#33. 'In the Heights'
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With Sonny out, Vic and JVL are joined by Commentary editor Jon Podhoretz to discuss In the Heights (HBO Max), Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jon M. Chu's film version of the Broadway musical. J-Pod loves it — copping to a rooting interest since one of the producers is a close friend — and delivers a long, impassioned defense of the film as an "everyone's story is the American story" companion piece to Hamilton, pushing back hard on the "afro-Latino erasure" criticism (and the Rita Moreno/Stephen Colbert apology saga) that dogged the movie's release, while also riffing on why he thinks the structure of Broadway musicals and modern action movies (Fast & Furious, Lethal Weapon) is basically identical. JVL was largely bored — he doesn't share Sonny's blanket hatred of musicals but says this one never cleared his personal bar, and he has an extended theory about why filmed stage musicals feel off (actors staring into the camera, breaking the fourth wall) compared to a true movie musical like Singin' in the Rain. Vic scores it a Quadrant Plot B+, Duration F, Violence/Action B+ (rating the song-and-dance numbers on the action scale), Sex/Nudity C (for Melissa Barrera's bikini scene in "96,000"), and found most of the numbers visually chopped-up and emotionally cold, while also mocking Marc Anthony's gaunt cameo as the drunken uncle. The long opening stretch covers J-Pod's claim that his podcasting voice once soothed G-Money to sleep as a baby, a sprawling summer-camp digression (Meatballs was filmed at his childhood camp, the Camp Ramah founding story tying his father-in-law to Norman Podhoretz, the Herzl camp founded by his grandparents), comparing kids' ages and pandemic parenting, Father's Day brunch with scrapple at Bob and Edith's Diner, a Rosie Ruiz/Tesla-surveillance/Subaru-camera tangent, favorite New York diners (Clark's in Brooklyn Heights, the SNL "Diner Lobster" sketch), and a Gatwatch check-in — Vic's gout is "touch and go" but he ran a personal-best 8.5 miles, prompting JVL to talk him through a marathon training plan. J-Pod closes out the episode reminiscing about the 1977 and 1965 New York blackouts before Vic gets in one last crack comparing musicals, action movies, and pornos.
From the show notes
JVL, Sonny, and J-Pod talk musicals.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Once upon a time in a faraway land called Washington Heights, say it so it doesn't disappear. Washington Heights! Lights up on Washington Heights, up at the break of day. I wake up and I got this little punk I gotta chase away. Pop the grate at the crack of dawn, sing while I wipe down the awning. Hey y'all, good morning.
Vic00:00:30Welcome to another Sub-Beacon. I'm Victor Matus along with Jonathan V. Last. And in for Sonny Bunch is the inimitable Jon Podhoretz. Just a reminder, the Sub-Beacon is now available through Patreon. Go to subbeacon.com, you'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends. And don't forget about the Sub-Beacon merchandise store at tpublic.com. Gentlemen, how are we? Jon Podhoretz, welcome back to the show.
Guest00:01:01I don't think this is a welcome back. I don't think I've ever done the show. You have done it. False. Greyhound.
Vic00:01:11Wow, it was so forgettable. I wasn't there. You took my spot.
Guest00:01:16Oh, right, okay. I'm sorry. You know, guys, seriously, I have now calculated that I do 24 hours of podcasting a month.
?00:01:32That's it.
Guest00:01:33Now, something like that. 24. That's it. 26. 27 hours of podcasting a month.
Vic00:01:38I was gonna say, what about you, JVL?
Guest00:01:39What is that like?
Vic00:01:40It's more than that. I thought you were gonna say 24 hours a week.
Guest00:01:43It's insane. I mean, I am sick of the sound of my own voice. Well, wow.
JVL00:01:50You know, this is the problem with being really good at something, Jon. People want you to do it more and more and more.
Guest00:01:57You're the natural. So what can I tell you? This is very kind. You know, I have to tell you guys that I can't remember what pseudonym Jonathan has assigned to each of his children, so I don't know which. I can't remember all the pseudonyms. G-Money. But one of the nicest things. G-Money. G-Money. One of the nicest things that JVL ever told me was that my podcasting voice was extremely soothing to G-Money as a baby and that he would actually speak to me while you were listening to my podcast in the car or something. He would call out to me. And that's the nicest thing really that anyone has ever said to me ever about anything ever.
JVL00:02:49And when Noah would talk, he would get very angry. He'd be like, "No! I want John!
Vic00:02:57I want John!"
JVL00:02:58Poor Noah. And I would sit there and be like, "Shut up, Noah. We want John." So this is 100% true. G-Money was a really bad sleeper for a long time. And we had a phase where I would get up with him at 1:00 in the morning, midnight, 3:00 in the morning, whatever, and just take him out and just drive around suburban Virginia for hours at a time. And I would just drive until I hit an intersection and turn right, no matter where I was going, in order to just keep moving, right? If there was a red light or a stop, just roll in and go right. And the only thing we would do was listen to the commentary podcast because all he wanted was the sound of John's voice. Oh, my God.
Guest00:03:43That is so sweet. You know, here's a funny thing. He's a real neocon, too.
JVL00:03:51He's got some very definite opinions. It's sunk in. It's good. You need that.
Guest00:03:56You need that. You need that in a youngster because, you know, you've got to get them young. Now, here's what's interesting about these two gentlemen that you have been listening to for so long. You Sub-Beacon universe extended people and all of that. So, I've known Vic and JVL for 20...
JVL00:04:20More than 20 years.
Guest00:04:21Vic, I've known. Oh, yeah. I would say for 28 years, maybe?
Vic00:04:27Since 1995. 1995. 1995.
Guest00:04:30No, earlier than '95.
Vic00:04:32Well, I remember from like '95 is when I interned at the White House Writers Group. That wasn't '95.
Guest00:04:38That's from the spring. '95 is... Was it '95 that you interned?
Vic00:04:41Oh, yeah. It was '95 because that's when I graduated.
Guest00:04:43I graduated in '95. Okay. All right. Okay. So, and JVL, you joined The Standard that year or maybe a little later?
JVL00:04:51January '97. '97. Okay.
Guest00:04:54'97. Yeah. Okay. So, I've known Vic for 26 years. I've known JVL for 24 years, I guess, something like that. And so, I am obviously considerably older than the two of you. I just hit 60. But here's what's interesting, and this isn't interesting because you're talking about G-Money who is now... Four. Post-Toddler. He's four. Okay. Four. So... I have my kids late. So, I have a 17-year-old, a 14-year-old, and a 10-year-old. Vic, your kids are...
Vic00:05:2913 and 11.
Guest00:05:3113 and 11. And JVL, you have a 13-year-old. 13, 11, eight, and four. Okay. So... So, we have overlap with our kids. Parenting.
JVL00:05:41We're all the same parenting age.
