IN THE HEIGHTS countdown: 6 DAYS!

song for today:

i’d like to think she went out in peace with pieces of bread crumbs in her hand...

After the pandemic delayed its highly-anticipated release, the In the Heights movie is finally coming to very thirsty fans this Friday - and, to make the premiere even better, a special behind-the-scenes look at the movie is hitting bookshelves. In the Heights: Finding Home is a joint venture with Lin-Manuel Miranda, screenwriter Quiara Alegría Hudes, and Jeremy McCarter - it combines never-before-seen photos and oral history style-storytelling to take readers onto the Washington Heights set, spilling all sorts of filming secrets. Here, in an exclusive excerpt, read along as the cast battles record heat to complete the "Carnaval del Barrio" number.

Washington Heights is dense enough, and lively enough, to offer a distilled version of the New York paradox: Life is a nerve-fraying ordeal that you miss terribly as soon as it's gone. (According to local custom, people don't just double-park here, they triple-park.) Everybody knew that shooting a movie there would be difficult and expensive. But Jon [M. Chu, the director,] couldn't imagine doing it any other way.

For all of its fantastical touches-what Jon calls its "sing-to-the-stars-y" energy-Heights has always drawn power from its realism, a depiction of life as it's actually lived. The sweet spot for the movie, Jon felt, would be offering "a very truthful take on living in Washington Heights, then upping it."

In other words: No matter how fraught the process might be, the cast, the crew, and all of their gear-up to and including their fake sun in the sky-were going to spend the summer of 2019 in Washington Heights.

"The essence of a movie dictates where you shoot it," explains Kevin McCormick, a Warner Bros. executive who was integral to Heights. "And there's no way you could not have made this in Washington Heights. To have a movie about this community and not film there would be such a lost opportunity."

The first thing they did there was listen. Members of the production team, particularly Samson Jacobson, the location manager (born and raised in the area-a definite plus), and Karla Sayles, the director of public affairs at Warner Bros., met with community leaders to field questions and respond to concerns. Once again, Luis Miranda was a vital resource, drawing on relationships he had built over decades to make introductions.

The producers vowed to do all they could to limit the physical footprint of the shoot. Cast members shared trailers that they might otherwise have kept to themselves. The production hired people from the neighborhood for roles onscreen and off. Instead of catering every meal, they encouraged actors and crew to buy lunch in area restaurants. They even funded a student production of the show at George Washington high school.

What you see onscreen is a two-hour-and-fourteen-minute record of movie professionals falling in love with a place and its people. They arrived uptown to discover that Washington Heights really was different from most places in New York. Locals opened the hydrants on hot afternoons and played dominoes on the sidewalks. The piragüeros really did park their carts on the sidewalk to hawk their flavors of the day. The fascination seemed to be mutual: Actors got used to seeing whole families-little kids and their abuelitas-watching from their stoops at any time of the day or night.

Which is not to say that it came easily.

To Alice Brooks, the director of photography, the weather problems were "insane." If a storm popped up on the radar anywhere nearby, they had to suspend production. This happened with schedule-wrecking regularity. They expected to be free of such interruptions when they went underground to shoot "Paciencia y Fe" on the subway. Instead, they experienced a torment familiar to every New Yorker but with a twist: They weren't waiting for the train to appear so they could ride it to work, they just needed the garbage train to pass by so they could go back to shooting their movie.

The need to solve the endless riddles of New York filmmaking had led the producers to add Anthony Bregman to the team. At this point, he reckons, he's filmed in just about every corner of his hometown, always looking for ways to capture the authentic look and feel of a place-even when the movie is surreal. (He produced Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a valuable point of reference for the reality-bending frame of Quiara's screenplay.) So he wasn't especially rattled when, on the night they filmed "Alabanza," a nearby building caught fire, or when, on another night, gunshots rang out nearby.

"You want the life of the city?" Anthony asks. "The life of the city is complicated."

The production lost valuable shooting time on both of those nights. They found ways to make it up later. But other days offered no second chances. Anthony remembers looking at the calendar before summer began, getting a feel for what lay ahead. Some days seemed manageable; some days seemed tough. Then there was "Carnaval del Barrio."

"That day," he says, "was impossible."

What turned out to be a defining episode in the whole long history of In the Heights almost didn't happen at all. Many a movie executive had suggested over the years that there wasn't enough plot in "Carnaval del Barrio" to justify a song that was very long and very crowded, which made it very expensive. But the song's power doesn't come from the plot, it comes from the theme. The characters rally one another's spirits amid a citywide blackout. They raise their flags and celebrate their heritage-and their humanity-in defiance of every force telling them not to.

