Posted on 01/25/2018 4:51:01 PM PST by Captain Peter Blood
There’s a place for Steven Spielberg, and apparently it’s on New York’s Upper West Side in the 1950s. A casting call has gone out for a remake of “West Side Story,” written by Pulitzer Prize winner Tony Kushner, author of Spielberg’s terrific “Lincoln” screenplay and, of course, “Angels in America.”
It’s a pro-forma casting call because, in the end, the new “West Side Story” is going to need stars. Big names. And because of the setting and the time we are in, it’s going to need actual Puerto Ricans or Latinos for the parts of characters like Maria, Anita, and Bernardo. There will be no fudging this in 2018. The casting call says in capital letters: MUST BE ABLE TO SPEAK SPANISH.
(Excerpt) Read more at showbiz411.com ...
Bless you for posting that; it’s exactly how I feel too!
Yes, Miss M there are a lot of good movies and miniseries from many sources, I enjoy a lot of them.
I don’t know if this is what you intend, but you are almost always sharp and combative when it comes to any topics related to the performing arts. You are very dismissive and rude to Freepers who may have an opinion different than yours. Is this what you intend? Is this how you speak to people in real life? I hope not.
Because you don’t know what you are talking about. That is why I am dismissive. Do you go on science threads and discuss a topic you have no knowledge of? I don’t. But when it comes to the performing arts, people think they can say anything because “it is their opinion.” Well, yes, it is, but that does not it make it worth offering. I have spent 30 years pursuing theater as a profession and longer as a patron. It is my business the way your profession is yours. I wouldn’t presume to tell you about your profession so please don’t tell me mine. If you want to worry about a remake of Oliver! please do it quietly.
Free Republic is an open conservative forum and all are welcome to have their opinions—political, cultural and otherwise. Posters aren’t required to have perfect knowledge and experience in order to voice an opinion.
This topic about idiotic movie remakes is a fun one to discuss; it’s a welcome break from a typical thread which deals with nastiness, corruption and lying in the political world.
Again, you consistently have a dismissive and scolding tone in your posts. Are you really this unhappy and unpleasant in real life? Again, I hope not.
I’m just telling you that most of the posts here are worthless. If you want to talk about what YOU consider light subjects, you might want to understand that some of us believe that the arts and culture are central to what makes America a great country or an evil country. It is a heavy topic for some of us. And a deep understanding of the arts by the Right would go a long way in restoring at least some traditional values.
But carry on. Indeed, FR is open to any one’s opinion no matter how misguided or trite.
I am perfectly happy in my personal life because I am surrounded with friends and family who understand the art of film and art in general. It makes for stimulating company.
I happen to think a lot of posts and Freepers here are GREAT and hilarious. FR is also a GREAT place to come to find otherwise hard-to-find conservative and humorously bizarre articles.
But scold away and keep telling us how stupid we are because we are not self-appointed know-it-alls like you. Your snooty remarks say a lot more about you than any of us. You may be politically conservative, but attitude-wise, you sound no different than Sean Penn or Meryl Streep.
Which posts here are great? Love to see what you think is “great”!
Once upon a time, when this nation was young, the theatre/plays were still looked down upon, especially in places like Boston, which was still under a puritanical cloud, as it remained, well into the 20th century.
But as this nation grew, yes, theatres opened, as did opera houses ( there were even opera houses out West in mining towns! And even Oscar Wilde went out West to read his poetry to miners !
When the movies ( "flickers"/the ones in small machines you dropped a nickel in, bent over to watch ) came along, the very early companies were run by WASPS, who were pretty much anti-immigrants/anti-Semetics and yes, anti-blacks ( D.W. Griffiths, for one ) and that consortium ran the show with that overlaid onto the movies.
When a bunch of Hungarian/Austrian/German immigrants wanted in, there was a huge struggle, but they eventually won, became the head of major studios, were REPUBLICANS, and actually formed what we have come to know as THE AMERICAN IDEAL/DREAM.
Yes, these men formed and spread AMERICAN CULTURE, loved this nation, banded together in the '30s to keep the damned COMMIES from taking over Hollywood, and we all owe them a massive debt of gratitude!
By President Lincolon's time, the theatre began to gain a small foothold in America. A lot of theatre companies were actually from England and came over here to put on plays.
Several decades later, this nation was no longer a cultural wasteland, with opera, operetta, ballet, and legit theatre, not to mention our version of Brit Music Hall ( VAUDEVILLE ) all over this nation; from big cities to the smallest place in rural America. And yes, from the highest of "HIGH CULTURE" to the lowest of "lowbrow culture", it was growing into "AMERICAN CULTURE", which bound us all together.
And then, in the late 1960s, the Commies got a major foothold and things began to go to hell.
Sorry for the length of this post, but the briefest of a history lesson was need to make your point, MM. :-)
Perhaps you should rethink this post and ask yourself why a FACTUAL opinion post, by an EXPERT/PROFESSIONAL threatens you so.
Flash forward and my father,born in 1920, spent his poverty-stricken childhood at the vaudeville houses and local repertory theaters - all for pennies. He saw all the greats, forgotten and still famous, and made sure his kids knew the names of Jack Benny, Eddie Canter, Abbott & Costello, Al Jolson, etc. How I envied his memories.
