Wicked
Story Stream
The Problem With 'Wicked' December 27, 2024
Greetings from the Emerald City, home of Jeff Goldblum and Richard Pryor:To quote the late, great Billy Preston, I got a story ain’t got no moral. Dana asked what I noticed myself looking for at the movies. Well, I love noir, so I sought it at succes...
Western Civilization Gets Glicked December 25, 2024
The newest Hollywood fad is trying to launch the next “Barbenheimer”—the unexpected cultural event that came about when two movies, Oppenheimer and Barbie, refused to move from releasing on the same day. This turned into a social media trend and ende...
Gen Z’s Politics Are Hard to Categorize December 24, 2024
We live, at first blush, under the absolute dominion of celebrity. The former and future president of the United States spent more than a decade as a reality TV star. Taylor Swift just concluded the largest and most lucrative pop music tour in the hi...
Four Lessons From Old Masters of Hollywood December 19, 2024
As much as the landscape of Hollywood blockbusters changed in 2024, it also stayed the same. Of the 10 highest-grossing movies of the year, only two (Deadpool & Wolverine, Venom: The Last Dance) happened to be superhero tentpoles. Whether you believe...
Can We Make Pop Culture Great Again? December 16, 2024
When “Wicked” and “Gladiator II” debuted together late last month, there was a painful attempt to call their shared box office success “Glicked” — a reference to the portmanteau of “Barbenheimer” that described the joint cultural triumph of “Barbie” ...
The Best Movies of 2024 December 11, 2024
Halfway through 2024, I wrote that scary times call for scary movies. Several months later, the sentiment still holds—there haven’t exactly been glimmers of hope, on-screen or off. The growing popular groundswell around Wicked and its broadly progre...
Ariana Grande and Paul Mescal Chat December 11, 2024
Ariana Grande travels with a furry companion; no, not Toto, but close. The Grammy-winning pop singer — and, thanks to her film “Wicked,” newly minted movie star — shows up at our shoot hours early, ready to make friends as she meanders around the cof...
The Rise of the Theater Kids December 02, 2024
Not since Barbie has a movie been hyped more than Wicked. It’s inescapable on the algorithm; you cannot scroll without being assaulted by trailers, endless behind-the-scenes clips, and most entertaining of all, snippets of interviews with the co-star...
Wicked, Explained November 29, 2024
Wicked, the highly anticipated adaptation of the popular Broadway musical, is just about everywhere. The first half of the saga, released on November 22, made $114 million in its opening weekend domestically, and it has already generated some early O...
'Wicked's' Popular Piracy November 28, 2024
The final scene of “Wicked” is a cinematic triumph. A defiant Cynthia Erivo soars through the skies, circling above Oz and belting “Defying Gravity” as her enemies look on in awe. It inspires tears and applause, even sending audiences jumping from th...
“Glicked”: Are You Not Entertained? November 26, 2024
When I saw Wicked, at the end of the well-attended matinee screening, an enthusiastic little boy who was there with a big family group yelled out, “Everybody clap!” and the whole audience burst into applause.I didn’t like the movie, but I liked the b...
Something Wicked Your Way Comes November 25, 2024
The biggest surprise of my November 2024—and remember, that’s a pretty high bar—was that I didn’t totally hate Wicked: Part One.Are the songs inane and forgettable? God yes, other than “Defying Gravity,” which is solidly OK. Is the iridescent gumdrop...
Ladies, Stop Sex Striking for Kamala November 14, 2024
Babe, wake up: We’re doing sexual blackmail for feminism again.Amid outrage over the fall of Roe v. Wade in June 2022, certain liberal women developed a novel strategy for creating a blue wave of backlash in the upcoming midterms. The problem, women ...