That community-fortifying aspect of the song is "essentially the DNA of In the Heights for me," Quiara says. Beneath the joy, there's a legacy of struggle and resilience. " 'Carnaval' unearths that history. All we have is our fight to be here together, the testimony to our spirit."

To help ensure that the number would remain in the movie, she hooked it into the plot more securely, situating it as a farewell number for the salon ladies, who have been priced out of the neighborhood. But the budget wasn't the only limiting factor. "Carnaval" is unique in requiring virtually every member of the cast to be present at the same time.

The actors' complicated schedules meant that Jon wouldn't get all the filming days he wanted. He would get only one.

Which meant it was time for the hard, slow, unglamorous legwork of moviemaking: planning, organizing, rehearsing, designing, equipping, and rehearsing some more-months of it, all to give themselves the best possible chance to "make the day," to film the whole gigantic number in the time available.

In the world of making movies, "day" is a flexible unit of time, especially for a scene that would be filmed outdoors- in this case, a courtyard between two apartment buildings around the corner from where Lin went to preschool. They scheduled the shoot for a Monday, when union rules would let them start the earliest. And they picked June 24, one of the longest days of the year.

They didn't realize it would also be one of the hottest.

The song would be filmed more or less in order. Which meant that for the production, as for the characters, the salon ladies would lead the way.

Some of the movie's actors were new to musicals. Not Daphne Rubin-Vega, who plays Daniela. When Rent blew the mind of seventeen-year-old Lin-Manuel Miranda, she was onstage, playing Mimi. But when she arrived for hair and makeup on "Carnaval" day-at 4:30 in the morning-even she was feeling nerves. The uneven concrete floor of the courtyard wasn't like where they had rehearsed. The prospect of filming a seven-page song before nightfall seemed crazy.

She began to hear a voice of doubt in her brain, one that's encoded in a specific ugly memory. After wrapping her first film, she had gone to the airport to fly home to New York and mentioned to the woman at the ticket counter that she had just acted in a movie.

"That's funny," said the woman, who Daphne believes to have been Latina like herself. "You don't look like an actress."

Worries about how they looked, questions about what they were wearing, a general feeling of negativity-Dascha Polanco was feeling them, too. She always loved arriving on set to play Cuca, one of Daniela's fellow salon ladies, because it felt so much like coming home. She was born in the Dominican Republic and while growing up in Brooklyn used to make frequent trips to the Heights with her friends. ("Washington Heights is a small Dominican Republic," she explains.) Now she, too, wondered if she belonged. Am I capable of remembering the steps? she asked herself.

She decided to stop those doubts-for herself and the other salon ladies. She grabbed the hands of Daphne and Stephanie Beatriz, who played Carla, and formed the women into a profane prayer circle.

"Shake that s--- off," she told them. "I'm not going to let anyone or anything interfere with my performance today."

Daphne laughs as she tells the story. "She was so hilarious and said we were going to protect each other from that insecurity. That was such a beautiful thing-going in there with that determination to represent."

By 5:30 A.M., when the sun rose over Queens, sixty dancers had arrived. Christopher Scott, the film's choreographer, tried to prepare them for what was coming, backed by his full team of associate choreographers: Emilio Dosal, Ebony Williams, and Dana Wilson, as well as associate Latin choreographer Eddie Torres, Jr., and assistant Latin choreographer Princess Serrano. By six A.M., dozens of crew members had joined them, making the thousand careful adjustments needed to help a movie look spontaneous.

It was almost nine A.M. by the time Jon called "Action." The cameras started rolling, Daphne started singing, and the clock kept ticking.

Arrange the actors, position the cameras, do a take, reset everybody, do it again. As the sun climbed higher that morning, the temperature rose to what one crew member estimated to be nine hundred degrees. Look closely-see the sweat on people's bodies? Most of it didn't come from the makeup department. But there wasn't time for extra breaks to cool off.

"Please be quiet," a voice on the loudspeaker boomed at one point. "We gotta go."

At one point that morning, Jimmy Smits got his turn to shine. Playing Kevin Rosario wasn't his first Height experience. He had seen the show Off-Broadway and been "blown away" by it, he says. He had offered to help in any way he could, eventually recording a radio ad for the show.

His devotion to Heights carried into rehearsals for the film. As they got underway, he told Chris Scott and the choreography team, "I know I'm playing the dad, but the last thing I want to see is myself in the background, just waving my hands. I want to go all in." They obliged him. He sometimes hobbled home from the dance studio to ice himself for hours.

His payoff came on "Carnaval" day. He had a featured moment in the song: an intricate, whirling combination. The cast and crew watched him do it again and again, cheering him on. He could feel "a lightning bolt of energy" around the set, something he'd experienced only rarely in his long career.

