West Side Story (Steven Spielberg, December 10,2021) Movie • Page 3

Pleas stop posting Ben Mekler tweets. The joke has run its course.

 

Agreed that this is great.

Even in a great year of movie musicals (minus “Dear Evan Hansen”), this stands out. Spielberg’s use of the camera and colors is amazing. Everyone is so good except fucking Ansel Elgort who sticks out so bad. Maria needs instant chemistry with Tony because everything happens so fast and it’s just not there.

Ariana DeBose owns every scene and Rita Moreno is great fan service that actually makes sense and doesn’t wink at the camera a hundred times like every other nostalgic movie this year.

 

seems very odd to me that everyone is like “this is great, yeah the lead actor sucks, so what”

gonna try to see this saturday maybe

 

One mediocre actor doesn’t ruin the show for me when everyone else is operating at a top level. Not really “so what”-ing because he’s also gross and a creep and I wish it could have been someone else, but there’s not much they could do.

 

i get that and feel that way often when it’s a supporting role. it usually doesn’t happen with me when it’s one of the two focal points of the movie

 

Hey at least we all know in the end Tony gets shot dead

 

Rachel's the only star of this movie

 

I feel like even though Tony and Maria's romance is the thrust of the movie, it's more or less equally as focused on the other characters like Riff and Anita.

 

Why did I think this was on HBO max?

 

woah how did I not know Corey Stoll was playing Lieutenant Schrank in this

 

This was fine. It is a lot more exciting before the Mercutio and Tybalt deaths because the music is much better.

All the stories about Spanish subtitles is weird because half of the time a character reminds them to speak the English and the rest of the time they basically repeat the sentence in English.

 

it was a Breitbart story haha so it was misleading

 

It ends up working for the most part in the movie because they want to practice their English to better get used to living in America. The one time it is weird is in the gym after Bernardo dies; they would not be speaking English at that point

 

Probably the best thing about the film is that it shows remakes can actually be good and add something to the material. The original movie is 60 years old, so you have a movie that is mostly a cultural memory for people. Someone like Spielberg can spend a lifetime thinking about it, what works, what didn't, and how it would be different in a modern age. That is why remakes of a movie from a decade or so ago don't have anything new to add.

 

https://deadline.com/2021/12/west-side-story-opening-weekend-1234888675/

Not off to a strong start.

 

and that’s going into a second week against spider-man, no less. depressing

 

I loved this. I do wish it was anyone other than Elgort in the lead role, but he was at least serviceable but good lord everything and everyone else around him is out of this world. That Spielberg guy has got a bright future ahead of him.

 

Bummer to see those opening weekend numbers. Will have to check it out again. I kind of haven’t stopped thinking about it since I saw it Monday.

 

Going tomorrow to see it on a Dolby Atmos screen

 

This is pretty incredible IMO. Even Ansel is… fine, for the most part. I actually think he plays his big emotional scene at the end really well. Rachel Zegler though, good Lord. A star. The guy who plays Riff is also really great.

 

The Moreno casting is the best kind of callback because it works fine for people who have no idea she was in the original while also nodding to the older audience.

 

glad someone else thought Riff had Mulaney vibes

Ariana DeBose and Rachel Zegler are both fantastic as was Rita Moreno
Spielberg did a great job with the musical elements/choreography, I liked that they included overtures like with the Jet song in the beginning
Iris Mendes was great too and that was a nice tough
all the Spanish was super easy to get with context clues and the script was great
only thing was Baby sometime felt like he was in an episode of Riverdale and it was hard to deal with the dichotomy of the Jets being cute little dancing scamps but also virulent racists at time
I think the whole Ans*l thing almost works because yeah that's what happen when a guy in his 20s dates an 18 year old he kinda sucks but she still loves him

 

Mike Faist (Riff) had such a presence in this from the minute he shows up, what a performance.

It dragged a little in the middle for me, during One Hand, One Heart and Cool, otherwise really good

 

Faist and DeBose were some of my favorite parts of this, I kind of wish Riff had an even bigger role because Faist just deserves all the time to shine. But DeBose absolutely knocked it out of the park, the scene of her in valentina's store when she's going to give Tony Maria's message was some powerful stuff.