Is the Real ‘Wicked’ Movie the Press Tour?
Update: 2024-12-07
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A conversation about the musical’s transfer from stage to screen, and the lead actresses who are bringing new narratives to their roles. Guest: Joe CoscarelliUnlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything
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00:00:00
What does beauty have to do with sports, or advanced technology, or the economy?
00:00:06
I am Isabella Rosillini, and in each episode of "This Is Not A Beauty Podcast," I uncover stories that explain beauty's fascinating and often hidden role in modern life.
00:00:20
Listen to "This Is Not A Beauty Podcast" now on your favorite podcast platform, brought to you by L'Oreal Group.
00:00:30
Before we get into this week's episode on Wicked, John and I just wanted to plug a very special live event in the podcast universe Sunday, December 15th.
00:00:39
He and I are going to be at SOBs in Manhattan, starting at 6 p.m., we're going to record a live episode counting down our 10 best music moments of 2024.
00:00:48
We're going to take some audience questions.
00:00:50
We're going to hang out after, maybe listen to some music, drink, share, and holiday cheer.
00:00:55
It's Sunday, December 15th, doors at 6 p.m., 21 plus at SOBs in Manhattan.
00:01:01
You can RSVP at tinyurl.com/popcastlive, it's free.
00:01:06
First come for a serve, coming out with us at SOBs.
00:01:15
Welcome to "The New York Times" popcast, you're good to see me.
00:01:19
I'm using music and criticism, I'm John Caramonica, pop music critic at "The New York Times," from Joe Cuscarelli, pop music reporter at "The New York Times."
00:01:36
What is the biggest deal in pop music this week?
00:01:40
It's not chroma copia, sorry, it is Wicked, actually last week, but also this week, probably next week too.
00:01:49
So Wicked is a movie based on a Broadway production, based on a novel, based on IP, it's IP,
00:02:00
it's IP, yes, that is true, it's a hot IP winter, okay, so I would like to start with some news, I saw like it,
00:02:10
cool, at your request, at the scene for me, I say at your demand, yes, yeah, literally, you don't ask, look, we've known each other a long time,
00:02:21
I like to think that we're close, you don't ask a lot of me, not generally, you insisted candidly that I see this film.
00:02:30
I think that it is music news and criticism requires criticism.
00:02:37
I think it's one of the pop culture events of the year, undoubtedly, that it is.
00:02:43
I think it could be winning Best Picture at the Academy Awards in not that long.
00:02:54
Can I read you a quote from Hollywood reporter story called How Wicked Could Shock Everyone and Win Best Picture?
00:03:06
I think you just did read me the quote from an anonymous voter says quote, if your vote for president didn't count, you're going to make it count for Wicked, so, you know, this movie is about fascism,
00:03:17
propaganda, of course, absolutely, evil, your, your, your enemy, I mean, your friends are actually your ops, and your ops are actually your friends, yeah, and also like what happens if your ops are not fragile,
00:03:29
unlike last week, we're all ops are fragile, what if your ops are not fragile, that's actually the underlying thing.
00:03:36
We're going to get to a lot of questions about Wicked and the rollout of Wicked, the appearance of Ariana Grande, in Wicked, out side of Wicked Ariana Grande,
00:03:46
be Tara, yes, credited, like Chris Luder, Chris Bridges, exactly, but okay, sure, well, you know, in terms of yes,
00:03:56
going full name for the big screen, yes, I do not look, I do not pretend to know which version of Ariana Grande's name is on her birth certificate or her driver's license or her home mortgages.
00:04:10
I don't know.
00:04:11
I just know that at the end credits, it did say Ariana Grande hyphen be true.
00:04:17
The first question that I have for you though, John, and I want to get into where and how, and we talked about the why, I like the whole, but I'd like to be the whole episode to be you asking me questions about this,
00:04:30
okay, got what is Wicked about, John, I know the answer to that question, Wicked is about two actresses in their thirties,
00:04:41
early and later, who have a public facing intimate friendship that is driven through with competitive energy,
00:04:55
both being masked, either by an excess of performed care or an excess of kind of moral righteousness.
00:05:07
And it is about how those two people are forming a bond that is meant to be consumed as loving and intimate, but in actuality is being consumed as parodic.
00:05:21
It's kind of a rom-com without the rom.
00:05:26
That's what Wicked is about.
00:05:28
There is also a movie underneath all that, but I believe to dare I say more people than we'll see the movie, that is what Wicked is about.