Guest00:05:42Being around the same generation as parents, that's a very leveling thing. Like, either... Either it makes you old or it makes me young. I'm not sure. I'm not sure which. Yeah. But hearing you talk about driving your kid around or sort of thinking about all the kinds of things that I hear you guys talk about in relation to your kids, not that I have... I would say that my children are maybe the opposite of athletes. Is there such a thing as the opposite of athletes? I mean, I think my daughter could maybe throw a pitch five miles an hour. I don't know how slowly a pitch could actually be thrown and yet still travel through the air. That would be around the speed. Now, I do have a daughter who is a rower, who is involved in crew, but my kids are not athletic and so we don't have that much in common in that sense, but we are all parents of children and are going through this nightmarish experience. A nightmarish experience of being a parent of a child in 2020 and 2021 and I don't know if it's just nightmarish because of the culture or if it's nightmarish because it's always been nightmarish and we're just having the nightmare. I mean, I love my kids and I love being a parent and all that, but man, this has been a hard 15 months. I mean, you guys are much more cheerful about it than I. And talking about it, as I hear you talk about it on a weekly basis, I mean, I certainly have felt.
Vic00:07:23I think the big one of the big differences, of course, John, you're in you're in the city, you know, and I think it's a lot more, you know, in terms of space. Right. But now everyone's being able to come out now. So I mean, well, you're at the light at the end of the tunnel for the Hamptons.
Guest00:07:37Right, John? Well, I spent a little I spent a little time at the beach like that's last spring. I mean, even at the beach, but in a house where we had to get out of Manhattan when you literally could not playgrounds right now, this we're locked.
JVL00:07:52Yeah.
Guest00:07:53Yes.
JVL00:07:54Bill de Blasio locked the playgrounds here to here in suburban Virginia, though the local playgrounds were roped off.
Guest00:08:02Yeah, they were. And so basketball hoops were taken down tennis, tennis, you know, that's where we're like, it was it was prison life. And so we had to get we did get away and that was fine. And my kids actually went. To school, their schools were open all year, very heroically in some in some ways. It's not that it really it really was just the experience of both of social isolation. And I would say not to get up to bring this sort of down to this kind of conversation. But you know, kids need to be together with other kids the way we need air and and they were together with other kids. But they couldn't hang out with them after school. They were all wearing masks all the time at school. And you know, it just it was just awful for them. That's all. It was awful. Yeah. And it's sad to be around it. And thank God that it's over. I have two kids in camp right now and I, you know, I thank God that they managed to manage to get away.
JVL00:09:11JVL, we're gonna say some kids so yeah, flash is a super social because you know, he like you Victorino is class president of every room he walks into and little E is quite social as well. But but favorite is much more like me and we in fact have Izzy and we have a birthday party for one of little E's friends tomorrow. This young girl has an older sister who is favorites age and they know each other and are friendly. And so she has been invited to come over as well to go play with the older sister.
Vic00:09:45And when this was.
JVL00:09:47Expressed to favorite her response was, I don't know how many people are going to be at this party and we're sitting there and I look at Shannon and I was like, oh, that that that's right. That's that's me. And and my wife said, I think there's going to be like, you know, six or eight kids in favor goes. All right. I could probably handle six or eight kids, but if it was going to be like ten other kids
Guest00:10:13pass overload, that is that's my girl. But that is a that is a woman after my own heart. I have I have much the same feeling. My son, who is ten going on eleven, was nervous about going to camp. He actually had a pretty good pandemic in this sense, which is he's a creature of habit. As I say, he's not outdoorsy, particularly loves to run around with friends and stuff in the park. But so here was what his life was like. So we get up in the morning. And he watched The Simpsons. He'd asked me to make waffles, so I'd make him waffles of this little waffle iron that we have. He'd eat the waffles. Then if it wasn't a school day, around about, you know, eight in the morning, his phone would ring and it was one of his friends. And he would take his phone and his laptop and then for hours he and a circle of three or four friends would do things with Minecraft. I have no idea what on earth they, it, it, it, it, it, it is like my son was just playing
Vic00:11:28that now.
Guest00:11:29What are they? I don't understand I'm hearing half the con I don't know what this is. It is the, it's not obsession. Like he's just, but he's a creature of habit. So he, he kept himself entertained during the pandemic, he and his friends would be do this three, four hours a day. They kept in connection with each other, all of that stuff. He'd have pizza. He'd have waffles. Then he'd have some more pizza. Then he'd have some more waffles. They didn't go to bed. Then he'd wake up. This was great. Yeah. This was fine. And I said, when he said, I don't know if I wanna go to camp, I'm like, Isaac, you gotta, you gotta like get, you gotta get out. You gotta like do something diff like we've been doing the same thing for 15 months and he said, I, I, I'm, I'm fine. I'm fine with it.
?00:12:18I'm fine with it.
Guest00:12:19So what sort of camp is this, Jon? So like he had a good pen it is a Jewish, it is a choir camp, Jewish camp. It is a Jewish camp, uh, is, is it the, is it the camp from, uh, dirty dancing?
Vic00:12:31No. First of all, that's a hotel. That's a hotel.
Guest00:12:35And if you wanna know about that, you have to talk to Abe Greenwald. My colleague at, at, at commentary Abe, uh, now we're really getting into bizarre, you know, trivia up here, but Abe's father. Uh-huh. Booked the entertainment for the leading hotel in the Catskills. Oh my God. Was that the, the Concord as the Concord? I was gonna ask you if it was gross singers, no gross singers, gross singers was like the fanciest. The Concord was the show busiest and, and Abe's Abe's dad, we're gonna get it to musicals and stuff. Abe's dad booked the actual, the Concord buddy Hackett was at his bar. Mitzvah man was at his bar. Mitzvah done. Okay. And his uncle, his father's brother was a dancer, actor, and choreographer named Michael Kidd. We haven't, we're gonna, we're talking about musicals later. Michael Kidd, uh, choreographed Guys and Dolls on Broadway and starred in a Gene Kelly musical co-starred with Gene Kelly in a movie called It's Always Fair Weather, which is one of the great underrated musicals of the 1950s and the great MGM musical tradition. So, you're talking to the, so this is not the camp that my kids go to. Okay, that's not the camp. That's not the camp. Okay, I'm just curious. No, my kid, my kid, my kids actually go to a camp in, in, in north central Wisconsin. Wow. Uh, a Jewish camp in north central Wisconsin. And here's the great story about that, and then I'm gonna stop being, uh, dominating the conversation. Here's the story. In 1948, the camp was founded in 1947, 1948. My father-in-law, my wife's father. Uh, went there from Chicago as a counselor, and at the camp was a 16-year-old camper named Bobby Roberta, uh, who became subsequently my wife's mother. And so he was a counselor, she was a camper. In 1949, Bert, my father-in-law, was a counselor, and, uh, in the room next to him. Sharing a sleeping porch, cuz people slept there with, you know, in case it was too hot. There was a counselor, dramatics counselor, who had come from New York, from the Jewish, from, from, from the Jewish Theological Seminary by the name of Norman Podhoretz. So Bert Cohen, my father-in-law, and my father were counselors at this camp together in 1949. That is insane. Ten years later, my father-in-law started running the camp. That was his profession. He was the director of Camp Ramah. Then in 1973, he became the national director of Camp Ramah. My wife, her brother and her sister were all campers and counselors at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin. My, my brother-in-law's. Nephew, Joe was a camper at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin for seven or eight years. And my own kids have gone there since. So this is the camp that my, my, my, my kids go to and not to get even weirder. And this is the final weird detail I'll share with you. There is another Jewish camp in central Wisconsin, about two hours away called Herzl and Herzl was founded by my maternal grandparents, Harry and Rose Rosenthal, who were leading Jewish Zionists in St. Paul, Minnesota, which is where my mother is from. Was it named after?