Over the applause after one take, a voice rang out, ricocheting off the walls: "That s--- was crazy! For our ancestors!" It was Anthony Ramos. He, too, had a long history with Heights, but it wasn't as happy as Jimmy's.

Very early in his career, he had tried to get cast as Sonny on the show's national tour. It meant taking a bus into Manhattan from a gig he was doing in New Jersey, going through round after round of auditions. At last he made it to the big moment: a callback in front of Tommy Kail, Alex Lacamoire, and Lin himself.

He gave the song everything he had. He didn't get the part.

He thought he'd missed the one chance he would get to work with Lin, the writer who'd evoked Anthony's own world, Latino New York, so beautifully on a Broadway stage. He needn't have worried. A few years later, the same guys would hire him to originate the roles of John Laurens and Philip Hamilton, Alexander's son, in Hamilton.

When Anthony got to know Tommy and Lac well enough, he asked if they remembered not casting him as Sonny. They said they did.

"You weren't ready yet," Lac said.

Anthony knew he was right. "Only a homie would tell you that," he says.

But he needed one more break to make his way back to Heights and find himself sweating in the courtyard that morning.

In 2018, Stephanie Klemons, an original cast member of both In the Heights and Hamilton, directed a production of Heights at the Kennedy Center in Washington. The night before rehearsals were set to begin, she lost an actor to an injury. She reached out to Anthony: Could he step in with zero notice?

He didn't feel physically or mentally ready, and was about to pass, but decided to do it. That's how he got a second chance to show Lin what he could do in Heights-not as Sonny this time, as Usnavi. In a series of tweets, reproduced on this page, Lin commemorated how overwhelmed he was watching Anthony step into the role he once played. He, Quiara, and Jon all agreed that when the cameras started rolling, Anthony should be their Usnavi.

The bond between Anthony and Lin added to the drama of filming "Carnaval." Lin played Piragua Guy, so he was in the courtyard, too-or, rather, directly above it, on a fire escape. It meant that the whole cast and crew had a clear view of the brief duet that he and Anthony sing in the middle of the number. To people who knew their history, the sight made time go all swirly. Anthony had originated the role of Lin's son in Hamilton, and now he was playing the role that Lin had originated, and somehow the two of them were singing a duet in Washington Heights.

A quirk of the production process made the moment even stranger and more potent. All day, the actors had been singing along to prerecorded versions of "Carnaval" piped over the loudspeakers. But somehow they hadn't gotten around to recording Anthony's side of his duet, so they had to fall back on the only other version on hand: the Broadway cast album. Which meant that Lin wasn't just singing with Anthony that day, he was harmonizing with himself at age twenty-eight, when every bit of what was happening around him would have seemed like a ludicrous dream. "It was like time travel," Lin says.

By three p.m., when everybody had returned from their lunch break-blood sugar bolstered by the ice cream truck that Stephanie Beatriz had hired-time was growing shorter, the day hotter. Now when choreographer Chris Scott talked to the dancers, many listened with hands on hips, hands on knees.

From his fire escape, Lin did his bit to keep up morale. He joined in the clapping that broke out between scenes; he made silly faces; he pulled up his shirt and did belly rolls. Guests watched from the edges of the shoot: Lin's dad and wife, Quiara's sister, Chris's mom, Anthony's sister and mom. Anna Wintour stopped by.

Jon is not the type to direct through a bullhorn, barking orders from the shade. When they'd filmed "96,000" earlier that month on a couple of unseasonably frigid days, he had jumped in the Highbridge Park pool with the cast.

On this day, he darted around the courtyard, giving notes to actors, framing shots, conferring with Alice. He is also not the type to speak in mystical terms, but when he thinks back on that day, he remembers "the sun shining down like a laser-it was like the sun was shining out of everybody."

By late afternoon, the boundary between the make-believe world of the movie and the real world of the shoot had all but melted away. They had reached the part of the song where Usnavi and Daniela try to call forth their neighbors' pride in where they come from. Anthony climbed onto a picnic table and faced the whole cast, rapping, "Can we sing so loud and raucous they can hear us across the bridge in East Secaucus?" Daphne stood near him, arms wide apart, raising them up, willing everybody to stand tall, to keep going.

Both of them were throwing all their skill and commitment into their performances, the stars of two of Broadway's epoch-making musicals doing what they had trained to do. But they also weren't acting.

"To raise the flag for your country, to dance and recognize that we're all here together, and belong here, we don't need to be forgiven for it, or ashamed for it," says Daphne of what she was feeling. "There's a pride in being here from Colombia, or Panama, the D.R., Puerto Rico, Cuba, wherever."