00:05:41
Our listeners can't see us right now, but I'm cradling your pointer finger in my fingers.
00:05:48
Oh, now that you just did that, how did they survive that?
00:05:55
How did they survive that?
00:05:57
That's what we, I'm sorry, that is what Wicked is about.
00:05:59
I have an entire notebook in my head about the press tour, a lot of people have gone to it, bits and pieces, still think there's more to say.
00:06:09
You're going to say it, and then it's just going to end up somewhere else.
00:06:15
That to me is actually, what Wicked is about is finding a way to aggregate enough people's attention via the metadrama of this incredibly unusual press tour to hopefully fill up theater seats,
00:06:34
which at least this weekend were very full.
00:06:38
I mean, they will continue to be full.
00:06:39
So when I saw it, which is on a daytime afternoon, weekday, not full, okay, not full, okay.
00:06:49
So you had the freedom to sing along?
00:06:52
Yes, yes, I did.
00:06:55
You took pictures of the screen.
00:06:57
First of all, I held space, which is to say I held the entire row because there was nobody else in my row.
00:07:02
That's where the lyrics for defying gravity sat to your left and to your right.
00:07:07
Really?
00:07:09
I've been tattooing them up my right forearm and down my left forearm.
00:07:12
Okay, so that to me is what Wicked is about.
00:07:16
What do you think Wicked is about?
00:07:17
Well, you also didn't know.
00:07:20
So the last time we talked about Wicked on the show, other than me forcing you to go see it at the end of the last episode.
00:07:27
And again, I, we should underscore for the people.
00:07:30
We came in today ice cold.
00:07:31
Actually we do some prep in terms of exchanging like, what are the big talk points?
00:07:37
I have been pointedly opaque, not said anything about what I thought about the film, the film viewing experience, the meta experience.
00:07:46
I've just, I'm just a guy who bought a ticket to a movie and saw that movie and then watched everything that came with it.
00:07:53
And I showed up today.
00:07:54
Okay, when you walked into the movie theater, did you know that Wicked was?
00:08:01
An alternative telling of the Wizard of Oz.
00:08:06
No.
00:08:07
When you sat down in your seat because, yes, I was saying last time we talked about this was March 2024, when Arianna Grande put out an album,
00:08:18
you chair.
00:08:19
She put out an album this year, do you remember that?
00:08:21
It did not make my year an album's list.
00:08:23
Right, sorry.
00:08:24
Eternal Sunshine.
00:08:25
Yes.
00:08:26
Okay, album.
00:08:27
Fine, a fine album, not a grid, not a peak Arianna Grande album.
00:08:30
She let it die on the vine in part because she had something to look forward to the sacrifice.
00:08:37
Yes.
00:08:38
Yes.
00:08:39
It was a sacrifice at the altar of Wicked.
00:08:41
That's how I feel about certain episodes of pop cast.
00:08:44
Haha.
00:08:45
Just sacrifice it because we know something incredible is coming around the corner.
00:08:49
Yeah.
00:08:50
Yeah.
00:08:51
So you didn't realize that Wicked was about the Wicked Witch of the West.
00:08:57
I will say it had been lightly mapped out to me by someone in advance.
00:09:05
But even that map didn't have a lot of detail.
00:09:08
And candidly, when was the last time that I watched or thought about the Wizard of Oz?
00:09:13
I was going to ask in some interviews maybe, I have no context whatsoever.
00:09:19
And because of that, I probably found certain things in this film genuinely surprising that a more informed film goer would have been like, duh.
00:09:28
Right.
00:09:29
So like the bit where Jeff Columbum as the Wizard was like, I'm trying to figure out what color to make the bricks and on this on this road up to my castle.
00:09:40
And you were like, yeah, what color should they be?
00:09:44
That's true.
00:09:45
I mean, as someone who's invested in home design, you know, someone who did you like the red?
00:09:50
I thought the red was a little much.
00:09:51
And just saying, I wouldn't buy it on live auctioneers if it came up, but like I understand where they were going with it.
00:09:57
So 1939, Wizard of Oz means nothing to you in your heart or your soul or your brain.
00:10:03
No, no, no, no, not at all.
00:10:05
And also, but now, obviously, that I know that this film is about creeping fascism could be made in the present day.
00:10:14
In fact, it was made in the present day, isn't that quite something?
00:10:18
No, I have no, no, I have no context and I, and I, we should just say right now, if you are a Wickedologist, a Stan, an academic perhaps doing a PhD in Wicked Demi,
00:10:30
maybe as they would say in the film, a Wickedology, Wicked Doomy, Wicked Doomy knew this may not be the, the take for you, right?
