La La Land and High School Musical. A romantic musical in which a couple’s love is tested when they are forced to choose between their love and their dreams.
127 Hours with a Film Kid: Tom Cruise is heading to Space while Dave Franco gets “elevated”.
Tom Cruise is Blasting Off to Space
La La Land: Keith is a terrible name for John Legend; LA is equally terrible, but pretty, and you may just be secretly networking with Wonder Woman.
High School Musical: Sharpay was wronged, we uncover the secret behind "the Musical", and apparently cruises are the perfect place to find a boyfriend.
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Film Kid Giant Squids is produced and hosted by Lindsey Buttel and Brooke Hoppe. Intro music is by the band Poly Action.
Brooke: Anyone would compromise their dream for a thousand dollars a week.
Lindsey: A THOUSAND DOLLARS A WEEK?!
Brooke: Yeah! That’s what he’s making!
Lindsey: That’s so much money. I mean I would compromise my dream if John Legend asked me to…
*Intro Music*
Brooke: You're listening to film kids and giant squids
Lindsey: And other things that think they’re deep. I’m Lindsey
Brooke: And I’m Brooke. And this week we’re talking about La La Land and High School Musical. This is it. This is the first episode. We’re here.
Lindsey: Hell yeah.
Brooke: Before we talk about the movies, we need to do a segment we’re calling a hundred and twenty seven hours with a film kid.
*127 Hours Transition Music*
Brooke: So, if you haven't seen 127 Hours…
Lindsey: Which I have not
Brooke: In it James Franco, he plays a hiker who goes hiking on his own and gets his arm caught literally between a rock and a hard place. Where he then spends 127 hours before cutting off his own arm to escape. Similarly, this segment is if you find yourself trapped in a conversation with a film kid, this is what you need to know to get through that conversation without cutting your own arm off. First this week Tom Cruise is heading to space.
Lindsey: What?
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: Normal people are allowed to just do that? Like that aren’t astronauts?
Brooke: Oh it's the most wild- So Universal is in early talks to become the studio of a new Tom Cruise movie.
Lindsey: Oh so not like real space.
Brooke: Oh no. Real space, Lindsey. Doug Lehmann, who directed Tom Cruise before both in American Made and Edge of Tomorrow is directing this new movie. It will be at least partially shot in space.
Lindsey: Who? What?
Brooke: There are no details about the plot. There’s no script yet, but it will be shot in space. Both NASA and SpaceX are on board.
Lindsey: Okay. I was about to say who's getting them to space? Who's paying for all this gas? Are they buying their own carbon back? I feel like Elon Musk has something to do with it? And you answered all those questions except for the carbon emissions.
Brooke: Yeah, like of course Elon Musk has something to do with it.
Lindsey: But inherently suspicious. Are other people suspicious? Are the astronauts suspicious?
Brooke: I mean...
Lindsey: Is Grimes suspicious?
Brooke: I think Grimes is always suspicious of anything Elon does at this point but...like Tom Cruise he’s famous for going above and beyond what anyone else is doing like he's always been famous for doing his own stunts. The Mission Impossible stuff like he does insane stuff. Like he broke his ankle leaping from rooftop to rooftop in one of the movies. He's hung off from a side of a jet while it was taking off.
Lindsey: Does that mean he's gonna hang off the spaceship because I don't-
Brooke: I have no idea but he's done incredible, like, wild stunts for someone who’s as famous as Tom Cruise.
Lindsey: Do we think that he died at one point? And like is being replaced by his stunt double? And he just has a bunch of stunt doubles who look like him?
Brooke: He doesn't have a stunt double that’s the whole thing.
Lindsey: That’s what they want! That’s-
Brooke: That’s what they want. It’s just Tom Cruise doesn't exist; it's just been a million stunt doubles.
Lindsey: There’s like 17 dudes that kinda look the same.
Brooke: Apparently the budget's only gonna be around 200 million. Which sounds like a lot. But for comparison, “Avengers: Endgame” had a budget of over 350 million.
Lindsey: Yeah and that was also in space
Brooke: That was fake space though. And Tom Cruise he’s not young. He's 58 now and he has to do another mission impossible movie before this movie can go into production. So there's a very good chance we will be 60 when this movie is made. They are sending this 60 year old actor to space. To film a movie.
Lindsey: How deep into space is he going? Like does he have a destination?
Brooke: Who knows! They're just sending him there and they're sending him up with cameras. You know what i would watch? Rob Patinson in space. Just send him up with a camera.
Lindsey: I was about to say, when you say they're just sending him up with cameras it makes it seem like they're like completely by himself, no pilot, he has to manage to get back down. He also has cameras and only half knows how to use them. He's just like vlogging from up there, but I would allow Rob Patinson to just like vlog by himself with maybe like a handbook of instructions of how to fly the ship.
Brooke: Yeah. I would watch that. Any day. I'd pay such good money for that. So yeah. Look forward to that movie in 2025.
Lindsey: I’m not. Why. I don't get it. Elon Musk should also not be allowed to have spaceships by that point in time but alright. He shouldn't be allowed to now, but maybe by that point in time the law will catch up with him.
Brooke: He cant film in LA anymore because of coronavirus but there's no coronavirus in space.
Lindsey: I mean, until he brings it to space. It's like yeah there's no coronavirus in my home, until someone with it walks in.
Brooke: Well, he's gotta be the first. Also like, I don't know how they're gonna like ensure this movie. Like how are they -? Who’s going to be like yes let's send these untrained people up to space?
Lindsey: So that was my ‘this has to be SpaceX because i feel like NASA has some sort of like-
Brooke: NASAs on board!
Lindsey: -semblance of instructions. But yeah, so I don't. Maybe they're like we have to be on board because if not ELon Musk is just going to send a randomass dude into the sky. So like we need to be in support of this to make sure that he comes back from the sky.
Brooke: Next is Dave Franco, who has been very busy. First he had a new movie come out, which is his directorial debut. It's called The Rental and it's been described as a hybrid of a relationship drama and horror thriller.
Lindsey: Thats...exciting but alarming at the same time. Its like exciting but it's also made by a man. So that makes it...I feel like relationship horror from Dave Franco's perspective might be alarming.
Brooke: Yeah, So its like about a couple that goes- It’s like an Airbnb horror type movie. Its gotten like decent reviews. Nothing glowing but nothing just absolutely panning it. But it is a horror, so i am a baby, and i have not watched it. I cannot comment on whether or not it's actually good.
Lindsey: I’ll watch it and give my feedback.
Brooke: This leads me to the second thing Dave Franco did this week with Alison Brie, his wife. They wrote a Rom Com while in quarantine. And they're calling it an elevated Rom Com. Elevated is essentially film kid speak for "pretentious". It's kind of like how in literature people don't like genre writing. Similarly there's certain genres like Rom Coms and horrors that were seen as like less than and like not as good than like a straight drama. So when someone says they're doing something like an elevated horror it's just them trying to say ‘but it's good. We’re just doing a good one.’
Lindsey: Which equally Rom Coms are great so shut up.
Brooke: Exactly. And in this interview he said that there really hasn't been any good Rom Coms in the last decade -
Lindsey: Decade!?
Brooke: Yeah. He cites When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle as some of the last good like classic Rom Coms because they looked like a drama. And that is such bullshit
Lindsey: That's not the point. Okay. I feel like I like most Rom Coms but I'm trying to think of some that are like 'this is better, fuck you', but I don't know what’s better cause I've never seen When Harry Met Sally or Sleepless in Seattle.
Brooke: You haven't seen either? To be fair-
Lindsey: No
Brooke: I’m a big fan of all Rom Coms. Like When Harry Met Sally is a good movie but to completely ignore any of the Rom Coms of last decade 1. Not only puts down an entire genre but 2. Also ignores all of the diverse voices we’ve gotten especially in the last few years like with Crazy Rich Asians and The Big Sick. Like these were great rom coms. They're great, well done, they are smart. And to say that we need to elevate this genre is bullshit. And it's a genre, which I also might add, is often made by women filmmakers and have typically viewed as having more of a women oriented audience. To write off this entire genre also then writes off women, which is bullshit.
Lindsey: Boo.
Brooke: So you can say that you want to subvert the genres expectations, that you want to create a more grounded rom com, but when you say elevated its just saying that you think of the regular as less than. And that's bullshit. Finally, cause were not done with Dave Franco, I told you Dave Franco was busy this week. It was announced Dave Franco’s gonna play Vanilla Ice in an upcoming biopic.
