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turtlerail5 · 2 years

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Four Simple Ways The Pros Use To Promote Flight

A famous example in the airline industry involved British Airways' widely-praised plan to give customers the chance to buy carbon offsets when they booked their flight. “We are thrilled that Governor Cuomo clearly recognizes the impact of Broadway’s return on the city and state’s economy and the complexity of restarting an entire industry that has been dormant for over a year,” said Charlotte St. Martin, president of the Broadway League. Freestyle Love Supreme, the freewheeling, improvised rap show directed by Thomas Kail (and featuring a cast that has variously included Utkarsh Ambudkar, Christopher Jackson, Daveed Diggs, James Monroe Iglehart, and Lin-Manuel Miranda) caused such a stir during its Booth Theatre run in late 2019 that it picked up a special Tony Award at this year’s ceremony (along with the Broadway Advocacy Coalition and American Utopia)-and has returned to Broadway for another limited engagement. The show’s theater that sits on the border between Greenwich Village and the East Village, pretty far off Broadway. Air traffic controllers at all levels are employed by the FAA. To test your skills as an air traffic controller, see pages 17 through 67 of the "Gate to Gate" CD ROM: Student Activity and Career Guidance Package.

Your air miles (and other loyalty points) may not be among the first things that come to mind when you think of the valuable heirlooms you'd like to pass along, but you can bequeath them, and you should! Torpedo toiletries like soap, shampoo and lotion, which your hotel will supply, and pack clothes that you can mix and match into several outfits. It's that a coating of ice on an airplane will disrupt airflow around an airplane's wings and affect the lift, which is the ability of the plane to fly. The precise steps in cleaning an airline cabin depend upon many factors, such as the time the plane will be on the ground and whether the flight is domestic or international. Davies, Alex."Here's How The Government Will Investigate The San Francisco Plane Crash." Business Insider. He rents a car, then drives downtown for a business meeting. Start at airport near broadway new yorker (1202 South Congress), where the only colors you'll find in this very cool store are black and white, then stop at Antigua (1508 S Congress) for Guatemalan and Mexican art and decor, plus locally crafted jewelry. The procedure begins at the front of the fuselage, working back to the wings, then the aft-fuselage, vertical stabilizer and finally the horizontal stabilizer (the latter two are parts of the plane's tail).

That distinctive, catchy sound has been closely identified with the influential smartphone since its introduction back in 2007. And while there aren't any reliable statistics on the subject, the frequency with which we all hear it is an indication that many - or even most - of the estimated 100 million iPhone users in the U.S. ElectronicsCell PhonesIntroduction to How Video Conferencing Cell Phones WorkElectronicsCell Phones5 Ways to Donate Your Old Smartphone or Cell Phone to CharityElectronicsCell PhonesCell Phone Tower PicturesElectronicsCell PhonesHow Much Radiation Does Your Cell Phone Emit? ElectronicsCell PhonesHow does a vibrating cell phone or pager work? ElectronicsCell PhonesHow to Unlock an Android Cell PhoneElectronicsCell PhonesScientists Have Invented a Battery-free Cell PhoneElectronicsCell PhonesHow to Decide Between a Smart Phone and Cell PhoneElectronicsTelephone TechnologyHow to Forward Calls from a Landline to a Cell PhoneElectronicsCell PhonesHow to Import Pictures from a Cell Phone to a LaptopElectronicsTech's Effects on the Family5 Ways to Keep Your Kids Off Their Cell PhonesElectronicsTech for KidsCell Phones for Kids: When is the right time?

HealthGeneral Cancer FactsCell Phone/Cancer Studies So FarHealthGeneral Cancer FactsCell Phones and Cancer: No Clear ConnectionHealthChild SafetyWhat are some cell phone safety tips for kids? If you use your cell phone and it creates interference, it can disrupt the transmissions between different pieces of equipment. In the event of a crash, there are things you can do to give you a better shot at making it out alive. Fifty-three percent have a better travel experience when they learn about the customs, geography, and culture of a destination. The fewer paper statements, checks and personal information you let physically float through the mail, the better. There are advantages and disadvantages to each, so the method you choose depends on your personal preferences. The Los Angeles Times estimated that 1,000 such evacuation drills were conducted from the 1960s through the early 1990s. There were also hundreds of injuries. Meanwhile, computers continue tracking and refining the missiles' estimated impact sites. There are radar units used for guidance and weather detection, and so on.

#airport near broadway new york

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10003800 · 3 years

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‘hope world’: numbers and figures

i love HW (and hobi, henceforth, for statistical purposes, i’ll refer as j-hope) so much i needed to put its basic stats together in one place for a good glance like this. the fact that he took three years (2015-2018) to record HW shows how much thought and intent went into the whole process. the achievements HW made in its debut year alone prove that this mixtape is of quality and that j-hope has much talent, calibre and potential as an artiste in writing, producing, recording and performing. his dance foundation and background make up the theoretical framework of this mixtape that gives it its cohesive structure, making it more of a concept (mini) album than a mixtape, in my humble opinion.

there are three things about HW the mixtape that impress me. first, that j-hope had a hand in aspects of its production beyond just writing and performing; he played the keyboard and synthesizer, did vocal and rap arrangements and was also one of its recording engineers (see individual song credits). it shows the extent of his personal endeavour to learn and be as fully involved as he possibly could in the entire experience of producing this work and how he did not leave it to privilege (since he had an experienced production team with him, he could have easily let them do the groundwork) or even chance.

next is how the variety and range of genres - hip hop, jazz/bebop, reggae, rap, among others - transition themselves smoothly within a single song (e.g. ‘P.O.P’, ‘daydream’, ‘hope world’) and across the album. HW is not quite a compilation of bits and pieces in isolation of one another because of how methodical it is in its concoction, evident in the smooth mix and transition of genres in the album. i’m guessing this is mostly due to j-hope’s dance experience and expertise, as mentioned earlier. the album is a curated collection meant for performance and the flow of tempo and beats from one track to another reflects what it would look like if j-hope were to do his HOTS sessions to his album. HW shows j-hope’s skilful versatility as an artiste and a performer. he is not just a jack-of-all-trades type of versatile either; he had a solid vision of what he wanted in this album and what he wanted to put across, as a dancer and a rapper-singer and it showed clearly. his MVs for ‘daydream’ and ‘airplane’ further prove this and i really wish he had made MVs for the rest of his songs such as ‘P.O.P’ and ‘hope world’. in my opinion, dance-focused MVs for ‘baseline’ and ‘HANGSANG’ would have been the icing and, a freestyle feature in each, would be the cherry on top. imagine the visual treat the entire album potentially has as a live performance, where we all know, j-hope is stellar in.

lastly, and certainly not the least, HW also shows that j-hope does not write and produce for recording on a CD (or digital audio file) to be listened to only. he thinks about how the songs would sound, look and feel like in performance because songs are meant to be performed to an audience. this is why at times he reminds me of freddie mercury and MJ (i love them too so pardon me, i cannot help the personal opinion and comparison) in their creative process of production and performance, with purposeful and intelligent experimentation of ideas, sounds and concepts but never compromising on quality and overall musical experience.

with his talent, youth, potential and above all, unrelenting dedication, industry and tenacity, I honestly believe j-hope will only further refine and finesse his artistry and his works to a highly polished level. i am looking forward to more of his works and especially his next album.

note to self: i will have to revisit this and do a slightly more in-depth analysis of HW with a set criteria and i think lin manuel miranda's list of basics i.e. flow, order and authenticity seems like a good one. KIV till after a few entries.