Vic00:16:34And they started this camp. Was it named after Theodore?
Guest00:16:36Uh, it was named after Phil, Phil Herzl, who was the entertainment director, who was the
JVL00:16:42entertainment director at the Nevely, another hotel in the Catskills.
Guest00:16:47Yes. Yes. It was named after Theodore Herzl. Thank you very much. Anyway, my mother, so my mother's parents started a camp in a Jewish Zionist summer camp in South, in central Wisconsin that I attended for one absolutely horrible summer in 1972 that I will never forget because I hated it so much.
Vic00:17:13Are you telling me that your camp experience was not like Jewish meatball balls? Is that what you're saying?
Guest00:17:19Meatballs. Now, wait, I went to the camp in meatballs.
Vic00:17:23Oh, come on. Oh, no, you didn't.
Guest00:17:25Oh, come on. This is absolutely true. This is absolutely true. Meatballs was filmed. The first camp that I was sent to was in Northern Ontario because of course that's where you send a kid from Manhattan is to a camp in Northern Ontario called White Pine and they filmed meatballs at Camp White Pine in Halliburton. Ontario. So, thank you for bringing that up. You're welcome. I'm glad to tie it all in. And now, please, gentlemen, have a conversation about Vic's gout and stuff while I take a
Vic00:17:57breather. I wanted to know, I assume that your cabin mate was Chris Makepeace. That was the kid, wasn't it?
Guest00:18:05Yes, Chris Makepeace was a very, yes, Chris Makepeace and my very close friend, Dan Kassa, and went to another camp in Canada called Tamaqua, and Tamaqua is where they filmed the insane summer camp film, Indian Summer, from the early 90s, which is, if you remember, these campers come back to the camp, and Alan Arkin is the camp director, and they were all campers at the camp, and they're all sort of come back together, only they're about 25 years apart in age. I don't know. One of them- It's my kind of camp. No.
?00:18:49Sign me up.
Guest00:18:50This movie- Oh, sorry. This movie is so crazy, because they're all supposed to have been at camp at the same time, but one of them is 60, one of them is 20. It's like whoever they could get to agree to go to this horrible, godforsaken place in Ontario in October, in the freezing cold, and go swim in the lake, and stuff like that. Anyway, but that's where my friend Dan cast, and that is the end of the summer camp story.
Vic00:19:14Thank you. Thank you, Jon. Mike out. Oh, Mike out. It's touch and go. It's touch and go, and it really has to do with the beer, so I'm laying off the beer, drinking lots of water, but don't worry, I won't have to interrupt the show, because I have my motormen's friend with me, so it's just, you'll never know. I'll just look like I'm deep in thought, but it's been fine, and I think I'm just trying to counteract it with running, and I ran a personal best yesterday. Eight and a half miles, which I've never done, but I know, it's crazy.
Guest00:19:52That's insane.
Vic00:19:54It's insane. It's insane. That's amazing. It's different for JVL. I'm like a third of the way there, JVL, but ...
JVL00:20:00Victorino, you are going to do a marathon.
Vic00:20:04I know. Don't say this, because I know my brother-in-law is going to listen to this, and he's like, "Okay, it's done." The only thing I thought of is ...
JVL00:20:10If you're at eight and a half right now, and how'd you feel at the end of it? You're tired, but you didn't feel wrecked, right?
Vic00:20:15No, no, no. It's weird. I got new shoes. You're ready. It was great. Sometimes it feels ... Because sometimes your legs just feel like cement, but it's not ... The breathing has never been a problem, so that's always, I think ... The chest pains have never been a problem, so that's a good sign. But knees, I don't know. All I thought is I'm about one and a half miles away from qualifying for an Army 10-miler or something, which would be kind of fun.
JVL00:20:42All right, so the Marine Corps Marathon is the marathon that you'll run. Because A, it's local to you, B, it's the best beginner marathon in the country, and C, it's just awesome.
Vic00:20:52It's still ... But it's 26 miles, and I don't want the things to happen to my body that you mentioned happen to the body.
Guest00:20:57No, you just get on the metro, like Rosie Ruiz. You just get on the metro. That's ... Oh, is that what she did? Yeah. She took the subway. Don't you know that the great New York ... Yeah, the great New York Marathon story is that they sort of figured out that she had won because she took the subway. She took the subway. You don't even know that you took the subway. Just get on and go get ... You have an RFID chip on your shoe.
JVL00:21:24Oh, what? And it's different now. It's different now. It's different now.
Guest00:21:28Really? Are you serious? No. Everybody has a chip. You actually have a chip?
JVL00:21:33Everybody has a chip on their shoe. That's how you get your splits, because you are chipped through every mile mark, which lets you know how fast you're going, and will let you see, did you accelerate, did you decelerate, helps people who are watching remotely to keep track of where you are on the course.
Guest00:21:52It's great. Is this Bill Gates's? Did Bill Gates make this chip?
Vic00:21:56No. Everyone who got vaccinated, they now know how fast you run.
Guest00:22:00I don't know if you know this. Can he slow your heart rate down remotely? Yes. Have you been reading about this stuff about how people's thermostats in Texas, they are now convinced that after they announced that they were having these brownouts, or they were worried about that ... Remotely, people's thermostats were being turned up so that the air conditioning wouldn't go on?
Vic00:22:25Lots of places have that. That's ...
JVL00:22:29The governor where ... But typically, it's not at the thermostat level. It's down ... Here in Virginia, they have it for ... The electric company has it at the hot water heater, and so it's just a way for them to, if there is a real power shortage, to basically slap an engine governor onto a little part of your power consumption.
Guest00:22:52What about the story about how if you own a Tesla, they can control how fast you drive from Tesla Central? Terrible.
JVL00:23:00I'm telling you, it's terrible. Do you know that ... So Teslas are jammed packed full of cameras, most of which are on the exterior. There is a Tesla camera that is pointed right down at your face while you're driving.
Guest00:23:14What is it doing? It's mapping your face so that they can deep fake you whenever they need to. They can put you into a cop video.
Vic00:23:28It's disturbing because, for example, the new Subarus ... My lease is coming up. The new Subarus, they have the camera that's watching you, so in case you doze off or you look distracted, it beeps at you so that you have to stay focused.
