After all it is called the movie business. $$$$ WSS bombing will certainly put the pause on any other potential "musical" remakes unless budgets are dramatically reduced.
Isn’t it also a big thing that people born in the 90s and younger dislike the past for the most part? I think the film is still set in the 50s no?
If Spielberg is taking requests, we still need to see a film about Juan Pujol, the Spanish double agent who invented a network of 27 completely fictional spies to fool to Nazis and helped convince them that D-Day was only a diversion, that the real invasion was happening at two other locations. It should be cheap enough, especially if he reuses a bunch of Saving Private Ryan footage.
It's been nice to see the positive reviews here and elsewhere. Well, I just read a review that excoreates the movie, the dude just trashed it. From Spielberg to the actors to the music. And the sad part is the writer did it intelligently. I'll still go to it, but that review left me thinking that one bad review equals a hundred positive ones!
The one in The New Yorker was very negative, and made some valid points. But on the other hand, I don't actually tend to watch films analytically, like a film critic does. Instead, I just watch and see whether or not it affects me. Also, I think I've seen the original only once, a long time ago, so I don't have that hanging over me. All things being equal, I'm pretty sure I enjoy more films than the average film critic does.
the Demo is not going out, bars that appeal to the 40+ Demo are dying, our local concert venue which gears all of their concerts/shows to that demo , is dying (besides the Monkees , RIP Mike Nesmith , which sold-out (and they ended up , over-selling the venue). Not one show has hit 50% capacity. Most are at 25%.
I find the few negative reviews quite shocking - I'd go so far to ask, what planet are these people from, and why is it so dark and soulless where they live? Well, I guess, it's not for everyone. But as for me...I worship the original film. One of my favorites of all time. I think the music and the choreography is unparalleled. And half way through watching Spielberg's version, I shocked myself by realizing, the new version is actually a hundred times better than the original. I don't envy, I pity those who at least like musicals, or Spielberg, or anything with heart, yet dismiss this movie. It was the best film I have seen in over ten years. I'm not known for hyperbole. But to me, this is Spielberg's masterpiece, by far better than anything he's done in decades. It's a cinematic wonder, so much brilliance and craft, from one moment to the next. Seriously, I know your mileage will vary. But I was literally speechless about it for some time afterwards. I was shocked how he kept the brilliant purity and genius of the original music (which I think comes from some other better world) and the spirit of the original Robbins choreography. It's not cheapened or modernized in any way. But everything else, beyond the original music and choreography? This film improves on everything else. The casting, the dialogue, the characterizations, the changes made. I never rave like this! But I am just amazed. I cannot remember the last time I have seen a work of this kind of stunning cinematic craft. It has been too long I guess. I am so thankful it was made. I'm not sure we will see quite its like again.
Now my interest is really perked. There are a number of films from the last few years that get meh reviews but I think are excellent and of course, there's a ton of work, which I think is awful but are garnered with praise. I'm really hoping WSS is a case of the former. Unbelievably, I've never seen the original, so I'm kind of glad I'll be watching this without any prejudices inflecting my view of the thing. The Spielberg film I'm really curious to see, however, is The Fabelmans, supposedly an autobiographical story penned by Spielberg himself (with Tony Kushner, who did excellent work on the Lincoln script). This is scheduled for release about a year from now, according to IMBD.
Of course, your reaction may be entirely different from mine, especially since I went in passionately loving the original film and musical. I wanted to add that Tony Kushner's fantastic work is also all over this film. But I also want to note, West Side Story has gotten great reviews. So I hope for you this could be just a case of a film that is indeed garnered with praise, but you still think it is excellent. It has 92% critics/95% audience scores at Rotten Tomatoes, and on that site is in the top ten best-reviewed Spielberg films of all time. Yet there has been a very strange online reaction to the film; sadly both the "woke" and "anti-woke" people have come out against it, ironically, as what I would like to think are vocal minorities. The box office for it has not been good, for a variety of reasons. But I did want to clarify that this has not gotten "meh" reviews, though there's this very negative perception for reasons I can't understand. I don't always go by reviews either, so I totally hear you. But I am comforted that I am not totally on a limb when I say I think the new film is fantastic, because I'm definitely not alone. It has only been in the odd corners of the internet that have given this impression as if people who actually see this version didn't like it. The great majority of people talking about this film online, in my experience, have definitely not seen it. Because they speak angrily about aspects of it that are not relevant. I could be wrong but I cannot remember a film that has been so rejected in various quarters as soon as it was announced, and a whole ongoing campaign of criticisms have followed it ever since, usually filled with overblown distortions. I would just add, since I've already written a novel here anyway, is that while I feel the film improves on the original, it is still a loving homage to its original era. In a beautiful way, in its look and feel, but not in a gimmicky way. I was not born when the original was released, but somehow the film feels nostalgic for a time gone past. It's all Hollywood fantasy of course, but it feels exactly like a circa 1957 film in NYC should feel. I'm going again, to see it for the second time this week.