@rrredlizarrrd/blue10003800©

#jhope #hope world #Spotify

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Summer Movie Preview: From Black Widow to The Suicide Squad and Beyond

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The summer movie season has returned. Finally. Once something we all just took for granted, like handshakes and indoor dining, a summertime season stuffed with pricy Hollywood blockbusters and cinematic escapism suddenly feels like a long lost friend. But, rest assured, the summer movie season is genuinely and truly here. It’s maybe a little later than normal, yet it’s still in time for Memorial Day in the States.

This is of course happy news since many of the big screen events of this year have been 12 months or more in the offing. A Quiet Place Part II was supposed to open two Marches ago, and In the Heights is opening almost an exact year to the day from its original release. They’re here now, as is an impressive assortment of new films. There are genre fans’ long lost superhero spectacles, with Black Widow and The Suicide Squad leading the pack (and Shang-Chi closing out the season unusually late in time for Labor Day weekend), and there are also horror movies like The Conjuring 3 and M. Night Shyamalan’s Old, aforementioned musicals, family adventures in Jungle Cruise, psychedelic Arthurian legends via The Green Knight, and a few legitimately original projects like Stillwater and Reminiscence. Imagine that!

So sit back, put your feet in the pool, or up by the grill pit, and toast with us the summer movie’s resurrection.

A Quiet Place Part II

May 28 (June 3 in the UK)

Fourteen months after its original release date, the first movie delayed by the pandemic is finally coming to theaters for Memorial Day weekend. And despite what some critics say (even our own), most of us would argue it’s worth the wait. As a movie about a family enduring after a global crisis that has left their lives in tatters, and marred by personal tragedy, A Quiet Place Part II hits differently in 2021 than it would have a year ago. And it’s undeniably optimistic view of humanity feels like a warm balm now.

But beyond the meta context, writer-director John Krasinski (flying solo as screenwriter this time) has engineered a series of intelligent and highly suspenseful set pieces which puts Millicent Simmonds’ Regan front and center. Also buoyed by subtle and affecting work by Emily Blunt and Cillian Murphy, here as a neighbor they knew a few years and a lifetime ago, this is one worth dipping your toe back into cinema for, especially if you liked the first movie.

Cruella

May 28

We’ll admit it, we had the same initial skepticism you’re probably feeling about a Cruella de Vil origin story set in punk rock’s 1970s London. But put your cynicism aside, Disney’s Cruella is a decadent blast and the rarest of things: a live-action Disney remake that both honors its source material and does something creative with it. Neither a soulless scene-by-scene remake of a better animated film, or a lazy Maleficent like re-imagining, Cruella more often than not rocks, thanks in large part to its lead performance by Emma Stone.

Also a producer on the picture, Stone takes on the role of Cruella de Vil like it’ll be on an awards reel and absolutely flaunts the character’s madness and devilish charm. She also finds an excellent sparring partner via Emma Thompson, young Cruella’s very own Miranda Priestly. Once these two start their verbal battle at the end of the first act, the movie is elevated into an electric period comedy (with plenty of heavy handed period music). It’s a pseudo-thriller for all ages, enjoying some very sharp elbows for a kids movie.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

June 4 (May 26 in the UK)

The latest big-screen adventure for real-life ghostbusters Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) sees the two drawn into the unusual case of the first ever U.S. murder trial where the defendant claimed he was innocent because he was possessed by a demon. This is the eighth movie in The Conjuring expanded universe—director Michael Chaves has already made a foray into this supernatural world with The Curse of La Llorona—and as with all the main Conjuring films, the hook is that it’s (very loosely) based on a true case that the Warrens were involved with.

Peter Safran and James Wan are back on board as producers, although with this being the first time Wan isn’t directing one of the main Ed and Lorraine investigations, we’re a little cautious about this return to the haunted museum.

In the Heights

June 11 (June 18 in the UK)

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first Tony award winning musical is getting the proper big screen treatment in In the Heights. A full-fledged movie musical—as opposed to a taped series of performances, a la Disney+’s Hamilton—In the Heights is like a sweet summer drink (or Piragua) and love letter to the Latino community of New York City’s Washington Heights neighborhood.

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Closer in spirit to the feel-good summertime joy of Grease than the narratively complex Hamilton, this is perfect multiplex escapism (which will also be on HBO Max if you’re so inclined). Directed by Crazy Rich Asians’ Jon M. Chu, In the Heights has a euphoric sense of movement and dance as it transfers Miranda’s hybrid blend of freestyle rap, salsa rhythm, and Caribbean musical cues to the actual city blocks the show was written about. On one of those corners lives Usnavi (Anthony Ramos), a bodega owner with big dreams. He’s about to have the summer of his life. You might too.

Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard

June 16 (June 21 in the UK)

You know Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard is a throwback when even its trailer brings back the “trailer voice.” But then the appeal of the 2017 B-action comedy, The Hitman’s Bodyguard, was its very throwback nature: a violent, raunchy R-rated buddy comedy that starred Samuel L. Jackson and Ryan Reynolds, who exchanged quips as much as bullets between some genuinely entertaining stunts.

Hopefully the sequel can also be as much lowbrow fun as it doubles down on the premise, with Reynolds’ Michael Bryce now guarding Samla Hayek’s Sonia, the wife of Jackson’s Darius. All three are on a road trip through Italy as they’re chased by Antonio Banderas in what is sure to be a series of bloody, explosive set pieces. Probably a few “motherf***ers” will be dropped too.

Luca

June 18

Pixar Studios’ hit rate is frankly incredible. With each new film seemingly comes a catchy song, an Oscar nomination, and a flood of tears from anyone with a heart—and there’s no reason to believe that its next offering will be any different. Luca is a coming-of-age tale set on the Italian Riviera about a pair of young lads who become best friends and have a terrific summer getting into adventures in the sun. The slight catch is that they’re both sea monsters.

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How Luca Became the First Pixar Movie Made at Home

By Don Kaye

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Pixar, Italian Style: Why Luca is Set in 1950s Italy

By Don Kaye

This is the feature directorial debut of Enrico Casarosa, who says the movie is a celebration of friendship with nods to the work of Federico Fellini and Hayao Miyazaki. The writers are Jesse Andrews and Mike Jones—Andrews is new to Pixar but has experience with coming-of-agers, having penned Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, while Jones co-wrote Soul. Jacob Tremblay and Jack Dylan Grazer voice the young boys (sea monsters)—13-year-old Luca and his older teenager friend Alberto—with Maya Rudolph as Luca’s sea monster mom. After a year of lockdown, this could be the summer movie we all need.

June 25

You better start firing up the grill, because the Fast and Furious crew is finally ready to have another summer barbecue. And this time, it’s not only the folks whom Dom Toretto calls “mi familia” in attendance. The big new addition to F9 is

John Cena as Jakob Toretto. As the long-lost little brother we didn’t know Vin Diesel’s Dom had, Jakob is revealed to be a superspy, assassin, and performance driver working for Dom’s arch-nemesis, Cypher (Charlize Theron). Everything the Family does together, Jakob does alone, as a one-man wrecking crew, and he’s coming in hot.