JVL00:23:43Yeah. I believe the Tesla camera is prime. It's probably there to give them legal cover for accidents that happen when you are using the autopilot function. Ah. Because you can do an accident and then claim Tesla. But then they get to see what they're doing when they're not driving, which is probably bad news. Well, Tesla, the car did it, and Tesla can say, "Actually, we have video." Of you. Yeah. Wow. So ... I mean, listen, Victorino, I just want to say very quickly, at the level you're at, you could prob ... So the Marine Corps Marathon is last week of October, first week of November. Mm-hmm. You could probably ... You won't be able to do this year's. Mm-mm. I don't think you'd be able to be ready for it. But if you were to start seriously training for it next year, call it March. But if you want to be safe, you know, February, I think you could totally ... That's insane. You could totally run it. You could really ... And you probably would not ... You probably would not change your running regimen all that much. Really? I don't know. It's crazy. The big thing you've got to do is you've got to do one long run a week.
Vic00:24:52Yeah.
JVL00:24:53Yeah. So you do your normal running, but then ...
Vic00:24:55Define the one long run. What is the one long run?
JVL00:24:59So much time. On Sunday or on Saturday. My complaint about running is it's such a time suck.
Vic00:25:03It's a time suck because I'm like, "Oh, I'm going to be gone for the next hour and a half."
JVL00:25:07That's a lot of time. It is a lot of time. So ...
Vic00:25:11I can see Jon's head.
JVL00:25:12He's like ...
Guest00:25:13No, no. Jonathan, are you running four to six miles? Jonathan, are you a marathon? Do you run marathons?
JVL00:25:17He did. Yeah, I've run a marathon. Wow. So during the week, you run four to six miles, like you do normally, and then on the weekend, you build. So on week one, say, your long run would be six miles. Week two, seven miles. Week three, eight miles. Week four, you winch it back. You go all the way back as a recovery. Then on the next cycle ... So what you're doing is you're doing it in four-week cycles, and you are just slowly extending the range at which your body is able to handle the longest run.
Vic00:25:52I don't want to be like those guys, though. You'll be fine. You're going to put those white squirts in your mouth. You know what I'm talking about. Jon, no. Jon's laughing. You know what I'm talking about. That stuff. I know what you're talking about. You're going to be fine. I don't need that stuff.
JVL00:26:06I don't want to ... That's too crazy now. The thing is, if you're running eight and a half miles now, it's not going to be enough for you. The bug is going to come for you sooner or later, so do it now while your body is- I know.
Vic00:26:13I know, but I mean, this is such a time suck. Okay. We'll get to this-
JVL00:26:17I'm sorry. You work at the Washington Free Beacon. You're doing okay.
Vic00:26:21JVL, what's going with you? What's going on with you?
JVL00:26:25Nothing. I want to talk about the show, or that I read this movie, because I feel like we have a lot to talk about.
Vic00:26:31Do you want ... Okay. Do you want me to ... Let me do my fake transition. Let me do my transition then. Okay. Which is, I was going to talk about going to a diner for Father's Day, and the kids came with us. We had a whole family on Father's Day go up on Sunday morning. I made the family go to church on Saturday night, just to make sure that we got a table at Bob and Edith's on Lee Highway.
Guest00:26:58We did, which- Oh, Bob and Edith's is still there?
Vic00:27:00Yeah. Bob and Edith's, they have a new location. They have a new location around the corner, so we went there. I had ... It was great. I had a special called The Breakfast Sampler, which is- Scrapple?
Guest00:27:14Is there scrapple?
Vic00:27:15I had the scrapple, Jon. You did. I had scrapple, and it was good, but the sampler itself was two eggs, two pancakes, two bacon, sausage patty, and hash browns, which is just a little taste of almost everything. But I'll tell you what's weird, because now everyone's going back to the diner, and it feels so awkward to ... When you have families standing around waiting for ... Jon, I'm sure you've been ... This happened, I think, when I was at Junior's Cheesecake in New York at the time. People, tourists are standing over your table. What are you going to get done? What do you do? What do you do?
Guest00:27:51You ignore them, and you slow down. You slow ... That's all you can do. You have to slow down.
Vic00:28:01I tried no eye contact. I said, "Don't look."
Guest00:28:03I said, "Kids, don't look at them. Don't look." Uh-huh. So, Abominas is the only place I think I ever saw, outside of Pennsylvania, I've ever seen scrapple on a menu.
Vic00:28:11I was curious, so I ordered ... It's a Philly thing.
Guest00:28:14Yeah, it is. It's a Philly thing.
Vic00:28:16In Pennsylvania, Dutch-ish. Yeah. Tails and anuses. John, really quickly, do you have a favorite diner in New York? Where do you like to go?
Guest00:28:24Honestly, it's funny because when I was growing up in Manhattan in the '70s and '80s, all of my friends, we all had a ... Sort of like New Jersey politicians, everybody had their diner. Yes. It was like this ... There was a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode where there's this whole controversy over whether or not Larry David is going to go to Jason Alexander's office or Jason Alexander is going to go to Larry David's office or something like that. It was always like, "Come to my ... No, you go to my ... You come to my diner."
JVL00:29:00Territorial.
Guest00:29:01Yeah. Yeah. My diner was the Olympia, which was a block from my house. I had friends who were at the Olympia diner. There was another ... There were various diners. Of course, there was a legendary diner also called the ... Olympia diner in New York, legendary to the three of us because it is where the conversation that incepted the Weekly Standard took place between me, Bill Kristol, and Dan Cass in October of 1994. My favorite diner is actually in Brooklyn Heights. It's a place called Clark's in Brooklyn Heights, and it is easily the best diner in the United States based on my experience. It's not a diner like it's not a train car. You know, it's a it's a New York City diner.
Vic00:29:52It's a New York City diner, like a Goodfellas diner.
Guest00:29:54Yeah, like, yeah, yeah, and you guys, of course, so great. Just the food is really good there. It's a it's a it's they have fantastic, fantastic, like friendly waitstaff. You know, it's one of those places where I went there a lot when I lived in Brooklyn Heights and I moved like 15, 16 years ago, if I walked in the door now. They would say, John, how are you? And then they would remember what I ate and then they would say, do you want the cheese omelet or not? You know, like that's one of those places. And it's it's it's great. And it's it's right near the Brooklyn courthouse. So it's a place where lawyers like where lawyers hang out while they're waiting for, you know, court and stuff like that. So it's anyway, it's a great place and I recommend it very highly. Of course, if any if you haven't seen the single greatest 21st century sketch from SNL, there is a sketch called Diner Lobster that John Mulaney wrote and starred in when he guest hosted on the show a couple of years ago, which is, you know, deals with the fact that diners have these 17 page menus. And as you may know, like there's every every dish, every dish.
Vic00:31:16Yeah. Yeah.
