli (01:40:13.288)
Yeah, it wasn't.

Eli (01:40:21.796)
yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah, absolutely and I think I'm scrolling down because I wrote in my notes for like scenes that I loved there was like there were a few times when like I think I audibly like reacted to

Jean-Pierre (01:40:26.032)
the glitz, glam, the way the camera moves, the performances. It's just a great time. A great time.

Eli (01:40:49.637)
Like I think one of the times was when they when the sharks and the jets entered the warehouse and it's that overhead shot of their shadows crossing I

Jean-Pierre (01:40:58.228)
Literally my girlfriend, Mirna, she was like, wow, that's a really good shot. And she does, she like, she loves movies, but she's not the type of person to be like, wow, that's such a good shot. she, she, she literally was like, wow, that's a really good shot. Like the long shadows. I mean, I, mean, I.

Eli (01:41:02.815)
Yeah.

Eli (01:41:07.786)
Yeah.

Eli (01:41:12.378)
Mm-hmm. I think I I think I literally went yes like

Jean-Pierre (01:41:16.47)
Yeah, no, that shot's great.

I really like there's some really good like close-ups in this movie I love the scene of riff and Tony and the little like basement like just the intimacy there the way especially my gosh, dude when when they're like on opposite sides of that shelf and Tony's like I went to prison what I did to that kid what I almost did and there's a little like reflection like light bar like being bounced into their eyes Every single character always has like the sparkling eyes in this movie. It's great

Eli (01:41:23.615)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:41:43.551)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:41:49.392)
I love that. I love some of the intimacy, the close-ups of like the one hand, one heart scene. That one's great.

Eli (01:41:49.684)
Yeah.

Eli (01:41:55.559)
Yeah, yeah, I was gonna mention that, yep. And you have the lighting from the stained glass giving the color to make it feel like this sacred moment, you know?

Jean-Pierre (01:42:02.964)
Mm-hmm. Yes Yes, it's beautiful as well as I mean, I think the the dance scene Everything about that is great I love just the shots of the two of them from across the crowd as they're kind of following each other I also really love

Eli (01:42:20.712)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:42:24.652)
They go behind the bleachers and they're having their little moment. And I love when they like snap back to reality and the production design is completely changed. And like, it looked like this very like kind of clean, like magical space. And then like, you see there's like a basketball on the floor and like a random mop bucket and just, there's a lot messier. The lights go away.

Eli (01:42:37.204)
Yeah.

Eli (01:42:40.68)
Uh-huh. Yeah. I think even like when they're like having their moment, there's like even this like fogginess, the kind of typical Janusz Kaminski like fantastical fogginess in the air. And then I think when it cuts, I think that's kind of like dissipated a little bit now that you mention it.

Jean-Pierre (01:42:52.332)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:42:57.646)
And it just cuts, yeah. Right. Right. love the little colored spotlights that come on when Maria walks around and when it cuts, those are gone. You know, it's kind of, it's a really nice little touch, but I mean, the whole dance sequence at the gym is great. then I think one of the other biggest upgrades of this film.

Eli (01:43:09.214)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:43:23.298)
versus the original is the entire sequence for the song America. Instead of just being locked in on stage on that rooftop the whole time. Yeah, I mean, it's a great song. It's a great song.

Eli (01:43:27.955)
Yes, so good. And it's great. Don't get, yeah. The original is great. The original, yeah. But this is like, it's a celebration like this one is. And that's what I, and even like one of my favorite, like I think the other, one of the other shots where I was just like, yeah. When it was happening is that he does this like low angle shot where the,

Jean-Pierre (01:43:40.15)
Yes. Yes.

Eli (01:43:56.905)
they're dancing in the middle of the street and the shot is very symmetrically composed with the skyscrapers coming up on either side of them and you have the sky in the background and it's just this beautiful, I don't know, this beautifully composed low angle shot looking up at them and then of course they're just bringing the joyous energy

Jean-Pierre (01:44:18.456)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:44:26.242)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:44:26.261)
And yeah, love that whole sequence. That was like a standout shot to me for some reason that stood out. yeah, I don't know. There's so much to really love about the way this movie was shot. It's just incredible. I don't know. And like some of the things you were talking about too are just

Jean-Pierre (01:44:46.968)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:44:55.135)
There are things that are so purely cinematic. You could not have this moment on a stage. And when you adapt a stage play or a stage musical to the screen, you have to do things with it that you could not see on the stage. So like Maria and Tony seeing each other across the gym is one of those moments because not only do you have like

Jean-Pierre (01:45:13.39)
Yeah

Eli (01:45:25.353)
Blurring dancers passing in front of the camera? Uh-huh.

Jean-Pierre (01:45:28.034)
And the long lens that they have at Tony where he's like, you can tell it's, it's a long lens just because the way it works, it looks, you tell like, you're probably on like a couple hundred millimeter lens and like he's kind like a little fuzzy.

Eli (01:45:34.931)
Yeah.

Eli (01:45:38.909)
Yeah, but they also kind of, they also do this effect. I don't know if it's like something they're doing, but the way they're filming it or if they're doing it somehow in post where like, it feels like everything else is slowed down around them almost. It's not like a, it's not like a, I'm watching like the flash when he's running and everything's slowed down. It's kind of like this more subtle thing.

Jean-Pierre (01:46:04.384)
Yeah, yeah, It's a very surreal kind of vibe.

Eli (01:46:08.325)
Right. But you can't do that on the stage. It's just a different medium that doesn't allow for that. And so there's a ton of those moments that are just so purely cinematic that make this obviously stand out from what the stage play would be, but even from the original adaptation, which is obviously a classic.

Jean-Pierre (01:46:15.96)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:46:38.261)
great but but I don't know this the way Spielberg shot this was just so good like even just thinking about like the final procession of carrying Tony off and at the cameras like that the whole thing is being framed through the rungs of like a fire escape ladder as the camera moves up just that it's like a very like

It's a choice, like it's a very like deliberate choice. Like he's doing something with that framing and the way he's doing. I don't know. It's just, it's also great. yeah. Janusz, Janusz Kaminski also talked about how when you have lots of people in the frame, it's a nightmare for the cinematographer. and he was just, he was just talking about like, you have to create this like deep focus.

And so you have to like use an incredible amount of light You have to like get a sharpness from the foreground all the way to the background Because you you're wanting to have you're wanting to capture all of the dancers, you know all of like the movement of everybody needs to be sharp and in focus Because it all it's all working in sync, you know

Jean-Pierre (01:47:57.806)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:48:02.463)
which I would imagine is a pretty tough task for a cinematographer. You could probably speak to that. I don't know if you have experience shooting a lot of people in frame, but I'm sure you can imagine as someone who films.

Jean-Pierre (01:48:16.618)
Not in a way in which you really have to pay attention. Most of my experiences with a lot of people in film on sets has been a lot of extras, but nothing like a dance sequence. And most of that, even then, it's been a lot of what they call paneling, which essentially is like...

Eli (01:48:23.508)
Right.

Eli (01:48:32.273)
Right, right, right.

Jean-Pierre (01:48:41.16)
you example is when I worked on Happy Death Day 2 they needed to have a big crowd for this basketball scene. Well instead of paying for 5,000 people you pay for 500, you put them all in this one little area, you film it, you film a couple different reactions and then you move them over, you switch them all around a little bit, you film it again, same re- and like you do that and then in post-production they will stitch those different components together and then you have your crowd, you know.

Eli (01:48:48.487)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:49:09.129)
Yeah, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:49:11.094)
And it's so it's like, you know, it's like all real people but just kind of layered slightly differently so and again for it all to be a bunch of like kind of mostly background shots that you're not gonna notice Yes, nothing like this I can't imagine when you have your your your key players you're trying to stay focused on and you have like at least 20 people they're gonna cross and frame it just kind of throw everything off, but

Eli (01:49:15.861)
Mm hmm. Yeah.

Eli (01:49:23.338)
Yeah.

Eli (01:49:35.163)
Yeah, but I mean if you just you think about like the wide shots in the gym like you want you want You want it to be something where like every time you watch it You can notice like a new couple and what they're doing with their dance And so you do you want a sharpness and a focus like from from like front to back, you know And yeah

Really just incredible work by... This is some of like... This might be some of even Janusz Kaminski's best work. Just everything looks so good in this movie. Yeah. The... the other thing I wanted to say, that gem sequence while we were talking about that, there were 60 like dancer actors...

Jean-Pierre (01:50:10.99)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:50:30.193)
and 150 extras. So that just goes to show you how many moving parts are going on there. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:50:38.336)
and something big with space for that many people to be filling up,

Eli (01:50:42.727)
Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, let's talk through the songs and sequences and we can kind of like use that to kind of make our way to the end here. So the first, we talked about Laubor in Kenya, it's the first thing actually sung in the movie. But then you go into the Jet song, which is really good.

lot of like a lot of moving parts again a lot of like moving down the street you're doing a lot of tracking shots but I think too like one of the things that that it's born out of I think is like this so when the when the sharks walk away you can even kind of see like this twinge of like respect

Jean-Pierre (01:51:24.194)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:51:44.821)
in the eyes of the Jets like they kind of respect the Sharks in a way because they kind of have a common enemy in Lieutenant Shrank. But then when he goes off...

Jean-Pierre (01:51:51.566)
Mm.

Jean-Pierre (01:51:57.902)
Because they both kind of stand up for each other in that moment, you know?

Eli (01:52:01.125)
Right. Well, there's there's kind of like a, you know, as a snitches get stitches kind of thing, you know, there's like what neither of us are going to snitch on. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. This is our thing. You you're not involved. Like we're not talking to you. You know, I think that's a kind of a typical like. A typical thing, but but like so it's born out of that, but also like

Jean-Pierre (01:52:11.33)
Noah's taking you down except for me kind of thing.