00:10:38
But I came to it by I think coming to it cold, allowed me a maybe potentially a purity of film going experience that almost nobody else who's seeing this film at.
00:10:49
So you have not seen the stage show.
00:10:51
Do you have not?
00:10:52
I have not.
00:10:53
Okay, I saw it many years ago.
00:10:54
Okay, I was going to say one.
00:10:56
I think probably I was in high school or college like you like you're like you came up to New York.
00:11:02
Uh, maybe I was living here and I had family coming to town and they wanted to see a show.
00:11:07
I just wasn't sure if it was a regional theater.
00:11:08
No, no, I saw it on Broadway.
00:11:09
Okay.
00:11:10
New York City.
00:11:11
Yeah, the Universal Studios name drag Broadway, yeah, I saw it.
00:11:17
I saw it in its full form.
00:11:20
Yeah.
00:11:21
Okay.
00:11:22
Don't remember who was in it.
00:11:23
Probably not Kristen Chenoweth and Adina Menza, okay, who make these roles their own.
00:11:28
I've heard.
00:11:29
I'm sorry.
00:11:30
We hear that.
00:11:31
That's Glinda.
00:11:32
The Good Witch.
00:11:33
Uh, Elphaba.
00:11:34
Elphaba.
00:11:35
The Wicked Witch.
00:11:36
I mean, yes, although, although no, right.
00:11:41
That's my main, my main thing was like, oh, everybody's been lying.
00:11:46
Yeah.
00:11:47
So, but only in this retail.
00:11:48
Okay.
00:11:49
So you sit down.
00:11:50
Is this not an accurate, and this is not actually accurate.
00:11:53
You sit down, you're flying over Oz.
00:11:55
You get a glimpse of our heroes from the 1939 film You See Dorothy and the scarecrow on the tin.
00:12:02
You know, right?
00:12:03
Yeah.
00:12:04
Like, sure.
00:12:05
You still have no idea what's, what's to come.
00:12:08
You never heard Define Gravity until the final moments of this.
00:12:12
I have heard that.
00:12:13
I've heard the, the snippet.
00:12:15
You've heard the riff.
00:12:16
I've heard the riff.
00:12:17
Like in the target commercial.
00:12:18
If you say so.
00:12:19
I've heard the riff, but I couldn't tell you where I don't know.
00:12:22
I was surprised to know that in some small part Define Gravity is literal in that there is flight.
00:12:29
I did not totally understand that.
00:12:31
So you also know that this is part one.
00:12:34
Well, I gathered that.
00:12:37
Because here's my, because I mean, I still like living in the part where I'm pretending that I don't have a thoughtful assessment of this film.
00:12:44
Yeah.
00:12:45
We're just having to briefly have a thoughtful assessment of this film is what, considering how much labor clearly went into this film, what an astonishingly slight piece of filmmaking this was,
00:12:58
barely any characters, elementary school dialogue, acting fine to very good sort of most of it, but narratively,
00:13:08
intercharacter wise, actually extremely slight.
00:13:13
And for two hours and 40 minutes, I feel like six things happened, maybe, and most of them were in the last 15.
00:13:22
And so is a tremendous amount of exposition, which had the rare effect of making me walk out of a movie and be like, damn, I really need to see the next part.
00:13:31
Well, yes, literally what did I just sit so act one, what you sat through was two hours and 41 minutes of act one, defying gravity and the first act of wicked as far as I understand.
00:13:44
The other thing we should say, which is glaringly obvious to anybody who's made it as far into the podcast, neither one of us are musical theater guys.
00:13:53
We're not fans, my opinion matter.
00:13:58
I agree.
00:13:59
And I wanted to say specifically that I think this movie is so big, Ariana Grande exists in many spaces, including the hyphenated surnames, right.
00:14:10
And the one that we take most seriously in popular music.
00:14:14
And I think our opinions on this film, despite not being, I'll say, but not being weighed down by law and bringing seem like they are valid.
00:14:26
They are valid.
00:14:27
Wow.
00:14:28
It's a person and I feel you matter and I have feeling you matter and I can share that you do, you know, et cetera, et cetera.
00:14:36
So you like this movie?
00:14:39
Someone texted me yesterday to ask what I thought and I said, I was not unmoved and I'll elaborate on that a little bit once the film kind of pivoted into the discussion of creeping fascism.
00:14:58
And the animal, I have to say, the animal rights fall line had totally slipped my mind since last time.
