Current Events > Watching In the Heights

(+) Yeah! (+)

I already saw Hamilton a few years ago and...

Wow. I did not expect for so much of the themes and general feel of In The Heights to be in Hamilton too.

The caribbean tie-in, the theme of a legacy, making something of oneself, all of it...

Anyway the movie was okay. I didn't know what it was about going in but the movie is basically just "a day in the life of ____ community in some part of NYC"

Already seen plenty of movies and shows with that motif so it wasn't as interesting, but overall not bad.
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Did you notice the call waiting song?

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Watched it with my girlfriend last weekend. We enjoyed it a lot.

Was a little too long through

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The play is better

The whole heat thing reminded me instantly of Do The Right Thing.
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BilalPowell posted...

Did you notice the call waiting song?

That made me grin, roll my eyes and go "haha I understood that reference"

Loved it
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It definitely felt too long, and doesn't seem as tightly cohesive as his masterpiece Hamilton is.

But the songs are still catchy. I didn't like all the songs, but the ones I did like were fun enough.
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I felt like the movies ending was rushed. It was all this build up and then they lived happily ever after and got everything they wanted in the end.

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soulunison2 posted...

The play is better

I mean, I'm sure it is since most plays are better than the movie version, but if the movie is anything like the play well...

I'll say this, I'm thankful for this play for laying down the groundwork for his magnum opus, Hamilton.
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saspa posted...

I mean, I'm sure it is since most plays are better than the movie version, but if the movie is anything like the play well...

I'll say this, I'm thankful for this play for laying down the groundwork for his magnum opus, Hamilton.

the play expands on a lot of the secondary characters - they reworked a lot to make Usnavi and Vanessas romance the lead and Vanessa isnt as bland in the play considering she has an actual problem instead of being emo

Returning_CEmen posted...

I felt like the movies ending was rushed. It was all this build up and then they lived happily ever after and got everything they wanted in the end.

Agreed, but to be fair as soon as they introduced a lottery ticket angle I went "oh, that's how they're playing it" and again, the plot is a good first effort by Lin, with some generic story beats.

You know what movie actually had a nice twist on the lottery ticket angle, it could happen to you.
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soulunison2 posted...

the play expands on a lot of the secondary characters - they reworked a lot to make Usnavi and Vanessas romance the lead and Vanessa isnt as bland in the play considering she has an actual problem instead of being emo

Hope it's better because I wasn't really feeling the whole "nail salon worker but wants to be some famous fashion designer" thing.
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saspa posted...

Agreed, but to be fair as soon as they introduced a lottery ticket angle I went "oh, that's how they're playing it" and again, the plot is a good first effort by Lin, with some generic story beats.

You know what movie actually had a nice twist on the lottery ticket angle, it could happen to you.

the issue wasnt the lottery ticket. It was that they forgot Nina and Benny existed at the end. Like what happens to them?


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saspa posted...

Hope it's better because I wasn't really feeling the whole "nail salon worker but wants to be some famous fashion designer" thing.

yeah it was more her saving the money for the apartment but her mom ends up stealing it

Returning_CEmen posted...

the issue wasnt the lottery ticket. It was that they forgot Nina and Benny existed at the end. Like what happens to them?

in the play Nina lost her scholarship instead of flunking out and didnt want to tell her dad while benny couldnt be with Nina cuz papi rosado is racist

like I said a lot was changed from the film

soulunison2 posted...

in the play Nina lost her scholarship instead of flunking out and didnt want to tell her dad while benny couldnt be with Nina cuz papi rosado is racist

like I said a lot was changed from the film

She lost her scholarship BECAUSE she was flunking out (because she had to work multiple jobs to pay for Stanford)

Derwood posted...

She lost her scholarship BECAUSE she was flunking out (because she had to work multiple jobs to pay for Stanford)

oh yeah thanks for the correction, its been like a decade since I saw the play

soulunison2 posted...

oh yeah thanks for the correction, its been like a decade since I saw the play

Derwood posted...