Eli (01:52:30.761)
they there's kind of this sense with the shark with the jets that they like have nothing to lose really like they've already lost pretty much everything so they don't really have a whole lot to lose that's kind of juxtaposed with this kind of like defiant hopefulness with the sharks I think and and yeah I don't know

I don't know, it's an interesting dynamic I think between the Jets and the Sharks because they kind of probably have more in common than they think sort of thing. It's one of those sorts of things and I think that kind of culminates with like that final procession at the end kind of that point down. But the differences are interesting too because

Jean-Pierre (01:53:13.846)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:53:29.147)
It's the difference between Labur and Kenya, which is this very strong-willed, hopeful, defiant song versus the Jet song where they're confident, but they also... There's this anger and frustration that bubbles up the further into the song they get. So the first verse is like...

you know, the when you're a jet, you're a jet all the way and we're awesome. But by the time you get to like the end of the song, you can tell there's a more like defeated frustration to how they feel. And so I just thought that was an interesting juxtaposition between the sharks and the jets.

Jean-Pierre (01:54:16.076)
Yeah, definitely, know, you know, we'll probably get into some more of the themes here momentarily. And I thought the save comes from my commentary about.

kind of what you were saying with some of the similarities and things between these two sides. But one of the things I'm thinking about is that there's probably a lot of people who are listening to this who maybe they've never seen West Side Story, maybe they've never even heard of it. But the more I think about it, the more I think West Side Story may be one of the most parodied musicals.

Eli (01:54:41.524)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:54:53.226)
ever made in the sense of like the whole idea of like the snapping

Eli (01:54:54.869)
Hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:55:00.342)
and the dance fighting like that. There's like tons of stuff that have made fun of that. And I can't really think of any other movie or musical other than West Side Story that that could have originated from because it's such an iconic thing from this movie, especially for that Jet song. When they all start, I even the beginning of movie, they all start like snapping together and the ba-da-bum-ba-ba-ba, you know, like, you know, it just, I don't know. Like, if I think of like, you know, snapping in unison while we walk,

Eli (01:55:02.269)
Yeah, yeah, sure.

Eli (01:55:19.039)
Uh-huh.

Eli (01:55:23.241)
Yeah.

Ahem.

Jean-Pierre (01:55:30.266)
we're acting like a bunch of tough guys or or like like I literally saw this this like

Random like Instagram reel and someone made where it was like a skit where like someone like bumps into him in a convenience store The guys record he's like alright now you're really gonna get it and he starts like slowly walking towards the guy While snapping and like you're expecting like some other people to come behind aside him But it's just him by himself the whole time for like two minutes straight walking toward this guy the convenience store snapping and it's like

Eli (01:55:44.013)
Yeah.

Eli (01:55:51.001)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:56:01.858)
They've got to be making fun of this, right? Like, where else is they going to get that from? So do you think that it's kind of interesting how it's maybe had a bit of a hidden kind of influence on pop culture that maybe people don't realize?

Eli (01:56:03.339)
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And I think off of that point, what's in what?

Something that I noticed because like thinking back to the original adaptation like That is different here is I think that the jet like the jets Here feel more like dangerous. There's like an actual I don't know. There's a grittiness and a danger that you feel with them That maybe is less so felt in the original adaptation

Jean-Pierre (01:56:55.448)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:56:56.877)
And don't know exactly, I can't pinpoint exactly why that is. I think that's what it, and there's like this color, there's like this color palette that like the sharks wear these colors, the jets wear these colors, and that's not really a thing in this one.

Jean-Pierre (01:57:01.954)
I think in the original they all just feel a little too clean cut. Here...

Jean-Pierre (01:57:16.174)
Yeah, and I think here is, especially the way we're introduced to all the different jets in this film, like they just feel like a bunch of like street kids.

They're never at home. They're always out and about. They're all kind of dirty, know, super sweaty. They got a bunch of grime all over their over their shirts. Like they've been out all night. They were out all night the night before. They're going to be out all night again tonight. so I do I do agree there. There is like a presentation that and I feel like in this one, the sharks kind of feel a little bit more kind of presentable, I guess you could say. I think I think that's also kind of a reflection.

Eli (01:57:38.0)
Yeah Yeah, yeah just

Uh-huh.

Jean-Pierre (01:57:59.372)
on some of the themes that maybe the sharks feel like they have to be in order to be accepted, whereas the jets are able to get away with kind of just being these like, you know, these scrawny, scrappy, juvenile delinquents. That could just be messy, you know?

Eli (01:58:03.753)
Right, right. Right. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, it, you know, I was just thinking like in this version.

I might have seen, I might have just seen that guy do like a ballet twirl, but I still think he might like knife me if he really needed to.

Jean-Pierre (01:58:30.862)
I love the beginning overture where they're walking, they just start going... And they just start to... Just randomly, just trying to outdo each other, it's great. It's great. Yeah.

Eli (01:58:36.83)
Yeah.

Yeah.

They're spinning and sliding and yeah, it's great. Yeah. And then there's like, I think that's why like cool. The cool song in this, think is really, I like that they restructured it and put that in front of the rumble for this one because I've

Jean-Pierre (01:59:08.791)
It fits really well.

Eli (01:59:09.909)
It fits really well and I think it does some good character development. You get to actually see there's a little bit more that you get of the relationship between Tony and riff, I think from that. And yeah, and the dancing has a lot to do with that. the it's what's incredible with like what Jerome Robbins did.

Jean-Pierre (01:59:25.667)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:59:36.405)
And then what Justin Peck does with this is that you get, you kind of like get dialogue by the way people dance against each other. And I just think that's really cool. It's really impressive. And I don't know, to have an eye for that and to kind of figure out, how do I show that these guys love each other but are like,

Jean-Pierre (01:59:47.182)
you

Jean-Pierre (01:59:51.063)
Yeah.

Eli (02:00:04.521)
but have come to different perspectives on the world and want to move forward in life. They're kind of at a crossroads between each other. And you're kind of showing that all with the way they're moving around each other in this choreography. It's really impressive.

Jean-Pierre (02:00:08.398)
Good night.

Jean-Pierre (02:00:14.947)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:00:25.102)
Yeah, it's all part of telling the story. mean, it's just like, you know, the best action scenes are ones that tell a story and like are motivated by the characters. I it's, I think, honestly, it's like Jackie Chan who says that like every action scene has to be like.

Eli (02:00:28.34)
Yeah.

Eli (02:00:38.453)
huh.

Jean-Pierre (02:00:42.798)
tell a story of its own, you know, and even, and sometimes you can even be introduced to a character and the way in which they fight, you can like learn a lot about who they are as a person. Like, are they very cool and calm and calculated and they only strike when they need to? Are they rough? Are they, do they make a lot of mistakes? Do they let themselves get hit a lot and then come back in, you know? And, and so you do get that. And I think what I really love about cool is I love the, the gun purchasing scene.

Eli (02:01:04.52)
Right.

Jean-Pierre (02:01:12.872)
and like the intensity there and like the kind of back and forth and like rifts desperation and then it immediately cuts to them faking like they're shooting each other with a real gun that they just bought which could have accidentally gone off and killed something they instantly turned into like five-year-olds running running through the streets and i'm just like these these these boys have never grown up this is why they're still in this position you know

Eli (02:01:22.603)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah No Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm for sure Yeah, we haven't so we haven't really mentioned there's there's a few songs. We haven't talked a lot about so there's something coming

Something's Coming is one song. That one is maybe the most forgettable, I think, of the whole movie to me. It's kind of like, I guess it's Tony's Why song. That's kind of a thing in musicals for the main characters. You get the why they have the motivation they have sort of thing. But.

It's kind of a forgettable piece if there is one in the whole movie.

Jean-Pierre (02:02:23.298)
Yeah, you definitely could have cut that scene and it wouldn't have mattered.

Eli (02:02:25.513)
Yeah, but Maria and tonight are both really great. We haven't talked a ton about especially we haven't really talked about Maria but it's a Yeah, and and you really buy that like he's kind of Infatuated with this girl You get one of like the coolest shots of the movie with isn't that the is I'm pretty sure that's the sequence where you get the shot of him standing in the puddle

Jean-Pierre (02:02:35.714)
mean, Igor kills it as performance of that song.

Eli (02:02:54.813)
with the lights reflecting. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. I think that's in that sequence.

Jean-Pierre (02:02:59.222)
I so. Yeah. I know something's coming starts off with him looking at itself as a reflection of the floor that he cleaned. So I don't know if maybe getting confused, but it probably is in there. Right, right, right. Yeah.

Eli (02:03:08.104)
Right, yeah. No, no, it's him in the street in a puddle and like all the lights are like reflect from the buildings are like reflecting in the puddle. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:03:19.008)
I love the random like floor sweep that's like rolling into the basketball. Well, I love how, cause like he's singing the song and the lights start coming on. And at first you're like, it's just one those magical film things. And then Spielberg and Kushner and their genius, they include this little moment of this guy like turning on the lights so he can clean the basketball court. And he like runs over and he's like singing to the guy. The guy's just like, mm.

Eli (02:03:42.26)
Yeah.

Eli (02:03:47.445)
It's like moving on. Yeah. Yeah. yeah. And then like I think it is good like that they switched it back to the original of like going straight into tonight. I think that works really well. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:03:48.206)
Okay, bud. Great. Just gonna get to work here. know? Like, that's a fun little bit, I think.

Jean-Pierre (02:04:06.926)
He just magically happens to end up in the same alleyway that he needs to be. mean, you know.

Eli (02:04:10.511)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's a good it does kind of feel like Magical he's just cuz he is just kind of like guessing she probably lives over here Which is probably a pretty educated guess but

Jean-Pierre (02:04:21.102)
Yeah, it probably, I you know, I would say most of the Puerto Ricanos probably lived in the same area. So he was probably pretty familiar of what part of town he lived in a bit.

Eli (02:04:30.431)
Right. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:04:37.306)
It's almost like an old school cartoon where someone puts a pie in a window and then the cartoon character smells the pie and starts floating and is being carried along by the scent. That's the kind of feeling you get where he's just kind of just floating till he finds himself in the exact place he needs to be.

Eli (02:04:54.302)
Yeah, Yeah, and then you get the, it's kind of like, you know, the Romeo and Juliet balcony scene, you know, it's kind of the, you know, wherefore art thou Romeo kind of thing, and he's down there, and tonight is...

