Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart, live from the WNYC Studios in SoHo. Thanks for spending part of your day with us. I'm really grateful you're here. On today's show, we'll speak to the producers of a new compilation album called Transa, which features artists like Sam Smith, André 3000, and Sade. Thurston Moore joins us for a listening party for his new album Flow Critical Lucidity. Screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes sits here in the studio. He's behind two of the big movies this year, Challengers and Queer. Speaking of big movies, let's get this show started.

Okay. Did you see Glicked this weekend or Wadiator? Meaning, did you do a double header of the big release weekend of 2024 Wicked and Gladiator II? Give us a call. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. Maybe you only defied gravity. We want Your review of Wicked, 212-433-9692. Or perhaps you were just entertained by men in shorts and skirts. We want your take on Gladiator II, 212-433-9692. Or maybe you're waiting to spend your money on another film. What did you see?

Are you waiting on the Oscar bait that will be out before the end of the year? You know, baby girl, a complete unknown, or Sonic the Hedgehog 3? 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. People are standing by to get you on the air. Joining us right now is Kyle Buchanan from The New York Times. Hi, Kyle.

Kyle Buchanan: Hey, Alison.

Alison Stewart: First, let's talk about the director of Wicked. We're going to do Wicked first, Jon Chu. What is he known for?

Kyle Buchanan: He's got a background in dance and musical movies. I have a soft spot for his work on the Step Up franchise, which really sort of indicated that he could do these large-scale dance numbers that are some of Wicked's biggest strengths. The funny thing is that he kind of came to the fore on Wicked over a whole lot of A-list filmmakers that have been attached to this project over the years. People have been trying to adapt this Broadway musical to the big screen for a long time.

You had people like JJ Abrams and Ryan Murphy in the mix, but off of in the Heights, Jon Chu got this and he'll also be directing part two of Wicked, which comes out next year.

Alison Stewart: All right. I found an ad that was sort of his big break from 2013. He was asked to develop a film for Virgin Airlines. I don't know if you remember this. It gave the safety instructions and it was a hoot. It featured breakdancers and rappers. Here's a taste.

[MUSIC - Todrick Hall: Virgin America Safety Video]

Yo, yo, yo

Now that you’re bopping your head to the rap scene

Now that your eyes are glued to the flat screen

If the cabin pressure’s changin’,

You know that we won’t be leavin’ you hangin’

Pull your mask down first,

Don’t worry oxygen flows

Tighten the straps after placing

On your mouth and your nose

If you’re traveling with someone,

Like a child for instance, put your mask

On first before your offer assistance

Now under your seat, there’s a life vest

First class, it’s below your center armrest

Remove the pouch, tear it open,

Place it over your head

Are we coming in clear,

Did you hear what we said

Buckle the white straps and

Tighten right around your waist

Once off the plane, pull the handles

And your vest will inflate

Alison Stewart: All right. I love that. That thing is four minutes and--

Kyle Buchanan: Alison, I saw you bopping your head to that.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] How would you describe Jon Chu's style?

Kyle Buchanan: I think it's very-- Well, look, I think typically, it's very danceful with. There's an enthusiasm to the musical numbers that he choreographs. Although it has to be said that I think a lot of the great strengths of this adaptation of Wicked are in the more silent gentle, calm-down moments. It has the virtue of starring Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba and she's giving a very controlled, human-sized performance in a movie that is very large and epic. I think a lot of other actresses would have been tempted to do something very arch.

What Jon Chu and Cynthia Erivo do here is they bring things down to a very intimate scale. I think that you feel for this character in a way that feels cinematic rather than just theatrical.

Alison Stewart: Where did he really hit with his style in Wicked and then where did maybe he miss with his style in Wicked?

Kyle Buchanan: Well, there's a really great dance number, Dancing Through Life. It's sung by Jonathan Bailey, who's playing the handsome prince in this film. There's so much going on. You've got all these incredible rotating sets in the background. You've got all of your main characters doing their thing, singing it well, dancing their hearts out. I think it's pretty phenomenal. The miss for me, and I don't know that everybody's going to care about this so much because they're going to be so swept up in the story, but it's worth noting.