Fans will probably be happier, though, to see Sung Kang back as Han Seoul-Oh, the wheelman who was murdered in Fast & Furious 6, and then pretty much forgotten in The Fate of the Furious when his killer got invited to the cookout. It’s an injustice that brought veteran series director Justin Lin back to the franchise to resurrect the dead. So it’s safe to assume he won’t be asking Cypher to bring the potato salad.

The Forever Purge

July 2 (July 16 in the UK)

We know what you’re thinking: Didn’t The Purge: Election Year end the Purge forever? That or “are they really still making these?” The answer to both questions is yes. Nevertheless, here we are with The Forever Purge, a movie which asks what happens if Purgers just, you know, committed extravagant holiday crime on the other 364 days of the year? You get what is hopefully the grand finale of this increasingly tired concept.

The Tomorrow War

July 2

Hear me out: What if it’s like The Terminator but in reverse? That had to be the pitch for this one, right? In The Tomorrow War, instead of evil cyborgs time traveling to the past to kill our future savior, soldiers from the future time travel to the past to enlist our current best warrior and take him to a world on the brink 30 years from now.

It’s a crazy premise, and the kind of high-concept popcorn that one imagines Chris Pratt excels at. Hence Pratt’s casting as Dan, one of the best soldiers of the early 21st century who’ll go into the future to stop an alien invasion. The supporting cast, which includes Oscar winner J.K. Simmons and Yvonne Strahovski, Betty Gilpin, and Sam Richardson, is also nothing to sneeze at.

Black Widow

July 9

The idea of making a Black Widow movie has been around since long before the Marvel Cinematic Universe first lifted into the sky on Tony Stark’s repulsors. The character has been onscreen for more than a decade now, and Marvel Studios has for too long danced around making a solo Widow, at least in part due to the machinations of Marvel Entertainment chairman Ike Perlmutter.

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How Black Widow Could Build The MCU’s Future

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Upcoming Marvel Movies Release Dates: MCU Phase 4 Schedule, Cast, and Story Details

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But the standalone Black Widow adventure is here at last, and it now serves as a sort-of coda to the story of Natasha Romanoff, since we already know her tragic fate in Avengers: Endgame. Directed by Cate Shortland (Berlin Syndrome, Lore), the movie will spell out how Natasha (Scarlett Johansson) kept herself busy between the events of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, primarily with a trip home to Russia to clear some of that red from her ledger.

There, she will reunite with figures from her dark past, including fellow Red Room alumnus Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Russian would-be superhero Alexei Shostakov, aka the Red Guardian (David Harbour), and Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz), another survivor of the Black Widow program and a maternal figure to Natasha and Yelena.

It’s a chance to say goodbye to Nat and see Johansson as the beloved Avengers one more time. But this being Marvel, we suspect that the studio has a few tricks up its sleeve and in this movie about the future of Phase 4.

Space Jam: A New Legacy

July 16

In the annals of synergistic branding, Space Jam: A New Legacy might be one for the record books. A sequel to an older millennials’ 1990s touchstones—the thoroughly mediocre Michael Jordan meets Bugs Bunny movie, Space Jam—this sequel sees LeBron James now trapped in Looney Tunes world… but wait, there’s more! Instead of only charmingly interacting with WB’s classic stable of cartoon characters, King James will also be in the larger “WB universe” where the studio will resurrect from the dead every property they own the copyright to, from MGM’s classic 1939 The Wizard of Oz to, uh, the murderous rapists in A Clockwork Orange.

… yay for easter eggs?

Old

July 23

Though he might be accused of being a little bit hit-and-miss in the past, the release of a new M. Night Shyamalan movie should always be cause for celebration. Especially one with such a deeply creepy premise. Based on the graphic novel Sandcastle by Pierre Oscar Levy and Frederik Peeters, Old sees a family on vacation discover that the beach they are on causes them to age extremely rapidly and live out their entire lives in a day.

This is surely perfect fodder for Shyamalan, who does high-concept horror like no one else. The cast is absolute quality, featuring Gael García Bernal, Hereditary’s Alex Wolff, Jo Jo Rabbit’s Thomasin McKenzie, Phantom Thread’s Vicky Krieps, Little Women’s Eliza Scanlen, and many more. The trailer is pleasingly disturbing too as children become teenagers, a young woman is suddenly full-term pregnant, and adults seem to be decaying in front of their own eyes. Harrowing in the best possible way.

Snake Eyes

July 23 (August 20 in the UK)

Snake Eyes will finally bring us the origin story of the G.I. Joe franchise’s most iconic and beloved member. Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) stars in the title role, with Warrior’s Andrew Koji as his nemesis—conflicted baddie (and similar fan fave) Storm Shadow. Expect a tale heavy on martial arts badassery, especially with The Raid’s Iko Uwais on board as the pair’s ninja master. Samara Weaving will play G.I. Joe staple Scarlett after her breakout a few years ago in Ready or Not, while Úrsula Corberó has been cast as Cobra’s Baroness. Robert Schwentke (The Time Traveler’s Wife, Red) directs.

Jungle Cruise

July 30

Jungle Cruise director Jaume Collet-Serra is best known for making slightly dodgy actioners starring Liam Neeson (Unknown, Non-Stop, Run All Night) and half-decent horror movies (Orphan, The Shallows), so exactly which direction this family adventure based on a theme park ride will take remains to be seen.

Borrowing a page and premise from Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn in The African Queen (1951), Jungle Cruise stars the ever-charismatic Dwayne Johnson as a riverboat captain taking Emily Blunt’s scientist and her brother (Jack Whitehall) to visit the fabled Tree of Life in the early 20th century. Like the ride, the gang will have to watch out for wild animals along the way.

Unlike the ride, they’re competing with a German expedition team who are heading for the same goal. A solid supporting cast (Jesse Plemons, Édgar Ramírez, Paul Giamatti, Andy Nyman) and a script with rewrites by Michael Green (Logan, Blade Runner 2049) might mean Disney has another hit on its hands. Either way, a lovely boat trip with The Rock should be diverting at worst.

The Green Knight

July 30 (August 6 in the UK)

There have been several major Hollywood reimaginings of Arthurian legends in the 21st century. And every one of them has been thoroughly rotten for one reason or another. Luckily, David Lowery’s The Green Knight looks poised to break the trend with a trippy, but twistedly faithful, interpretation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Dev Patel stars as Sir Gawain, a chivalrous knight in King Arthur’s court who takes up the challenge of the mysterious Green Knight (The Witch’s Ralph Ineson under mountains of makeup): He’ll swing a blow and risk receiving a returning strike in a year’s time. Gawain attempts to cheat the devil by cutting his head clean off, yet when the Green Knight lifts his severed head from Camelot’s floors, things start to get weird. As clearly one of A24’s biggest visual fever dreams to date, this is one we’re highly anticipating.

Stillwater

July 30 (August 6 in the UK)

The Oscar winning-writer director behind Spotlight, Tom McCarthy, returns to the big screen with a fictional story that feels awfully similar to real world events. In this film, Matt Damon plays Bill, a proud father who saw his daughter Allison (Abigail Breslin) go abroad to study in France. After she’s accused of murdering her roommate by local authorities, the deeply Southern and deeply Oklahoman father must travel to a foreign land to try and prove his daughter’s innocence.