At eight o'clock, with the sun sinking toward New Jersey, the dancers were still dancing. Eleven hours had passed since Daphne had belted out "Hey!" to start the song. Now Jon was trying to get the right take of sixty-plus voices shouting "Hey!" to finish it. In the movie version of the scene, the blackout ends when the song does, so a voice on the loudspeaker would announce, "The power's on!" That's how the actors knew the right moment to cheer that it was over.

After one such cheer, it really was over. Not just the take-the song.

They had done it. They had made the day.

Jon jumped into a swarm of dancers. (Ever see a baseball player hit a walk-off home run, then leap onto home plate into the waiting arms of his cheering teammates? That's what this jump looked like.) People were clapping and shouting and hugging and crying. Alice thought the whole thing was a miracle.

"You know when you see people at a concert cry, and you're like, 'I would never do that'?" asks costume designer Mitchell Travers. "That's what I did." He thinks it's the most sheer human energy he has ever been close to.

Anthony Ramos, in the middle of the crowd, launched into a speech. He can't remember his exact words. He hadn't planned what he was going to say-he hadn't planned to speak at all. He just felt that something needed to be said.

"I might have said, today we made history," he recalls. "This was for our ancestors who didn't get the opportunity to do this-who were fighting to have a chance to do what we just did. It was for love of the culture. It was for our kids, who look like us, to be able to see themselves on the big screen, to see us singing about our pride. Some s--- like that."

Somewhere in the crowd stood Dascha Polanco, cheering with the rest. She was sweaty, tired, tear-streaked-and beginning to feel the spirit move.

"I looked down and saw that concrete floor," she says, "and I saw those fire escapes up there, and I was like, 'New York.' "

She began a chant. It was slow and pitched low: "N-e-e-e-e-w York, N-e-e-e-e-w York." In seconds, the whole crowd took it up. "N-e-e-e-e-w York! N-e-e-e-e-w York!"

They were pointing to the sky. They were dancing.

"N-e-e-e-e-w York! N-e-e-e-e-w York!"

"It wasn't like chanting, 'Oh, I love New York,' " Anthony says later-meaning it wasn't a casual thing someone would casually say. "It was"-he drops his voice an octave and leans in-"I motherf---ing love New York. I'm proud to be from New York. I'm proud to be Latino from New York. That was the chant."

Lin, on his fire escape, was overwhelmed. Quiara, in the courtyard, guessed that people could hear them all chanting for blocks around. "It was the sound of joy and survival," she says. "And the sound of people who were really proud to be artists in community together-all our stories braided and interwoven at that one moment."

The long months of preparation had yielded the thing that movie people dream of creating: the burst of real emotion, the flash of genuine spontaneity. Some of it infuses what you see in the finished version of the song, but some of it can't be recovered now. It's an experience only for the people who got to be part of that impromptu celebration, the carnaval that followed "Carnaval."

That long day and its joyous finale capture, in miniature form, a lot of the Heights experience-what's powerful about it, what's rare. Instead of expecting little from the actors it featured, Heights demanded everything-not just what they could do, but who they were and where they came from. By fusing them with dozens of other artists making the same commitment, it gave them the feeling that Lin had wanted so badly for himself when he started writing the show: a sense of belonging, of being part of a group of people working toward a goal they all hold dear. That's why Anthony, looking back on filming "Carnaval," says, "That was one of the greatest days of my life. Period. If I never do another movie again, I did this."

"Something that arises in 'Carnaval' is a feeling of, 'There's a place for us,' " says Quiara. "But the place is not one that says, 'Oh, I definitely fit in' or 'I definitely don't.' It holds those questions. It allows those questions to exist."

Those questions, she has come to see, are universal.

"People are like, 'What is my place in the world?' That question is actually part of your place in the world," she says. "There's something about In the Heights. It takes such a burden off to hear, 'Yeah, there's a place for you. Here it is.'"

¡Cristo Viene Pronto!

Queridos hermanos, vean que ya Cristo esta a las puertas y viene pronto por su iglesia. No nos dejemos engañar por el enemigo; las profecías se están cumpliendo. Busquen en sus biblias Mateo 24;3-28 ese es el mundo donde vivimos hoy en día. Hagamos que nuestra fe en el Señor sea más grande y fuerte cada día para que podamos ver su gloria. No temamos y seamos valientes porque Dios tiene promesas grandes con su pueblo. Caminemos por la senda angosta porque grande será nuestra recompensa. Como a los Israelitas, él irá delante de nosotros y no importa que tan dura sea nuestra situación si tan solo pusiéramos nuestra fe completamente en él, seremos grandemente bendecidos. Los exhorto a buscar de Dios; a leer sus biblias, a postrarnos en oración, a darle cánticos y alabanzas. Busquemosle en espíritu y en verdad; vayamos ante él con un corazón contristo y humillado. Declaremos que Jesucristo es nuestro amado y único salvador. Amemos a nuestros prójimos como a nosotros mismos; vayamos ante ellos con la verdad y sembremos la semilla del evangelio. 