Lindsey: What?
Brooke: Yup
Lindsey: Why?
Brooke: Its supposedly like the same tone as The Disaster Artist, which was the movie that James Franco directed about The Room, but-
Lindsey: Who would’ve thought that they would make a biopic about Vanilla Ice also in a guise of something related to the room.
Brooke: I mean it's not related, it's just the same tone.
Lindsey: The Room adjacent.
Brooke: Yeah. That's it. I don't have more to say about that movie. Just that he's doing it.
Lindsey: I'm just confused. But alright. Another thing I won’t watch. I’ll watch the elevated rom com cause i fucking love rom coms, but honestly ill just watch a bunch right before and be like these other ones were better. What's the opposite of elevated? Shrunken? Devolved?
Brooke: Sunken.
Lindsey: Actually the last rom com i might have watched besides teen ones might have been Always Be My Maybe, which was amazing.
Brooke: Yeah. That is a good movie. I was like I just watched The Kissing Booth Two, and that was not amazing, so. But that is what you need to know to get through a conversation with your local film kid this week.
Lindsey: Ooo, our local one.
Brooke: Well I guess it could be your distant film kid. To be fair nothing is local in these times of quarantine.
Lindsey: Your distant internet film kid.
Brooke: That you’re forced into a zoom meeting with.
*La La Land Intro Music*
Brooke: Okay so before we jump into La La Land, we’re gonna do what we're gonna call a shitty tweet. Which is where we describe these movies terribly. Like yes, technically this does describe the movie, but no.
Lindsey: Like it is the plot, but like not a plot that makes me want to consume the content.
Brooke: Exactly. So, my tweet for La La Land is “Boy meets girl, boy loves girl, no wait he loves LA.”
Lindsey: Shocked, i know no one that loves LA.
Brooke: That's the whole movie Linds, that’s it.
Lindsey: Mine is “a gender swapped version of the expectation v. reality scene from 500 Days of Summer, but there’s also jazz and John Legend.
Brooke: So La La Land; it is written and directed by Damien Chazelle. The cinematography is by Linus Sandgren. He’s a Swedish dude. It was released in December of 2016, at least in the States. It received 14 nominations for Oscars. It won 6 of them, including best director and best actress and then also famously it won best picture for 30 seconds. So Chazelle, he wrote the script before Whiplash, which was like his big breakout movie. But no studio was willing to finance this movie because it's an original contemporary musical that's also jazz based. Eventually he found some producers and took it to Focus Features. The studio demanded that he change some things, mainly that Seb needed to be a rock musician, not jazz, the ending needed to be just strictly happy, not the bittersweet ending that we have, and the opening number needed to be just like completely changed to be way simpler. And obviously he was like well, no, we don't want that. So he moved on. And then after Whiplash was a success, people were interested, then Summit Entertainment signed on to produce. Originally Miles Teller and Emma Watson were the leads.
Lindsey: Oh that’d be weird.
Brooke: Right?
Lindsey: Would Miles Teller’ve played drums instead? Or would they have made him also learn piano?
Brooke: They probably would have also made him learn piano. Ryan Gosling had to learn piano for this.
Lindsey: Okay.
Brooke: Yeah so it was, the characters were originally younger. They were like Miles Teller’s character was just moving to LA instead of having been in LA.
Lindsey: It makes me feel better about myself considering they've each been there for like, Mia at least 6 years. I don’t even know how old Ryan Gosling was supposed to be. But I'm like ah, people in their 30s without their shit together, I'm fine.
Brooke: But Emma Watson dropped out to do Beauty and the Beast. Ironically Ryan Gosling turned down the role in Beauty and the Beast to do La La Land.
Lindsey : Who was he supposed to be in Beauty and the Beast?
Brooke: I don't know. Yeah. Let's talk about the way the film was shot. So, so much of this movie is just about honoring the 1950s musical era of hollywood and the way that filmmaking was back then and kind of like is a love letter to LA and to filmmaking in general. So Chazelle wanted to mimic these 1950s musicals, which were pretty much all shot in cinemascope without getting too technical cinemascope is just a lens series that was used in the 50s and 60s to create widescreen. It has a different aspect ratio than what we use today for widescreen. So in the beginning of the movie you see that like classic cinemascope logo come up. Its like presented in cinemascope. But the film was not actually shot in cinemascope because the technology doesn't actually exist anymore. But he used the cinemascope aspect ratio. He also used film instead of digital. Again, most movies today would just go strictly to digital, but Chazelle said that digital was too realistic and film would allow it to be more magical. So the opening is really fun. It's a huge musical number on the freeway. All the musical numbers are pretty much shot in one take or designed to look like they're in one take. So the cuts are hidden in the movement. In the opening number you see like when the camera spins they’ll hide a cut there because you can't pick it up. This is to mimic again old-school musicals that like, they would do in one take. They would do those exaggerated transitions and then long takes. If that makes sense.
Lindsey: Okay
Brooke: So in general, not just for this movie, like an opening scene it introduces you to the characters or the setting of your story. But it's like a rule that a lot of filmmakers break, but you're not supposed to include anything crucial in your opening scene. Do you want to know why, Linds?
Lindsey: I was trying to think of something witty and nothing came to mind.
Brooke: It's because people are late to the movies. So people either walk into the theater late and they miss what happens in those first two minutes or the person in front of you is late and they walk in blocking it.
Lindsey: I was gonna say I personally think that we should include something very important in the first two minutes so we punish the people that don’t get there for previews, but the people walking in front of you is a good point.
Brooke: Yeah. I will never forget the time I watched Looper, I was just flipping through channels on like my parents’ TV and like saw that it was playing, and I was like oh i missed the first two minutes but, eh, it’s fine. I’ll just see it. No, the first two minutes explains what's happening and they never bring it up again. And if you miss that you're just fucked.
Lindsey: I don't know what that movie is other than time travel, and i think I had half of it on in the background as i was wrapping presents and was just like i don't understand. And then turned it off.
Brooke: I honestly don't know. Again i never saw the first bit, so I can't tell you what this movie’s about. So, this opening scene is big, it introduces us to the world, which is LA, and that's a huge part of this movie but its not-
Lindsey: Is that why it takes place on the freeway?
Brooke: I mean, all LA is is just freeway here. It's just highway. We’re not introduced to the characters in this opening scene. We’re just introduced to LA. We get the traffic, we get good weather, we get the skyline.
Lindsey: You get an entire band being held captive to perform in a truck.
Brooke: I mean, yeah. If you listen to the lyrics of the song it's really just telling us what we're gonna see. They're singing about leaving their like romantic love behind to move to LA and follow their dreams.
Lindsey: Which Is arguably romantic in and of itself.
Brooke: Yeah. So, there's the line of like ‘he’ll sit one day, the lights are down, he’ll see my face and think of how he used to know me.’ Which is exactly what happens for Mia and Seb that last bit. Like the lights are down in the club and they make eye contact and are like oh shit it’s you.
Lindsey: Oh my god, so there was a spoiler in the first two minutes,
Brooke: But not crucial. Like that's the whole point.
Lindsey: It's crucial, it's the end.
Brooke: If you missed that, the ending still happens.
Lindsey: Listen just because I am unobservant doesnt mean its not a spoiler.
Brooke: The song ends and it's winter in LA. And it's very accurate cause I’ve lived here 3 years and I do not look at the weather anymore, I just assume. And like the three days that I’m wrong it's like it's kind of rainy today. Okay.
Lindsey: When I'm wrong I once soaked through my entire outfit to the point that I had to blow dry my bra and underwear in my work bathroom and like that still didn't even make them dry. But when I referenced that to my boss he was like that's why I keep an extra pair of pants in my office. And then he was like not for you, for myself when that happens. And I was like thank you boss, I'm glad you don't have extra pants for me.
Brooke: This musical number, it's like showing you how diverse LA is. There's like so many little intricate moments. And if you look at the movements the dancers are doing as the song builds get more and more dance number-y and less and less realistic. Like the first move like that girl she gets out of the car and yawns and like that's a dance move. Whereas at the end they're all dancing in sync perfectly before like all shutting their car door perfectly.
Lindsey: Ugh, that was a good shut.