It obviously has some parallels with the Amanda Knox story but it also looks like a potentially hard hitting original drama with a talented cast. Fingers crossed.

The Suicide Squad

August 6 (July 30 in the UK)

You might have seen a Suicide Squad movie in the past, but you’ve never seen James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad. With a liberating R-rating and an old school vision from the Guardians of the Galaxy director—who likens this to 1960s war capers, such as The Dirty Dozen or Where Eagles Dare—this Suicide Squad is absolutely stacked with talented actors wallowing in DC weirdness. One of the key players in this is Polka-Dot Man, another is a walking, talking Great White Shark, voiced by Sylvester Stallone. The villain is a Godzilla-sized starfish from space!

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So like it’s namesake, there’s probably a lot of characters who aren’t going to pull through this one. Even so, we can rest easy knowing that Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn will be as winsome than ever, and the likes of Idris Elba and John Cena will add some dynamic gravitas to the eccentric DC Extended Universe.

Free Guy

August 13

Perhaps pitched as The Truman Show for the video game age, Free Guy stars Ryan Reynolds as an easygoing, happy-go-lucky “Guy” who discovers… he’s a video game NPC living inside the equivalent of a Grand Theft Auto video game. This might explain why the bank he works at keeps getting robbed all the time. But as a virtual sprite who’s developed sentiency, he just might be able to win over enough gamers to not shoot him, and make love not war.

It’s an amusing premise, and hopefully director Shawn Levy can bring to it the same level of charm he achieved with the very first Night at the Museum movie.

Respect

August 13 (September 10 in the UK)

Before her passing in 2018, Aretha Franklin gave her blessing to Jennifer Hudson to play the Queen of Soul. Now that musical biopic is here with Hudson hitting the same high notes of the legend who sang such standards as “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” “Think,” “I Say a Little Prayer,” and of course “Respect.”

The film comes with a lot of expectation and a lot of pedigree, with Forest Whitaker and Audra McDonald in the cast. Most of all though, it comes with that rich musical library, which will surely take center stage. And if movies like Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman have taught us anything, it’s that moviegoers love when you play the hits.

Reminiscence

August 20 (August 18 in the UK)

Lisa Joy is one of the most exciting voices on television today. One-half of the creative team behind Westworld, Joy steps into her own with her directorial debut (and as the solo writer) in Reminiscence, a science fiction film with a reliably knotty premise.

Hugh Jackman plays Nick Bannister, a man who lives in a dystopian future where the oceans have risen and the cities are crumbling. In a declining Miami, he sells a risky new technology that allows you to relive your past (and possibly change it, at least fancifully?). But when he discovers the lost love of his life (Rebecca Ferguson) is cropping up in other peoples’ memories, which seem to implicate her in a murder, well… things are bound to start getting weird. We don’t know a whole lot more, but we cannot wait to find out more.

Candyman

August 27

Announced back in 2018, this spiritual sequel to Bernard Rose’s 1992 original is one of the most exciting and anticipated movies on the calendar. Produced by Jordan Peele and directed by Nia DaCosta, the film takes place in the present day and about a decade after Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing projects have been torn down. Watchmen’s Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays an up-and-coming visual artist who moves to the now-gentrified area with his partner and is inspired by the legend of Candyman, an apparition with a hook for a hand, to create new work about the subject. But in doing so, he risks unleashing a dark history and a new wave of violence.

Tony Todd, the star of the original movie, will also reprise his role in a reboot that aims to inspire fear for only the right reasons.

The Beatles: Get Back

August 27

Director Peter Jackson thinks folks have a poisoned idea about the Beatles in their final days. Often portrayed as divided and antagonistic toward one another during the recordings of their last albums, particularly Let It Be (which was their penultimate studio recording and final release), Jackson insists this misconception is influenced by Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s 1970 documentary named after the album.

So, after going through the reams of footage Lindsay-Hogg shot but didn’t use, Jackson has crafted this new documentary about the album’s recording which is intended to paint a fuller (and more feel-good) portrait of the band which changed the world. Plus, the music’s going to be great…

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

September 3

The greatest fighter in Marvel history finally hits the big screen with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Simu Liu (Kim’s Convenience) takes on the title role of a character destined for a bright future in the MCU. Marvel fans might note that the “Ten Rings” of the title is the same organization that first appeared all the way back in Iron Man, and Tony Leung will finally bring their villainous leader, The Mandarin, to life. Awkwafina of The Farewell and Crazy Rich Asians fame also stars. Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton (Short Term 12), this should deliver martial arts action unlike anything we’ve seen so far in the MCU.

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weekendwarriorblog · 3 years

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IN THE HEIGHTS Review: A Musical That Pulls You Further In With Every Song and Dance Number

I didn’t have much to go on when I went to see In the Heights earlier this week. Obviously, I knew it was Lin Manuel Miranda’s musical that preceded Hamilton, but other than hearing the chorus of the main title over and over during television ads when the show was on Broadway, I really knew nothing about the songs or the story. Therefore, I went in with relatively low expectations despite all the early hype, because hey, I live on the Lower East Side of New York, and if there’s one place I don’t necessarily like to go, it’s Washington Heights, which is about as far from my home while remaining in Manhattan as one can possibly get.

Before I get to the movie, I will share a story about having met Lin Manuel Miranda, though. My friend Jesse is a singer/songwriter and he ran a club in the East Village for a while where Miranda’s group Freestyle Love Supreme would perform from time to time. When Jesse would occasionally perform himself, Lin would sometimes join him on stage to do a freestyle rap break related to the song, so one night when he did that, I met him after the show and we traded a few pleasantries. A few months later, I saw my first ad for the musical In the Heights on TV, and I was like, “Hey, that’s that Lin Manuel guy!” That’s it. That’s my Lin Manuel Miranda story.

The story is told through Anthony Ramos’ Usnavi -- played by Miranda on stage -- who is sharing his passion for the Washington Heights section of Nueva York with a group of attentive kids. As he tells the story, we meet the main characters. Vanessa (Melissa Barrera) is the beautiful fashion designer who has caught Usnavi’s eye, though he feels she’s out of his league because she’s so worldly. Leslie Grace’s Nina has returned to the Heights from her first semester at Stanford with concerns that her father (Jimmy Smits) will have to sell his car service for her to continue school. Once home, she reconnects with Corey Hawkins’ Benny, who still loves her, but also doesn’t want to hold her back from returning to school.

Likewise, Olga Merediz’s Abuela Claudia, a Cuban immigrant who is the true matriarch of the neighborhood, is given a beautiful number and a particularly moving scene that separates the second and third acts. Miranda himself turns up in a small role as Piragüero, the Italian ice street peddler, who is in danger of losing his business to the local Mr. Softee. I mean, these stories are so very New York City. Even though I’m not part of this community, I can totally relate to everything that MIranda and Hudes were hoping audiences will get out of the New York Latinx experience.

One thing I’m not quite sure was part of the original musical was the subplot involving Dreamers, centering around Usnavi’s younger cousin Sonny (Gregory Diaz IV), which was probably something more relevant to the past administration’s war against immigrants. Either way, these are things that many people will be able relate to rather than being a desperate attempt to be woke or current.