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Christ is coming soon!

 Dear brothers, see that Christ is already at the doors and is coming soon for his church. Let us not be deceived by the enemy; the prophecies are being fulfilled. Look in your bible for Matthew 24; 3-28 that is the world we live in today. Let's make our faith in the Lord bigger and stronger every day so that we can see his glory. Let us not fear and be brave because God has great promises with his people. Let's walk the narrow path because great will be our reward. Like the Israelites, he will go before us and no matter how hard our situation is if we just put our faith fully in him, we will be greatly blessed. I exhort you to seek God; to read their bibles, to prostrate ourselves in prayer, to sing songs and praises. Let us seek Him in spirit and in truth; Let us go before him with a contrite and humiliated heart. Let us declare that Jesus Christ is our beloved and only savior. Let us love our neighbors as ourselves; Let us go before them with the truth and sow the seed of the gospel.

hella fucking cute ask: 41, 99, 69, 59, 56, 47, 48, 31, 32, 34, 20, 16, 2 (i did too many)

(I'm gonna be doing these in numero order!)2 (Do you like the feeling of cold air on your cheeks on a wintery day?): Definitely, if I'm not exposed to it for long. When my entire face goes numb from the cold that can be quite the bother.16 (What's your favorite pasta dish?): Getting back at me for the pasta ask, eh? There was this really good vodka rigatoni (I think? I forget exactly what type of pasta it was) but oh my fuck, I was in heaven. I love it but now I forget what catering place served it. Rest in gotta cook me some good spaghetti, never forgetti or regretti, you delicious pasta dish. You will never be forgotten.20 (What's your favorite eye color?): Oof, tough question. I think all eyes are beautiful, but if I had to pick, it would be hazel. I was gonna say heterochromia since I find it very beautiful to look at, but since it's not a color I had to pick something else.31 (What is your opinion of socks? Do you like wearing weird socks? Do you sleep with socks? Do you confine yourself to white sock hell? Really, just talk about socks.): I love socks! Since I am perpetually cold (yes, even right now when we're in the middle of a heat wave) they are essential. I love wearing weird socks! But only when no one else can see them because I am very self-conscious about what I wear when I'm around others. I do sleep with socks, but only in the winter. Even then, I seem to constantly kick them off. Yes, I confine myself to white sock hell. When you catch me wearing colored socks, it is safe to assume I've run out of clean white pairs.32 (Tell us a story of something that happened to you after 3 AM when you were with friends.): So you and I were in your room, listening to I think DEH at the time on your flashy, seizure-inducing speaker. We were playing a game of Spit when we both reached for the same deck and your nail dug into my hand a little bit. I pulled my hand back and said, "Woah. You almost nailed me in my finger crotch," to which you responded by cracking up. I explained to you through laughing my ass off that I picked up the term for the skin between your fingers from Bob's Burgers. From then onwards, I occasionally said "finger crotch" and started laughing hysterically. That was the hardest I've laughed in a while.34 (Tell us about the stuffed animal you kept as a kid. What is it called? What does it look like? Do you still keep it?): Okay, well, I've had (and still have) three. Alice, Suzy, and Flopsy. Flopsy was my first and is my favorite and a sort of comfort blanket for me. He's a lavender bunny with fuzz sticking up everywhere and he's gone completely limp but I still love him. Suzy is a Webkinz dachshund and Alice is a purple sock monkey. They're all very near and dear to my heart.41 (What's the last book you remember really, really loving?): I'm not gonna go with ATGIB on this one bc I feel like I talk about that a lot. (even though it's my favorite) Instead, I'm gonna go with The Sun is Also a Star. Yes, I complain about the overused romance novel drama trope, but this book pulled it off well! There were HUGE plot twists in it and I directly felt my feelings being hurt and all over the place when I read it. Plus, it has POC representation!47 (What food do you think should be banned from the universe?): It's a tie between zucchini and eggplant. Both taste like NOTHING on their own and add nothing but a weird texture to any dish they're added into. Not a huge fan.48 (What was your biggest fear as a kid? Is it the same today?): My biggest fear was, and still is, death. It's so frightening to think that we're not on this Earth forever and we don't know when our time may be up. The thought that I'll have to experience the death of my loved ones fills me with dread. I have many other big fears, but that is by far the biggest.56 (What are some things you find endearing in people?): I love it when people get passionate about things they love! They clearly get such joy out of those things. I also love laughs. Everyone has such different laughs and it's so amazing to hear them all. I also find it endearing when someone says "I thought of you when I saw this" like oh my goodness. You thought of me specifically when you saw/heard/read this? That's so amazing!59 (What's your favorite myth?): The Lochness Monster! It's so cool to think that such a creature exists pretty much in plain sight. I also love folklore and mythology. It's just so interesting to me!69 (What are your favorite board games?): I'm a sucker for Clue, Candy Land, and The Game of Life, in no particular order. Candy Land fills me with such nostalgia, Clue is a great mystery to try and solve, (I love trying to figure things out) and The Game of Life is a nice and creative game that is a lot of fun to play with a lot of friends.99 (List some songs that resonate with your soul when you listen to them.):-Today Has Been Okay by Sleeping at Last-Already Gone by Sleeping at Last-Pluto by Sleeping at Last-Homesick by Sleeping at Last-Blame by Air Traffic Controller-Coriander/Chamomile by Holly Henry-Wake Up by EDEN-The Greatest by Sia-Dog Teeth by Nicole Dollanganger-For a Few Good Men by Amigo the Devil-My Shot by the Original Broadway Cast of Hamilton-Burn by the Original Broadway Cast of Hamilton-Satisfied by the Original Broadway Cast of Hamilton-Disappear by the Original Broadway Cast of Dear Evan Hansen-You Will Be Found by the Original Broadway Cast of Dear Evan Hansen-Waving Through a Window by the Original Broadway Cast of Dear Evan Hansen-Words Fail by the Original Broadway Cast of Dear Evan Hansen-Good For You by the Original Broadway Cast of Dear Evan Hansen-Michael in the Bathroom by the Original Cast of Be More Chill (it was Off-Broadway so idk what else to call it)-Alabanza by the Original Broadway Cast of In the Heights-Everything You Know by the Original Broadway Cast of In the Heights