If you're making a film that's essentially a revisionist prequel to the Wizard of Oz, which has some of the most striking visuals of all time, it's not just that this is a somewhat more desaturated, naturalistic take on that without the eye-popping color that you associate with Oz. It's that there isn't that one really strong visual, that thing that you're going to remember, that frame that feels epic and iconic. It has that sweep and that heft and that feel throughout, but I wouldn't have minded just that one strong idea, that one strong aesthetic image.

Alison Stewart: I wonder if that's because Jon Chu said he had to go to Washington Heights. He filmed in Washington Heights for In the Heights, but you can't really go to Oz. You have to make it up there.

Kyle Buchanan: You can't go to Oz, but that's the joy of it, right? When they made the original Wizard of Oz, I was going back and rewatching it and there are those incredible gigantic sound stages that are filled with incredible set and prop work. Certainly, Wicked has plenty of that. I wonder if it isn't just a symptom of the era that we live in, where we just expect everything to be smothered with so much CGI and so much color correction in post-production that we don't believe the reality as much as we were. Well, as much as audiences might have decades ago.

Alison Stewart: Let's take a call. Charlotte is calling in from Westchester. Hi, Charlotte, thanks for calling All Of It.

Speaker 3: Hi, Alison. So good to be on the show. I could say a lot, but I'll try to keep it short. I first saw Wicked when it first came on Broadway. I was nine years old. I'm now 32. For me, no matter what the movie was going to be, I was going to be sobbing because it was like an out-of-body experience. It brought me right back to my childhood, but I think they really did a phenomenal job. Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande just are meant to play those roles and they really brought their own spark to it. I wish it could have been one movie.

I think the fact that they split it into these two movies, I feel like it could have been tighter and it kind of took out the immediacy that a Broadway musical has where it's all in those two and a half hours, whereas now that you have to wait a year to see what happens. That would be my only critique, but otherwise, I was swept off my feet just like I was so many years ago.

Alison Stewart: Thanks so much for calling. A little girl in my theater, Kyle, she saw part one and she screamed no. She was so upset. This idea that there's going to be a part one and a part two that release next year. Historically, how do part ones and part twos do in the theaters?

Kyle Buchanan: Well, honestly, I think they really deemphasized the idea that this was a part one. You don't see that in the marketing. You won't see that except for in the title card, because some of the time, that does inhibit the audience. They say, "Well, we're not going to go now if it's not going to be the whole story." Sometimes you deemphasize that to your detriment. I remember the most recent Spider-Man: Spider-Verse movie ends on a cliffhanger that had the entire audience shouting no. They wanted to see the resolution of that story.

I would say one mark in this movie's favor is, and this surprised me going in because I thought maybe it was a very cynical approach to just split the movies in two and make more money off of it is that it feels complete. This feels like a very complete story to the point where all my questions going in about how does she become the wicked witch? How does this happen and that happened? They're pretty much answered. I'll be very curious to see how they expand on the musical's second act in the second movie to hopefully make that feel like just as complete of a film.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Kyle Buchanan. We are talking about Glicked or Wadiator. Did you see Glicked over the weekend or Wadiator? Did you do a double header or did you see one of the other either Wicked or Gladiator? Give us a call. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. You can call in and join us on air. I understand our texts aren't actually working, so if you want to call in and join the conversation, do it that way. 212-433-9692. Let's talk about the performances. Ariana Grande. Where do we see her strength as Glinda? How do we know that she's sort of a Nickelodeon kid?

Kyle Buchanan: I mean, I think people forget this because Ariana's been such a huge pop star for so long, but she actually got her start in acting. She even got her start in musical theater. She'd been on Broadway as a teenager, and I think she's bringing those talents back to the fore in this film. She's obviously very much influenced by Kristin Chenoweth's performance of Glinda on Broadway, but she absolutely does make this her own. Maybe it's also the fact that the movie is two and a half hours long, but when you're spending this much time with her performance, it starts to feel both canonical and also very light and fun.

There's hints of something poignant, there's hints of insecurity to her performance that make the whole thing feel three dimensional instead of one don't. I think that's what you need when you're playing somebody who could be perceived as just a daffy blonde. You want those notes of something deeper.

Alison Stewart: Cynthia Erivo, an Oscar nominee for Harriet, a Tony, an Emmy Award, Grammy winner for The Color Purple. She does have the harder part, I think. What does she bring to Elphaba?