Jean-Pierre (02:05:13.922)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:05:19.295)
Tonight is like a phenomenally written song. That is the song that I think I've been singing in my head nonstop since I watched it the other night. Out of all the songs, that's the one that like my mind keeps going back to, which tells me it's like a great song. know? So I don't know, that might be my favorite song of the movie. It's very like simple.

Jean-Pierre (02:05:47.342)
Hmm.

Eli (02:05:48.213)
It's very like simple, but very like sweet. Like I feel like I could sing it to my wife and it would be like a sweet song, you know.

Jean-Pierre (02:05:57.614)
Well, it's funny because during Maria, my girlfriend, her name is Mirna. And she's like, you singing this when you met me? And I started going, Mirna, I just met a girl named Mirna. It fits. And so I think I definitely prefer Maria. And again, think Anson's performance of it is he's just got this like.

Eli (02:06:02.121)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

That's fair, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:06:23.682)
very like sweetness when he's singing this song. Like you said, you really buy that he's absolutely smitten.

Eli (02:06:25.84)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Eli (02:06:30.931)
Yeah, and I remember so when I came into watching this after, you know, not having seen it since 2021, 2022, whenever I saw it, I was thinking like, know, Antoine Elgort, his singing is going to be like kind of subpar to everyone else's. And there is a sense in which like when he is singing alongside Zegler, like she's blowing him off the screen.

But not so much so that you think like, he's not a great singer. Like he still sounds really good. I was kind of like, I had, I had for some reason, low expectations coming into this rewatch from whatever memory I had of the first time. But, but I was impressed. He, holds his own fairly well, I think even against Zegler's powerhouse voice. So.

Jean-Pierre (02:07:08.227)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:07:21.902)
He's put out some actual music.

Yeah, he's got a couple like singles and stuff he's put out over the years and there's one called Supernova that I remember when I found out about that song I kind of was like, I think it's pretty solid. I think the man, he actually does sing really well but like you said, I I don't know, it's just very different vocal performances in a lot of ways but they go really well together.

Eli (02:07:42.064)
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:07:53.26)
Like, you talk about like one heart, one hand, one heart, I think that their voices play off each other so well in that scene.

Eli (02:08:01.01)
Yeah, yeah and the the just kind of skipping ahead to that song they also like changed kind of like the vibes for that too it's like a lot more serious and sacred in this movie and it's in their original adaptation it's like and I can't speak for like the stage play the the Broadway play but it's it's more playful

in their original adaptation and in here it's kind of taking itself a lot more seriously. So which I appreciate I think it's well done and you kind of buy it you know. Especially because they set it up with him like bearing his soul to her kind of and like being extremely vulnerable. It goes back to like Tony Kushner's part and in his writing of like

Jean-Pierre (02:08:36.408)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:08:41.272)
Hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:08:48.481)
Hmm.

Eli (02:08:57.801)
you've set up this moment where he's just like been so extremely vulnerable with her and then now you can kind of buy into the seriousness of this like speaking you know telling your vows to each other like she's she's thinking like I can I can be vulnerable and give myself to this man because he just bore his soul to me and so I think that's you know speaks to

Jean-Pierre (02:09:22.67)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:09:27.333)
one aspect that I think Kushner like really set up the moment well for. But yeah, in between, but in between, we already talked a good bit about America. Great, great, great, great. One of the highlights of the movie out of. Yeah. It's it's hard.

Jean-Pierre (02:09:34.978)
Yep.

Jean-Pierre (02:09:45.934)
So I think I would argue maybe the best written of the movie musically and lyrically. There's a lot to love about that song.

Eli (02:09:57.269)
It's hard to like argue against that for most of the songs if you know if anyone told me their their favorite song was this I would be like, yeah, okay makes sense to me, you know but yeah that that one definitely like is one of and at least in this adaptation one of the more like just fun exciting just Joyful moments of the movie and they shot it during a heatwave. So everyone was like

Jean-Pierre (02:10:20.078)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:10:27.021)
burning up hot throughout the throughout the shoot for that and then the other one we haven't talked a ton about was G officer Krupke which it's such a it's just a extremely fun song yes yeah uh-huh

Jean-Pierre (02:10:31.179)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:10:42.73)
And film and like the choreography and like just that whole sequence is really fun. I love, I love when the woman, the only woman that's in there, she goes and locks herself in the cage where all the cops leave. And like, I love the couple kind of similar to like the kind of janitor that we get during Maria. They like kind of have a couple little insert shots of her watching that whole sequence take place. And she's just like, what is.

Eli (02:11:07.635)
Yeah. What's happening here? Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:11:12.163)
going on.

I love little moments like that because it's almost like playing off as like, these guys think that they're in a musical and then this is like a real person in the world. Like what is going on? These guys are delusional.

Eli (02:11:28.471)
Yeah, yeah, yeah for sure Yeah, and then I mean really from there like you've got The we talked a little bit about the the tonight the quintet version of tonight You know by the end of that song you have like

overlapping and responding vocals that kind of are very like operatic and just really well done but yeah that's a great sequence and that one I think displays like you know I always talk about like Spielberg distinctives like things that like Spielberg does really well and I think the kind of sense of geography

Jean-Pierre (02:11:48.908)
all the pieces set.

Eli (02:12:14.877)
when Spielberg's like on his A game, like sense of geography, whether it's like an action set piece or something like this, is just top notch. And I think you never like really lose a sense of where characters are or where they're going through this whole sequence, even though you're following like five different people or groups through the city. definitely Spielberg there. And then

Jean-Pierre (02:12:38.104)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:12:43.763)
Yeah, then there's the rumble, which is not a musical piece, but is a very well done sequence, I think. One of the things that I think I wrote down was Riff and Bernardo. So when Riff and Bernardo get into the knife fight, they both like.

Jean-Pierre (02:12:54.862)
Hmm.

Eli (02:13:10.301)
just acting wise are like really putting off the energy of not it's not so much even that they are like out for blood in that moment what they both the energy they both put off is that like they're both scared for their lives and i think that's like so well well done

Jean-Pierre (02:13:26.156)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:13:32.236)
Yeah, like like they almost don't want to be there but like neither of them can back down at that point and I also Man, you know, it's it's kind of one those movies when you watch it and you're just like Come on guys. Just talk just just work it out. Like no one has to die, you know, and and I and I love I love when When tony he gets in there he starts trying to talk. He's trying to break it up Okay, I will say I think the one the one thing about the movie that

Eli (02:13:35.921)
Right. Right.

Eli (02:13:45.961)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (02:13:56.625)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:14:02.26)
sometimes feels a little off to me is that Tony he doesn't really like

It's like he kind of feels like he goes back and forth on if he wants to stop the rumble or not because he seems like he's like yeah I want to stop the rumble, but there's so many scenes where he like it's just letting stuff happen. It's like Why don't why don't you like push a little bit harder? So I even in this scene, know He starts trying to break it up and then not and then yeah, then not and I love that I love whenever you know kind of Bernard starts hitting him and he's just like taking it He's just like no, do not want to fight you. No, I don't want to fight you then finally like Dude, something snaps. Yeah

Eli (02:14:13.749)
Yeah.

Eli (02:14:21.463)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:14:40.848)
once well after riff gets that you know he just blacks out and just goes for it you know so yeah no sorry it's before riff gets stabbed he starts beating Bernardo and then he realizes what he's doing decides to walk away and then kind of in the aftermath of that

Eli (02:14:40.866)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (02:14:45.402)
Yeah

Mm-hmm. Yeah, the former self comes out, I guess you could say. Right.

Eli (02:15:05.373)
That's when the knife falls on the floor and then they yeah, yeah What yeah, I'm one of the other things that I noticed like just camera wise is it almost feels like the camera is like bobbing and weaving Through the once the fight big once all the fighting breaks out the camera is doing like some bobbing and weaving through the fight to which is Which is cool works.

Jean-Pierre (02:15:07.703)
Right.

Jean-Pierre (02:15:19.789)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:15:29.154)
Makes you feel very visceral, that whole scene, for sure.

Eli (02:15:31.317)
yeah, for sure. Yeah, and then they talked too about like people were actually like tearing up and crying on set after, because I mean they're watching Riff and Bernardo die several times for different, you know, different takes or whatever and very like, it wasn't just let's get the shot done, it was, there was a real like visceral feeling in the atmosphere of what they were shooting it to.

Jean-Pierre (02:15:47.714)
Yeah.

Eli (02:16:00.597)
That I think comes across, you But yeah, and then one of the things that is like off-putting is how you go from the rumble to I feel pretty. And go ahead. Yeah, that's fair. It's...

Jean-Pierre (02:16:03.086)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:16:19.756)
Yeah, which I'm gonna be honest, not a song I love. I mean, I guess it makes sense, but it does kind of feel out of place. I will say, I think what's interesting about this song though, is if all the songs from this musical, I think like there's two things from West Side Story that I think are very out in the cultural zeitgeist.

Eli (02:16:43.234)
Yeah, the thing you already talked about yeah Yeah

Jean-Pierre (02:16:44.994)
the snapping and dancing and then this song because while we're watching it Myrna was like, is this from this movie? I was like, yeah, as far as I know, it's original to West Side Story. I think because I think this I feel pretty. so pretty. think that that's just like a thing that's just out there in the culture. Like people are familiar with that line.

Eli (02:16:54.024)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:17:00.628)
Yeah.

Eli (02:17:04.585)
think I probably first heard that from Adam Sandler in something. What does he sing? He sings that in something I think. Mr. Deeds maybe or...

Jean-Pierre (02:17:12.718)
I think it's a sound trend that's trendy on TikTok at one point or something like that. I just want to see that people don't know it's from this, from West Side Story.

Eli (02:17:23.753)
Gotcha.

Eli (02:17:27.997)
Yeah. You know what's funny about I Feel Pretty is that Sondheim hated that song. He talked about, yeah, well he talked about like he was young when he wrote these songs and a lot of the music lyrically is like very simple, like very simple rhyme schemes. And so he was like, it was one of those things where he felt like I'm young. Like in hindsight, I guess, looking back, he's like,

Jean-Pierre (02:17:35.822)
And he wrote it.