Brooke: That kind of is how Chazelle like introduces us to this world of fantastical dance numbers is slowly. It builds upon itself. So by the time we get to the truck where people are playing instruments, there's a dance circle, it just feels like okay yeah sure that's the next natural step, sure. So yeah, after the opening number, we are then introduced to Seb and Mia. Seb is playing the same tape over and and over again to listen to the 5 seconds of jazz. Which clues us into two things about him: 1. he’s obsessed with jazz. But 2. he's also obsessed with the past. And then we go up a car and we see Mia and we’re also introduced to her passion, which is acting. So before we know anything about the main characters we know what they're passionate about and we know what they're trying to achieve, kind of. Then Mia goes to work and we see her interact with that actress, and we see how she defines success, which is turning down free coffee. Which is such a weird way to define success.
Lindsey: And also such a weird way to exist. Why are these wealthy actresses getting free coffee?
Brooke: If you're wealthy and someone offers you free coffee, don't just say no thanks I'll pay for it, say okay thanks and then give the money you were gonna pay for it as a tip.
Lindsey: Or like to the next person. Or just be like I'll buy everyone coffee in this place.
Brooke: It’s just like a weird little like that's how she's like she’s so successful - i offered her free coffee and she said no. And then we go to Mia's audition where we can see that she's a good actress. So that kind of lets the audience know that just because she isn't successful doesn’t mean she's not talented. Mia leaves the audition and we see the hall of Mia look-a-likes.
Lindsey: I like that the casting call for that was probably just like people that look like Emma Stone.
Brooke: I know. She goes home to a gorgeous apartment and then in the bathroom she's looking into a mirror and a spotlight goes on her. So this is used a lot in the movie right before or while people like start to sing or play. It has a transition into that like fantastical musical world. Again alluding to those older musicals where they need to spotlight the actor. They would use it more lit like a stage.
Lindsey: As someone who i don't think has ever seen an older movie musical that's cool.
Brooke: Yeah i mean just like they wouldn't be as drastic as these spotlight, but especially before color they would use lighting as color. So they would put more light on where you're supposed to draw your focus, which is the person singing. So then we go to the pool party and Mia again is in the bathroom, and she's in the spotlight, but she walks out of it instead of letting the spotlight fade, she leaves it. Which is her flaw, whereas we saw a brief glimpse of Seb being obsessed with the past, this is her flaw: she's not confident enough to stand in the spotlight. And then her car gets towed and to be honest that is one of the more straightforward parking signs in LA and Mia has herself to blame for that shit.
Lindsey: I didn't realize it was towed. I just thought she lost it, but I was like didn't you come here with all your roommates? None of them are with you?
Brooke: Yeah I don't know why she's not with her roommates
Lindsey: None of them commented? That like, you weren't gonna find your car?
Brooke: The parking sign just says no parking towing 9pm to 7am or whatever it is its like an overnight no parking zone, which is very straight forward. So she starts walking and she walks past that mural, which is a real mural in Hollywood it's called “You Are the Star,” and it's like a bunch of famous actors, producers, directors, sitting in the theater looking at the screen but you are the screen. So this is alluding to Mias trajectory like she's gonna become a star, thanks to Seb, who she is about to meet. Then we go back to the beginning and see Sebs point of view, and again he's just obsessed with nostalgia. He goes to the club to look at it, he has that stool he can't sit on, he refuses to unpack.
Lindsey: That's just a classic boy’s apartment where he just has all of these boxes possibly doubling as furniture because people cannot use the real furniture.
Brooke: Yes. So, then he goes to his job and is the most unhappy player of happy songs. Like happy Christmas songs. And when he starts playing the jazz, the spotlight hits him, again, transitioning into that fantastical, musical world. And then Mia enters and Seb gets fired and brushes her off. Now we're in spring and we go to our second pool party, which is really just what LA is, its pool parties and networking and hell. But the writer that she meets, Carlo, is the worst part of networking in LA. Like he is it.
Lindsey: I was gonna say is that what dating is like, you just meet someone and they talk about themselves and their own script for 20 minutes straight?
Brooke: And they use every possible angle buzz word that could possibly exist. And it’s like you're not saying things, you're just using words. But the actor who’s playing him is actually like a writer. He wrote like the Ice Age movies but also Wonder Woman.
Lindsey: Very different.
Brooke: Yeah. he's like written a bunch of stuff.
Lindsey: You're telling me Ice Age and Wonder Woman are by the same person?
Brooke: I lied, just one Ice Age movie, just Ice Age: Continental Drift. But he's like a real writer. So, to add a layer of dimension to the film.
Lindsey: Yeah, you never know if that annoying dude at the party who’s making you read their script could have been Wonder Woman.
Brooke: He's not wonder woman
Lindsey: The Wonder Woman script.
Brooke: He just is wonder woman. Ya know, you're right. You never know. And then we get the “I Ran” moment, which I get is supposed to be cute and she's like poking fun at him. If someone stood in front of me and danced the way that Emma Stone danced in that scene I would not talk to them.
Lindsey: Nope
Brooke: After the party we get the “What a Waste of a Wonderful Night” number. Which again is extremely reminiscent of those old school 1950s musicals, like Seb even spins around a light pole, which is like the famous move from Singing in the Rain.
Lindsey: Ah, did not get that.
Brooke: Really?
Lindsey: Because i have not seen that movie. I just appreciate any upbeat song that's like you're an utter piece of trash.
Brooke: So yeah it's also that classic trope of like I hate you but the audience sees that they are perfect together. And then it's just a gorgeous shot. Like that shot makes me love LA.
Lindsey: I don't live there, but I'm sure other people agree with you. I don't dislike it.
Brooke: They only had about 20 minutes a day to film that sequence, and they only had two days at the location, so they really only got about 5 takes of this.
Lindsey: I assumed that the background was fake.
Brooke: No!
Lindsey: I definitely assumed that that was not a real sunset.
Brooke: That's why I love LA, like it’s just so pretty. The next day Seb breaks onto the Warner Brothers lot, which as a concept would not happen anymore. So he apparently breaks into the lot and then they walk around. Mia explains her love of acting, and like mentioned old movies for her and her aunt, so this is the common connection between Mia and Seb is they both love these old things. Then we get the jazz scene where a white man gets to explain jazz. That's it. That's the scene. And then she gets the callback for that audition and this is kind of my first problem with this movie is suddenly Seb becomes more knowledgeable about Mia’s passion than Mia. The fact that she hasn't seen Rebel Without a Cause and Seb has. It's such a small thing but like it sticks for me and i don't like it.
Lindsey: And then he tries to ask her on a date essentially to see it and calls it quote on quote research. As if he's not probably a 30 year old man.
Brooke: That's LA for you.
Lindsey: That would annoy me. Just fucking go on a date.
Brooke: To be fair she has a boyfriend. So then there's the scene on the pier and Sebs not singing about Mia, he's singing about LA because he's in love with LA. I just really like the old man giving Ryan Gosling the dirtiest look when he dances with his wife.
Lindsey: It's fine, they're doing research.
Brooke: Mia has dinner with her boyfriend. That conversation they have at that restaurant makes me want to peel my face off. They're just like talking about like the various spas that they go to and of Nicaragua ‘it's a little like underdeveloped but this retreat we went to was just so great.’ It's like the most just awful human conversation. I haven't been in one of those conversations but I've been forced to listen to it because I've been forced to listen to my like boss’s calls and it's just like. I literally would be like I could end this call. I could end this for both of you. I could make this stop.
Lindsey: Bad conversation, try again.
Brooke: Exactly. Like I too would get up from this dinner table, run away, and say nothing more than I'm sorry. And then never speak to you again, like that's how i would end that. So then we get their date sequence where she shows up at the theater and stands in front of the screen.
Lindsey: For a long time!
Brooke: For such a long time. She would have been screamed at so quick. Again, this is like referencing old-school Hollywood. Like that drastic lighting. They go to the locations of Rebel Without a Cause like they go to Griffith, they go to the planetarium.
Lindsey: Oh that's from Rebel Without a Cause? I thought they were just like it’s an LA landmark.
Brooke: No. Even like as they were watching it we see them pull up to the Griffith.
Lindsey: I'm like a C- LA knowledgeable person.
Brooke: But yeah, so they go to the Griffith and they have that very like almost silent movie-esque dance sequence
Lindsey: But with a background of just great flute playing.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: And as a flutist, this is probably the only movie that i was like ah, great flute playing.This movie, in multiple parts.