the In The Heights movie was really good y’all

saw it today (6/12), it premiered midnight on Fri, and god DAMN

i’m literally fresh off watchin it so here my thoughts (no spoilers except vague references to things and like. who the cast members are)

#1 love. love the movie.

#2 it is not quite the same story, but weirdly enough, this time, when I say they changed it to suit a wider audience, I mean it in a positive light.

#3 its not better or worse than the musical - it’s parallel, two quality versions of the same fantastic fucking story.

#4 I can die happy now knowing that Olga Merediz was able to perform Paciencia y Fé in such a rich and amazing setting. Movies allow you to do things you can’t do in musicals, and this is one of them.

#5 The trend in hollywood of lying to your audience so the plot twist is unguessable has left its fingerprints on In The Heights. Suffice it to say, they keep certain important plot points to the very end for shock value. It was still a fucking fantastic ending, but like. many choices in earlier scenes were clearly made for no other reason than to obfuscate the ending. and idk how I feel about that.

#6 then again, a good adaptation adds and plays around with the original story to make something new and beautiful, and guess what? boom goes the dynamite, they certainly nailed that.

#7 the chronology is super different than the musical, which makes sense given the change in media, but some of it is just kinda. odd. it all still works for sure, it’s just odd.

#8 why am I not surprised that lin manuel miranda plays the piragua guy? and why am I not surprised that it was so chaotic?

#9 the music. the choreography. just. YES. you know that mbmbam sketch about “the rhythm of the city”? that, but unironic and impeccably executed. it’s like the cup song but everywhere in terms of how well the beats of the music match up with footsteps, car honks, etc. as well as of course the choreography.

#10 some really interesting and beautiful cinematography choices. you can tell a lot of love when into this film,

#11 usnavi is just such a weird lil dude, and the energy anthony ramos brings is just *chef kiss*

#12 the actress who plays Rosa Diaz on Brooklyn 99 plays Carla. I’m telling you now so you don’t spend half the movie with her name on the tip of your tongue: it’s Stephanie Beatriz.

tl:dr good good good movie, I cried (a lot, in a good way), falls victim to some of the pitfalls of the film industry re: plot twists and chronology, but is still fantastic and vibrant and gorgeous and a lovely adaptation of the musical.

*spoiler territory under the cut*

#8 hey lin manuel miranda? why did you end the blackout so soon? the musical ends with the blackout still on - it’s even in the first line of the finale “Lights up on Washington Heights at the break of dawn/The blackout goes on and on and on” but in the movie it ends after “Carnaval del Barrio” why’d you end the blackout so soon buddy? maybe for lighting reasons, i can’t imagine only using lights from phones n shit was easy, but the rest of the play is set outside during the day for the most part.