Eli (02:17:57.437)
I just was kind of trying to show, I can do other stuff too in my lyrics. And so he's doing more complicated rhyme schemes, a little bit more like, you know, you have some of that in this song. And so he's, yeah. And so, but then like, even before they, they put it out, he had already kind of like thought like, I actually don't feel like these characters would speak this way. It doesn't really fit like.

Jean-Pierre (02:18:10.647)
I could respect that.

Jean-Pierre (02:18:24.654)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:18:25.683)
the character, the characterization, and so he actually, I think, I can't remember if he actually rewrote the song to be different or if he like wanted to do that, but the other three guys already liked it and they didn't want to get rid of it by that point, so it ended up in the final product, but he, even before the musical came out, he like had decided he didn't like the song and wanted to get rid of it, so.

Jean-Pierre (02:18:41.292)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:18:44.801)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:18:53.774)
Have you ever seen a Jesus Christ superstar?

Eli (02:18:58.325)
I haven't, it's been on the list, but I haven't seen it.

Jean-Pierre (02:19:01.442)
Well, again, great. Another great musical, like a rock opera, like a true rock opera. There's almost no verbal dialogue. Almost everything is sung.

I feel pretty to me kind of feels like there's a song in that movie. I think it's called I don't know how to love him, but I don't know. But it's sung by Mary Magdalene at one point in the musical. It's kind of the same thing where it just of just grinds everything to a halt. And if you're like, if this was cut out of the movie, everything else could still happen and be fine.

Eli (02:19:21.173)
Mm.

Eli (02:19:31.604)
Yeah.

Eli (02:19:39.07)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:19:39.488)
You know, it is fun to kind of see Rachel Ziegler having some fun and I guess it kind of it's a good way of showing like her innocence and she's just in a such a complete headspace and her brother just died, you know, and it's a good it's kind of an interesting juxtaposition to what happens right after when Chino tells her what happens but but it is one of those things where it's like I feel like it's the very it's very obvious that if this was cut Nobody would know and everything

Eli (02:19:48.08)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:19:56.627)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (02:20:07.226)
Yeah. Well, I think at one point they had considered cutting it, but Tony Kushner like really wanted to keep it in and wanted it to like be thrown in like right after the rumble. I think he felt like the like

Jean-Pierre (02:20:08.214)
everything could still move the way that it does.

Eli (02:20:30.321)
whiplash of it was like profound in some way of like all of this is happening and then you cut to this and it there's like this it's kind of off-putting so like even as you're watching the song and watching the the joy on screen and the the happiness you know in the back of your mind that it's not gonna last and so i think he wanted

you to have that feeling for that song. And so I kind of get it. It is a fun song. It's it's fun to watch it like and I think moving it from like the I think in their original adaptation, it's like in the. What the Taylor kind of shop with Anita and stuff and.

Jean-Pierre (02:21:01.794)
Hmm.

Eli (02:21:28.221)
And I do like that they moved it to the gimbals, which was a fun to play around in the set and everything.

Jean-Pierre (02:21:32.494)
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's just kind of goofing off at work a little bit,

Eli (02:21:38.749)
Yeah, but I do. I agree with you, but I do also like appreciate like what Kushner was going for with like having that like kind of like knowing in the back of your mind what's really coming down the line while you're watching this, having that in the back of your head the whole time and the uneasiness, I guess that that brings and

Jean-Pierre (02:21:48.14)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:22:06.983)
It kind of even makes the... When she finally gets the news, it makes it a little bit even more bitter because you just saw how happy she was. I think all of that does give it some credence to like... There is a good reason for it to be there. But in general, I think I do agree with you. Like, it wouldn't change a ton.

Jean-Pierre (02:22:16.11)
I'm not sure.

Eli (02:22:36.317)
to take it out either. Another song we haven't really talked about is Somewhere. I loved Somewhere in this. In the stage play, it's not sung by anything in particular and it's actually like a ballet sequence. And then in the original adaptation, Tony sings Somewhere. So I don't remember whose choice it was to give this song to

Rita Moreno, but it was a great choice. She talked about how it's kind of like this religious song of belief and hope, which I definitely feel. And this is this is one of the moments that like I didn't like cry, but I was definitely like misty eyed during this sequence. And then I even maybe got even more like.

Jean-Pierre (02:23:29.4)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:23:33.767)
misty-eyed watching the special features of them talking about it. Seeing her talk about it and then hearing kind of the perspective of Spielberg and Tony Kushner of why they made the choice. And it's just like, know, we talked about Rita Moreno moved here when she was five years old from Puerto Rico. She's lived through, so she's...

over 80 years old and she's lived through so much and to have this song that's like this longing for somewhere where the cruelness of the world is is gone and finally ended is some somewhere some place where we can just like be together and live like in harmony with each other it's just like it's it's touching and heartbreaking and all of the things all at the same time

Jean-Pierre (02:24:13.858)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:24:30.579)
And so you have that, it's not just like Valentina feeling that as a character, it even like watching the special features and just like seeing the context also of Rita Moreno as an actress and the relation there, the same feeling, the same experience made it even more powerful, kind of like in reverse, you know, thinking back on it.

Jean-Pierre (02:24:36.462)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:25:00.533)
I love that sequence. I didn't do it this time, but when I was telling my wife about that, I choked up a little bit just thinking about how powerful and moving that sequence was. I don't know, did you feel that when you were watching that at all?

Jean-Pierre (02:25:10.988)
Hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:25:24.366)
No, be honest For whatever reason completely forgot this song is even in there like I don't know why but just I Think I think because it's it's I think it's because it's a pretty short one And so and and I guess

Eli (02:25:27.347)
Yeah. Yeah. I could see that, but yeah. It is. It's it's not long and there's not there's not a whole lot going on in it. It's.

Jean-Pierre (02:25:43.242)
Right, right. There's just so much that happens like right before and then right after that it just, my brain completely glazed over the fact that this song occurs. So I really don't have any necessarily strong feelings or worry about it. But I mean, I do love Rita in the film. think she's a great addition.

Eli (02:25:47.701)
Uh-huh. Yeah.

Eli (02:26:04.617)
Yeah, yeah it yeah, I just found it very like touching But the next song also It's kind of like a combo of two songs with a boy like that and I have a love it's it's kind of the thrashing out of Anita against Maria when she catches, you know her which that's the choice is still kind of hard to like wrap your mind around of like

She's sleeping with this guy right after he murdered her brother and it's just still hard for me to buy.

Jean-Pierre (02:26:38.912)
That was funny. My Miren is at the same thing. That was like her biggest her biggest gripes with the movie was number one that it was it was Right, right. Her biggest issues were the movie were number one. It was a tragedy and not the sweet romantic movie she was expecting and number two that she's like, I feel like Maria just forgave him like what?

Eli (02:26:45.949)
Yeah. It's the Romeo Juliet problem.

Eli (02:26:57.325)
You

Jean-Pierre (02:27:05.614)
And again, I'm like, yeah, I mean, I don't know. It's young. She's only 18. Her first real love, you know, I was like, it's just like the notebook, you know, like it's very similar to that where where both those characters kind of never really get over that, that that young first love, Ryan Gosling, much more so to where he can't even really live a functional life after after that whole situation. So.

Eli (02:27:10.077)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (02:27:20.998)
Yeah.

Eli (02:27:28.693)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:27:33.518)
But I agree, I agree. It is one of those things that it's just one of those movie things where like you said the Romeo and Juliet problem where they have to have a resolution. You know, I think it also maybe helps. I'm be honest, this is gonna sound really dumb, but it's been a while since I've seen a version of Romeo and Juliet and I think...

Am I wrong that it's like her cousin that gets killed, not her brother? I think it's a little bit more maybe acceptable in a way in Romeo and Juliet, but because it's her brother in this scenario, it feels so much heavier.

Eli (02:28:04.883)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (02:28:17.597)
Yeah.

Yeah, and there is like There's some pretty strong antagonism between the two that is that is set up throughout the movie between Maria and Bernardo and so like you have you have that in the in favor of Maria Right

Jean-Pierre (02:28:38.798)
And there's also the vibe of like Maria's very disapproving of his gangster activities. it's very obvious that both her and Anita are of the opinion that if you keep playing gangster, you're going to end up in jail or worse. Exactly. So it's...

Eli (02:28:56.228)
Right, or get killed. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:29:00.896)
Not to say that it still doesn't make sense necessarily. It's still a very magical movie moment. But I do think, like you said, there is that antagonism there. There is this understanding that it's not like her brother is her favorite person in the world, necessarily.

Eli (02:29:03.316)
Right, right. Yeah. It's my only real quibble with the movie and it's not even... The reason why I don't really give much weight to it as a quibble is because...

It's not even really the movie's fault. It's just like the Romeo and Juliet story structure. It's like it's the it's the fault of that. It's the fault of like the the source of the source material. And so it's just like I can't even like fault Spielberg and Kushner and the acting or I can't really fault any of that. It's it's Shakespeare's fault at the end of the end of the day. So.

Jean-Pierre (02:29:35.0)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:29:57.397)
Thanks a lot, Shakespeare. God, that guy, he was terrible, right? But yeah, I will say this about this quibble. do, Spielberg in this movie does a ton to help me forgive that quibble. One of the ways he does it is he doesn't cast Richard Boehmer in Natalie Wood.

Jean-Pierre (02:29:59.074)
Yeah, it's all Shakespeare's fault, I mean, you know.

Maybe. He might have been. Who knows.

Eli (02:30:26.889)
He actually cast an 18 year old girl in the role. And so that helps you buy it a little bit more. She actually is young. And so, you you kind of can buy the kind of young love thing a little bit better. I think Ansel Elgort sells his like infatuation with her really well. You have the like some of the lines he gives like, stopped following the second I saw you. He delivers well. The whole like

see and pray thing and like getting Valentina to help him with the translation is like really cute and like endearing. So like they do a lot of like work on both sides to kind of like help you buy the love. Yeah, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:31:07.266)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:31:13.036)
We were chuckling quite a bit at that scene. And Mirna was like, my gosh, it's you. I've, know, her being, you know, for your listeners, she's from Guatemala, that's where she lives. And so we've had those same conversations where I'm like, how would I say something like this? I'm like trying to figure out like something sweet to say in Spanish, you know? And so it was really, I think that was honestly one of the biggest things for me rewatching this movie is like,

Eli (02:31:22.165)
Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:31:42.96)
kind of like experiencing this now with like dating a Latin woman and like kind of experiencing this different these different culture and like trying to like trying to take on some of it for myself to like you know be able to like grow closer to her and her family and like warnings exactly exactly and so it is kind of interesting that you know I've had a little bit of that same experience

Eli (02:31:49.905)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Meet her where she is and yeah.