Brooke: They end with them like floating back down into their seats and then they kiss and it irises in,ending in on an iris in a kiss is a very traditional way that a lot of these old-school romances would end. But this movie isn't done. It's just getting started.
Lindsey: Part one, done. Part two, summer.
Brooke: So we iris out and what do we iris to is Mia’s passion. And that should also clue the audience into that their romance isn't the end because they still have to deal with their passions. And now it's summer and we get this montage of Seb and Mia dating.
Lindsey: Very dangerously driving while kissing.
Brooke: Yeah. I mean that's very old-school.
Lindsey: Yeah and people died old-school.
Brooke: Kay, Linds they go down the wrong way down a one way street. That's more dangerous. This montage isn't just them dating though, it's also them in LA. Like they go to a bunch of famous LA landmarks. Therefore like the movie again is tying LA into their romance. Like LA is still just a part of what this film is about.
Lindsey: I just wanna say that if i found out that someone loved DC, and not me, I’d be fundamentally offended.
Brooke: That's fair.
Lindsey: Other cities, maybe. But if it were specifically I love DC and not you. That's trash.
Brooke: That's fair, that's very fair.
Lindsey: Wasn't the like cart that they went up that's near the like food market thing, whose name I'm blanking on, wasn't that like not running pre this movie? And it started-
Brooke: It technically wasn't even running for this movie.
Lindsey: Oh just kidding.
Brooke: It was after the movie came out that they actually started it up again. Essentially how they got around it they like booked that location for a day for a private event and then fixed it themselves. And then used it for filming for that day.
Lindsey: That's incredible.
Brooke: But yeah so they go to the Angel's Flight. They go to a bunch of places. They go to like Venice and- so it's very much like ‘LA dating.’ Then Mia performs her like one woman show for Seb and he loves it. And at one point Mia says it feels too nostalgic and Seb says that's the point.
Lindsey: Classic Seb.
Brooke: Yeah at this point in the movie you can see that Seb has already affected Mia. He’s encouraged her to step into the spotlight to like follow her dreams to be confident enough to step up. But Seb really hasn't changed yet. However, pretty much immediately after is where we get Mia talking to her mom. Seb is forced to hear her try to explain his lack of success and this is what prompts him to taking the job with John Legend, aka Keith, which is a terrible name for John Legend, don’t do that to John.
Lindsey: And also John Legend is such a good singer. I understand Ryan-like i understand Ryan Gosling in this part. I understand he's a good actor. If we can dub Drew Sealy on Zac Efron, we can dub John Legend and have the main singer, one of the two main singers of the movie, be a good one.
Brooke: Yeah but then it wouldn't be realistic. And that was the whole point. So he takes the job with Keith because anyone would compromise their dream for a thousand dollars a week.
Lindsey: A thousand dollars a week?
Brooke: Yeah! That's what he's making! Plus like a cut of ticket sales.
Lindsey: I mean I would compromise my dream if John Legend asked me to.
Brooke: But if a man named Keith.
Lindsey: I can't take you seriously if you call him Keith. Like I just have him named John Legend in my notes. Like. I would do literally many things for a thousand dollars. I was having a conversation with my friends that they were like how much money would it take for you to do like something and all of them were saying like a million dollars and I was like honestly, probably like 35K. Like. Not even much. Like, a nice entry salary.
Brooke: Yeah. He's making a thousand dollars a week. Which is only like 52k a year, which isn't outrageous. Like it’s good money. But it's not like wow he's like rolling in it. And yet I'm like god damn, I would like 52 thousand dollars a year please.
Lindsey: God damn, 52 a year.
Brooke: What a concept.
Lindsey: And it's not even like. A. I would compromise a lot for 52 a year, B. assuming that includes like benefits and healthcare. C. it’s not even that much of a compromise as more of like, I'm still doing something that I want to do, it's just different. And i can still do the things that I want to do later.
Brooke: And he gets a cut of the ticket sales. So it's more than 52K a year.
Lindsey: And it's not like trying to end jazz.
Brooke: No. He gives up his artistic integrity, Linds. And then, so we get the “City of Stars” scene.
Lindsey: Wait, we get the incredible line of John Legend saying ‘how are you going to be revolutionary if you're such a traditionalist?’ Which A. Boom. B. sets the tone for I feel like the rest of the movie.
Brooke: Yes. Yes this “City of Stars” scene, which is genuinely their worst singing. I get like Chazelle is like going for realism in this take, but it's just like bad singing, and I think this is truly like when the audience should be keyed into the fact that this movie is going to take departures from a traditional Hollywood era musical. Because the 1950s would never do this. They would never allow the actress to laugh two different times and be like yeah that works.
Lindsey: I was about to sarcastically say they would never allow a woman to laugh and then that was your point.
Brooke: She can laugh. She just can't laugh when she's supposed to be not laughing.
Lindsey: Sorry they would never allow a woman to step out of line like that.
Brooke: And then it goes to fall. And we get another montage. And this is them really starting to give things up to get their dreams. Mia is selling a bunch of her stuff because she wants- she's booking that theater for a night and then Sebs giving things up artistically. He's fully kind of committing to Keith’s band.
Lindsey: No
Brooke: And then they're even giving up their relationship with each other as they see each other less and less. And then we get the John Legend concert number, which that song is so damn catchy.
Lindsey: I fucking love John Legend. Rip to the John Legend concert that me and my mom were gonna see this summer
Brooke: Ugh rip. My whole thing with this scene where like Mia's in the crowd and she's shocked at the music that Seb is playing, did she not-
Lindsey: Did he never rehearse?
Brooke: It's like. Like in the youtube clip where it's like Sebs giving like a radio station interview like one of the like next up videos was the wander...the wanderers?
Lindsey: Keith and the wandering boys.
Brooke: Making their first album, like they have an album. Why isn't she listening to it?
Lindsey: Arguably I think that Mia’s not actually a supportive character in any sort of way, so not shocking to me that she wouldn't actually have listened to any of his music.
Brooke: That's kind of fair. You can make the argument that she's not shocked by the music, she's shocked by like the dancers and the lighting effects and that stuff. But still that's a stretch.
Lindsey: But like in theory that would’ve come up. Like you live together.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: Like wouldn't there be one conversation where you're like so we added dancers today. Unless that's like not what they talk about. All of their conversations are like a romantic metaphor. So she like didn't actually think that dancers were being added.
Brooke: And then Mia sends out the invitations to her play, and my god it bothers me so much that she doesn't use bcc. She just mass emails and it's all in the to field. Mia, this is why no one showed up.
Lindsey: Someone took her off and replied all like every time the entire Emerson student body is emailed. And then 20 people replied was i supposed to be on this chain? And then no one comes because they're too annoyed.
Brooke: Yeah. It is just terrible email invitation etiquette Mia, terrible.
Lindsey: Hey. She's living in the past, she doesn't know how to use a computer. We’re forgiving her.
Brooke: I'm not forgiving her. So then we get their fight scene, and I love this scene. Like there’s so many things about it that are just done so right. First the way that the camera is very rigid. They have essentially two shots - the shot of the closeup of Seb, close up of Mia. They cut back and forth instead of doing any kind of fluidity that the camera really has been doing through most of the movie. And then they like the way that they talk over each other, but like not to each other. And then the record that's playing their theme finishes right before like their relationship finishes. It's just a very well done scene. So then Mia does her play, Seb misses it because he's being a star, biting his lip.
Lindsey: Which I will say that while they're having their fight he's like why cant you come to Boise and practice there.
Brooke: Mhm.
Lindsey: He's like we never see each other. And she’s like my show is in two weeks. I didn't realize he was gonna be home in two weeks. A why didn't he ask her to go on tour at the very beginning and why couldn't they just wait the two weeks.
Brooke: Cause he misses her now dammit.
Lindsey: And also theoretically then he should have been in Boise.
Brooke: I mean no he'd only be in Boise for like a night, its a tour, not a location.
Lindsey: Two weeks in Boise.
Brooke: Imagine a tour doing two weeks in Boise. What fans are living there that they would have enough demand for two weeks of shows.
Lindsey: The Democratic National Convention.