In the Heights seems very much like the movie director Jon M. Chu was born to make, because he’s done so many music videos and music docs, to the point where you might wonder why he never did an actual musical adaptation. (I’m not sure Jem and the Holograms fully counts.) Chu and his team as well as the entire cast seem to be having so much fun. The elaborate musical numbers offer particularly strong evidence in the case that the Academy needs to add an Oscar for Choreography, because the dance numbers are just so spectacular, including a particularly wonderful one between Grace and Hawkins that pays tribute to one of the great dance numbers from a certain MGM duo. And the number in the swimming pool would have made Ethel Merman proud.

(If I was writing this movie for my day gig at Below the Line, I’d be drawing extra attention to the production design, costumes and hair and make-up all who make the setting and characters feel even more authentic.

Despite my earlier reticence at embracing this musical -- for reasons quite unknown other than I try not to believe all the early hype I hear -- by the end, I was fully on board, particularly due to the wonderful love story between Usnavi and Vanessa, which really drives home the power of true love that Miranda has always eschewed.

In the Heights is a movie that will tug so hard on your heartstrings, winning you over with the pure joy that permeates every song and dance. More importantly, it’s a movie with such a strong message but one that doesn’t feel like you’re being hit over the head with it but allowed to absorb it as you’re welcomed into this community.

Rating: 8.5/10

#In the Heights #movie #review #InTheHeights

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2o2o-kit · 4 years

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What your favorite Lin Manuel Miranda musical says about you

In the Heights: You like the people in your neighborhood

West Side Story (2009): Estás triste porque los temas de este musical siguen siendo relevantes

Bring It On: You were a cheerleader

The Tony Awards Opening: You want Neil Patrick Harris to do a musical with Lin

21 Chump Street: You don’t have the time to watch 2.5 hour slime tutorials

Hamilton: You miss the Obamas or have a weird obsession with history

Moana: You love Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson Lin’s acting work: You like to look at Lin

Freestyle Love Sumpreme: You wish you could do a rap battle

Lin’s acting work: You like to look at Lin

Any of Lin’s musicals: You like to find cultural references and easter eggs in different forms of media

#musicals #broadway #west end #lin manuel miranda #musical theatre #in the heights #west side story #bring it on #bring it on the musical #21 chump street #hamilton #hamilton the musical #moana #freestyle love supreme

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keepingupwithlinmanuel · 4 years

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Lin-Manuel Miranda on ‘Hamilton,’ Freestyle Love Supreme and What Comes Next

This feels a little like the third coming of Hamilton: You had the run at the Public, the Broadway opening, and now this.

The big knock against Hamilton, especially at the beginning, was that only a few people could see it at a time. That’s just the nature of theater. The chance to have folks engage with this en masse has been gratifying. I’m really happy that everybody has access to it now, and Tommy [Kail] did a really wonderful job of capturing something ephemeral. So to have not just a document but a movie of this thing we did that, at the time, sort of felt like we were writing in melting snow…it’s crazy.

...

Have you been surprised by the reception? The adoration for the play has never gone away, but the rabid way the filmed version has been debated, and re-debated — it’s sparked this entirely different discussion over what you’re saying with it, and what the work means.

It was a bit of a surprise, yeah. I mean, the big difference for me over what you just termed “the third coming of Hamilton” is that I’m able to actually see and hear the discussion more. I was so busy doing the show that I was sort of insulated from the noise around it: Wake up, do two performances, take care of a newborn child, repeat. Now, it’s like I get to go back and relive that moment of 2016, only the positive and the negative reactions are now bigger and wider and louder. Which, honestly, has been incredible and informative. I’m grateful to hear all of it.

...

A great play is going to read differently when you revive it or re-introduce it — but the fact that Hamilton is coming back into the broader conversation at the moment when the systemic rot that’s been a part of this country since the beginning…

…and is a huge part of the play as well…yeah.

The timing is extraordinary.

What you’re talking about, in a larger sense, in one of the fascinating aspects of any show. I felt it when were adapting In the Heights and we seeing racism going from latent to blatant in this country. Suddenly, those rants and raps about systemic racism felt way too timely. Way too timely.

It’s been the same with Hamilton. There is a real revolution going on right now, in terms of what we stand for as a country and what we won’t stand for as a country. So the language about revolution in the show really pops. And it’s an origin story not just about the United States but what is and isn’t discussed regarding that origin story. So that’s all mixed in to the ways Hamilton is reflecting, and being reacted to, in 2020.

...

There’s a scene early on in the [FLS] doc where you’ve all just reunited, you’re dropping in to do a show, and someone says, “Now, people are going to clap for a long time when Lin comes out, so be prepared for that.” And you can sense that the dynamic between you and the group has changed…

The dynamic between me and the world had changed! That’s the really wild thing. For me, being onstage with Freestyle Love Supreme is the only place I can go that’s feels pre-Hamilton. It’s the one place I can go where I can just go bullshit with my admittedly very talented friends [laughs]. There’s a certain irony in only feeling that safety when you’re going out on stage and risking totally falling on your face. But yeah, it’s that weird thing of, “They’re going to freak out that he’s here…and then we can just do our show. Let’s let them have that reaction, and we can go back to doing what we do.”

...

How far into production on Tick, Tick…Boom were you when everything shut down?

About 10 days. We’d filmed for roughly two weeks before the call came from Netflix, and then we put the sets in storage and will wait until it’s safe to resume production. I’m sure that post-COVID and pre-vaccine, some of the ideas we had are going to be different now. We’re looking at call sheets now that may have risk levels attached to them, which is very surreal and very new in terms of making movies. I’m still in contact with the cast and crew, and they’re all excited to get back to work. But we’re waiting until it’s safe, obviously Nothing’s going to happen until then.

...

You were involved with the screen adaptation of In The Heights, which actually filmed in Washington Heights…

That was one of the conditions of that becoming a film, by the way. They had to film in the neighborhood. There’s no backlot that looks like that. It’s the combination of pre-war buildings and insane angles, because you’re on a mountain in upper Manhattan! [Laughs] I wanted as many members of the community in the cast. And on a purely selfish level, I wanted to hear the songs written about a specific place sung in that place.

...

Do you think this could result in a big step forward?

I think this gives us a way to institute a real change now that we have the moment in which a partial reset button can get pushed. We’ve been having all these discussions about white supremacy and systematic racism — so when theater comes back, that’s the time to start talking about a more diverse, inclusive theater. Not later. Now. Let’s make our backstages look as diverse as our casts. Let’s make our audiences look as diverse as our casts. Since it’s not to business as usual on Broadway right now, let’s change the usual business when it’s time to reopen these stages. There’s a chance for us to have a much more equitable American theater when we emerge on the other side of this. So let’s take this opportunity to make it happen.

#lin manuel miranda #hamilton #hamilfilm #in the heights #tick tick boom #freestyle love supreme #rolling stone #interviews #representation

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life-under-hypnosis · 4 years

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Hey yall I'd like to let you know that Lin Manuel Miranda added a line in a freestyle rap about his lip bite selfie...he said, and I quote, "bit my lip, ah shit, TikTok hates when I do that"

#Lin Manuel Miranda #Lip bite selfie #Lin lip bite #Lin lip bite selfie #I'm tagging this so the m a x i m u m amount of people have to see it

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barbarian15 · 3 years

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The peculiarity of this week’s inauguration ceremony has already been widely observed. Peculiar that this rite, hailed by the media as the great culmination of the long fight to unseat a dictatorial tyrant, as nothing less than the reinstitution of democracy in America, did not involve the citizenry and required the presence of 15,000 National Guard troops. Peculiar, the uncanny agedness of those elites who did merit an invitation, who sat in social distance amid the cold wind.