Guest00:31:18Yeah. You can get it anyway. So somebody orders in the sketch. Somebody orders the lobster from the diner menu. And it's actually very fitting because it turns into a full scale production number based on Les Miserables. And so if you haven't seen it, go look it up. Diner Lobster. It is. It is. People are always talking very much. We'll do the greatest.
Vic00:31:41We'll do of all sketches and the diner that you like. What is it called again? Your favorite. Clark's Clark's. And where is it?
Guest00:31:47It's in Brooklyn Heights.
Vic00:31:48Speaking of the Heights this week, we're talking about in the Heights over on HBO Max. John, normally our friend Sonny Bunch would give a movie review. I could only imagine what he would say about this. Would you like to give our listeners just a general sense of what this movie is about?
Guest00:32:07Sure. So in the Heights is about a corner in in the neighborhood of Washington Heights, which is in northern Manhattan. A neighborhood dominated by Dominicans. You know, sort of immigrants from from the Dominican Republic. And on this corner, there are three businesses. There is a bodega, a small sort of like a grocery store run by our hero Usnavi, who is a Dominican immigrant who is longing to return to the Dominican Republic, closes bodega and open a bar on the beach on the. Next to him or on the other corner is the livery cab company, the sort of private cab company run by a Puerto Rican immigrant played by Jimmy Smith, whose name I can't quite remember, who has a daughter who is the pride and joy of his family, who has gone off to Stanford. And on the other corner is a beauty salon run by probably a Mexican immigrant, though it's never quite. Specified a woman and her sidekicks, one who does nails, one who does hair. And and it's basically these three businesses. Usnavi is in love with one of the hairdressers. Nina, the daughter of the livery cab, is is in love or is loved by the livery cab company's employee, Benny, and and hijinks. Very plotless hijinks ensue over the course of a hot summer in in in Manhattan. These two love affair. There's a blackout. There's a heat wave. There's a blackout during the heat wave. And then the question and there's a lottery ticket that is sold at Usnavi's bodega that has a $96,000 payoff and nobody knows who's won, but this lottery ticket may fulfill all all of their dreams depending on who gets the lottery ticket. The plot's the worst part of of the movie. The show that it's based on Broadway musical from 2008 written by the very young Lin Manuel Miranda, who wrote the music and lyrics and came up with the storyline, though somebody else wrote the book and the plot there wasn't great either. The plot in the movie is distended and complicated and confused because they decided to add a whole subplot about dreamers and the protest about dreamers and and and and and the conflicts don't make very much sense because they moved around the whole question of who won the lottery ticket and when to later in the movie and so that is the central drama in the show and it's not really present in the movie so you don't see the movie for the plot you see it for the numbers and the performances and the photography and all of that and I adore this movie I have to confess to a rooting interest in it because its producer one of its producers is a very dear friend of mine having said that I adored it anyway he's made some other movies I haven't liked so I can tell you that I don't like everything that he that he that he produces but it is a musicals are about their number are about the numbers really great movies always have to have an involving plot that draws you in and has a conflict that you worry about the resolution of and as I say in the heights is much more like a shaggy dog story that doesn't really have a beginning or an end that much but it has five or six really fantastic production numbers all of which are you know Latin Latin inflected obviously and and and if you Sonny can't bear to see anybody dancer sing because he hates joy and fun and and only likes violence and death very fair and and and like that but you know I was thinking about this cuz of course this weekend the new Fast and Furious movie opens and these are movies I do the way Sonny says and understand musicals I genuinely I've seen six or seven of these movies I do not understand why people love this franchise at all I don't get it I don't understand why people like to see cars flying through the air because they're about family and driving on it's about family it's all about family yeah the flying cars are really a metaphor for family okay so so but but here's why I wanted to mention this because the structure of the modern action like a lot of these modern action movies the structure of them has been taken lifted directly from the American musical right they are sequence driven and there is a popping there is a production number every 10 or 12 minutes that is how and that is how a classic from Lethal Weapon on right it's like the producer Joel Silver who made Lethal Weapon called them whammy mamos like these scenes you sort of like have dialogue and stuff and stuff going on that's sort of funny where someone makes dinner and then you have some big chase scene then you have another scene or something or other where you know Mel Gibson is in his trailer thinking about killing himself and then you have another scene where cars fly through the air people chase each other or something like that that is exactly the structure of a musical a musical is a series of sequences of popping sequences that punctuate uh you know a plot or are are or emerge from the plot and then have these like wild valences and so i don't understand why sonny hates musicals if he loves these kind of movies so much because it's exactly the same structure and it's just as ridiculous that a car flies through the air lands and can continue to drive when if i if i'm driving along and i hit a pothole my car has to go into the shop for a week but if you're if you're in lethal weapon and a car flies off a bridge forty feet lands on the other side of the bridge it'll land it'll land up right flips over and then you can keep driving yeah instead of it okay so that's no less ridiculous than someone starting to sing okay wow jvl you like this show as well
JVL00:39:05didn't you you love this show so uh i mean look for for a for a filmed version of a broadway musical that is seven hours long without an intermission uh i thought it moved pretty well it didn't it didn't feel a minute over three hours and 15 minutes what did i text you remember i asked will this will this movie ever end and you said never no it never i so i have so many questions um first of which john is did you see it in the theater you know on broadway like in
Guest00:39:46the actual year did you see it back in 2008 okay oddly enough i saw it in the theater but i saw it in london years later in a weird theater in london uh with you know british actors desperately trying to do uh new york accents so um uh and i i really enjoyed it there too but much of it had a slightly community theater production feel as though you know if you were in baton rouge louisiana and you had people trying to sound like they were from you know bosnia like it's you know so not so not in the west end so okay so john i take it you were bored is what you're saying you were you and vick were
JVL00:40:28both extremely bored by in the heights i was i was bored i didn't like it i don't i mean i'm not a musical guy i don't carry the the hatred for musicals that sonny does um but a musical has to be free i mean i i can't appreciate your mendoza line musical it does not mean it has to be really good to get me and uh this didn't strike me as really good it didn't strike me as bad i mean there are a lot there are many things in it that you think to yourself oh that's kind of nice right i mean it does have a certain energy to it um things that i don't quite understand like the big swimming pool sequence which by the way going to a public pool in new york city is my vision of hell i i don't even like going to the little tiny swimming pool at at our beach house if there if there are two other people in it right i don't like being in that you're not going there right for the beach yeah uh yeah honestly at the beach if there are people in the ocean with me at
Vic00:41:39the same time i'm a little yeah you know like if they're closer than 50 yards i'm a little
JVL00:41:46like yeah but uh right so that sequence right and so we get the big the busby berkeley thing right but the you know the editing of it is cut so quickly that i feel like we never really get to see the choreography because we're moving on the next thing so quickly so here's the i have many many questions for you john but one of which is this my single biggest takeaway for this is that and the world of art dodged a bullet by having hamilton released as a stage production to video rather than as a movie a movie-fied version of the stage production because the the original cast disney plus version of hamilton which came out is i don't know the single greatest thing ever made absolutely the top i i would say the best musical ever made but john you would probably call it like top two right and i worry that had that been turned into a filmed theatrical version like the the way the hugh jackman les mis was or something like that uh it would have been it would have been absolutely butchered as an experience um so i wonder if this is all of which is to get at is that is that the case here would we have been better off with an original cast version of