Brooke: My favorite band. Yeah so she does her play. And he misses it. And then we kind of get the mirror scene to the fight with her and Seb. With Mia and LA. So, LA says something really hurtful. That asshole dude is just like she's not talented. And then similarly to the fight scene with Seb, she gets up and she leaves. Like she's done with LA she's leaving and running. And then we get the grand gesture scene, which is like a pretty big common trope of romance movies. But this isn't about getting Mia back, it's about getting her dream back. So Seb drives out there, finds her house, lays on the horn.
Lindsey: To Boulder, Colorado right?
Brooke: No. I mean that is a place, but that's not where this is.
Lindsey: Okay, cause I was like that's about a 15-hour drive.
Brooke: It's Boulder, Nevada.
Lindsey: Okay.
Brooke: I remember the first time I watched it being like Boulder City. Boulder, Colorado is so big there's more than one library there.
Lindsey: Okay, that's only four hours from LA.
Brooke: Yeah. So we go to the audition and this is like a nightmare fuel audition for me. Imagine someone says yeah just tell us a story. Oh what about? Whatever you want.
Lindsey: Just tell us about yourself.
Brooke: If someone- i would tell them like okay well today for lunch. It would not be like oh yes, my aunt. She jumped in the river in france. She got sick, but she said she would do it again. Like no!
Lindsey: She then became an alcoholic. She died.
Brooke: But she was a dreamer, and I’ll love her for that.
Lindsey: I mean to be fair, in the event I ever do stand up, which i don't want to, but I feel like I should have bits prepared just in case.
Brooke: In case you're forced on stage?
Lindsey: I mean that happened in High School Musical. But I have two go-to stories that would be funny in theory but I need to craft how to tell them. So I feel like I would tell one of those. One being my god awful date that started with the man telling me he was the devil on the metro, and the second one being how my family has a trend of always wanting to be naked at all times. But like definitely not what an audition would be.
Brooke: Both of those; wild stories to tell. You would not get the part.
Lindsey: They'd be like Paris is not ready for this.
Brooke: Paris isn't ready for the chaos you would unleash. So Mia tells her story about her aunt. Again, we get a huge spotlight moment. After the audition we get the true breakup scene between Mia and Seb but we're not sad about it because at this point the movie has told us that this is what we’ve been building to - they're giving each other up to Follow their passion and follow their dreams. And then it's five years later and it's winter again and Mia parks terribly. Like she's famous now and i can understand that but Mia you have to stick to the lines like you're not more famous than parking rules.
Lindsey: Jeff Bazos when he bought like his house in DC wracked up i want to say around 50 thousand dollars of parking tickets just cause he’s like I don’t give a fuck, put the car on the street.
Brooke: I mean. God damn it.
Lindsey: Those numbers might be wrong but it's definitely a thing that happened because I know it was definitely a number that was like more than what I considered like a high salary. And was just like this is just not wanting to park a car.
Brooke: I can't. I can't believe. The audacity. And then we know that she's famous because she gets to turn down free coffee! She has it! She's made it! And then this is kind of my second problem with this movie. For Mia to be in like this 5 years later to be successful she has to have a husband and a kid. And like this isn't something she’s talked about before, like we have no proof that that is something her character wanted. So that just kind of felt forced, and i don't like it especially because we don't get that for Seb. Seb doesn't need anything besides his club to be considered a success and that bothers me a lot. But also fun fact, the guy who plays Mia's husband is Tom Everett Scott, who was in this movie called That Thing You Do, I don't know if you've seen it.
Lindsey: Nope
Brooke: It's about a band like with a one hit wonder trying to make it trying to turn their one hit wonder to like success. Tom Everett Scott plays a jazz drummer. So it's kind of like a nice little nod to that.
Lindsey: Heh. Ironic.
Brooke: So like they go to the cub and we see that Seb has used like Mia’s logo.
Lindsey: Has become successful because he is willing to compromise some small things about his life.
Brooke: So yeah, so we’re in this club and then we have the fantasy sequence. And there's a bunch of different ways you can read this sequence. Like various interpretations of whose fantasy it is or if it's like a collaborative thing. I personally read it that it's Mia's fantasy.
Lindsey: That's how i read it.
Brooke: So Seb he starts playing their theme and then like Seb stays in that scene when he explains jazz as a white man, she takes this theme and she rewrites it, therefore like she rewrites their relationship. She doesn't have to give up anything in this fantasy sequence. She gets everything she wanted.
Lindsey: Yeah I was about to say why would it be a collaborative one if Seb’s the only one changing-
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: Like any- like any of the choices that were made in the movie, the entire sequence is her making the same decision and him changing his.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: Even though, if he did not act exactly the way he did, she would not have been where she is. Their roles for each other were to push themselves to do the things they wanted to do, not because they would’ve been romantically compatible.
Brooke: Right. In her fantasy Seb doesnt ever brush her off and is never rude to her in the first place. They immediately get together. Seb doesn't work for Keith. And therefore never has reason to have that fight with Mia where he says those hurtful things. She has a packed audience for her one woman stage. Probably because Seb told her how to send out proper invites. And then she still gets the audition; they go to Paris. Seb’s still playing jazz, but he never opens the club. She still gets to become a famous celebrity. They have their kid. They have everything. And then the song ends, the spotlight fades on them both.Mia gets up and leaves and they kind of have that one look where they finally make eye contact and they kind of recognize I would not be where i am if it wasn't for you. But they're not together because ultimately their dream, which is signified by LA, was more important. And that's La La Land.
Lindsey: I will say, this is my third time seeing it. Each time I watch it I do like it more from not liking it the first time i saw it to being like okay. The parts that I like I do like. I’m a- I’m a big slut for montages. This movie is about 50 percent montages.
Brooke: I don't know - I've always liked this movie. But each time I watch it I do enjoy it more. And it's just so pretty. It's a pretty movie. It makes me happy.
Lindsey: It is very pretty. I'm also like i like. I'm like fine with happy endings when they make sense. But i don't like forced happy endings and like it ending the way Mia envisioned it wouldn't have been realistic in the way that like, they are two enneagram 3s and one of them would have to have not have been.
Brooke: Maybe that's why I relate too much to this movie because I too am a three. And like fuck my romantic life. Just give me a career and I’ll be happy.
Lindsey: Is your romantic life not LA?
Brooke: It's just LA people, but I'm not dating the city.
*High School Musical Transition music*
Lindsey: ‘kay.
Brooke: Are we ready to get our head in the game now?
Lindsey: My tweet is “basketball star and science nerd team up to uproot high school stereotypes in order to destroy one girl’s chance of achieving her dream of musical theater.”
Brooke: I have “the only thing more important than basketball is true love. But only if you can also play basketball at the same time.”
Lindsey: So i know very little about filming technique, so this is going to be a lot more plot heavy. Opening scene. It's New Year’s Eve. Gabriella is reading in a ski lodge instead of being forced to a quote teen part in the ski lodge with absolute strangers. No siblings, no friends that are with her. And her mom is like how dare you be reading instead of going to the party at a random ass ski lodge. Which, I agree. I would not go to.
Brooke: Have you ever like been on a cruise and like been forced to go to those things?
Lindsey: Yeah but my brother’s been with me. Actually i never went to like a big combined party but like it'd be more like me and my brother would be in the hot tub and two other siblings would be in the hot tub and then they'd be like can we join and we’d say yes and then no one would talk.
Brooke: No, I just remember they had this like all nighter kids party where they just gave us like so much sugar. Like an unreal amount of sugar. And they just kept us awake until like 3 am. And then sent us back to our parents.
Lindsey: Who were probably just given like an unlimited number of shots from the boat.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: I do know a lot of people, you know the like thing in middle school where like your friend got back from a cruise and was like I’m in a relationship with this person i met on the cruise they live in Florida and you were just like okay.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: That is something I never wanted and never want to happen to me.
Brooke: I mean yeah I definitely was never in a relationship.
Lindsey: But it was just like you give a blowjob to one person and then you're in a cruise relationship and then it's just like how does that even happen?
Brooke: I guess. I went on, I think I've been on two cruises. One I was like six. And the other I think I was like 9. And neither of those ages are blowjob giving ages.
Lindsey: So meanwhile Troy is playing basketball with his dad. Both of them go to their own respective parties. Gabriella once getting there decides to read anyway, which is hilarious. Then the party has a karaoke night, where instead of having people sign up they just shine a light on random people and force them to karaoke with a stranger, which is so fucked up. And like obviously effective, but like fucked up.