Kyle Buchanan: I agree with you. This is a harder part because the character is coming into her own over the course of the movie, but everybody else has the sort of juicier character roles. It's not always easy to play the straight woman. That's why I was knocked out by how she had the confidence to go a little quieter in her performance and draw you in. Compared to the lead of our other movie that we'll be discussing, Paul Mescal in Gladiator, a terrific actor who is used to giving those small, intimate performances in indie movies, but maybe needed to go a little bigger to hold the screen in Gladiator.

I was impressed that Cynthia knew how to do that and also had sort of the confidence and ambition underpinning it to be able to hold that screen to say, "No, no, I'm going to go small, I'm going to go intimate, I'm going to go human-sized, and you're going there with me."

Alison Stewart: There's also a subtext of a Black woman playing this role.

Kyle Buchanan: Yes, a significant subtext. A lot of Wicked has to do with political issues, like the creeping rise of fascism and also racism, fear of the other. I interviewed Cynthia for this film two months ago, and she talked about how it's very rare that you see a Black woman play Elphaba on stage. She didn't take this lightly, the fact that she gets to play this, and I think it absolutely does underline these themes. Also, Cynthia had took great pains to make sure that her own sort of heritage and her story would be reflected in even just the costuming, the hair, the micro braids that they give Elphaba.

I think that gives the character texture where it doesn't just feel like an archetype, it feels like a person.

Alison Stewart: What is your opinion of their chemistry of Ariana and Cynthia? Because they have been on a massive press tour. It may have been too massive. [chuckles]

Kyle Buchanan: Oh, they've been out there for a long, long time. They were out there during the Paris Olympics, selling this movie, holding hands. I interviewed them both together, and they have a really powerful bond. Just looking at one another is enough to make them cry. I think you've seen that in their press tour and you really see the root of that in the film. They have that connection, and it's crucial. There's a pivot point about two thirds of the way through this movie where the characters really warm up to each other after having been adversaries.

I don't think that you can sell that scene, which takes place in almost near silence if the actual actors don't have the bond that they have.

Alison Stewart: Let's hear a track from Wicked, What Is this Feeling?

[MUSIC - Wicked Soundtrack: What Is this Feeling?]

What is this feeling

So sudden and new?

I felt the moment

I laid eyes on you

My pulse is rushing

My head is reeling

Well, my face is flushing

What is this feeling?

Fervid as a flame

Does it have a name?

Yes!

Loathing

Unadulterated loathing

For your face

Your voice

Your clothing

Let's just say, I loathe it all

Every little trait, however small

Makes my very flesh begin to crawl

With simple utter loathing

There's a strange exhilaration

In such total detestation

It's so pure

So strong

Alison Stewart: All right, we have a call. Her name is Ari, and she's loathing the movie. Hi, Ari.

Ari: Hi. How are you doing?

Alison Stewart: Doing okay.

Ari: I do not agree that Ariana Grande stands up next to Cynthia Erivo. I think she did not emote at all. Without that connection, the tragedy is lost because I just didn't believe that they were that connected or that she was that deep, and so there's less to lose.

Alison Stewart: Interesting. Were you a fan of Wicked before seeing the movie?

Ari: Huge fan, and I also don't think it works as a two parter. I think it's purely a commercial decision and it loses the urgency of it being a fascistic holocaust warning story by them just raking in as much money as possible with actors who are not actors and some singers who are not singers.

Alison Stewart: There you go. Ari, thank you for weighing in. We are talking about Glicked. After the break, we'll get into Gladiator II. This is All Of It. You are listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest is Kyle Buchanan from The New York Times. We are talking Glicked or Wadiator. Did you see Wicked or Gladiator II this weekend? 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. All right, we're talking about Gladiator II. We'll start with its director, Ridley Scott. You interviewed Ridley Scott recently. What did he say that was surprising?

Kyle Buchanan: Oh, almost anytime you interview Ridley Scott, it is almost as entertaining, sometimes more so depending on the film than the movie he directed. He is in his late 80s and he has a very legendary career. He has directed films like Alien, Thelma & Louise, Blade Runner. I think he's at the point in his life where he just doesn't hold back in an interview, he'll tell you all the real scoop. We were talking about the very first Gladiator, and he was talking about how his stars, Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix didn't get along.

