41 – There's No Place Like Rome

Never the Twins Shall Meet

Happy New Year! We’re starting 2025 off with our longest episode yet, discussing the two Hollywood blockbuster behemoths of fall 2024: Wicked: Part 1 and Gladiator II. Topics of discussion include stage-to-screen adaptations, lesbian subtext, costume design, the perils of sequels, and a significant amount of complaining about historical inaccuracies. Spoilers abound for both movies, as well as the entirety of Wicked the musical and, randomly, Stranger Things season four. Our review of Wicked takes up the first half of the podcast while our discussion of Gladiator II starts at the 1:12:46 mark.

Media Mentioned:

• The Gentlemen on Netflix
• Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe
• Cursebreakers by Madeline Nakamura
• Anna and the Apocalypse dir. John McPhail
• The Outrun dir. Nora Fingscheidt
• Bird dir. Andrea Arnold
• The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
• Wicked by Gregory Maguire
• The Divergent movies
• West Side Story dir. Stephen Spielberg
• Widows dir. Steve McQueen
• Victorious (TV show)
• Bridgerton
• Crashing (TV show)
• The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
• The Fall dir. Tarsem Singh
• Everything Everywhere All at Once dir. Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert
• Kaos (TV show)
• Eragon by Christopher Paolini
• Thistlefoot by Gennarose Nethercott
• Gladiator dir. Ridley Scott
• A Quiet Place: Day One dir. Michael Sarnoski
• Normal People (2020)
• All of Us Strangers dir. Andrew Haigh
• Aftersun dir. Charlotte Wells
• The Last of Us (TV show)
• The Mandalorian
• Much Ado About Nothing dir. Kenneth Brannagh
• Stranger Things
• The Fear Street Trilogy
• Episode 34–Saltblah
• House of the Dragon (2022–)
• A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum by Emma Southon
• A Rome of One’s Own by Emma Southon
• Macbeth by William Shakespeare
• “It Was an Enormous Task: Gladiator II’s Costume Designers on Outfitting Ridley Scott’s Roman Epic (and Getting Denzel to Wear Those Little Earrings) by Elaina Patton for Vogue
• Napoleon dir. Ridley Scott
• Kingdom of Heaven dir. Ridley Scott

Content Warnings: discussions of slavery, death, violence, homophobia, ableism, colonialism, and fascism.