Eli (02:32:12.041)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:32:13.238)
you know which which is funny because like the another movie that recently that kind of kind of gave me the same kind of vibe was we watched nope to get or not nope i'm sorry get out together and specifically the scene where everyone's over for the party and he's having to like go meet these people go meet these people go meet these people and he's just like feeling very awkward i'm like dude that literally was like the first time i was able to go visit her and like meet all of her family and friends exactly like i know a little bit of what it feels like to kind of be

Eli (02:32:22.471)
Yeah.

Uh-huh. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:32:43.152)
Everyone's there to see you like, who is this? know, and so it's it's definitely interesting in this movie specifically to kind of see him sitting down with Valentina and being like, how would I say this? OK. OK. Then he starts trying to practice it. And I'm just like. That's me.

Eli (02:32:52.376)
Yeah.

Eli (02:32:57.085)
It's funny because like I was listening, I don't remember which, I was listening to some podcasts that came out at the time of its release of people like reviewing it. And one of them was talking about how like there's times where you go back to like something Ansel Elgort's doing and it really like brings down the energy of the movie. And he gave that scene as an example. And I was like, I just totally disagree. I feel like it does a lot to help you.

Jean-Pierre (02:33:24.876)
That guy's never dated a Latina, obviously. So the first thing you want to do is learn how to say some nice things in Spanish to make them smile, you know?

Eli (02:33:27.081)
Yeah, yeah, I just feel like.

Eli (02:33:33.213)
Yeah, I thought it was a very like fun and cute scene and you get this like fun dynamic between him and Valentina. Also, yeah, yeah, so I don't know. just I was like, I don't I just disagree with that take. I really enjoyed. I thought that was a good like little character building moment. And then like I think the thing that helps.

Jean-Pierre (02:33:38.466)
Yes!

Jean-Pierre (02:33:42.442)
Yes, she's a very motherly figure. She wants to see Tony doing well.

Eli (02:34:00.649)
helped the most maybe of all was you have the boy like that which has you know Anita just like really lashing out and she's like it's it's so good she has the I think Ariana DeBose talked about she was talking with Tesori the the vocal producer and about like having these like imperfections in Anita's voice that kind of come out

Jean-Pierre (02:34:11.31)
Terry in there.

Eli (02:34:27.893)
Where she's not like singing so clean and perfect, but there's these I don't know exactly like how she brings those imperfections out, but you can feel it in like a song like a boy like that Right and so that's good and then you get I have a love and My my goodness like Zegler sells me that she's

Jean-Pierre (02:34:40.482)
Like she's about to lose her composure the whole time.

Eli (02:34:56.597)
Like in total infatuated love with this guy and that she would sleep with him No matter what he had done and that to me was like That to me like in the moment when she's doing it I'm like this makes no sense like who would do this like I can't believe this but then she sings that song and I'm like, okay, I guess so It just goes back to

another moment where Zegler is just like so incredible in this movie.

Jean-Pierre (02:35:29.55)
Yeah, love when she's like, can you forgive me? And Anita's just like, you can't ask me that.

Eli (02:35:37.266)
Yeah, well you yeah, no she said that about can you forgive him and then for herself she said can you forgive me and It's kind of like she doesn't exactly answer but kind of does and a yes it's kind of like You're gonna have to leave here which is like maybe like a roundabout way of saying like

Jean-Pierre (02:35:56.878)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:36:00.925)
I can forgive you, but you can't stay sort of thing. cause I had written down in my notes when I was watching that scene, that I was just like blown away, with the capacity of Anita for her to forgive Maria in that situation. and like, yeah, she's like, I can't forgive Tony, but why, why, why would she or should she, you know, she doesn't know the guy.

Jean-Pierre (02:36:05.091)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:36:17.87)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:36:29.293)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:36:29.961)
but her capacity to still love and care for Maria in that moment, I don't know, it hit me as very, it was a very powerful thing for a person to do that I think it's really sold well in the moment too.

Jean-Pierre (02:36:37.515)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:36:48.238)
Yeah, I think also I do want to say one thing for me that I remember when I watched this movie I Guess it had been such a long time that seen the original play or the original film version There's a couple things that I picked up on in the movie that kind of annoyed me at the time And then on the rewatch didn't annoy me. I didn't remember being as like

Eli (02:37:04.693)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:37:16.238)
annoying as it was and then also there was there was one particular moment that like I thought they had added that I didn't realize was has been in the whole time so one thing is I I remember I regret it remember this movie came out 2021 we just gone through all like the George Floyd stuff and you know like there was so much talk online about you know

Eli (02:37:33.577)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:37:44.962)
racism, anti-racism, all these things, which of course like, you know, I just wanna say, I guess racism obviously. But I think it was at a point where like, the discourse had just become so toxic from both sides and like, and I remember watching this movie and like, I felt like they were kind of playing into that somewhat. And I remember getting annoyed by it with like, the detective character, but then I'll re-watch it, I'm like, wait, I don't know why I thought that, because it's really not.

Eli (02:37:47.411)
Yeah.

Eli (02:37:51.538)
Right.

Eli (02:37:56.821)
you

Eli (02:38:12.734)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:38:13.006)
It's like, it feels very normal the way that the detectives are talking and everything. The one scene though, that I was like, why did they add this? And then I come to find out it was even in the original musical, it was in the original film adaptation. And apparently when I was a kid and I watched the film adaptation, I just did not even realize this is what was happening, is the scene when Anita goes to Doc's.

Eli (02:38:16.629)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:38:41.558)
to give a message to Tony and all the jets are there and they attempt to rape her. And I remember watching this in the theater and I was like, that's so out of like nowhere. Like why would they do it? Like why would they put this in the movie? Does it make any sense? And then I did a little bit of research and I realized like, like I literally on my rewatch the other day, I realized like that that's been in there since the very beginning, which very, very

Eli (02:38:43.027)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Eli (02:39:08.117)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:39:10.518)
like progressive for 1957 to have a scene where they almost rape a woman in your musical. Like, it's kind of insane.

Eli (02:39:17.683)
Yeah, well like the the big difference from the originals to this is they actually like call it what it is in this one Because you know, there's a little bit of there's a little bit of in those old days. It's like There's still kind of that boys will be boys That icky kind of boys will be boys kind of attitude kind of that was still there. They were definitely like

Jean-Pierre (02:39:29.388)
And maybe that's what it was, is that.

Jean-Pierre (02:39:37.634)
Yeah.

Eli (02:39:45.663)
they were definitely doing it and they I think they wrote it for it to be that but they're but it still was this time where like you didn't call it what it was necessarily and in this one she like I can't remember if it's Anita herself or if it's Valentina that yeah she says like

Jean-Pierre (02:40:02.446)
No, it's found Tina says I've known all of you since you were young and you've grown up to be rapist, which I don't know. I don't know what it is about that particular line, but I remember when I watched it in theaters and I heard her say that. And again, on the rewatch, I'm like something about that line just sounds.

Eli (02:40:07.273)
Rapists, yeah, I mean.

Jean-Pierre (02:40:20.01)
I don't know. I just don't like the delivery on that line or something. It's just weird to me. I don't know. Something about it. yeah, maybe that's why I didn't remember it from the original film version because they don't really play into it and make it as obvious as what's here. And what's really interesting, and I don't know how much else you wanted to touch on before we get into some of the themes because there's lots to talk about with themes, but I love...

Eli (02:40:24.116)
Yeah.

Eli (02:40:32.788)
Yeah.

Eli (02:40:37.694)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:40:43.892)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:40:48.182)
And by love, mean it's very sad, but I love how it's like the other women in the parlor when she gets there. They're just as willing to play into the racism and the making fun of her and all this stuff. But when they start seeing that the jets are feeling a little bit of blood in the water, they start trying to cool the situation down. And then when they throw them out,

Eli (02:40:51.633)
Right.

Eli (02:41:05.353)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (02:41:11.451)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:41:16.844)
and they start descending upon her and Grazzi's like banging on the window like, my God, please don't hurt her, hurt her. Because in that moment, she finally becomes an actual, well yeah, exactly, she becomes a person to her. Before that, she's just whatever, but in that moment she's like, woman to woman, please don't do this. Which I think really plays into the fact that like you said earlier, there is so much.

Eli (02:41:25.587)
Yeah, they're both women.

Eli (02:41:31.412)
Yeah.

Eli (02:41:38.398)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:41:45.388)
these two groups have in common and they and they but they just they just refuse to see eye to eye in a way. I think you could argue that the sharks are probably a little bit more willing to find common ground and the jets are kind of more of the the antagonistic ones.

Eli (02:42:08.254)
Yeah

Jean-Pierre (02:42:08.556)
But, but I do, but at least overall, think there are like certain people like Bernardo obviously is very, he's got a very like anti white bias, but obviously so, because I mean, like, Hey, I don't want, you know, Maria, you're not allowed to date an Americana and all this kind of stuff. He's mad at Tony for even looking at her, you know, and all this kind of stuff. And, and I'm sure, I mean, obviously he has his reasons for not trusting people in that situation, but,

Eli (02:42:20.905)
Yeah, right.

Eli (02:42:29.429)
Yeah.

Eli (02:42:36.924)
Right.

Jean-Pierre (02:42:39.202)
But it is kind of just this classic story of like, man, you all are both like both of y'all's groups are being played by the same people, which are the people who are trying to demolish this neighborhood to build these luxury apartments. know? Exactly. And.

