Bandoman

The lack of subtitles gives me pause as well. How much of the dialogue is in Spanish? Refusing to add subtitles out of “respect for the language” only prevents much of the audience from connecting to the Puerto Rican characters.

dex14

I saw a pretty good doc on her at Tribeca this year. I think PBS aired it, but it is now on Netflix. Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It. Worth checking out.

TomOpus

I watched it yesterday. Highly recommended. She's had a helluva life.

dex14

Not enough for anyone to make a big deal about it. Plenty is inferred and some lines...or versions of lines... are said again in English. If someone can't connect with the Puerto Rican characters in this film then it has nothing to do with not having subtitles.

rocket1312

A few years back Moreno did a commercial for health insurance or something that used to run non-stop on my local sports network. If I watched a basketball game I might see it 5 times. I swear it even played back to back sometimes. The point is, I should have hated that commercial due to repetition alone. But instead, I couldn't take my eyes off it because I was completely enchanted by Moreno and in awe of how good she looked in her 80's.

Decker

Cool little article on CNN about some of the measures that Spielberg and co. did to correct issues the original had with Puerto Rican people and culture.

The old 'West Side Story' got half the story wrong. Spielberg's new film tries to make it right

I didn’t even notice that they pared down “America” to cut out the more offensive references to Puerto Rico.

stingermck

Flame suit on

West side story is that movie your English teacher made you watch in middle school.

I just can't see the average person clamoring for a remake.

rocket1312

You're right, nobody was clamoring for a remake. But that's not because their English teacher made them watch it in middle school, it's because it's such a beloved movie and most anyone who likes the original probably thought it was pointless. That the remake is apparently great (I haven't seen it yet) is one of the nicest movie surprises we've had in a long while.

dex14

To be fair, I was first shown it by an elementary school teacher.

OldBoy

Which is most comprehensive version of old on Blu-ray? Not the chotsky laden 50th edition, but which is the no frills but all extras? If you can link to Amazon, I’d appreciate.

TheBang

There is also a digibook version which is OOP:

Dr. DVD

I was made to watch a mesh up of both this and Romeo and Juliet (Zeferelli version) in middle school. Found it interesting in all honesty. I am hoping to catch this next weekend and take my mother.

GoldenJCJ

I watched the original version on TCM the other night. It’s mentioned in that article but I was surprised to see so much brown face used. I guess I’m looking at the movie with 2021 eyes but I either didn’t realize, or forgot how bad it is. They even put brown face on the Latino actors. Rita Moreno looks like she has a 5 o’clock shadow throughout the movie because they caked her in so much brown grease. It’s unbelievably distracting.

DJariya

Just got out of seeing it in Dolby. I thought it was really good. Rachel Zegler was wonderful as Maria. Now I kind of want to see the original as I've never seen it. Regarding the lack of subtitles controversy. It had absolutely no impact for me. You can easily figure out what's going on naturally in the scenes and the gist of what it means. Shame that this movie is probably not going to even make $50M here and will be dead and buried next week.

I know Elgort has some controversy from his past, but I thought he was pretty good as Tony. Didn’t know he could sing. Overall they did a great job with the set design and costume designs.

Rita Moreno looked great for 88 when she filmed this and that was a really well done rendition of Somewhere.

I know the casual observers here probably don't care to see this, but I think this will be an Oscar contender. I think it's a pretty well done movie despite the fact that almost no one is watching it.

Bandoman

I will make a point to see this in the theater this weekend. The trailers look great.

Count Dooku

The 14 screen Cinemark near me just has WSS for two showings a day.

Decker

It fucking breaks my heart that this wonderful movie bombed.

Ash Ketchum

FULL DISCLOSURE: I consider the 1961 film my favorite of all time. I saw it in theaters 22 times from 1963-1975 and have seen it several times since in various formats, most recently on Blu-ray. I’ve had a cautious, problematic history with it as an adult (for reasons I won’t share here), but its many powerful moments never fail to move me, excite me and awe me as they did when I was younger.

The idea of a movie remake of this is sacrilegious to me, so I had no intention of seeing this, but my sister and her husband came through town this past weekend and she insisted on seeing the film with me, since we used to go see it together as kids. So, to make her happy, I reluctantly agreed.

As it unspooled before us at the multiplex, I immediately regretted attending. “Where’s the magic?” I kept asking myself. When Maria leaves to go to the dance, I remembered that enchanting moment in the original when she declares, “This is my first night of being a woman in America!” and she spins around creating a swirl of colors, gradually dissolving into a burst of dancers at the gym. Here she just leaves the apartment with Anita, Bernardo and Chino and then it cuts to the school hallway as she and the group walk down and enter the gym. That’s it. The magic becomes mundane. The poetic becomes the prosaic. The extraordinary becomes the ordinary.

Worse is what they do to “Cool.” The original is, for me, the greatest dance number in the history of movies. Here, it’s just a bunch of goofy kids shambling around a rotting pier fumbling over a gun. What a travesty. I was furious. If I wasn’t with my sister and her husband, I would have walked out then and there. And what they do to "Dear Officer Krupke" and "I Feel Pretty" is just as bad.

In every scene that recreates the original, I would keep recalling my emotional reactions from those viewings and how it just falls flat here. Every line uttered by Anita made me recall Rita Moreno’s tangy, provocative, witty line delivery. Despite the criticism of it over the years, Richard Beymer’s dramatic moments never failed to move me. This new kid just made me yawn.

And I don’t care about social commentary or issues of representation when the actors are just dull and generic. I couldn’t tell one Jet from another. In fact, the only way I knew which one was Riff was when he opened his mouth and spoke in that high-pitched nasal voice like Steve Buscemi. So whenever I heard Buscemi's voice, I knew it was Riff.

Boredom grew into restlessness and I wound up going to the bathroom a record three times during the course of the movie (and a fourth during the end credits). When emptying your bladder is more important than what happens next…

In short, I sure didn't see the same movie everyone else here saw.

Count Dooku

Saw it last night. Beautiful, wonderful. Not gonna claim I like every decision SS made, but I thought it was great, and it was a great experience seeing it on the big screen.

TomOpus

You didn't like this movie the moment you headed to the theater.

Josh-da-man

Can't say I have much interest in seeing this, but I watched the original on cable several years ago and was surprised how many of the songs I recognized.

Decker

Exactly. Ash you had no interest in doing anything but trashing this movie. Going to the bathroom three times in a 2.5 hr movie? That sounds like a you problem, not the movie's. Your criticisms make no sense. I will prove it :
Anyone else who saw this movie so far, anyone : Can you tell which one of the Jets is Riff from this still?


Having a strong negative bias is a real thing. I will readily admit I didn't like Hacksaw Ridge and probably won't like any more Mel Gibson movies knowing what a raging anti-Semite he is. I probably can't be objective about his movies. But I won't make up reasons why I didn't like it either. It's an inherent bias and I just have to recognize it. You have one for this film, and that's okay. But it's not a terrible film that's fooling everybody else, and you need to realize that

dex14

Is it the one in the foreground who happens to have a high-pitched nasal voice like Steve Buscemi?

Ash, I don’t agree with your review… but it was a hilarious read.

E Unit

100% not surprised by this. My parents though did go see it, both 75. My mother rates as “it was so good”. My father, “pretty much the same songs and stuff overall.”

Yeah, I’ll but the digital when it’s cheap.

Obi-Wanma

Hey everybody, calm down and get off of Ash's lawn.