That Joaquin Phoenix, as is very-- as often seems to be the case, was trying to get out of the movie. Russell Crowe was calling him unprofessional, so he was telling a lot of great stories about that. Look, not to tell my own work, but it's really Ridley. I'm only as good as my muse. You should check that interview out.

Alison Stewart: I'm wondering about what Gladiator II, is it considered a sequel or do you consider it a new film?

Kyle Buchanan: Oh, it's absolutely a sequel. Absolutely a sequel in the sense that it's very much beholden to the lore established in the first film and eager to retread the beats, like this film stars Paul Mescal as Lucius, who's the secret son of Russell Crowe's character from the first film. Very much like that, very much like father, like son. He ends up in the arena as a gladiator as well. There's all sorts of political machinations pushing him towards that, most of which are sort of put into place by Denzel Washington's character.

He's playing an arms dealer named Macrinus, who's trying to scheme to use Lucius as an instrument to seize more power in Rome. So much of the movie is retreading those same beats with a little bit of fun intrigue at the edges.

Alison Stewart: You have a lot of star power. Paul Mescal, Pablo Pascal, Denzel Washington. Does it work having them all together or do they cancel each other out?

Kyle Buchanan: They're all bringing very different energies, which is fine. I kind of like that. If you go back and you watch some of the old sword-and-sandal epics, like Spartacus, not everyone is doing the same accent, not everybody is doing the same acting style. It can sometimes feel like, "Hey, let's just throw these actors and a really amazing set, and see what they do." Denzel, in particular, is having so much fun that it's contagious. The movie would be much worse for wear without Denzel.

I think everybody else is giving something that's very earnest, which is fine, and you need that to feel the actual, real, tangible stakes of the story. Denzel is positively giddy to be in this environment. This is not the sort of movie or the sort of performance he usually gets to do. Just even the delight he takes in wearing his character's robes, fussing with the sleeves to do a little bit of business. He is on a holiday and we're all invited.

Alison Stewart: The themes in the movie, they have baboons, they got sharks, they got rhinos. If you go on any Reddit rabbit holes, some people are just infuriated with the inaccuracies. How important is accuracy in a film like Gladiator II?

Kyle Buchanan: Oh, it's absolutely not important to Ridley Scott at all. I think real life is just a jumping off point for him, as it probably should be for any movie. If you're really going for accuracy, a populist $200 million Hollywood entertainment is not the place for it. That's for a Wikipedia page. There's sacrifices that they're willing to make for entertainment. You mentioned sharks. Yes, there is a scene where the coliseum is flooded with water and sharks, and they did stage naval battles there, but not to the extent that's dramatized in this movie.

It was just a foot or two of water at most. Not recreating an ocean, but what's going to look better in a movie? Come on now.

Alison Stewart: The twin emperors in the film are Joseph Quinn and friend of the show, Fred Hechinger. Hi, Fred. They do provide some well-needed laughs here and there. Fred does anyway, but the film was deadly serious down to the end, as was Wicked, actually. How do you feel about a movie that has this big dose of sincerity at the end?

Kyle Buchanan: It's interesting with movies because they're made-- I mean, both of these movies, Wicked and Gladiator II, are films that took decades to get off the ground, and yet, I often find that a movie meets its moment in some sort of unconscious kismet kind of way. I think that the desire for something that is earnest and deeply felt is something we're only going to be wanting more of over the next few years when almost everything about this country feels irrevocably divided. You look for movies to not just reflect the current moment, but to take us out of it.

People need entertainment, they need escapism, and they need those moments to remind them of better ideals. I think that these two movies, both tackling those moments and providing real big, earnest, super scored sentiment that that goes over really well with an audience right now.

Alison Stewart: We're talking with Kyle Buchanan of The New York Times about the big film screening this weekend. We got a couple calls about films that weren't Wicked and weren't Gladiator II. Let's talk to Reid from Brooklyn. Hey, Reid.

Reid: Hi, Alison. Long time, long time.

Alison Stewart: Nice.

Reid: I want to change the subject to a different Wicked movie that's soon to come out. Robert Eggers, Nosferatu, which I personally have been waiting for for nearly a decade since he announced he had started working on the script after his first picture of The Witch, which I absolutely adore. Robert Hoult, Willem Dafoe, as always, because it's Robert Eggers movie, and Lily-Rose Depp, who I'm excited to get another chance to shine after the debacle that emerged around The Idol last summer. Supposed to be a psychosexual nightmare, which I hear that line. I'm already seated.