Eli (02:42:46.505)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Eli (02:42:52.671)
Right? Lincoln Center. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:42:57.742)
And as well as like a lot of the themes in this movie in this musical Like you in the lyrics. Okay, you look at the lyrics for the song America and the whole time that song's happening Mirna is laughing and we were talking It's like a lot of the stuff they talk about that song are kind of still the same today

Eli (02:43:07.911)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:43:17.344)
Yeah, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:43:18.414)
And we're like, we're like what, like almost 60, 60 years later, seven years later, what 57, 2027 will be what 67 years, something like that. And yeah, it's just, it's just kind of crazy to think that like something written in 1957 is sadly still as if not more relevant today than it was at the time.

Eli (02:43:24.189)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:43:41.553)
Yeah, yeah, and that's been a through line in this. So in this kind of stretch of Spielberg's career, which, you know, several of these movies he's worked with with Kushner on now, there's this through line of like Bridges of Spies, Lincoln, The Post, this movie where they're kind of like their movies set in the past in this like political

moment and in this one it's a little bit more like political undertones whereas the rest of them it's like the overtone is political but that are like and even like Munich going all the way back to Munich which was when he first worked with Kushner that like speak so relevant to today that's it's it's disconcerting you know it's

Jean-Pierre (02:44:15.576)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:44:38.4)
It's like a apocalyptic prophet kind of thing, you know?

Eli (02:44:40.701)
It's sad. And, you know, it speaks a lot to, I guess, like, the human problem of it all. But yeah, I can't remember who said it in the special features, but somebody, I don't know if it was Kushner or Spielberg or who, I wish I had noted who said it, but they said the xenophobes of today are the immigrants of yesterday.

I thought that was such a good line that speaks to like this, what we're talking about of like how they have more in common than they think. They're both, they're both immigrants. They both have the same enemy, which is the people in power that are like taking advantage of them. You know, they're, they're both fighting over something that's already lost.

Jean-Pierre (02:45:22.712)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:45:35.765)
in lot of ways they're, know, Spielberg said they're both fighting under the shadow of the wrecking ball is the way he put it. And yeah, you know, it's, it's just, it's sad. Yeah, it's, sad and it's, it's hard to kind of like reckon with how. Yeah. And it does really all culminate like in that finale.

Jean-Pierre (02:45:37.506)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:45:42.2)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:45:56.375)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:46:04.687)
you know you have you have Chino who feels who I do appreciate what they did with him they made him a little bit more of a character and you know he feels like he has no choice but to do what he does in killing Tony and then like

Jean-Pierre (02:46:23.182)
I do think it's interesting too about that real quick because it's like he tells Bernardo at one point, you're the best friend I've ever had and Bernardo says you're like the smartest friend I ever had and so you definitely get the vibe that like Chino's like Bernardo's my best friend and Bernardo's just like Chino's just some guy, you know?

Eli (02:46:34.453)
You

Eli (02:46:39.681)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, what's interesting, before I continue the point I was going on, you know, you mentioned the moment where Grazi and I think Velma is the other girl's name. They're like banging on the door. They have that moment of like connection to one of the Latino women.

There's also other subtle moments in the film where there's that sort of connection. One of them is, at the dance. Yeah, the dance is one. A more obvious one, but another subtle one is when Tony and Gino get to the rumble at the same time late.

Jean-Pierre (02:47:13.9)
I get to dance when they're like both sides are like we just wanted to dance like we don't care about all this gangster stuff

Eli (02:47:31.391)
They help each other open the garage door to get in. They have this moment where they make eye contact and they kind of have this moment of understanding. We're both showing up. We don't want this to happen. We're going to try to talk our side out of it. We can move past this. It's all communicated non-verbally, but it's definitely there. And then for the movie to just end.

Jean-Pierre (02:47:46.189)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:47:57.058)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:48:00.245)
the way it is, you with with Zegler when she has, when Maria has the gun and she's just like, I hate now. You know, you feel that you can feel that.

Jean-Pierre (02:48:01.742)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:48:10.176)
And I love the way she delivers that line. Yeah. But the way she delivers, she's like, wait, I hate now. Like, like she's like realizing it for herself, you know?

Eli (02:48:18.367)
Yeah.

Yeah, the innocence is, you know, is gone. And then like, Tony Kushner made the choice in the original she sings part of somewhere to him as he's dying. And he felt like that wasn't, that didn't feel right, that she wouldn't be singing about this hopeful future to him in that moment.

And so instead he has her seeing part of tonight and it's more this idea of I'm losing you but I'll hold you in my memory forever. Instead of like a looking forward it's kind of like this memory feeling. And I thought that was a profound choice to make that change.

Jean-Pierre (02:49:09.516)
I think,

Eli (02:49:11.769)
It's like this we need to remember the past we need to remember we need to hold this in our memory So that we don't make the same mistake moving forward sort of thing

Jean-Pierre (02:49:13.123)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:49:24.118)
Yeah. And I think, you know, speaking of like things that get changed, I think one of the things that was a controversial decision at the time, and I think what I originally saw this film, I found kind of distracting, but on a rewatch, not so much. I think it's the fact that there's no subtitles when Spanish is being spoken. And I think honestly, if I'm being honest, I think it's because I'm so much more used to hearing Spanish now.

Eli (02:49:37.589)
Yeah Yeah

Jean-Pierre (02:49:53.294)
have dating dating a latin woman from from from guatemala having been there several times now to like spend time with her and her family just being like everyone speak you know a lot of people speak spanish speak english you know when we're when we're together but obviously everywhere we go there's spanish being spoken so just becoming so much more like

Eli (02:50:07.381)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:50:14.474)
familiar with hearing it and working on learning it. It was not nearly as distracting, but I do remember when I saw this at the theater, like there was a part of me, if I'm honest, was a little annoyed because I'm like, I mean, I get why, but you kind of like put something in there. But then I, but I think I noticed that there was a lot more Spanglish than actual just pure Spanish. So that, that was helpful.

Eli (02:50:37.043)
Yeah. Yeah. And even like when there is just like pure Spanish lines being spoken, you kind of, you kind of know like what they're saying, even though you don't understand the words because it's all like contextual. but I do, I, I appreciate the choice. It's, it's not the first time Spielberg's done that. He has a lot of, honestly, like most of the movies where you have like kind of saw

Jean-Pierre (02:50:47.352)
Mm-hmm. It's not like overly important stuff. Yeah

Eli (02:51:05.447)
other languages being spoken on the side and not like important lines being spoken. He doesn't ever subtitle. But it is in this one that there does feel like there's a purpose to it because all throughout the movie, what do the white people keep saying? Like speak English. And so it like not subtitling it kind of emphasizes that like rebellion, rebelliousness against that to me. So yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:51:18.318)
Mm.

Jean-Pierre (02:51:24.535)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:51:29.582)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, totally agree.

Eli (02:51:35.733)
Yeah, I mean that's that's really the movie. I really like the Devastating in I mean, I don't like the devastating ending. I guess I should say It's but it is appropriately devastating. I think but There I mean there is a tinge of hope because you do have finally because of a tragedy

Jean-Pierre (02:51:48.974)
Thank you.

Eli (02:52:02.869)
them kind of like finally laying aside differences for once. So I guess there's like a small tinge of hope, but it is small. Because here we are in 2025 with a lot of the same problems, you know.

Jean-Pierre (02:52:03.182)
you

Jean-Pierre (02:52:13.494)
Yeah, he do kind of...

Yeah. Am I the only one that like low key feels like a little bad for Chino at the end of the movie? Yes, he killed Tony, but also like, yeah, he's like the only person that has to face the consequences of his actions.

Eli (02:52:26.821)
Yeah, he kind of gets screwed.

Eli (02:52:32.998)
Yeah, the cops show up. Everybody else is like snuck off down an alley with Tony.

Jean-Pierre (02:52:38.318)
I'm sure they were a little bit too excited to throw him into the slammer, I'm sure. But that's like the one thing I'm just like, man, free Cheeto, man. Come on. Yeah, he killed Tony, but he can't be the only person that has to face the consequences of that.

Eli (02:52:40.661)
yeah, for sure.

Eli (02:52:47.605)
For Fugino.

Eli (02:52:59.049)
Yeah, for sure Yeah Yes, I mean this movie we you know It was dedicated to Arnold Spielberg who died in August of 2020 at the age of 103 But also another big thing that happened was in late November Stephen Sondheim died and so

He got to be a part of the production of this movie. Spielberg said he was at every vocal recording session they did. Sondheim was there. He was all up in the business for it. is for promotional material for the movie with Sondheim saying that he really loves what Spielberg did and it was great.

Jean-Pierre (02:53:32.512)
awesome yeah a lot of pressure but that's awesome

Eli (02:53:53.269)
So you kind of have to take it with a grain of salt, like, I guess he doesn't have to say that if he doesn't think it. you know, maybe.

Jean-Pierre (02:53:59.372)
I'm sure he wouldn't have been around for every session if he didn't want to be involved and he thought it was terrible, you know?

Eli (02:54:02.951)
Right. Yeah. So, you know, that kind of like gave a little bit more heft to the movie, the importance of it. But it did release December 10th of 2021, kind of like in that period where you're still hoping like, there's a Spielberg movie releasing in theaters. Maybe we'll get another big thrust of people back to theaters after COVID. But, you know, musicals aren't necessarily a thing that draw everybody.

There's a lot of people that are kind of like allergic a little bit to musicals There's not really like a young audience pool because Like how much of a young audience or like can have a connection to West Side Story And this it really ended up being one of Spielberg's biggest commercial failures. I Think a lot, you know do do a lot of factors the main one still being

Jean-Pierre (02:54:43.31)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:54:47.896)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:55:00.287)
probably people just weren't going back to the theater quite yet. It only made $76 million and I think the budget was over $100 million, so not great. It did open, yeah, yeah, absolutely. It did open number one in the theaters to $10 million, which does not happen now, thank God.

Jean-Pierre (02:55:14.286)
And when you're Spielberg, you can eat that.

Eli (02:55:27.731)
Movies are not opening number one to $10 million anymore. We're getting back to, we're back to a little bit better than that. But yeah, I mean, but then again, the next week, Spider-Man No Way Home came out and that was unprecedented commercial success, so.