#9 can we get an f in the chat for the songs that didn’t make the cut: Inútil, Sunrise, Hundreds of Stories, Enough, Attención, Everything I Know, No Me Diga (reprise), Piragua (reprise), I understand the reasons for all of them not being in the movie but I still mourn babey

#10 I. didn’t really like the girl who played Vanessa. idk why. might just be vibes. she did great and all, maybe I just pictured Vanessa different in my head.

#11 Sonny, I love you, I love all the shit they added about you, I agree 100% w the shift in focus towards him and the lives of undocumented immigrants. Also, the scene where he asks out Vanessa for Usnavi is PRICELESS.

#12 there’s lots of changes that they made that I like way better than the OG. some I just sort of tolerate but some are just better that way.

#13 96,000 taking place at a pool is INSPIRED but where the FUCK did they find a pool that big???????

#14 sometimes they just sort of. take a vacation from reality for a little bit. and I like that. there’s lots of parts where you can tell that lin manuel miranda used to be on sesame street and the electric company, and that’s a good thing. 

#15 I have no fucking clue why Nina’s mom is dead in this one. they probably wanted to focus on her relationship with her dad? they couldn’t think of a way to have Camilla without keeping Enough as a song? it still works, just odd.

#16 the narration device of having Usnavi tell the whole story to his kids is fantastic. so is the reveal that they are HIS kids coming later - now THAT’S a relevant thing to hold back. why they’re on a real beach before and the bodega painted like a beach later is beyond me. was it like a metaphorical beach before? were they on vacation? ???

#17 there’s so much background city noise going on all the time that when it all stops and you get moments of silence it is POWERFUL

#18 related: I didn’t think I could cry more at Alabanza. I was wrong. I realize now why they don’t show the paramedics/Usnavi discovering her in the musical - it would one-hit K.O. everyone in the audience from the intensity if it was in-person.

#19 this movie took the time to say “dreams are not sparkly shiny things, they’re rough, and you have to work at them, and sometimes you work so hard you forget to notice what’s around you” and it was beautiful

#20 they added so much more about Nina and how she felt at college, and it HIT

i love this musical and I hope it blows up bigger than hamilton ever did bc that’s what it DESERVES

just shuffled the in the heights soundtrack and ‘alabanza’ was the first song to play. not today satan!

for the cute ask questions: 3, 4, 5, 17, 19, 28, 36, 48, 63, 68, 73, 84, 93, 97, 99!!

Oh wow, thanks Anon! :)

3: what random objects do you use to bookmark your books?

Sticky notes, a scrap of notebook paper, hell, even my school id, I use just about anything tbh.

4: how do you take your coffee/tea?

Usually I’ll put milk, vanilla creamer, and sugar, but if I’m out, I’l get a mocha latte.

5: are you self-conscious of your smile?

I mean kinda? Like if I see it in a picture I get self-conscious but other times not really.

17: what color do you really want to dye your hair?

For the longest time, I’ve wanted to get it ombre-d from my natural color to blue.

19: do you keep a journal? what do you write/draw/ in it?

I have a sketchbook that I like to keep with me and its full of old art and Hamilton doobles for now.

28: sunrise or sunset?

Sunset because: 1) I like the shifts from pink to purple and 2) I really fucking hate mornings.

36: which band’s sound would fit your mood right now?

I honestly have no clue because I’m in a really contempt mood right now and the bands that I listen to are Edgy™

48: what was your biggest fear as a kid? is it the same today?

I used to be terrified of blood, like when I was in 7th grade we watched Soul Surfer and I was thinking so much about the shark bite that I actually fainted even before the blood showed up. No it’s not the same because after I hit puberty I had to let that go because periods :)))

63: are you fussy about your books and music? do you keep them meticulously organized or kinda leave them be?

HOLY SHIT AM I METICULOUS ABOUT MY BOOKS AND MUSIC. Right now I have a tiny af bookshelf and I can’t organize my shit because it doesn’t fit and whenever I see it I stress out. Like not even having a full series in hardback stresses me out. Usually I’d organize them alphabetically though.

68: what’s winter like where you live?

In past years, it would snow from mid-November to early February but recently, it’s just gets really fucking cold and snows like four times.

73: what are some of your worst habits?

Biting my nails, procrastinating, and I have trichotillomania which is a hair-pulling disorder and with me I pull the hair from my eyebrows real bad.

84: are you planning on getting tattoos? which ones?