Guest00:43:16this where the film is the stage production of it probably not um i mean again i think that they they got this idea that they needed to make this so in 2008 the story of in the heights is uh here are all these immigrants uh and they're all and they all have a dream and uh one of them dreams of going back to the republic one of them dreams of his daughter star at stanford one of them dreams of um opening a nicer hair salon and they don't need that much money uh to do this or what we would consider a lot of money it's ninety six thousand dollars and who's gonna get it and whose dream is gonna be fulfilled and the central thing and this is both true of the movie and the show um just as is true of hamilton and one of the reasons that the political controversy that has arisen from the heights is so interesting to me and so horrifying is that the story is usnavi our hero who is literally named for the u.s. navy his his father sees a ship as he is coming into new york harbor that says u.s. navy and he names his son usnavi u.s. navy he's a neocon he was right he wants projection right he wants to go back to the island that he grew up he grew up in the dominican republic he was eight when he comes to to new york he wants to go back his father has died he wants to go back to his home and the whole story of in the heights is about usnavi realizing that he lives on an island that the island is manhattan and that manhattan is his home and manhattan is also the home of this puerto rican family that has come from puerto rico and these women who work in the beauty salon they are all spanish-speaking latino hispanic whatever you want to call them and this is latinx john the term we use on this show is latinx okay fine latinx um and the whole story is this is their home america is their home new york is their home and america is their home and in the big number the great number in the movie too carnival del barrio where it's a heat wave and everyone's like lolling around in the street and the woman who runs the beauty salon says what's the matter with all you people let's all dance and sing like let's have a let you know let's have a carnival here because uh since when are latins are for since when are latin people afraid of heat and everybody takes out a flag like different nationalities the puerto ricanos take out the puerto rican flag the mexicans take a maximum flight the americans take out a dominican flight the cubans have a flag and they all dance and they sing and they do this whole thing and one of them says um i'm my father's from pr my mother's from chile and the dominican republic which means i'm puerto i get puerto chileno eurekan but i just say i'm from queens this whole movie just like hamilton is an immigrant is an american is a up with people optimistic story about people finding their way in america the land of the free and the home of the brave just as hamilton which is lynn manuel miranda's masterpiece and is probably the greatest work of american popular art certainly of the 21st century so far is a story about how america the story of america is everyone's story that's why it's done in rap hamilton is a puerto rican hamilton is puerto rican like lynn manuel miranda george washington is black aaron burr is black the schuyler sisters are black and latino there's a reason for that and it's not just to be cutesy or multicultural it is this is our story this is everyone's story this is the american story and this is so out of phase with our black lives matter identity politics 1619 project america is evil culture that this movie comes out and what is the attack on it the attack on it is that it it makes invisible afro latinos that is to say people with dark skin from from spanish-speaking countries and they're made invisible in the movie because they didn't cast an afro latino in one of the leading roles um so we're now taking a movie that is a celebration of latino culture most the most broad most broadly speaking dominican puerto rican chilean mexican and it's not good enough it's it's not sliced and diced enough it's not colored enough it's not enough because nothing could ever be enough right that's right and so i feel very defensive of it simply because this guy is fantastic this guy libya miranda is 41 years old you know he's the son of a new york city political consultant he goes to wesleyan he writes a musical he gets it on broadway he then writes this just astounding masterpiece of a thing it's on broadway it's the greatest thing ever everybody loves nobody doesn't love it he's got a delightful personality he's a charming person he makes a celebration and salute to his neighborhood to his culture to his american melting pot culture and what happens when this movie is made and comes out he gets crapped on he he is the he is the greatest ambassador of the idea that latinos are fully american who has ever lived and his own people or these people crap on him and it just makes me so angry that i can't even stand it and he apologized too well you know because like what are you supposed what he said was i'm learning i'm learning i'm learning i'm learning rita moreno who is who was the first puerto rican you know won an oscar for west side story and we're gonna produce a documentary about her she goes on stephen colbert and she says she's eighty nine years old and she says lay off he's the greatest thing that's ever happened to us what is the matter with all you people nobody is ever satisfied with anything she says yeah there you go and then and then sixteen hours later she's like i've never been more ashamed of myself oh i i understand that people are we're made to feel invisible and that's terrible it's a terrible thing and it's just so awful why the education is quick right why did she do that okay i'm just quickly explaining why she did that she's in the new version of west side story that steven spielberg is made which is coming out in december and she is also an executive producer of west side story and spielberg said to her you better get out there and apologize we can't have any controversy regarding this because i want to win an oscar for this movie which by the way is never going to happen you want to know why let's talk about west side story again one of the great one of the great things ever right one of the or one an oscar is a movie in 1961 one of the greatest american stage musicals movies kind of overdone and overripe here's the story of the movie here's the story of west side story book arthur lawrence jew lyrics steven sondheim jew music leonard bernstein jew written conceived choreographed and directed by leonard by jerome robbins jew screen new director steven spielberg jew screenwriter of the new movie tony kushner jew okay there is no way that this thing is going to win any awards because it is an act of cultural appropriation the fixes in by the colonialist monsters who are oppressing the palestinians so she shouldn't have apologized because it's not going to help there there is no escape there is no way out the jews have stolen the puerto rican story in west side story and they will be punished
JVL00:52:22you mark my words the guys on 4chan are going to love this episode and that's all the time we're sorry so victorina i want to get your your yes i want to ask you
Vic00:52:33about your opinions but and i have questions for john too but go ahead oh my opinions well okay
JVL00:52:39so the quadrant hold on one yeah give me a second here because there were two dueling pieces about about in the heights which really sort of made my head spin the first was the review in the new york times which i think did a pretty good job of enumerating all of the problems with with the film sort of qua film and then basically said but you have to like it if you don't like it you're a bad person and at the same time the new yorker has a piece about it which basically admits that they like the movie but then says that you can't like it because if you like it you're a bad person because of all the eraser stuff and there's this weird thing on the where does sunny where does
Guest00:53:25sunny fit fit into this that's a good question into this calculation i don't know but there's
JVL00:53:30this okay in the cultural left where but it's everything is is meta like you know like nobody's engaging with the work itself qua work it's all about how what sort of whether you're a good person or a bad person yeah that's right and it's it's there i i
Vic00:53:45that's why we're here you said i didn't love i that's why we're here to give the actual the
JVL00:53:49actual take so sunny what did you what did you what did you think okay uh because you you like
Vic00:53:56musicals i do like musicals john i've seen musicals you know but it's you know it's very easy to take the the new jersey transit bus to the city to white tkts yes so and john what did