Jean-Pierre (02:55:44.002)
Which-

Let me tell you, talk about a terrible release window. mean, this is right up there with one of the ones that I always think about is I think a really underrated action comedy directed by John McTiernan who did The Predator, who did Die Hard, great on sports to your film, last action hero, great movie.

Eli (02:55:52.523)
Yeah.

Eli (02:56:05.014)
Yeah, mm-hmm, yeah. Yep. Jurassic Park. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:56:12.898)
Really kind of kind of kind of yeah exactly I think it was was it the same week it was either the week before the same week or the week after Jurassic Park one of those three so I guess it was Spielberg's term to experience experience that because he he made that movie flop and it's actually such a gym really ahead of its time I think when it comes to like spoofing like the action kind of movies and stuff but

Eli (02:56:20.058)
Yeah. Uh-huh. Yep.

Jean-Pierre (02:56:38.554)
Happens sometimes I mean, you know, you can't always bet on that because sometimes a movie is a surprise success and it overshadows yours But this is this is what happens a lot of times with these kind of big our tour films kind of things like I was really really worried about this Happening with Dune because I really wanted to like have the complete story and I was so happy when it was like I think it was like the day before Dune was released they officially greenlit part 2 finally or like the day after

Eli (02:56:38.841)
Yeah.

Eli (02:56:59.317)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:57:08.368)
something and Dune 2 almost kind of became a cultural phenomenon meme in a way and like surpassed. I literally went to go see Dune Part 2 at the Pretania Theater on 70mm film and I think it was either right before or after the showing these guys that were near me one of them was like yeah I didn't watch the first part. What? What?

Eli (02:57:14.581)
Yeah.

Eli (02:57:33.301)
What?

Jean-Pierre (02:57:36.908)
So that's the power of Dune II, and I'm so glad we're getting to do it Messiah now as well. But it's just one of those things where it just happens. luckily, when you're someone like Steven Spielberg, you're allowed to have a flop.

Eli (02:57:41.016)
Yeah

Eli (02:57:49.931)
Yeah, you can eat it. it's at a point in his career where the flops don't matter quite as much because he's Steven Spielberg. But for me, revisiting this and just absolutely loving it, it just kind of makes me sad that it came out in a time in theater-going history where people just weren't going to the theater.

Jean-Pierre (02:58:14.702)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:58:15.445)
I think I was telling, I don't think I said, mentioned this on mic, but we were talking beforehand and I was trying to remember if I had seen it in theaters and I thought I had, but then I looked at my letterbox log and I didn't see it until later in March of 2022 after it had already released on digital. So then I was second guessing. Maybe I did wait till it was out on digital to go see it. I wasn't going to the theater quite as much back then as I am.

Jean-Pierre (02:58:33.475)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:58:41.614)
Hmm.

Eli (02:58:45.781)
as I had, 2019, but I got, yeah, no, so we, you know, we still like, I go see a lot of movies at theaters and my wife will go when it's something like West Side Story, like a musical or like We Saw Freaker Friday the other day, you know, kind of a,

Jean-Pierre (02:58:46.136)
When was your kid born?

Jean-Pierre (02:58:51.133)
okay. they're... Okay. I didn't know it was around that time.

Jean-Pierre (02:59:11.694)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:59:14.227)
Nostalgic movie from our past legacy cool kind of thing She'll go see stuff like that. But yeah Yeah, I just I can't remember if I saw it in theaters or not. But But yeah this one I mean it it got it was received. Well, it got seven Oscar nominations Production design sound costumes cinematography directing

It didn't get the best picture nomination. I think it maybe got edged out by coda which ended up winning that year I Thought coda was fine a fine movie. I didn't think it was like this should win best picture sort of movie, but well

Jean-Pierre (02:59:41.858)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:59:46.83)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:59:56.33)
Mm-hmm.

I think that the code, I haven't seen it, but I know it's about the deaf family. So it's like one of those things where it's like, mean, let's pick that one.

Eli (03:00:02.385)
It's fine, it's a good movie. Yeah.

Yeah, it's like a 6 or 7 out 10 sort of movie to me.

Jean-Pierre (03:00:15.552)
If it wasn't about a deaf family, it probably wouldn't.

Eli (03:00:18.995)
Yeah, agree. you know. Yeah, did the, those were the six it didn't win. It did win one, which was Ariana DeBose for supporting actress. So well deserved. Keeping up the Anita. if in 50 years from now, Side Story gets remade again, I'm sure the Anita, I guess the Anita will have to win supporting actress. That's the rules now.

Jean-Pierre (03:00:47.148)
Yeah. You gotta keep it going.

Eli (03:00:50.069)
But yeah, I we've talked already really a lot about our favorite shots and we've talked a lot about our favorite like I don't know are the themes was there any other like thematic elements you wanted to hit on before we wrap up? I think we've hit them all really. Race relations, gentrification, immigration.

Jean-Pierre (03:01:13.89)
I think we really hit all the major ones, know, gentrification. Yeah. You know, I mean, it's all there. It's all still there. So.

Eli (03:01:19.542)
yeah, it is. Yeah.

Well, I'll hit my final thought then. Towards the end of the special features documentary, Spielberg says, I'll be nearly 75 years old when the film comes out and I realized you can teach an old dog new tricks, unquote. he kind of at other points talks about how much of a joy-filled experience this was for him. It gave him a lot of fulfillment.

It gave him closure for this promise he had made to himself so long ago that he was going to try to remake this movie or just make a musical in general. And I don't know, it just kind of made me happy just thinking about Spielberg at 75 years old fulfilling a dream that he's had his whole life. How many people are pursuing

lifelong dreams at 75 years old and like pulling it off in such a phenomenal way. And it's like, I don't know, it just was inspiring to me to like not give up on dreams that I might have or things that I want to do or pursue. So if you're out there and you're listening and you're 75 years old or you know 20 years old or 40, you know, it's not too late to pursue like

Jean-Pierre (03:02:24.023)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (03:02:33.88)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (03:02:50.338)
Yeah.

Eli (03:02:50.697)
whatever dream you have like in your heart. Kind of cliche, but that's what it got me thinking about.

Jean-Pierre (03:02:53.772)
Yeah, here's a question for you.

Yeah, for sure. Here's a question for you. So Spielberg is currently, I just checked, he's 78. So you got a couple of these classic kind of auteurs at this point, the new Hollywood as they were, Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, some of these guys. they're getting up there in years. So we got the fabled mints that came out, you'll be talking about on the next episode.

Eli (03:03:06.038)
Yeah.

Eli (03:03:14.326)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Jean-Pierre (03:03:27.662)
I think he's got another movie coming out what next year? think he said. How many more of these do you think he's got in him? Considering Clint Eastwood just made a movie at like 93.

Eli (03:03:29.651)
next year. It's supposed to be like a UFO movie.

Eli (03:03:36.031)
I don't know.

90 yeah, no, you know he he still feels When you see Spielberg and you like I mean you don't see a lot of them anymore like out there Obviously cuz he is older And he is like I'm sure trying to spend as much time with his family as possible But like when you do see him he still feels pretty like full of energy and excitement

I'd imagine like, I would bet that this next movie is not his last movie. So, you know, he's just kind of the kind of guy that he might die on a movie set shooting a movie. He's just gonna keep doing what he loves to do until he can't anymore.

Jean-Pierre (03:04:32.504)
Mm-hmm.

OK.

Eli (03:04:36.445)
I would, that would be what I would think is as long as he can get up and be on set and do his thing, then he's gonna keep doing it, so.

Jean-Pierre (03:04:39.841)
Okay.

Jean-Pierre (03:04:43.554)
move around and do his thing.

Jean-Pierre (03:04:48.494)
Okay, I guess a second question because I won't be back before this Spielberg series finally comes to an end. think you've been doing this for like what, a year at this point? Over a year. you're just kind of reflecting on the series. What do you think was Spielberg's greatest run movie-wise?

Eli (03:04:56.213)
Yeah, yeah over a year, yeah

Eli (03:05:08.661)
Eli (03:05:16.654)
I mean it's probably it's okay let me pull it up cuz

Jean-Pierre (03:05:22.316)
I also want remind your viewers that for as many movies he's directed, he's helped produced infinitely more. so as much as you love Spielberg movies, there's probably a bunch of other movies that you really love that he had a hand in making. I he is quite literally one of the most influential filmmakers of all time and will always be forever. Absolutely.

Eli (03:05:26.559)
produced more. Yeah.

Eli (03:05:37.071)
Absolutely, yeah. You know, it's so a run of movies that are all great. Well, he doesn't have any run where there's just like all of them are just like phenomenal movies. I don't think there's all.

there always is like a hiccup. It's hard to argue against the run from like Jaws through ET or Temple of Doom if you're a Temple of Doom person. 1941 is his worst movie in my opinion, so that's thrown in the middle there, but like Jaws, Close Encounters, Raiders, ET, Temple of Doom is a really great run from like

Jean-Pierre (03:06:16.835)
Mm.

Eli (03:06:31.349)
the mid 70s to mid 80s. And then the other run I would say his like starting with Saving Private Ryan in 98, 98, 99 whenever that came out through Catch Me If You Can, that's a four movie run that's really good. But man, really like his run from

Jean-Pierre (03:06:33.752)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (03:07:02.773)
2012 with Lincoln the BFG, know Use you know your mileage may vary with what you think of the BFG. I think it's fine I don't think it's bad, but it's not great. I think ready player one has a lot of problems So there's a couple of hiccups in there, but I mean Even like going back to warhorse. I think is a good movie warhorse Lincoln bridges spies the post West Side Story the fabled men's

Jean-Pierre (03:07:15.214)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (03:07:30.419)
Those are all really great movies. most iconic is, yeah, most iconic would be probably Jaws through Temple of Doom, that run.

Jean-Pierre (03:07:34.946)
Yeah, I definitely think like 80s, like 70s, 80s, Spielberg was great.

Jean-Pierre (03:07:45.998)
Yeah, I think my favorite Spielberg is definitely like mid 90s to mid 1000s. Like I think of my favorite Spielberg movies as much as I love the Indiana Jones films, love E.T., all these stuff. I mean, I'm like, I'm thinking like I love Jurassic Park, love Lost World, Schindler's List is a masterpiece. I really like AI. I really like AI.