All that is dead and buried, sadly. Theater is being priced out of many people's lives and even movies, as bad as they are, are unaffordable.
While DW Griffith was indeed a WASP (as was most of the old south), I'd say he was more a Confederate, lol. I've seen Birth of a Nation (I was taught it in film class) and it has many fabulous things in it. The last hour is unwatchable in modern terms.
My family, for generations, were lovers of "the arts" and instilled, in me, not only a love and appreciation of them, but took me to the opera, operetta, ballet, movies, and plays. Not only that, but my grandmother sang very old Broadway songs to me and then there were all of the old family stories about who has seen what, who had known whom, and just the history of it all.
The same was also true re paintings and such.
And you know some of my family history, which I shan't post to an open thread. :-)
SPOT ON re Edna Ferber!
And as to the old opera houses all over this nation still, in a nearby town, where P.T. Barnum and his ancestors once lived, there is still a massive, old opera house, on the main street, which is now a restaurant. However, I'd bet the manse that P.T. had THE SWEDISH NIGHTINGALE,Jenny Lind, perform there!
Yes, the theatre is now SO damned expensive and for CRAP/worthless garbage, as is the same for movies ( GEE THANKS UNIONS...NOT ! ), that most people have to mortgage their homes to waste there time seeing badly written, PC carp, "starring" talentless, "diversity" cast, mumbling "artists". YUCK!
I've seen BIRTH OF A NATION many times over. Griffiths was the inventor of many things that are still used in movie making today; however, he and Edison and also Ford were all rather horrid, nasty men, who HATED everyone who weren't blue blood WASPS and snooty to boot.
I don’t feel threatened at all, but I’m starting to think I’m dealing with someone with a serious psychiatric mood disorder. Not joking, not exaggerating. With every post, you get b*tchier and nastier.
I’m not the first, second or fiftieth Freeper you’ve declared war on because you think you are the world’s greatest authority on the performing arts and everyone else is stupid. Seriously, what is wrong with you? Why are you so combative and angry? Why do you have to constantly attack other Freepers with your scolding and foul moods?
Perhaps you should start your own personal performing arts blog where you can declare everyone else stupid and bully anyone who disagrees with you.
First you went after miss marmelstien, tooth and nail and now, all of a sudden I'm the target, when I stand up for her?
Want to see a b*tch, with terminal psychosis? GO LOOK INTO THE NEAREST MIRROR!
Did you even bother to read my brief history regarding this topic?
It is YOU, diddums, who declares "WAR" on other posters, who yes, you DO feel threatened by; not I and not MM.
Am I an "EXPERT" on several different topics? Why yes, yes I am; however, my history posts are meant solely to enlighten! Yet apparently the fact that I know what I know and that MM is personally a PROFESSIONAL, regarding this topic, has raised the hackles and you would rather simmer in your own juices and lash out at us, than take the time to ponder on what we have respectively offered you.
And just WHERE did I "disagree" with you, other than re your uncalled for attack on MM?
I was not directing any comments at all to you nopardons, my mistake. My apologies. My comments were directed to MM and MM only.
Up until your last post you have been pefectly civil and reasonable, I enjoy reading your posts. I’m also glad that someone else is horrified that Oliver! Is being remade with Ice Cube as Fagin.
In Camden, Maine, where we vacation, there is a huge opera house in the town center. I forget what it is used for now but it is architecturally beautiful. America was once a very different country...
I really am sorry about mistakenly posting to you instead of MM. Didn’t mean to. I need to be more careful when I’m using the tiny keyboard on my smart phone.
The problem is people like you don’t read the posts of no pardons or me. You skim them and go back to ranting that your opinion on the performing arts is equal to our opinion when it clearly is not. You and others could learn from people like us the way we learn from gun owners, technology experts, preppers, cooks and political experts here. No Pardons has written brilliantly about 19th century traveling theatricals but instead of opening your eyes and ears you just revert to name-calling. And you DO name call, for all your claims you’re being attacked.
I have been an avid reader of and fan of Dikckens' work, though he was a nasty, egomaniacal narcissist, lefty man, since early childhood. And OLIVER TWIST is one of my favorite books, of his.
Oh, Dickens is very modern in being the proverbial, urban schmuck. I’ve seen his umpteen resignation letters to the Garrick Club that they proudly display. It’s interesting you love Oliver Twist because it is one of my favorites. It tends to get overlooked (except by performing artists) because it is one of his earliest and isn’t 1,000 pages long. I’ve walked all over London trying to place where Fagin lived. I’ve visited the location where Dickens’ famous blacking factory was and where they keep elements of that trade. A very great writer. And like most successful writers, not a great person.
He used the Gish sisters in so many of his films, always in states of hysteria and danger; often as not, in somewhat dishabille; though not, admittedly, as DeMille.
And then there's Mary Pickford. :-)
Keeping an adult woman in child parts, says quite a lot!
In N.H., quite a lot of the old opera houses were ( I don't know if it's still true, though ) turned into summer theatres for Summer Stock companies. And you know how and WHY I know this. :-)
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