JVL00:54:09you as growing up what did you how did you think about the people like the mattis family who would stand on line at the tkts
Guest00:54:15did you guys look down on them i stood in that line how do you think i went to the theater
JVL00:54:22oh i thought it was only the bridge and tunnel people who did that god no like my aunt was my
Vic00:54:28aunt would do it she preferred it that way because then then you don't then it's very exciting because you don't know what you're gonna see yeah until you get a ticket no great news we're going to broadway oh bad news it's starlight express you know i hope you like roller skates
Guest00:54:45when they introduced tkts when i was i don't know 11 or 12 years old it was that was how you went to the theater i don't know i i you know my parent i went by myself mostly or with friend like my parents didn't buy full price tickets yeah and now i think about the full price ticket was like i'm not gonna pay twelve dollars for century what are you crazy to see 42nd street or twelve dollars that's i mean that's absurd you know it's like
Vic00:55:15you know you you know it's anyway it's hilarious so uh so what did i think about it okay so i gave the plot a b plus it's understandable but what is i really want to know what the plot is because is is it the blackout is it the lottery ticket or is it is it is it like the there's a whole i'm moving out feel isn't it it's like billy joel's i'm moving out twilight i'm moving out okay he's getting out of there but is he really getting out okay duration as you know gets an f uh violence action is na right there's an a
JVL00:55:45to this one okay however well no victorino you should on the violence and action scale you should be rating like the song and dance numbers all right had i known right so i'll
Vic00:55:56have to rate that as action well so what did you think did you like did you like that i let okay did i like the numbers because i didn't i did i was left mostly cold by it no i'd say i'd say b plus b plus i really like the 96 000 number in the pool although i agree there could have been i would have preferred more there was a lot of quick cuts and so i can't really appreciate it but i still liked it sex nudity i'll give this a c why not an f because i really like that melissa barrera in the 96 000 scene in the bikini she's great i just found out this fourth of july she turns 31 so there's the bad news anyway um okay so but okay but i what i didn't like about the beat me over the head with these things because of course they didn't um when it was on broadway about how great america is no no no no so the whole thing about like the dreamers thing that wasn't in the original they had to stick no there were no dreamers right there was no and then the other thing that really bothered me was the whole stanford line you know about stanford being racist and i i like to think to myself as who were the racists in the dorm were they japanese chinese or korean that's what i want to know who's being racist thank you john to her because that's all there is i've been to stanford you know and uh that's pretty but i just can't and i wondered did lin-manuel miranda have something personal was there some sort of personal
Guest00:57:25what's the animus okay he did not write the screenplay oh oh okay kiera alegria hudes wrote the screenplay a 2012 pulitzer prize winner for a play so terrible that i can't even remember the name of it and she is the one who came up with this idiotic dreamer plot that makes no sense whatsoever yeah because the lottery ticket money is eventually used to pay for a lawyer who is going to help usnavi oh that cousin or nephew cousin yeah pay for by the way how did you guys like all mark for one semester thank you mark anthony uh cameo that was right the drunken uncle that was frightening so mark anthony has turned into a 50 year
Vic00:58:15old tattooed anorexic yeah he is the skin he's like 90 he's like 90 pounds he's 90 pounds i have
Guest00:58:22i mean it was hard when i realized that it was mark anthony i thought that you know like this should this should be a scene in a horror movie like what no it was shocking what happened to
Vic00:58:37mark anthony it was soaking and maybe he did it i think he did it for the role i think i don't
Guest00:58:41think that's how he i think no then i looked him up and he's been looking like this for
Vic00:58:45years it's like the guy i don't know maybe like a captain america on him i need his plan i need
Guest00:58:51his diet plan is what i'm saying because i don't think he's eaten since since 2003 since you know
Vic00:58:59whatever that whatever his hits were yeah so i so the numbers i did like uh mostly but it was way too long i thought and so it's like okay when is this thing going to end um did you have the opening uh i felt like it was out of a commercial like a crown royal commercial of course that's anthony ramos does the crown royal commercial which he's coming out of walking down the street did you think john did you didn't this remind you was this is this basically a dominican saturday night fever
Guest00:59:29is that what's happening here because you see him walking down the street to the um yeah and
Vic00:59:35at least for the girl uh she you know for for melissa barrera's character um she wants to get to downtown right she wants that whole other a new you know a new life in midtown and and whatnot you know he wants to escape yeah she
Guest00:59:51wants to be a fashion designer yeah so as i said the plot is not the is not you don't you don't see this for the plot you mostly don't see most musicals for the plot but um look if you don't like the numbers you're not going to like the movie so if you're sunny and you don't like any numbers you're not going to like the movie and look the truth is people are not interested in it didn't do well at the box office uh indications are people aren't watching on a on hbo max and um that that's interesting because they gave it a rib they they gave it a the good college try they spent a lot of money on promotion on marketing yeah and they you know and they wanted it to be like the movie that made you want to go back into the theaters and it turned out that people didn't really want to see it you know they wanted to see a quiet place yeah probably want to see
Vic01:00:45fast nine people didn't want to see this people were complaining that one of the problems is the the the name of the movie or musical is too vague do you think that was a problem do you think when they signed the heights they might have thought it was crown heights oh god i don't think they've heard that i don't think they've heard of yes no i i don't think victorino yeah no jackson heights
Guest01:01:07seaside heights i don't know it's a i don't know the title's never there's no such thing as a i mean there are some bad titles like there was a movie in the 70s called the fish that saved pittsburgh that's a bad title right it was i would see that it was about a basket it's literally a basketball team that starts planning its schedule based on the astro s based on astrological signs and starts winning that's a bad title that's a bad night the fish in the heights is not a bad title it's it's not like you know i mean is west side story a good title it could be the worst it's the most generic title ever it's just you know people right like west side story so they don't mind the title i don't think titles really matter all that much
Vic01:01:51i have i do have i do have a couple other questions jvm if you don't mind may i ask john these questions okay john question are dry cleaners really that expensive
Guest01:02:02nine dollars a shirt what yes no that was a it was not not it wasn't even a shirt it was like a pillowcase or a napkin or something like that i would say no i don't think dry cleaners are that expensive this was again a weird effort to shoehorn in a gentrification plot to politicize this and that was really uh unnecessary because also the notion that the neighborhood is being destroyed because the livery cab company is being driven out of business by a dry cleaner like it's one thing if it were being driven out of business by a walmart or something like that you know a high-end dry cleaner environment yeah or like an expensive restaurant you know but like a dry cleaner really that's like that's like a lower rent business and all right then running a livery cab company all right now
Vic01:02:55i know we're uh hitting the wall as they say so uh really quickly where blackout is a big
Guest01:03:02thing in new york city yes question has not been a blackout since 2003 question question where were you in the blackout of 77 oh boy you know this story right yeah but keep it short you gotta keep i was standing in front of my apartment building on 105th and broadway with a baseball bat with i was uh 16 years old and i and uh about 12 other guys who lived in my building stood in front on the corner with baseball bats while looters destroyed
JVL01:03:34these stores across the street you were standing next to john you like the hells no the hells angels right did you have the the little red red berets i was terrified he was next he