00:15:06
Is that true?
00:15:07
Yeah.
00:15:08
Everything.
00:15:09
Everything.
00:15:10
No songs.
00:15:11
I was going to ask.
00:15:12
There's new songs.
00:15:13
No, no, no.
00:15:14
Everything is totally fake.
00:15:15
They will not have a best original song.
00:15:16
There was a goat voiced by Peter Dinklage on the Broadway production.
00:15:21
I don't.
00:15:22
The casting is different.
00:15:23
Okay.
00:15:24
The goat voiced by someone else on Broadway.
00:15:27
I'm under.
00:15:28
I'm under the impression that the rights of the talking animals being stripped from them by the government of Oz is the sea plot of a stage musical.
00:15:42
Okay.
00:15:43
Probably the book before it.
00:15:45
Sure.
00:15:46
Okay.
00:15:47
Once that plot got into motion and Elfabuzz identification.
00:15:52
I played by Cynthia Rivo.
00:15:55
We have not named.
00:15:56
Even though we have said Arianna.
00:15:58
I got multiple times.
00:15:59
Arianna, what?
00:16:00
Beatera.
00:16:01
Once Elfabuzz found ideological kin with the oppressed class of animals.
00:16:09
And that in turn inspired a kind of awakening, probably a second awakening in this film in her.
00:16:18
That's when I started to allow myself to be invested.
00:16:22
And yes, I think as pure sort of like broad spectrum, like we picked you up and we carried you from one place to the next.
00:16:33
It was effective.
00:16:34
Movie magic.
00:16:35
Sure.
00:16:36
Yeah.
00:16:37
Movie bulldozers.
00:16:38
I don't know about magic, but movie bulldozers.
00:16:43
It did the thing that it intends to do, which is makes you sympathetic to this person who has been deemed an outcast and reinforced, reinforced over and over and over again that she's an outcast,
00:16:55
let you see the talent and beauty and power within that person.
00:16:59
And then suggests that that power and beauty is actually so powerful and so overwhelming that that contemporary society cannot hold,
00:17:09
sustain, nurture or encourage it.
00:17:13
And then that person's only option is to disappear and fly away.
00:17:18
Yes.
00:17:19
Did I find that moving?
00:17:21
I did find that moving.
00:17:23
Did I think that the, you know, Ariana Grande Biotera as the comedic timing person and Cynthia Erivo is like by and large,
00:17:35
the emotional ballast.
00:17:37
Basically good.
00:17:38
Yeah.
00:17:39
I thought the chemistry and the dynamic between the two on screen, put in a bit better.
00:17:47
I don't know that I'd go that far, but also I found it to be an uncanny inverse of how they play against each other in real life in this press store because I don't think that Ariana is being funny at all in this press store.
00:18:01
I think she's being sincere because number one, she is one to be in wicked since she was a child as Twitter has served us over and over again.
00:18:12
And Cynthia Erivo, while maintaining this kind of like rigor of presentation, also is maybe of the two of them, the one who has a bit of self awareness about how funny it is to tiny.
00:18:25
It's lightly performed.
00:18:27
You don't think?
00:18:28
Mmm.
00:18:29
Like you disagree.
00:18:30
I think we, I think we passed the point of anybody.
00:18:34
Self-aware.
00:18:35
Yeah.
00:18:36
I mean, I'm trying to be somewhere, somewhere on like month six of this films roll out, I think they lost the, they lost whatever connection they had to something outside of a film.
00:18:51
And to be fair, they filmed both of these at the same time, so they've been living both of what?
00:18:58
Both of these films, the part two.
00:18:59
Oh, it's already shot.
00:19:00
It's already shot.
00:19:01
Okay.
00:19:02
So it's not only have they been inhabiting these characters for an extended period of time, but they will continue to inhabit the character of people who inhabited those characters for another 14 plus months,
00:19:17
basically, through the 2027 Academy Awards, I guess.
00:19:23
I do want to say that Nick, who's recording us today, said these mics are really good.
00:19:29
These are clarity, and they're really picking up, and I hope that this mic is hearing me do this.
00:19:34
Yeah.
00:19:35
Deep sigh.
00:19:36
Deep sigh.
00:19:37
Deep sigh.
00:20:04
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00:20:43
For all of Wirecutters' gift ideas and recommendations,
00:21:01
head to ny times dot com slash holiday guide.
00:21:10
See you next time.
00:21:20
Bye.
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♪ So I feel paid to find me ♪
