This week’s show is an all singing, all dancing revue, which finds Richard and his guests pirouetting on the side of a building, poppin’ on the stairwell, and doing donuts in the community pool. All of this filmed in brilliant lighting and clever camera movements. OK, that’s not really happening, but we do get to talk about all of those things on the podcast.
Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of the Broadway phenomena “Hamilton”, had his first big success on the Great White Way, with a show that is maybe the antithesis of that nickname. “In the Heights” won the Tony Award for Best Musical years before “Hamilton”, and it has been winding it’s way into movie theaters through an arduous decades long process. It’s finally here and we have opinions.
Rachel Wagner, Howard Casner and Thomas Stoneham-Judge are cast in their roles without regard to class, culture or representation, but rather with an eye to the screen. Did they like what they saw? What about the accusation of “colorism” that has been thrown at the film makers? Can Howard actually two-step? These and other mysteries come up as we talk about the film.
The Director of the film is Jon Chu, who made “Crazy Rich Asians” and a couple of the “Step Up” movies. He does his best Busby Berkley impression during what should be the show stopper moment, 96,000. Everyone seems to like it, but does it work?
Introductions
Discussion 2:50
Spoiler Talk 38:50
Colorism Controversy 59:50
Lambscores 1:12:00
Rants/Raves/Reviews 1:14:45
Plugs 1:26:04
Rachel Rachel’s Reviews
Howard Pop Art
Thomas ForReel Movie News and Reviews
Richard 80s Nostalgia Central
The show can be found, of course, via iTunes – just do a search for “LAMBcast.” Also, I always post a link to the show on the LAMBcast’s Facebook page, and there’s a player there if you’d like to listen online. Find the show here:
https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/lambcast/episodes/2021-06-22T11_52_28-07_00
If you’d ever like to catch up on back episodes, go there. If you’re interested, you too can be a LAMBcaster – we love new blood! For more information on the LAMBcast, check out the topic at the LAMB Forums. Music provided royalty-free by Kevin MacLeod’s Incompetech website. Big thanks to Kevin for providing this service. Closing song by Cake. The LAMBcast loves feedback, too – if you’d like yours read on a future show, leave it in the comments section at the LAMB. Please visit and like our Facebook page, and finally, we’re on iTunes, and would still love a review, even if it’s a bad one. Thanks for listening!