She lost her scholarship BECAUSE she was flunking out (because she had to work multiple jobs to pay for Stanford)

that sounds way better than Dropping out of Stanford because people were racist against her as if she never encountered racism before.


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Returning_CEmen posted...

that sounds way better than Dropping out of Stanford because people were racist against her as if she never encountered racism before.

tbh that's normal, most neighborhoods in NYC tend to keep to themselves, and you actually kinda oversimplified it - it was racism and the fact that there was no community and/or someone she could relate to - as a POC I also experienced that when I went to college

soulunison2 posted...

tbh that's normal, most neighborhoods in NYC tend to keep to themselves, and you actually kinda oversimplified it - it was racism and the fact that there was no community and/or someone she could relate to - as a POC I also experienced that when I went to college

Yeah but its Stanford in California! Not Maine or Montana. There is a huge Chicano community there. They literally have a famous mural called The Last Supper of Chicano Heroes in one of their dining halls.

But it is a play not reality so I gotta suspend some disbelief

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Returning_CEmen posted...

Yeah but its Stanford in California! Not Maine or Montana. There is a huge Chicano community there. They literally have a famous mural called The Last Supper of Chicano Heroes in one of their dining halls.

yeah but how many of them actually get into sanford?

EDIT - Also she's puerto rican, not mexican iirc

soulunison2 posted...

yeah but how many of them actually get into sanford?

EDIT - Also she's puerto rican, not mexican iirc

Correct

soulunison2 posted...

yeah it was more her saving the money for the apartment but her mom ends up stealing it

wtf at the spoiler part
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My friend is super excited for this movie but I really am not interested, partly because it's a musical and partly because I feel like I'd find it too schmaltzy. That said, I've heard the sequences are fun. I guess if he invites me to come with, I miiiiight go

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I saw In The Heights in like 2010 or so? I prefer it to Hamilton tbh. Hamilton is more polished but is a little more self indulgent and a lot of the overlapping elements between the two seem more shoehorned in to Hamilton.

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Wetterdew posted...

My friend is super excited for this movie but I really am not interested, partly because it's a musical and partly because I feel like I'd find it too schmaltzy. That said, I've heard the sequences are fun. I guess if he invites me to come with, I miiiiight go

its a fun movie but in the nitty gritty of it all its still a movie obviously packaged for white audiences and that irks me that Lin is writing stories about us and not for us if that makes sense

Anteaterking posted...

I saw In The Heights in like 2010 or so? I prefer it to Hamilton tbh. Hamilton is more polished but is a little more self indulgent and a lot of the overlapping elements between the two seem more shoehorned in to Hamilton.

What elements are shoehorned in Hamilton?
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soulunison2 posted...

its a fun movie but in the nitty gritty of it all its still a movie obviously packaged for white audiences and that irks me that Lin is writing stories about us and not for us if that makes sense

How about the play is it the same?
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saspa posted...

How about the play is it the same?

I honestly do, by virtue of it ITH being on broadway - the audience that should see it can't because broadway tickets are expensive as fuck and a family of four wouldn't be able to afford to see it

soulunison2 posted...

The play is better

agreed

the 2021 movie is a cinematic turd that even a bunch of progressive critics have been iffy about
and as expected RottenTomatoes is doing everything to polish it

live performances can be so much better
and ironically have a more diverse casting these days js...

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soulunison2 posted...

I honestly do, by virtue of it ITH being on broadway - the audience that should see it can't because broadway tickets are expensive as fuck and a family of four wouldn't be able to afford to see it

So is it a case of the people that are living the play, can't see it?
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saspa posted...

So is it a case of the people that are living the play, can't see it?

yeah, tix at its end was 80 dollars and thats a lot for the target audience

i was lucky enough to be enrolled in a playwright scholarship in NYC that allowed me see shows and actually gave me certificates to see other shows in high school - I was also mentored by the then president of Disney theatrical which was cool as fuck.

What heights are you in?