Brooke: But just imagine if they couldn't sing. Like imagine subjecting everyone to two people who are tone deaf. And what if they don't know the song.
Lindsey: Luckily both of them can sing, and it was clearly a very popular song because neither of them were looking at the screen. Though next scene the song is- they kill it, of sheer coincidence of who they shined the light on. They go outside to talk because it's New Year’s Eve and midnight. Troy looks like he's trying to kiss Gabriella, she turns her face to watch the fireworks. My grandmother did a very similar thing where a dude went to kiss her and she just turned her head, and then said good night. Not in the 50s like a couple years ago. I love retirement village dating.
Brooke: It's so wild.
Lindsey: Regardless-
Brooke: Give me Love Island for elderly people.
Lindsey: I feel like someone told me there was gonna be a Bachelor for old people, maybe that was you?
Brooke: It definitely wasn't because what?
Lindsey: Then as Troy tries to kiss her, she brings up her mom, hence ending the romantic intentions. They go off their separate ways. They exchange phone numbers, which for La La Land, he had the opportunity to get her number. I guess phones didnt exist in the 50s so that's why, and instead just chose to break into her place of work.
Brooke: Yeah. You don't need phones to have true love.
Lindsey: Well. Here you do. And they exchange phone numbers, take pictures of each other, which did we do that in 2006?
Brooke: I was trying to think about that and I was like iIguess? I definitely did set like contact photos.
Lindsey: But like I never took a, like, my contact photos were reserved for like people who were good enough friends of mine that I had pictures.
Brooke: Yeah like I don't think I was ever like oh let me get your number. Click. Here's a photo of you.
Lindsey: Next scene they're back at school. The entire student body is wearing the school colors and everyone waits for Troy to get off the bus, which i must say, no one at my school cared about the basketball players that much? And no one wore all the school colors on purpose.
Brooke: I mean our basketball team players, we like usually went to state for basketball, so they cared about them.
Lindsey: Maybe that was just a my school thing.
Brooke: We wouldn't wear like all of the school colors, but we would have like our school colors were like green, black, and silver, which were like dope colors, but so we would have like a blackout day, where everyone would wear black, like on a game day.
Lindsey: But not like, the first day back from winter break.
Brooke: No, definitely not. There's no big game that day.
Lindsey: Sharpay walks by and she's immediately cast as a self absorbed ice princess, which is also weird that the basketball team would even care enough about like the lead in the school play. Taylor and the other nerds immediately make fun of the jocks, all categorizing everyone and who they should be. Gabriella arrives claiming that she doesn't want to be the school's freaky genius girl. Troy then spots Gabriella and Sharpay blocks him from talking to her and like tries to flirt with him which they very quickly drop? Mainly because like when I watched her trying to flirt with Troy in like the first couple of scenes I was very taken aback. When they go to class, Chad still has his basketball for some reason.
Brooke: Look, it's his security blanket. He needs it.
Lindsey: He has it in so many scenes, and I'm like does he bring his own basketball to practice? Like this school seems so wealthy, I'm sure they have basketballs. Troy then notices that Gabriella’s in the class.
Brooke: You missed my favorite line in the entire movie.
Lindsey: Oh I'm sorry.
Brooke: It's like some weird improv that I need to know the backstory of it. Troy is talking to his like classmate, basketball dude, and like the basketball dude goes like ‘do you even remember anything else,’ and Troy goes, ‘no all i remember is like pink jelly.’
Lindsey: I did not even hear that.
Brooke: I don't know why and I don't know what he's talking about. But every time i watch that scene that's all I can hear because what is the pink jelly?
Lindsey: So Troy notices that Gabriella’s in the class. He for some reason tries to call her on her cell in homeroom, thinking that she'd answer. And the disruption causes Sharpay, Ryan Troy, Gabriella, Chad, and Taylor to all get detention in a very Breakfast Club-esq way.
Brooke: I think he's just trying to see if it's her. Because he can't remember. Cause they talked to each other for four hours.
Lindsey: But he has a picture of her. Just look at the picture-
Brooke: If it's like a 2006 phone, it's a real bad photo.
Lindsey: Just say Gabriella? See who looks up
Brooke: I'm not saying he's smart, I'm just saying what he's doing.
Lindsey: Troy then waits for Gabriella outside the class and warns her that the Troy that she met isn't the Troy that's actually him. They bump into Sharpay outside of the school musical sign up sheet. She then takes up the entire sign up sheet to sign her name. She then flirts with Troy again, which is very weird, saying that they are both driven. Making the parallel that Mia and Seb are also too driven, they would not actually work as a romantic couple, in the same way that Sharpay and Troy would not work. They are-
Brooke: Who says they won't work?
Lindsey: -too goal-oriented. Me! Sharpay is too good for him! Next scene, the basketball practice. Troy sarcastically floats the idea of him auditioning for the school play to Chad saying that he could get extra or something. And Chad blasts him saying that Lebron James would never do a musical unless it were hip hop or rock, and it's a great mental image of an entire basketball team doing Hamilton, which I now want to see.
Brooke: Yes.
Lindsey: They do “Getcha Head in the Game,” Troy contemplates if his love for Gabriella or his love for singing is what makes him want to audition. But he shakes it, yikes.
Brooke: The spoken yikes gets me.
Lindsey: I love the like singular spoken one liners in all the songs. Mainly just the yikes and Zeke yelling ‘creme brulee.’
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: Next scene Sharpay and Gabriella are in the same chem class. Sharpay tells her that Troy's one true love in life is ball, and not her. And I'm not saying that sharapy can't be smart because she's like a popular drama girl but I'm extremely confused as to how they are in the same chem class. Mainly because Sharpay literally becomes offended when Gabriella wants to talk about science and not Troy. Meanwhile Troy lingers in the hall contemplating whether to sign up for the audition. And Sharpay, noticing all of this, does some digging to make sure they dont sign up for the couples audition. Which as a side note it’s really fucked up that they make you addition as a couple.
Brooke: Yeah it is, but also at the same time like you gotta make sure your leads have chemistry.
Lindsey: What if all the couples that are auditioning think that they think have romantic chemistry one of them is just not a good singer at all. Is the drama teacher allowed to break-but what if they're all like that?
Brooke: They won't be like that when there's Sharpay.
Lindsey: Or it won't be when the only couple that ever auditions are siblings.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: But, to do this research Sharpay opens an internet tab, which instead of google is just “search the internet” to get dirt on Gabriella and she finds out that she won a scholastic decathlon challenge at her last school.
Brooke: Uh, did you see what like the third result was?
Lindsey: No.
Brooke: Cause the first two were like essentially about the decathlon but the third one was some zoo welcomes an ape named Gabriella.
Lindsey: Awww.
Brooke: And I was like aw, baby ape.
Lindsey: In the next scene they have detention, which is just set design. Which A. I feel like there's usually entire people in the drama club dedicated to making the sets B. They spend so much time doing set design in this movie and the play hasn't even been cast yet. They have months to do set design, which is nearly finished just in the week of them doing callbacks. Sharpay's revenge was actually a very nice deed of helping Gabriella find some friends in organizations that she thinks that she would be good at, such as joining this school's scholastic decathlon. She does so by putting a printout of the article in Taylor’s locker. So it makes Taylor think that Gabriella just wants to join on her own. Gabreilla says that she wants to focus on herself and helping her mom unpack so she denies it. Troy's dad, also the school's basketball coach, finds out that they're in drama detention, where Chad still has his basketball. Mrs darbis then goes to the principal to complain that sports are more valued than the arts in the school and the principal tells her basically to shut up, and then talks about sports in the school.
Brooke: I mean that's a very accurate depiction of the public school system.
Lindsey: Yeah I agree. Scene change. The next day Taylor stills tries to get Gabriella on the scholastic decathlon team and Gabriella tries to learn more about Troy so to prove a point. This is going to be point one so for all of the side characters are literally awful in this movie. Taylor makes a point by making fun of the girls that she deems less smart than her, just because they care about like skincare, for example. Or are cheerleaders. Meanwhile Troy is playing basketball with his dad who literally no context reinforces the need for Troy to do well in basketball, whether to get a scholarship, relive his glory days, etc. That day are tryouts for the school musical, which are being held during a free period, which, a free period sounds amazing. I did not know schools had that. Troy then acts very sketchy in order to get himself into the auditorium to get the chance to audition. Chad spends his time trying to figure out what Troy is hiding. Despite the fact that Troy for the past 3 days was asking Chad what he would think if he auditioned for the musical. Troy watches a series of horrendous auditions including my favorite one, which was two stoners doing an interpretive dance. Gabreilla finds Troy watching the audition after Ryan and Sharpay do a, though over the top and romantic brother sister routine, nonetheless, an amazing audition that obviously was very well prepared including a tap routine and very well rehearsed. Kelsey the composer of the musical is upset because they quote on quote butchered her song, though i think that Sharpay and Ryan's version was better.