Eli (03:07:57.475)
Yeah. I know you do love Lost World. Lost World isn't that great to me. AI is great. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (03:08:10.014)
I also really enjoy Minority Report, that's a really fun movie, catch me you can. I've not seen The Terminal, I've heard good things. War of the World, I love his version of War of the World, it's very gritty, not a fun one, not a good one. Munich is one of my biggest blind spots, I've always wanted to watch it, but I'm not into it.

Eli (03:08:20.637)
The terminal is The terminal the term the terminals got a lot of issues

Eli (03:08:32.965)
man, it's been one of my... was one of my biggest... the blind spots that blew me away the most. Like the biggest surprise of the whole thing is probably Munich. I think it's phenomenal. And when you do finally watch it, you'll have the same feeling of, how is this so relevant? This should not still be so relevant.

Jean-Pierre (03:08:55.406)
Hmm.

Yeah, I definitely want to check it out. I got to see what it's on that I can watch it on.

Eli (03:09:02.684)
Here's my hot take though. West Side Story is a top five Spielberg movie. I think a lot of people might think it's a hot take, but I have it currently, currently I have it slotted in at number five.

Jean-Pierre (03:09:09.932)
I don't think it's a hot take at all.

Jean-Pierre (03:09:14.905)
Here's the thing, here's the thing with Spielberg.

Jean-Pierre (03:09:20.046)
Here's the thing with Spielberg though. I think you could almost separate his filmmaking into two categories. You have the blockbusters and you have like the art, the art tour films. think, I think West Side Story easily top five of like his more serious work, but he's just, I don't know. mean, you're talking, what's your top five? What's your top five?

Eli (03:09:30.612)
Like the, yeah, the serious drama, dramatic films,

Eli (03:09:39.869)
But it's a lot of fun too. It's kind of...

Currently my top five is Jaws, Schindler's List, ET, Jurassic Park, West Side Story.

Jean-Pierre (03:09:52.396)
You have West Side Story above any Indiana Jones film.

Eli (03:09:56.677)
I struggle, my favorite is Last Crusade and I have it at number 6 so any given day I could switch those two probably. But Munich is right there too honestly, Munich's fighting for a top 5 spot too for me. Jaws, Schindler's List, ET, Jurassic Park, West Side Story. I love ET.

Jean-Pierre (03:10:03.118)
Mm.

Jean-Pierre (03:10:12.846)
Hit with your top five one more time.

Jean-Pierre (03:10:21.678)
You see, I would not put ET in the top five.

Eli (03:10:26.003)
It's great.

Jean-Pierre (03:10:26.166)
It's a good movie. It's good movie. It's fun, but I just I think I I Mean dude, I would go I would probably go not necessarily in this particular order But you got to go jaws, which I just got my ticket for the 4k re-release I Think I think I got a ticket for Tuesday. I was surprised to see how many days is running I think I have to take it for Tuesday afternoon. I mean, I'd probably go jaws

Eli (03:10:36.309)
I'm gonna try to go tomorrow night. think yeah Yeah, that's if I was like making like a Mount Rushmore of Spielberg movies

Jean-Pierre (03:10:55.19)
If I have to pick one Indiana Jones movie, I think you gotta go with Raiders.

Jurassic Park.

Eli (03:11:06.003)
Like my personal preference aside, Raiders would be on it. But this is like for me. Like my favorites. Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (03:11:10.39)
Yeah. Yeah. That's fair. Well, okay. I'll go, I'll go my version. I would say Jaws for sure. I think I would still put Raiders. I think when you watch all three, like Indiana Jones films, I think that's the one I do like the most. Raiders. think I'd go Jurassic Park, obviously.

Eli (03:11:27.207)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. It's a great movie, but yeah. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (03:11:36.046)
I like Saving Private Ryan, but I feel like I've only watched it once. And I feel like when I watched it, was like, I understand why people think it's great, but I'm like, I don't know. I think I've seen better war movies. I'd rather watch Black Hawk Down. I think that's a better war film, personally. I think West Side Story definitely is deserving of top five when you look at everything he's done. But it's definitely, I don't think ET's top five, I'm being honest.

Eli (03:11:57.975)
Yeah.

Eli (03:12:05.424)
My top 18 Spielberg movies are all four star and up. I mean, when you have 18 movies that are like eight out of 10 or up,

Jean-Pierre (03:12:11.576)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (03:12:17.07)
And what is 1941 for you? Where did you rate that one?

Eli (03:12:20.614)
It's number 40 on my list, but that includes like TV movies and shorts and stuff. One and a half stars? It could go down to one. It's...

Jean-Pierre (03:12:25.038)
But what, what, what, uh, what rating did you give it? Like what, how many stars? Oh, wow. That's pretty low. I was expecting. Okay. I I haven't seen it. So I mean.

Eli (03:12:38.121)
I mean it has some great production, but man is it awful. Like for a movie that's supposed to be a comedy, I didn't laugh one time.

Jean-Pierre (03:12:46.414)
Except for laughing and how painful it was. Yeah.

Eli (03:12:48.649)
I'm not kidding. Like it's not even like this is so bad it's making me laugh. It's just, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (03:12:55.318)
Yeah, think, I don't know, you know, I think I have a lot of respect for directors who like, and I guess, know, if you made as many movies as he has, and there's some directors that have been made more, like you're gonna have some blunders, but you know, I don't know. I think if someone like Danevonov, I think if Christopher Nolan, who are obviously are two people who, if Spielberg didn't exist, they would not be filmmakers, right? Like Christopher Nolan has,

Eli (03:13:19.764)
yeah, absolutely.

Jean-Pierre (03:13:23.572)
As on the record saying the first movie he really attached to as a kid was like 2001 a space Odyssey and you know Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg are like coming up together in the 60s and 70s when they're start making stuff so all part of this same kind of like young New Hollywood kind of kind of stuff that happened in the 70s and so you know Exactly exactly. It's it's just it's really interesting to see how

Eli (03:13:34.506)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (03:13:43.775)
And then you got the AI crossover with the two.

Jean-Pierre (03:13:52.512)
Not only can Spielberg inspire filmmakers that we love today, but they're still making stuff too. And it just goes to show how cinema is very old, but also very new still in a lot of ways.

Eli (03:14:08.051)
Yeah, there's still new things to do. And I think, you know, just kind of like wrapping things up with all of this, like I think that this version of West Side Story shows that like there's there's still like if you're going to read the amazing thing about this movie is this is this came out at the time where like the things that you're supposed to remake are like superhero related or like

Ghostbusters related or that's the things you're supposed to remake and here comes Spielberg and he's like I'm gonna make I'm gonna remake a 1950s early 60s musical classic and it's just like the boldness and the courage to do that and then and also like the confidence knowing that or like At least hoping that you can pull it off and and just nailing it. I just love that

Jean-Pierre (03:14:50.37)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (03:15:05.582)
Everything about this movie is the definition of they don't make them like they used to and like and like it's it's like one of those things where it's like it's kind of how I feel about like Oppenheimer like there are I don't really think there's anyone else on

Eli (03:15:09.661)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (03:15:17.791)
Sure.

Jean-Pierre (03:15:23.246)
in the entertainment industry other than Christopher Nolan that could say, I want to make a three hour bio-pick about a nuclear physicist and it's going to cost like $150 million. Christopher Nolan says that, they're like, what do we sign? Anyone else? They're going to be like, whoa, hold on there. And like the same thing with this, like, I really don't know if anyone else besides Steven Spielberg could have made this movie because they wouldn't have gotten the budget needed to make it at the level in which he was able to do so.

Eli (03:15:29.993)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (03:15:34.286)
Yeah.

Eli (03:15:39.835)
Yeah.

Eli (03:15:46.275)
yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, great movie. I love how much I loved this movie on rewatch. yeah.

Jean-Pierre (03:15:53.228)
See ya.

Jean-Pierre (03:16:02.86)
Yeah, same. I bumped it from a four to four and a half.

Eli (03:16:06.771)
Same. Same exact thing. But yeah, mean, there's not really much else to say about it. I mean, there are more things, more like interesting tidbits, but we've talked enough about it, I think. And I liked the kind of like look back we just did too, that was fun. We are going to record a 21st century movie musicals draft that you will hear next week. So.

Jean-Pierre (03:16:26.03)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (03:16:35.177)
JP will be on again for that. that's gonna be fun to do, to kind of partner with this episode. And then of course we'll be getting into The Fablemen's, our last Spielberg film to cover. So bittersweet coming up, bittersweet episodes. But yeah, JP, where should the people follow you to keep up with what you're up to?

Jean-Pierre (03:17:04.366)
You always feel free to follow me on Instagram. That's always the best place to keep track of updates for whatever I'm doing, whether it be life updates, film related stuff, or even maybe my own little things that we might be working on. So, yeah.

Eli (03:17:16.391)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (03:17:23.218)
Yep, and I'll link that in the episode description for you to follow them. I'll link your letterbox too Always fun to follow on letterbox. So Yeah, go follow JP on Instagram on letterbox. He does he does better than me at logging movies. I think I'm like way behind

Jean-Pierre (03:17:40.014)
Hey, I'm going to be honest though, bro. You're the one that got me more into logging my stuff on Letterboxd. I have had a Letterboxd account for a while. I didn't really keep up with it that much. And I think it was you and maybe a couple of other people that were like being more consistent. And so now, anytime I watch a movie, the first thing I think about is like, I got to log it in a Letterboxd. I think it's going to be one of those cool things one day for my kids to look back on.

Eli (03:17:49.52)
Yeah.

Eli (03:18:02.719)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (03:18:08.394)
Yeah, I think so too. All my stats. What movie did dad watch the most? Fantastic Mr. Fox and and The Muppets Christmas Carol. Okay I'll watch those two movies every year so Thanksgiving and Christmas Yeah, go follow JP. That's all we have this week

Jean-Pierre (03:18:09.432)
to see all the stuff that I've watched, you know? What genre?

Real. Real.

yeah, every year.

Eli (03:18:36.437)
I've been Eli Price for Jean Pierre Boudreaux. You've been listening to The Establishing Shot. We will see you next time.