And what are you watching?
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soulunison2 posted...

yeah, tix at its end was 80 dollars and thats a lot for the target audience

i was lucky enough to be enrolled in a playwright scholarship in NYC that allowed me see shows and actually gave me certificates to see other shows in high school - I was also mentored by the then president of Disney theatrical which was cool as fuck.

That's indeed pretty cool man.

If you're talking about NYC, isn't literally everything there expensive? Like even an off Off-Broadway show is high up there in price. Hamilton was still $200 a ticket last I checked (with the West End production running 200 pounds a ticket)

Most of that kinda entertainment tends to be pretty expensive
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saspa posted...

What elements are shoehorned in Hamilton?

The immigrant angle is over-emphasized because it didn't carry the same connotations in 1776 as it does today (because a majority of people were immigrants). So the portrayal of Hamilton as a "Caribbean in New York" is clearly a LMM stand-in, but one that he believes in.

You also have some "social commentary" with lines like "We'll never be free until we end slavery" completely recasting many of the revolutionaries as abolitionist minded people. This is an attempt to add "progressive" tones into the work by making the characters we are supposed to like more socially conscious.


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Hamilton WAS from the Caribbean, so I don't see what your point is here.

I mean, yes, LMM was drawn to Hamilton's story because Hamilton succeeded in the face of a ton of obstacles (that the other Founding Fathers did not face)

Yeah they did overplay Hamilton's immigrant status. He moved from 1 British territory to another. That would be like calling someone who moves from California to Texas an immigrant.

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Derwood posted...

Hamilton WAS from the Caribbean, so I don't see what your point is here.

Living in the Caribbean as a child of French/British/Scottish parents doesn't have the same connotations as being e.g. Puerto Rican.

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Anteaterking posted...

Living in the Caribbean as a child of French/British/Scottish parents doesn't have the same connotations as being e.g. Puerto Rican.

He was still dirt poor, dad not around, mom died when he was 14, had to survive on his own, etc.

Anteaterking posted...

The immigrant angle is over-emphasized because it didn't carry the same connotations in 1776 as it does today (because a majority of people were immigrants). So the portrayal of Hamilton as a "Caribbean in New York" is clearly a LMM stand-in, but one that he believes in.

You also have some "social commentary" with lines like "We'll never be free until we end slavery" completely recasting many of the revolutionaries as abolitionist minded people. This is an attempt to add "progressive" tones into the work by making the characters we are supposed to like more socially conscious.

I don't think it's supposed to be a 1:1 comparison. But the idea of starting from nothing and making something of yourself is what America was all about, that's universal.
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Derwood posted...

She lost her scholarship BECAUSE she was flunking out (because she had to work multiple jobs to pay for Stanford)

Thinking back on the movie this would have been much better. And I think she probably should have been given the A-story instead of the B-plot, because I really didn't care about the main girl wanting to become a fashion designer. With something as subjective as fashion, they really didn't show her being creative at all (but weirdly just borrowing other people's work designs and ideas) and I actually kinda found her annoying, especially with how she was whining about them not simply handing her the apartment without a credit rating or co-signer or whatever, just because she's the romantic interest of the movie.

A much better story would be about the struggle of a girl in the working class trying to work 2 jobs and study and still be in debt to boot.
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saspa posted...

Thinking back on the movie this would have been much better. And I think she probably should have been given the A-story instead of the B-plot, because I really didn't care about the main girl wanting to become a fashion designer. With something as subjective as fashion, they really didn't show her being creative at all (but weirdly just borrowing other people's work designs and ideas) and I actually kinda found her annoying, especially with how she was whining about them not simply handing her the apartment without a credit rating or co-signer or whatever, just because she's the romantic interest of the movie.

A much better story would be about the struggle of a girl in the working class trying to work 2 jobs and study and still be in debt to boot.

In the stage version, Nina is a much bigger role than Vanessa

Derwood posted...

In the stage version, Nina is a much bigger role than Vanessa

Okay that makes a lot more sense. I can see why people who watched the stage version might have been put off by the movie
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