Brooke: We don't know the context. Like where is this happening in the musical? Like what if this is supposed to be an emotional number and they're just tap dancing over your feelings?
Lindsey: But is breaking free”Breaking Free” not the emotional number?
Brooke: It’s all emotional numbers there's no plot to this musical
Lindsey: Yeah like I really don't know how “Bop to the Top” fits in.
Brooke: Exactly! What is this movie?
Lindsey: Equally, if La La Land needed a tap number this also needed a tap number. Now I will say I'm upset that Chad never tapped because Corbin Bleu is a great tap dancer. I saw him in a play in DC, incredible at tap dancing specifically.
Brooke: You can't tap in basketball.
Lindsey: That fair. I will say I would love to watch a basketball game where everyone is wearing tap shoes. So Mrs. Darbis calls for the close of auditions. Gives plenty of opportunities for someone else to audition then after she closes it, Gabriella and Troy decide that they want to audition. Mrs Dabis tells them that they're too late, which is fair because they never signed up, and she called 3 times before she closed them. They're upset but they sing a duet with Kelsey how she originally wrote it. Mrs. Darbis, out of the kindness of her own heart, gives them a callback. In the next scene Sharpay is clearly upset that she has callbacks for a role that literally only she auditioned for. So of course she would be surprised and hurt. The basketball team and the whole school for some reason sees the callback list, and suddenly the whole school wants to admit their side passions. While half the school wants to admit their side passions, aka Seb admitting his dreams are not possible unless he does other things first. The other half pulls a Mia and says that they need to stick to the status quo. No side dreams. No altering the current dream. Somehow in the middle of this dance routine Zeke bakes a whole creme brulee. Where he got a blow torch in the cafeteria is beyond me. But the scene ends with Gabriella slipping, spilling nacho cheese and chili on Sharpay, and Taylor pulling her away before Gabriella can make a meaningful apology or help clean her up, so logically Sharpay is mad at the outcome
Brooke: The kid who plays the cello, like the stoner skater kid in certain scenes he's like playing the cello, like he has his cello there with him but then in the final scene he's air playing a cello. You didn't need to do that, sir, if you have your cello play your cello don't play the air.
Lindsey: The stoner guys got mad and took it away. Is his passion just playing the cello on his own? Or is he in the school orchestra in which case like wouldn't he have been carrying a cello around this whole time?
Brooke: Look they're stoner kids they don't notice.
Lindsey: Cause if they have cello with him it implies that he's in the orchestra.
Brooke: They don’t notice. And the fact that he was like oh you have to wear like a coat and tie. Like he has a uniform he's in some kind of performing group
Lindsey: In the next scene Mrs. Darbis assumes that Troy only auditioned because his dad is pulling a prank on her so she goes into his office, which is in the boys’ locker room, which is very creepy.
Brooke: That's how our school was.
Lindsey: Really?
Brooke: But there wasn't like windows or anything. Like he couldn't like watch. Like it was like a wall and a door and then you'd go in.
Lidsey: Well this was I'm pretty sure a glass office.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: Just like straight into where people are changing. Regardless, Troy's dad is surprised to find out that Troy is auditioning saying that he doesn't even sing. Next scene, Gabriella asks if Sharpay is mad at her to Taylor, claiming that she didn't even audition. Which is technically true but arguably Gabriella tried very hard to audition, just behind closed doors. Now that social norms are being destroyed, Zeke asks Sharpay out, kind of, but only being like you can watch me play basketball, which is garbage so Sharpay says that she'd rather recreate the ending of The Lobster then go on that date with Zeke and tells him to quote evaporate tall person, which is-
Brooke: Which is a great line. I'm gonna use it. I'm gonna find a way to use it.
Lindsey: Meanwhile Troy leaves a note in Gabriella's locker to meet him on the roof, which is a greenhouse, which this school amazes me. But he says that it's his secret place, which is funny because literally like in two scenes the rest of the basketball team meets him there.
Brooke: This school's greenhouse that would be a very common place, like people would know it existed.
Lindsey: Yeah he's like I'm friends with the science people which A. like are you because that's like frowned upon thing number one of this movie B. If it's like implying that you had a key, then like how did the rest of the basketball team get there? But they have a heart to heart. Troy says that his popularity is only based on his basketball team winning and that he only makes his parents proud by being quote, the basketball guy, and singing with each other is the only way that they avoid these unrealistic expectations in their mind. Which partially what I'm hearing again is that they have really shitty friends that don't accept that they are anything other than a smart person or someone that loves basketball. The next scene is a montage of everyone practicing. Troy can somehow read sheet music now. Ryan wears a bunch of 90s pattern fedoras. Troy literally locks himself inside of a fire exit staircase to practice, which is dangerous considering he has an entire locked roof to practice in. They also are still doing set design, and in theory this play is going to be months from now.
Brooke: Well who knows cause there's also the spring musical
Lindsey: That's fair, do they have two musicals a semester?
Brooke: Apparently.
Lindsey: Like we would have a musical and a play.
Brooke: Yeah us too, a year
Lindsey: But like we have one before new years one after. By practicing for the musical Troy misses practice so he stays late and Gabriella comes to hang. Troy's dad then gets mad at him or missing practice and yells at Gabriella to leave more or less. His whole team meanwhile was behind the door listening for theoretically i want to say around 20 minutes. And they didn't know his dad was coming back so I really don't know what the entire team was hoping to find.
Brooke: They just were listening. They wanna hear their boy play.
Lindsey: Cause they didn't know Gabriella was coming either. So they then stayed to just hear them flirt with each other? But like they weren't even watching. They would have just been listening to him play basketball.
Brooke: It's just the comforting noise of squeaks.
Lindsey: In the next scene Chad confronts Troy saying that Gabriella is changing him and forcing him to audition. To further prove how shitty of a friend he is, when being yelled at for being loud in the library he then blames it on Troy who is not talking during this conversation. Chad then talks about how he wants to be a basketball player like the basketball players on cereal boxes, not the dude who is in the Phantom of the Opera who his mom printed a picture of and then put in her fridge and i must say, I’m not a basketball player but if just one mom took the effort to put a picture of me in their fridge, would be incredible. Like you buy cereal for the cereal, not because a basketball player is on it. Next scene Chad breaks stereotypes by talking to Taylor to devise a plan to make sure that Troy and Gabriella break up. Sharpay assumes that the plan is honestly much smarter than it is, thinking that they're uniting and building their strength in numbers in order to take control of the school to plan decisions and make sure that she is not going to be in the play. Taylor and Chad plan which then includes Taylor bringing Chad necessary equipment in a rolling backpack which is very 2000s on brand.
Brooke: Very on brand 2000s nerd.
Lindsey: Yeah.
Brooke: They didn't allow rolling backpacks at my high school.
Lindsey: Really?
Brooke: Yeah you couldn't have them.
Lindsey: Why?
Brooke: I don't know. There's a lot of things we couldn't have.
Lindsey: That's fair. The next scene begins with the plan that the whole basketball team tries to guilt trip Troy with trophies and pictures of high school basketball players who didn't audition for their school musical, hence why they were successful. The guilt trip then continues with a picture of Troy's dad as the high school basketball champion, when he also didn't audition for a musical. Troy then says that the rest of the team can pull their weight, and it's not just up to him, and the rest of the team says no. That Troy has to be the star player. Meanwhile the scholastic decathlon team calls Troy a neanderthal to Gabriella, which is a weird way to try to get Gabriella to join the scholastic team considering she is not even on it yet. They're just ragging on Troy and calling him a stunt to evolution. Troy then calls his friends out and says that he's there for the team. They pull up a super obvious camera when they ask about Gabriella and Troy says that she isn't important and singing is just a way to calm his nerves, which they then livestream to Gabriella. And after pulling what is a very obviously preplanned video they ask Gabriella to join the decathlon, then immediately a pep rally starts. Troy is the only one not wearing his school colors; both he and Gabriella are wearing blue, and she sings “On the Outside Looking In,” where she equally realizes that she likes the idea of the Troy in her head more than the real person. During this Gabriella also stands next to a life size ad for the basketball team.