But strangest of all was the slam poetry performance by our nation’s first Youth Poet Laureate, a post established in 2017. The poet’s name is Amanda Gorman, age 22, graduate of Harvard University, and her poem is called “The Hill We Climb”.

In a surprise to no one, her reading enchanted the entire mainstream media, most notably CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, who interviewed her later in the day, and Masha Gessen of the New Yorker, whose reaction is titled, “Amanda Gorman’s Inaugural Poem Is A Stunning Vision of Our Democracy.” I myself did not watch the inauguration live, preferring, regardless of the party of the incoming president, not to subject myself to the indignity of such monarchical pageantry. But more than a few of my friends, knowing my love of poetry, insisted via text that I, too, must bear witness to this unforgettable spectacle.

So I Googled it.

What I found upon this search was, and is, nothing less than an embarrassment to our country. A caricature of a parody, unworthy of the name of poetry, rising not even to the level of propaganda.

But what made it so bad?

First of all, its emptiness. Its platitudes. The fact that, if presented in prose form and unburdened of its opportunistic rhymes, it might be mistaken for a New York Times op-ed. There appears to be a belief among slam poets that this quasi-rap, pseudo-freestyle, lilting rhythm in which the poems are performed (which spans the entire genre without alteration) is an acceptable substitute for substance. That vacuous wordplay fills the shoes of wit. “What just is,” the poet explains in the opening stanza, “isn’t always justice.” The phrase, of course, means nothing. But because the punniness is clever (is it even that?), it passes muster, and ascends to the level of great, praiseworthy artistic achievement in the eyes of our elites.

Gorman’s poem also seems to lift a line, practically verbatim except to include a rhyme, from the recent Broadway hit “Hamilton.” What’s more, that line (“Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid”) is itself a reference to George Washington’s Farewell Address, which is itself a reference to Scripture (Micah 4:4, Kings 4:25, Zechariah 3:10). The irony of the fact that, at an inaugural recitation for the oldest ever American president, more advanced in years than all his living predecessors, reference is made to our first president’s Farewell Address, in which he wistfully anticipates his restful retirement, is too much to bear. In fact, it demonstrates the poet’s unfamiliarity with her material, and thus smacks more of plagiarism than of reverential reference (although I’m sure she reveres Lin-Manuel Miranda very much).

Relatedly, the poem displays a perverse kind of Burkeanism. A contract between the dead, the living, and the unborn is similarly imagined as the basis of our social project: “Because being American is more than a pride we inherit; it’s the past we step into and how we repair it”; “We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation, because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation.” But instead of the benevolent passage of the torch from the old to the young, this poem imagines the promise of that contract to be the severance of ourselves from our collective past, either by the forward march of progress or, if that fails, by the revision of the historical narrative itself.

This actually bodes very well for conservatives in the long run. As a member of the same generation as Ms. Gorman, I can say that this poem truly embodies the Millennial and Gen-Z left. That cunning rhetoric, no matter how sophistic, is all it takes to convince. That their sense of an artistic—or any—tradition stretches back only as far as their memory of the latest trends in the pop anti-culture. And that their political mission amounts, simply, to a total dissociation from and dissolution of the bonds of our national past. That mission, like Gorman’s poem, is as self-defeating as it is empty.

#inauguration #joe biden #biden #art #poetry #amanda gorman #millennials #the american conservative

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highlyintelligentmoss · 7 years

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from Lin’s ep of UTK’s podcast:

Utkarsh: How do you feel about rap as a parlor trick now? Everywhere I go people go, “Maybe you could do a rap. Will you do a rap for us?”

Lin: Part of it’s my own fault because I love freestyling and I genuinely love doing it, and when you’re good at something that people aren’t good at, they want you to do it… what I always do is, okay, but you gotta beatbox. If I’m risking looking silly, you gotta risk looking silly too.

Utkarsh: I say the same thing.

Lin: I’ll freestyle with you anytime you call me… any day of the week… when some stranger does it it’s like, I’m not your monkey, I’m not dancing for you.

#lin manuel miranda #utkarsh ambudkar #let's talk about me baby #i think about this a lot #i feel like lin has made rap like. palatable i guess? to ppl it didn't appeal to before and now #it's like 'let's trot out the nice man in the sweater to freestyle for us on the morning show' or whatever the fuck

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thefederalistfreestyle · 5 years

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Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Passion for Puerto Rico (NYT):

[. . .] Mr. Miranda, preparing to reassume the title role of “Hamilton” for a three-week run that begins in San Juan on Jan. 11, arrived in Vega Alta one rainy Tuesday night this fall like the celebrity he has become. He and his father, accompanied by publicists and staffers and a documentary film crew, took a private plane to the island and then a black S.U.V. to Vega Alta, where they were celebrating local arts organizations the family is assisting as part of their intensified philanthropic efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, which slammed into Puerto Rico last year.

A dozen amped-up adolescents, some wearing A. Ham hats, cornered him by the mural and, from memory (O.K., one or two of them were peeking at cellphone screens), performed an a cappella version of the musical’s opening number, led by their high school English teacher, Edd Ramos, who has been using the show’s coffee-table tome as a textbook.

Mr. Miranda, sporting Spider-Man sneakers, leapt into the scrum, singing and dancing along with the teenagers, videotaping them as they videotaped him. Then, under a tent erected over a side street, he and his father sat in the front row, nodding their heads and joining the crowd as the singer-songwriter Antonio Cabán Vale, known as El Topo, performed “Verde Luz,” a danza that has come to symbolize Puerto Rican pride.

“He’s like a lighthouse for Puerto Rico now,” said one of the many assembled well-wishers, Alejandro García Padilla, a former governor of Puerto Rico. Mr. García Padilla is an unabashed fan who plays the “Hamilton” cast album in the car while driving his kids to school and has not only seen the musical twice in New York but has also stopped by Trinity Church to visit Alexander Hamilton’s grave. “He is worldwide famous, but he cares about his people, he cares about his country, he cares about Puerto Rico. He doesn’t forget about us.”

But even lighthouses get battered by waves.

Mr. Miranda’s passion for Puerto Rico has also led to controversy — particularly because he supported a debt restructuring plan that is overseen by an unpopular federal oversight board, and then chose a theater for “Hamilton” at the University of Puerto Rico, which is being roiled by the board’s fiscal plan as well as a union dispute. For some, the musical, a blockbuster hit about colonists fighting for independence, offered a tempting opportunity to call attention to their concerns.So earlier this month, with Mr. Miranda’s blessing but also to his great disappointment, the producers of “Hamilton” decided to relocate the San Juan production from the demonstration-prone university to an easier-to-secure off-campus theater.

[. . .]

“This idea of who you are in one place, and how different or similar that is to who you are in another place, has been present from the first conversation I had with him,” said Thomas Kail, one of Mr. Miranda’s closest creative collaborators, a fellow Wesleyan University alumnus who directed both “Heights” and “Hamilton.”