Caught a screening today, I was thinking about seeing it during the week but from the looks of things it was the last screening at Event Cinema and they only started screening it in that one cinema 3 days ago. I wouldn't say the theater was packed but there was a reasonable ammount of people there. I did notice on google that some of the smaller independent cinemas are still screening it though. I quite liked it so it's a shame it's not doing very well at the box office but if they aren't even going to bother screening the film that doesn't surpirse me. It's been a while since I saw the 1961 movie but Spielberg's version was very well done, cinematography was incredible the actors all had solid performances. I'm not convinced Steven's idea to not subtitle the spanish was a good idea though, I heard people say "You can tell what's going on" but only because they occasionally have them speak the most important points in english, in fact I think the upshot of not subtitleing is that all the Pureto Ricans have to keep reminding eachother to speak english. Unfortunatly I don't speak Spanish and am hopeless at learning new languages so I'll have to wait until it's released digitally or on blu-ray then I can search for some translated dialogue. I also found it interesting that Officer Krupke was not present for the Officer Krupke song, maybe Steven felt he came off a bit goofy in the previous film or something. It wasn't a bad way to do the song but I felt it was missing something for him not to show up until the "Krup you" line.
I think that people make too big a deal of the Spanish spoken bits. It's only a very small part of the spoken dialogue and as you said, it was made sure that the important parts a spoken in English. I don't speak Spanish either, but I understand the random word and felt, that none of the Spanish dialogue was in any way essential to the story. BTW, I saw the film with German subtitles, and they didn't translate the Spanish parts. So I wouldn't count on an English translation for them on a digital release. Officer Krupke wasn't present during the song in the original film either. He left before the Jets started singing it.
what I meant was some website would probably transcribe and translate for me to look at while I watch it. I don’t think I’m making a big deal out of it. It’s not the end of the world and I still enjoyed the movie but it makes you a bit of an outsider watching the scene and I’d like it if I understood what they were saying.
I didn't mean you specifically, but rather those claiming "You can tell what's going on". Maybe it's just me, but I enjoy hearing different languages, even if I don't understand them. I think they add to the atmosphere of different cultures living together. As long as I can follow the story, I don't mind missing a sentence here and there.
Agreed entirely. I'm surprised about the people's reaction about the lack of Spanish subtitles. There is barely any dialogue in Spanish, and most is either immediately explained or followed up in English, and what little that isn't is very clear through context. Any discerning viewer understands what is being said and talked about. And I was going to also add that Krupke bit. The new film improves on the original for me, by having it take place at the police station, and also actually bringing in Krupke at the very end.
West Side Story has made a total of $27 million so far, but that's a disaster in terms of what a $100M+ movie like that would need to make just to break even. I think it was always a gamble, I think it was a very old-fashioned story (no matter how well it was told), and I think a mass-market audience just didn't want to see it.
Sadly that seems to be the case. For a long time, studios thought about counter programming, but apparently the Spider-Man film is so huge that there's not enough screens to have the counter programming.
The closest multiplex to my home on top of showing Spider-Man in multiple formats has the following Encanto, Eternals, Ghostbusters, Nightmare Alley, House of Gucci and WSS.
Ouch. Oh well, I put in my $26 for myself and DH last night. I loved some of the updates (proper ethnic casting obviously, "America", "Cool", "Krupke") and hated some of them (T&M's first meeting, "Somewhere", Anybodys). I do wish the timeline had been stretched out so as to make it more realistic; not just the T&M relationship but things like Chino's character arc. It's simply preposterous to think that these events could have all taken place in under 40 hours.