Brooke: Okay look. This feels like it should be a strictly fictional thing but my high school had this.
Lindsey: Why?
Brooke: I don't know, we had like lifesize posters of our i think they did. They definitely did football. They didn't do everyone. They did the captain, slash quarterback, i don't really know football. And they definitely did it a lot for basketball players and the school like the front half of it would have two stories with like an overlooking railing so like you could see down to like the main entrance hall and they would hang them there, so it was like as you walked into our school you were greeted by these giant basketball players.
Lindsey: Oh my god that’s horrible.
Brooke: I don't know ball is life, that is what I learned in high school.
Lindsey: After the song Troy goes to talk to Gabriella about callbacks and she says, quote you've got your boys Troy, its okay. We're good. And Gabriella says she understands that they both don’t want to do callbacks, and she's going to join the decathlon, so apparently their insane plan of just being horrible to her actually worked. However, on the basketball side, the plan backfires and Chad is surprised to find out that Troy has emotions and is both too sad to practice with the team and wants to work out alone, and is now worse at basketball because he is upset.
Brooke: Who would have thought jocks have hearts?
Lindsey: Jocks have feelings, too. In the lunch room Gabriella ignores Troy, and Chad and Taylor realize that they've been awful friends and their plan to ruin their lives did indeed not make them happy. The boys then go to the roof, which Troy thought was his secret place. And they apologize for being dicks. They say that they support his singing in fact, they've never actually heard him sing. They don't know if he's good or not. And Zeke gives Troy baked goods because A, he's precious and apparently this whole time has never been like should i pursue a baking, this whole time he has been pursuing a baking passion.
Brooke: Just, all apologies and bad news should be proceeded with baked goods.
Lindsey: That's how I lived most of my high school life. I probably once every other week woke up at 5 am because I was insane and just like made pancakes and brought them in and me and my friends just sat in the hallway and ate them.
Brooke: Oh my god.
Lindsey: Before homeroom.
Brooke: I would sometimes get doughnuts after practice because our pool was like 30 minutes away from high school.
Lindsey: Jeez.
Brooke: We would drive past like doughnut shops so i would get doughnuts on my way to second period.
Lindsey: Yeah, my making of pancakes was not for anything other than that i did not sleep.
Brooke: That's very fair
Lindsey: Meanwhile as Taylor’s explaining the plan to Gabriella, Gabriella acknowledges that plan or no plan, Troy still said all those things. Which is a fair statement.
Brooke: Yup.
Lindsey: The next scene Troy shows up at Gabriella's house wearing double denim and Gabriella’s wearing a velour tracksuit, which is very 2000s.
Brooke: The costuming in this movie, A+.
Lindsey: Everyone has ike the low rise jeans and the belts that are just scarves tied around their waist.
Brooke: That isn't even like through the loops they're just decorative. Ugh bring it back except no none of it.
Lindsey: Very like LimitedToo before it was Justice. He tells her mom that he wants to apologize and when Gabriella doesn't answer he then scales the side of her house to sing the song that they sung at the lodge party, and then brings her sheet music to her.
Brooke: And she like tears up at it.
Lindsey: Because it is the start of something new. Again.
Brooke: The start of something new two, electric boogaloo.
Lindsey: In the next scene, Troy’s at basketball practice, his head is back in the game. Gabriella’s practicing for the decathlon and they're both auditioning with Kelsey. This is in my mind what seems like a very long period before callbacks, but probably this movie just takes place within the course of a week, which is also a very short time for them to like build this romantic relationship and devise a plan for them to break up.
Brooke: It’s high school.
Lindsey: Which means there's a lot of soul searching from an entire school in a short period of time and them all wanting to develop their side passions. Sharpay feeling threatened for something that she has worked on her entire high school career probably more than that, and changes callbacks to be the same day as the big basketball game and the decathlon. So the next day and the final day of this movie, is the day that all three events take place. Zeke makes a cake with a pi symbol on it and is like it’s a pi pie but it's not! It's a cake! Um, Taylor and Gabriella make the basketball team a sign. The basketball team shows their support for the drama club by writing go drama club on their shirts, for apparently no reason. While Troy is getting ready in the locker room, Troy's dad tells him that he just wants him to have fun playing basketball. He doesn't care if they win or lose, as long as Troy plays basketball, which is honestly just furthering the "it's not my dream you're killing its yours" moment. Which is not "I'll be happy if you're happy" it's "I'll be happy if you're happy playing basketball".
Brooke: Exactly.
Lindsey: Meanwhile, the game goes on Gabriellas at the decathlon, Sharpay and Ryan rehearse. While there is for some reason a small crowd to watch the callbacks and they sing “Bop to the Top.” Which again, no idea of what the context of this is, especially because it's not just Sharpay singing it's like still both of them singing this. So it's like a couple that seems to get together against all odds and then like to take over something.
Brooke: Yeah like the first song they sing is them like singing like oh you were always right beside me implying that they are like friends turned lovers. And then we have “Bop to the Top,” which is them getting success in their career. And apparently are somewhat Latin like who knows. And then they have “Breaking Free,” which like how do you go from “Bop to the Top”-
Lindsey: Breaking free of what?
Brooke: - to “Breaking Free” like? Like what are you breaking free from like is it about the entertainment industry?
Lindsey: It's actually just La La Land but if Mia’s ending happened.
Brooke: The callback sheet is the most insane names there’s okay the Incredible Mr. Schain, who the fuck is that like the names of their characters are Arnold and Minnie, what year does this take place in?
Lindsey: Also the 1950s. 1950s Latin America specifically.
Brooke: And then the third character we see is Johnny Omni. Who the hell is Johnny Omni?
Lindsey: I mean like this is what you get when you do a student written and produced play.
Brooke: I have so many questions and none of them are answered.
Lindsey: Sharpay and Ryan proving their commitment to wanting this role have props, they have costumes, they got all out for it, which Troy and Gabriella are in like their basketball and science uniforms respectively.
Brooke: Um, Troy had a costume change thank you very much.
Lindsey: He got changed into a different basketball outfit.
Brooke: Exactly.
Lindsey: While Sharpay and Ryan are singing, Kelsey acts like she can't hear them, which is honestly very weird. In theory she's worked with them before and will continue to work with them, and would theoretically also want the stars of her show to be people that also care about musicals. But whatever. For Gabriella and Troy to make it on time, Taylor hacks into the school to mess with the scoreboard and then they also react a random test tube. Why they had a chemistry experiment in the middle of the decathlon is beyond me but it seems to work. Despite being late, again, Mrs. Darbis gives them another chance to audition. Gabriella is then afraid to sing because of stage fright, which probably should have been addressed at the beginning of the movie? Gabreilla starts to sing but is afraid to. Troy then seemingly switches parts with her because Gabriella was supposed to be the first one to sing and then Troy is, and they are able to pull it off beautifully somehow. Their friends in the audience are indeed surprised to see that Troy can sing. In the next scene they continue with the basketball game. Troy, now with his head fully in the game, is able to make the winning shot of the championship game. Chad, on a testosterone high, demands that Taylor go on a date with him. And Sharpay, honestly being the bigger person, and the true MVP of the movie, tells her congrats, break a leg, because Sharpay is now her understudy, despite this basically being Sharpay's main activity basically being ripped away from her by someone who does not care. In a critical time for college applications.
Brooke: Not critical
Lindsey: I guess she's only a sophomore.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: But that is High School Musical.
Brooke: I will say High School Musical has better bops.
Lindsey: It's literally bop to the top.
Brooke: Besides the Keith song- like what.
Lindsey: It was more instrumental, which like i like instrumental movies, but-
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: But i think that is because Ryan Gosling could not sing.
Brooke: He could not, but he could play piano. Well, that about does it for our first ever episode. If you liked it, go ahead and share it with that friend you used to practice the high school musical dance routines with because let's be honest who didn't do that and give us a follow on social media. Were at film squids pod on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
*Outro music*
Brooke: Film Kids Giant Squids is produced and hosted by Lindsey Buttel and Brooke Hoppe. Intro Music is by the band Poly Action. Editing by Brooke Hoppe. Until next time, kids!