“It’s something Lin writes about in all of his shows — ‘Who am I?’, ‘Where am I from?’ and ‘Have I done enough’?” Mr. Kail said. “Those are the questions he’s always thinking about.”

[. . .]

“In the Heights” established his career; “Hamilton” established his fame. He lives in Washington Heights, still rides the subway (and the bus), but, by his own acknowledgment, his life “has changed very dramatically.”

Not that he’s complaining. “You’re not going to get any griping about being a celebrity from me,” he said. “Tommy Kail would probably say, ‘Lin was always this famous in his own mind, and the rest of the world caught up.’ And that’s not untrue.”

[. . .]

A film adaptation of “In the Heights” is in development, and a live-capture filming of “Hamilton” is edited and sitting in a vault, waiting until the show’s producers feel the time is right for release.

In January, immediately after the “Hamilton” run ends in Puerto Rico, he will help to present a run of “Freestyle Love Supreme,” the improvisational rap group he co-founded. (He will also appear occasionally as a guest star.) And, intriguingly, he said he is hoping to produce plays on Broadway.

He’s also always writing. “I still have ideas for musicals — I don’t know whether they’re film musicals or stage musicals, but I’m just going to write them the way I wrote ‘Hamilton’ and see what they come out as,” he said. He declined to share the topics, but said, “I promise you history is nowhere near any of them. Every historian is throwing their books at me, and I’m doing none of those.”

When I ask why he has so many projects, he dismisses the question with self-deprecation. “I am the laziest Miranda,” he said, “and the laziest Miranda still gets a lot done.”

[. . .]

“The only artists and people that benefit from ‘Hamilton’ are the elite, white North American settlers, the rich bourgeoise and those who actively participate and aspire to become oppressors,” said Ruth Figueroa, a student of comparative literature and one of the protesters. She was critical of Mr. Miranda’s stands on fiscal issues, worried that accommodating “Hamilton” would drain resources needed elsewhere and unimpressed by the choice of Alexander Hamilton as the subject for a biomusical by a Latino artist.

“As a Latin person, he should be more conscious of who Hamilton was — he’s glorifying a person that represents oppression,” she said. “He could have made a show about Harriet Tubman.”

[. . .]

Mr. Miranda is left making peace with the contradictions — melding his pride in this place, and its pride in him, with the messy realities of a politically charged island that is struggling to recover from hurts both recent and historic.

For the moment, he is far from the tumult. Having wrapped up promotional duties for “Mary Poppins Returns” that took him around the world, he has been practicing the “Hamilton” role in his Manhattan laundry room.

“I have no agenda for Puerto Rico other than I want it to be proud of me,” he said. “All my efforts here are just to help the island in the best way I know how.”

read a lot more in the full extensive feature, including LMM’s childhood of alarming neighbors by throwing dead bodies off his grandparents’ roof, exploring his cultural identity in college, and what it means to be suddenly handed a huge megaphone

#hamilton #lin manuel miranda #puerto rico #and peggy tour #hamilfilm #nytimes

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newyorktheater · 4 years

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“Freestyle Love Supreme” is not so much Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway follow-up to “Hamilton” as it is a subsidiary of Lin-Manuel Inc. The hip-hop improv group that Miranda co-founded 16 years ago with fellow Wesleyan University alumni would certainly not be performing its spontaneous raps on Broadway at up to $199 a ticket were it not for Miranda’s fame and the promise of his name…It is able to use the draw not just of Miranda but several other Hamilton-created stars as potential performers in the show, although their appearances are intermittent and “unannounced.” The show is so much closer to comedy club than Broadway fare that it includes a performance Monday nights at 10 p.m. That’s the show I attended…And yet, it is easy to appreciate this show….hard not to be dazzled by the verbal dexterity of the cast… Freestyle Love Supreme is designed to feel good-natured and informal, like friends sitting around a dorm room at Wesleyan, even though there are 766 of us and we’re at the Booth Theater…That goodwill goes a long way. If the show isn’t always as entertaining as it might have been, well, ok, the performers are always impressive. And if the performers are not always as funny as you might have hoped, they are never at a loss for words.

Full review on DC Theatre Scene

Click on any photograph by Joan Marcus to see it enlarged. (Note, not all the people pictured perform at every show.)

Chris Sullivan, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Aneesa Folds

Andrew Bancroft, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Arthur Lewis

Anthony Veneziale, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Arthur Lewis, Utkarsh Ambudkar, and Chris Sullivan

Aneesa Folds, Wayne Brady, Arthur Lewis, and Daveed Diggs in Freestyle Love Supreme

Freestyle Love Supreme on Broadway "Freestyle Love Supreme" is not so much Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway follow-up to "Hamilton" as it is a subsidiary of Lin-Manuel Inc.

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glorioussimon · 6 years

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underappreciated things about rise: 1x01 (pilot)

or, i needed an excuse to rewatch rise so here we are

untamed (acoustic) by marc scibilia

that entire opening montage tbh

lilette’s outfit in her first scene. we stan

simon saunders, #1 rilette shipper

“qb1 is totally checking you out, that’s the third time this week”

gwen and jolene are best friends. you guys why do we never talk about this

there was a head of the theater program before lou and tracey. who is she what is her story what does she think about all of this

side note i forgot that lou was Like That

stanton high school’s production of grease

specifically simon

“simon, perfect, you’re my favorite”

everything about kaitlin mazzuchelli, my daughter

gail’s reaction to lou telling the fam that he’s taking over the theater program

“what”

kaitlin and sadie dancing in the background while lou and gail talk

i forgot that lou sang along to alexander hamilton. i think that i repressed the memory of it

robbie bringing his mom flowers!!

the white moms of stanton have the most white mom names. gail, denise, patricia

“maashous evers. lights.” *flicks the lights on and off*

maashous’s entire introduction is gold tbh

gwen and lilette’s height difference

football freestyle by lin-manuel miranda

lilette cheering for robbie at the pep rally

the entire fucking audition scene

special mention goes to gwen singing mama who bore me because wow she killed it

we need another rise album that has all the things we didn’t get. gwen’s mama who bore me, robbie’s left behind, and then there were none, mirror blue night, all that’s known, francis singing georg’s solo that was cut from touch me for five minutes straight

we were close to having simon and lilette as melchior and wendla. imagine it

“his female leads are always a foot taller than him and look about five years older”

jolene was cast as martha in the pilot?

coach and papa thorne seem like robbie’s gay dads in this scene and i’m lving for it

harold baer

“the LAST thing i’m gonna do is have them hear RUMORS about their SON at CHURCH FUNCTIONS”

lou knew that simon was gay the minute he saw him and it’s really fucking obvious in this scene specifically

mama who bore me plays in the background during robbie’s audition

the shirtless men in the background when lou gives robbie his schedule

just breathe playing in the background when lilette sees mama suarez and coach

everything about just breathe tbh

robbie telling his mom about melchior. pure

he can’t stop thinking about this melchior dude

simon’s face when jeremy is introduced

when did francis and clark even join the cast

side note i always forget that francis clark and cheryl were played by different actors in the pilot and i had a moment of “who the fuck are you guys” before i realized

spring awakening montage

all that’s known as a rap

WHERE is my full version of all that’s known

michael and og francis high-fiving

The Knee Touch

everyone is so happy when they’re doing totally fucked!! we stan

i cried at the sacred troupe speech

jeremy’s head on anabelle’s shoulder. i want to know more about that friendship

listen i know that there’s someone out there that ships lou and coach. i just know it

michel and sasha hugging. it doesn’t line up with canon but it’s cute so i’ll let it slide

simon saunders i would kill and die for you. this isn’t news i just wanted everyone to know

kaitlin’s “hi maashous”

this is where my dad started shipping gordy and maashous

i started unexpectedly crying when lilette went off on her mom

“it’s not fair.” “i went for it though.” “you went for it.” wow does that remind anyone of anything :’)

simon standing up to his parents!!