Guest01:03:45was him and curtis yes it was me and curtis that's right it was me and the future new york mayor chris lewa yes exactly no it was me and art weinstein the real estate lawyer that's the only other guy i remember being there was art weinstein so you know we were a phalanx we were the you held your ground we we we held our but people did not did not come to our corner they stayed on the other side of the street and lastly do you have
Vic01:04:14any memory of the uh the big the big black out of sixty five i do what what's the one memory you have what's
Guest01:04:20the one memory you have memory i have is that my sister naomi went into uh went into a bedroom and made out with our friend dan jacobson's son julian naomi was like 14 and julian was 14 and they took advantage of the blackout to go and have a makeout session in in in another room while we were all crowded into the dining room with a candle thank you thank you on
Vic01:04:45jvl do you have any other thoughts i can't believe we're at a hour four here no i this
JVL01:04:50has been the best uh you know i i will say one the one thing that occurred to me while watching it it hit me one of the reasons that i don't like filmed musicals and it's this weird fourth wall thing you know you're watching uh you're watching a filmed production like this and the actors are kind of not only are they singing and dancing which is weird and not something that happens in life but they're staring right at you they're looking right into the camera while they're doing and that makes sense when it is live because they are performing for when it's like it's just weird it's it's literally breaking the fourth wall
Guest01:05:29in ways that that i find off-putting really really great musicals do not have that like that is actually one of the when you have a genuinely great musical director like stanley donnan who directed these movies with gene kelly right people say these movies were directed by gene kelly and stanley donnan stanley donnan directed them in my view because gene kelly when he wasn't with stanley donnan made awful awful movies and stanley donnan made good movies when he wasn't with gene kelly but they made singing in the rain and on the town and anchors away and uh and it's always fair weather and uh donnan made uh seven brides for seven brothers and stuff like that and they always found a way to break focus like it was all that the whole thing about dance numbers was they're not like looking at the screen they're looking at the screen off into space but somehow they always looked a little off off center and so it didn't have that weird effect that's like why are you looking at me right stop looking which in the heights has constantly yeah constantly anyway so that's an interesting it's an interesting object all i'm saying is you suspend disbelief all the time in the course but i i look i understand why it's weird to watch people start singing and dancing uh and and and how and how that can be that can be disturbing i i just i just it's you know and so every as everyone has their own tastes and pleasures um musicals are next to westerns are the oldest form of talking picture and uh more musicals have won uh best picture oscars than any other form uh and and more musicals have made more money than most other forms until the comic book movies came out this idea that they're like a weird minority taste that only certain strange people have is belied by every statistic we know they are beloved they have always been beloved um you know chicago made 200 million dollars sad music is the third most successful movie ever made oliver made a made a trillion dollars um you know mgm became the number one studio in the world for 20 years largely built on the backs of musicals and so it's a it's what i'm saying is i'm
Vic01:07:59insulting sunny bunch that's what that's what i'm only he listened to podcasts he would take a sense at this he'll never okay i i yes so vic before yeah i would just i would
JVL01:08:10just say this what john said was exactly right everything is just do you like the numbers right and if the numbers are great then you like it if they are then i think that 20 years from now the only thing that will be of interest concerning in the heights is looking at the ways in which it is the immature work where there are seeds of hamilton that you can see
Guest01:08:34planted in it and by the way you made a very important point about hamilton in the stage show taping which by the way was a secret you know nobody knew
?01:08:44you made a very important point about hamilton in the stage show taping which by the way was a secret you know nobody knew you made a very important point about hamilton in the stage show taping which by the way was a secret you know nobody knew you made a very important point about hamilton in the stage show taping which by the way was a secret you know nobody knew
Guest01:08:44you made a very important point about hamilton in the stage show taping which by the way was a secret you know nobody knew i did not know that no one knew that this had been done there was this announcement in 2019 that disney had bought hamilton and was going to show it at thanksgiving 20 was going to release it at thanksgiving 2020 because secretly in 2016 over three nights they had filmed it in the theater and this was kept a total secret it's a fascinating story uh i don't know why they kept it a secret and they sold it to disney for 75 million dollars this three night deals since marvel videotape right and it was and you're right that it is an untranslatable experience to film the first musical that i ever saw not to bore everybody though very connected to this was 1776 which was a show in the 1960s about the writing of the deck about the weeks leading up to the writing of the deck and signing of the declaration of independence it's a very strange show it's a show in which uh there are the last there are no songs for about half an hour and there are two women in it they're kind of shoehorned in mostly it's men mostly it's Adam Adams and Ben Franklin and it's mostly about whether what what is going to be done about slavery um I was seven years old when I saw it it is a spectacular piece of theater I've seen it three times since in the theater it's a it's an incredibly powerful show and it concludes with the signing of the declaration of independence and as they're signing it a scrim drops showing the declaration you know about like see-through while this while the clock that has the Liberty Bell in it is ringing you know starts chiming 12. and it is a knockout moment and there is a film version of it directed by the guy who directed on Broadway starring the Broadway cast that was filmed in Philadelphia and is a full movie version of it and it is awful it's incredibly faithful and it's terrible because what is great about something theatrical is that it's theatrical and being theatrical is not good in the movies the movies operate in a different realm and so you're exactly right and I hope they never it's not going to happen assuming that there will ever be movies again at some point somebody will make a movie out of Hamilton if there are movies that still get made uh and that will be bad it will be really bad on that note
Vic01:11:41that has to be all the time we're giving to this episode questions comments compliments tweet us uh at Sonny Bunch at Victorino Matus at Jay Podhortz yes but I do not I I do not oh right
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?01:12:07you
Vic01:12:11um that is a very interesting um revelation you had John about uh the connection between musicals and action movies that they're just interspersed with plot and then scenes that go pop I mean I
Guest01:12:32wrote a piece about this one of the you know I've got it got at some point in the standard I wrote this thing about how action would like like singing in the rain which is the best musical movie musical ever made by you know a factor of 10,000 right uh and every everybody agrees with this has this sort of center section about 25 minutes where there are like five production numbers in a row and by the time the thing is over you're you're about to collect it's yeah it's like it's like you can't take it it's so it's like it's insanely intense uh all this stuff is sort of uh packed in um and and uh and and it's very much like a James Cameron it's like right if there's too much if there's too much then it becomes no but it's like teaching it's like that center section of terminator 2 where it's just like relentless it just never stops you know it's like every scene tops the last scene and you're like how is this
Vic01:13:35you know but you know what i was i was just thinking though is you know what else it applies to action movies musicals and actions but pornos as well it's just sort of i knew you were gonna
Guest01:13:45say that i'm sure which kind which which guy i mean because i if if they're okay if they're like if they're if they're if they have a particular focus oh yeah well you know but i mean there's
Vic01:13:58like in between with plot i've just said dude there's a little plot and then there's more action but they move they move around jvl i'm sure it's fine
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