I really want tattoos! When I turn 18, I’m getting this on my left shoulder blade and I plan on getting a tribal Filipino tattoo either across my back or on my right shoulder. I want a lot more but those are the only ones I know of right now.

93: what’s the hairstyle you wear the most?

Ponytail or bun. I don’t really like my hair down because I get anxious about it looking bad.

97: myer briggs type, zodiac sign, and hogwarts house?

INFP/INTP (It varies), Libra, and Ravenclaw

99: list some songs that resonate to your soul whenever you hear them.

Burn - Hamilton, Wait For It - Hamilton, Alabanza - In The Heights, and The Ballad of Love and Hate - The Avett Brothers (I love how most of them are from musicals lol)

Words: Juan Antonio Corretjer Music: Roy Brown Ramírez, c.1976 Arranged: Miguel Heatwole, 2000

The title of this song means ‘Island of Blood’ in the near-extinct language of the Taino, the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean.  It was written by two Puerto Rican artists to tell the bloody history of that island and its hope for an independent future, but is also representative of Latin America as a whole and the struggle of indigenous, black and white workers to be free from all forms of colonialism.

Despite its pain the song is a triumphant celebration of working people, and praises their struggle for independence, liberated from the agonies of the past.

Lyrics:

El río de Corozal, el de la leyenda dorada. La corriente arrastra oro. La corriente está ensangrentada.

El río Manatuabón tiene la leyenda dorada. La corriente arrastra oro. La corriente está ensangrentada.

El río Cibuco escribe su nombre con letra dorada. La corriente arrastra oro. La corriente está ensangrentada.

En donde hundió la arboleda su raíz en tierra dorada Allí las ramas chorrean sangre. La arboleda está ensangrentada.

Donde dobló la frente india, bien sea tierra, bien sea agua, Bajo el peso de las cadenas, entre los hierros de la ergástula, Allí la tierra hiede a sangre y el agua está ensangrentada.

Donde el negro quebró sus hombros, bien sea tierra o bien sea agua, Y su cuerpo marcó el carimbo y abrió el látigo su espalda, Allí la tierra hiede a sangre, corre el agua ensangrentada.

Donde el blanco pobre sufrio los horrores de la peonada, El machete del mayoral, la libreta de jornada Allí la tierra está maldita, corre el agua envenenada.

Gloria a esas manos Tainas porque trabajaban. Gloria a esas manos negras porque trabajaban. Gloria a esas manos blancas porque trabajaban. De entre esas manos nos salió la patria. Gloria a las manos que las minas cavaran. Gloria a las manos que el ganado cuidaran. Gloria a las manos que el tabaco, que la caña y el café sembraran.

Gloria a las manos que los caminos trabajaran. Gloria a las manos que las ruedas giraran. Gloria a todas las manos de todos los hombres y mujeres que trabajaran.

Y gloria a las manos, a todas la manos que hoy trabajan Porque ellas construyen y saldrá de ellas la nueva patria liberada.

¡Alabanza! ¡Alabanza! Para ellos y para su patria ¡Alabanza! ¡Alabanza! ¡Alabanza!  ¡Alabanza! Alabanza! ¡Alabanza! ¡Alabanza! Para ellos y para su patria ¡Alabanza! La patria de todas las manos que trabajan. ¡Alabanza! ¡Alabanza!  ¡Alabanza! Alabanza!

Translation:

The Corozal river of the golden legend, its current carries gold, its current is bloodied. The River Manatuabón, has the golden legend, its current carries gold, its current is bloodied. The River Cibuco writes its name with golden letters its current carries gold, its current is bloodied. Where the plantation sank its roots in golden ground there the branches drip blood, the plantation is bloodied.

Where the Indian’s brow frowned, whether on land or water, under the weight of the chains, in prison irons, there the land stinks of blood and the water is bloodied. Where the black broke his shoulders, whether on land or water, and the branding iron marked his body and the whip opened his back, there the land stinks of blood, the water runs bloodied. Where the poor white suffered the horrors of the labour gang under the machete of the overseer, and the account book of the working day There the land is cursed, the water runs poisoned.

Glory to those Taino hands because they worked. Glory to those black hands because they worked. Glory to those white hands because they worked. From those hands was brought forth our homeland. Glory to the hands that dig the mines. Glory to the hands that care for the livestock. Glory to the hands that sow the tobacco, the cane and the coffee. Glory to the hands that work the roads. Glory to the hands that turn the wheels. Glory to all the hands of all the men and women who work.

And glory to the hands, all the hands that work today, because they build and from them shall come the new liberated country. Praise! For them and for their homeland. Praise!!