“i’m part of a troupe and i can’t let them down.”

lou’s speech to the kids when he’s stepping down

the entire montage of them going back to their lives before spring awakening

on a happier note, jeremy in his pirate costume

god the ending never fails to give me chills (and make me cry but let’s not talk about that)

i love this show so much

i miss my kids

#rise nbc #rise #mine #aj.txt #long post /

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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In the Heights Review: Lin-Manuel Miranda Musical Still Lights Up

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Romance permeates Jon M. Chu’s big screen adaptation of In the Heights, like the aroma of charcoal on a summer day. Perhaps this should be obvious since the central conflict of the Lin-Manuel Miranda musical remains its two star-crossed couples working things out at the northern, tip-top peak of Manhattan. Yet that’s not where the movie’s true passion lies; like the source material before it, the In the Heights film’s real ardor is for the neighborhood of Washington Heights itself. How else could a picture so endear you to what is otherwise a cup of bodega coffee?

As a jubilant and kaleidoscopic love letter to the handful of city blocks which run adjacent to the George Washington Bridge, In the Heights bursts with a life and creativity that is often blinding, and always intoxicating. It lives in a postcard Neverland version of the usually overlooked and marginalized sides of New York City, yet that does not make it fanciful. Rather this is a movie head over heels in love with its street corners above 181st Street, and the largely Latinx community which lives there. And if you go into it with an open mind, you’ll fall, too.

Ostensibly the story of Usnavi de la Vega (Anthony Ramos) and his quest to leave New York City behind in favor of his parents’ Dominican homeland, In the Heights opens after he’s already achieved his dream. He’s older now and recounting to his daughter on a Caribbean beach his memories of a community that is obviously still his real home. For back in the day, he was the young guy who owned the corner’s favorite bodega, and he knew everyone on the block.

There’s Benny (Corey Hawkins), Usnavi’s bestie and an ambitious dispatch caller at the local taxi cab service; Kevin (Jimmy Smits), the overachieving first generation immigrant who owns said taxi service; and Sonny (Gregory Diaz IV), Usnavi’s teenage cousin who helps out at the store. But perhaps most importantly there’s Vanessa (Melissa Barrera), the aspiring fashion designer who also has plans of getting out of the hood—if only to West 4th Street—and who’s the apple of Usnavi’s eye.

Theirs is just one of the mildly complex romances at the heart of a film, which also focuses on the return of Nina (Leslie Grace), Kevin’s daughter who is home for the summer after her first year at Stanford. She is the golden child to both her father and all of Washington Heights—one of the “good ones” who made it out. It makes telling them all she dropped out that much harder, including Benny. Because, like Usnavi and Vanessa, theirs is an entire history of everything being left unsaid. Each couple, and all the familiar faces in their lives, is about to have a whirlwind summer filled with music, heartbreak, a rolling blackout, and just maybe a winning lottery ticket.

As with many stage-to-screen transfers, Chu’s adaptation of In the Heights struggles at times with its new format. The Broadway’s musical’s creators, Lin-Manuel Miranda of Hamilton fame and Quiara Alegría Hudes, the latter of whom wrote the book for the show and has here penned the screenplay, are intimately involved in the film. And they’ve made a series of smart, savvy concessions to their new medium. Some songs have been moved around, others have been excised completely, and the wrap-around story with modern day Usnavi in his dream beach bar on a Dominican shoreline attempts to add more narrative structure for a film which is, at heart, a series of musical vignettes.

Still, In the Heights cannot wholly avoid the most familiar obstacles which have tripped up other Hollywood adaptations: the need to maintain as much of the musical material as possible from the show gives the film an occasionally shaggy quality as it meanders its way around every major set piece in its 143-minute running time, and ultimately overstays its welcome with maybe one too many toe-tappers.

With that said, it would take a real curmudgeon to focus on the minor narrative stumbles when there is so much exuberance emanating from Chu’s production and the kinetic ensemble. With its fusion of freestyle rap, salsa rhythms, and other blended Caribbean musical styles, this film erupts with an irresistible vitality every time its ensemble hits the asphalt.

Chu, who before Crazy Rich Asians cut his teeth by directing the best Step Up films, brings a familiar eye for propulsive choreography and joyful movement that made the dance sequences in those films into spectacles greater than most modern action movies. In the Heights is similarly ready to try on almost any creative hat for at least one musical number, such as when Usnavi, Benny, and Sonny break the fourth wall to sketch on the screen their wistful daydreams of what they’d do with a winning lottery ticket, or in the way Vanessa’s song about getting out leaves her entire block covered in the fabric she thinks will carry her off on a downtown train.

In lesser hands, these flourishes could fall into music video glibness, but they’re balanced by an entirely authentic ensemble and a beating heart beneath the razzle dazzle. Ramos particularly seems to be a talent on the make, trading in John Laurens’ blue coat and starched collar from Hamilton for a more laid back and movie star-ready affability. His Usnavi is charmingly big-hearted yet hints at deep waters beneath his calm surface. And, with all respect to Mr. Miranda, Ramos can sing “It Won’t Be Long Now” in a much fuller range.

Barrera’s Vanessa and Grace’s Nina also both have showstopping ballads that are sure to amass each an influx of fans. However, the solo number that lingers best belongs to Olga Merediz, whose Abuela Claudia is the surrogate grandmother to both Usnavi and the neighborhood. On paper, the part could easily be reduced to an archetype, but Merediz’s one major scene where she sings only to herself about a lifetime’s worth of regrets and slights after immigrating to the U.S. from Cuba 70 years ago elevates the films and adds texture to the Latino-American experience that In the Heights so celebrates.

More than its romantic will-they-or-won’t-they rendezvouses, it is the movie’s affection for the ties which bind first, second, and third generation Americans that becomes the picture’s real emotional resonance. The film version of In the Heights also updates that pride and anxiety with a new subplot involving Dreamers—undocumented young people who grew up and lived their entire lives in America—and the dread of being deported from the only home they’ve ever known.

Of course with a gushing heart on its sleeve, In the Heights is still a fairy tale in search of magic, not sorrow. Instead of ice castles or ancient kingdoms, however, its alchemy resides in salons with broken air conditioners and the sugar flavored ice shavings found in a Piragua guy’s cart (which, by the by, provides Miranda with a movie-stealing cameo). I’m not sure if it has the same complexity of music and narrative that propelled Miranda’s Hamilton into a phenomenon twice over, including last year’s Disney+ streaming event. But it won’t really matter to the countless new fans who will surely watch In the Heights on repeat—and hopefully on the biggest screen they can find.

In the Heights opens in theaters and on HBO Max on Friday, June 11.

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