Alison Stewart: Love it, love it. Let's talk to Neil from Brooklyn. Hey, Neil.

Speaker 6: Hi. Hello, Alison. I recently saw a preview screening of a film that just totally blew me away. It is an animated fantasy by a Latvian named Gints Zilbalodis, made in French, and it's about five animals in some mystical, magical, mythological place, maybe on planet Earth, where there's no dialogue. The main character, cat meows, the dog barks, the crane screeches, and they're somehow together on a boat in a flooded planet trying to survive through a human land, through visions of human cities that there's no humans left, there's only the buildings.

Alison Stewart: Hey, I wanted to ask you, Kyle. Thank you so much for calling, by the way, Neil. What are you looking out for? What movies are you excited to see coming up?

Kyle Buchanan: In addition to Nosferatu, there's another film coming out that weekend, Babygirl with Nicole Kidman, that I absolutely loved. It's this sort of wicked psychosexual comedy that stars her as this CEO, who becomes embroiled in kind of an S&M affair with her intern played by Harris Dickinson, but it's not played in a Fifty Shades of Grey way. It's very smart. It's very knowing. Even the way that they have this kind of dom/sub dynamic is very much up for grabs and negotiable, and they're not always good at it.

They're kind of improvising their way through. I had a huge smile on my face the whole time. Also worth noting that, because Babygirl and Nosferatu come out the same weekend, it's being called Baby-Ratu by the Internet, which honestly, I think, is a better Barbenheimer portmanteau than anything we've been able to come up with yet for Wicked and Gladiator. Glicked kind of sounds like the nickname of maybe some boy you went to summer camp with. Wadiator just sounds like you're lisping, but Baby-Ratu, now that's where the action is.

Alison Stewart: All right. Have you seen Sing Sing?

Kyle Buchanan: I have seen Sing Sing.

Alison Stewart: Okay. This movie brought me to tears. This movie--

Kyle Buchanan: Yes, it's really great, and I think it's going to have an award season comeback.

Alison Stewart: Colman Domingo, he plays a prisoner. It's about a theater group behind bars. He brings me to-- I mean, what does he do in this role that only Colman Domingo can do?

Kyle Buchanan: Well, Colman's really terrific in this movie. Like you said, it's about a theater troupe behind the walls of a prison. Everybody else that's cast around Colman pretty much are other actors who were formerly incarcerated and also found their way through this troupe, this real-life troupe. He's playing opposite actors that we have really never seen on screen before, actors who basically came to acting through prison. I think what he does really effectively is he holds the center of that.

All these people who have incredibly unique acting styles, including this really incredible supporting actor, Clarence Maclin, who I expect will get a lot of attention this award season. Colman holds that center. He's good at that. I think it's a real testament to Colman coming from being a supporting actor who's on the rise to becoming a leading man in his own right in Hollywood.

Alison Stewart: Let's take one last call. Tori is calling in from Brooklyn. Hey, Tori.

Tori: Me on the air.

Alison Stewart: You're on the air. Go for it.

Tori: Awesome. At the top of the hour, you guys mentioned also giving shout outs to any films that aren't Wicked or Gladiator II. I just wanted to give a shout out to the film Rumors by Guy Maddin, Galen Johnson, and Evan Johnson. Just what you guys were talking about as far as tonally, what just what we're all feeling politically right now and just in general. Rumors, I thought was a really wonderful salve.

It follows the G7 leaders at their meeting, coming together, making their G7 statement, but there's a level of absurdity to the humor, but also balanced with this very, very real and straight performances that just felt so liberating and powerful to see in the movie theaters right now. I'm curious also if either of you guys have seen that and how you feel like it falls into the film moment right now.

Alison Stewart: Have you seen it, Kyle?

Kyle Buchanan: I have seen it, and you didn't even sell the biggest part, which is Cate Blanchett being silly. Look, you've got to take an opportunity. Anytime Cate Blanchett is being silly in a very smart way, as she is in Rumors, that's cause for celebration.

Alison Stewart: Kyle Buchanan has been my guest. He writes for The New York Times. Definitely check out his Ridley Scott interview. It is definitely worth it. Kyle, thanks for your time.

Kyle Buchanan: Anytime, Alison.