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 ...
JMO...most recent revivals stink on ice, except for THE WOMEN, which was brilliant; though the curtain call in just '30s era underwear was dumb.
Spielberg is now a blithering idiot with no idea about what would "sell". And now, with fewer and fewer people going to movies, anyone who had even a semi-good idea ( and could actually find actors and actresses who could act ), would make a fortune, IF said script could get produced.
Yes, this idiotic remake is a BOMB, even before the first camera begins to roll.
SHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESH !
And did you notice that I got several ridiculous replies re my not having seen one pathetic movie and even worse...some idiotic, ancient CHILDREN'S T.V. shows?
Movies have always been used to inculcate the populace, as well as to entertain. That's but one reason why the stinking COMMIES wanted to take over Hollywood, way back when. Thankfully they more or less failed; though some DID get their work ( most wrote the scripts though some were directors ) produced.
Once the studio system was crushed, it was BAR THE DOOR NELLIE and movies began to swiftly go downhill.
I appreciate your obvious passion on the subject.
For starters, AMOS & ANDY was written and acted by WHITES (Freeman Gosden & Charles Correll who also acted those roles ) was originally a RADIO SHOW, that harkened back to the old MINSTREL SHOWS.
The HONEYMOONERS was a semi-takeoff of LAUREL & HARDY, whose slap-stick comedy goes back to the COMEDIA DEL ARTE.
And as an original member, in good standing, of THE HONEYMOONIES, not to mention someone who has read ALL of the books books about that show, seen all of the CLASSIC 39, has them on disc, which I know every script of by heart, and also seen all of the other Gleason shows, where the HOMYMOONERS skits were in.
If you don't know much or anything about a topic, it would behoove you to NOT talk about it. ;^)
"THE MUSIC OF THE NIGHT", from PHANTOM ? It's the old "HELP ME MAKE IT THROUGH THE NIGHT".
It's not as though he's the only one who has ever done this, after all, all of the music from the 1953 musical "KISMET", is just lifted, completely from Borodin.
EXACTLY! :-)
It’s really shocking, just how few, here, know anything at all about so much, but continue to write about that which they do NOT know.
The Espaniol version was 2008. It was a Neiderlander production but I can’t find the theater! So it wasn’t City Center or Lincoln Center. It got killed. I saw a hideous production of it back in the late 70s with choreography by: DEBBIE ALLEN of Flashdance fame. I had never seen a production of the show and wanted to see one. Never again! I’ll stick with the film which is a great improvement over the play (even Sondheim agrees).
Thank you.
And trust me, it is NOT just NYC, where Americans can see/hear such things. Every single major city, in this nation, has at least one opera company, many also have a resident ballet company and/or has visiting productions of by major, world class dance companies. And FYI...even some small places ( towns, villages, minor cities ) have some of the afore stated.
Oh not really "funny", we remember what means something to us, for good or ill.
It is a remake of a remake of a retold story.
You're the one who who needs to get out of YOUR little bubble.
And comparing some stupid golf tournament to the audience of but ONE ballet company ( NYC is the home to MANY different dance companies, most of which travel around the country, performing for those who appreciate true beauty and artistry )is idiotic.
This is a good point. Even in awful NJ, the state has a pretty damned decent corps de ballet.
So many musicals of my mom’s childhood were based on operas or operettas. That was how a generation of children learned about music. My mom adored Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy and Mario Lanza. I grew up watching the 1950s “Show Boat” and was introduced to the great William Warfield as Joe. This, in turn, made me search out records made by Warfield. This, in turn, led me to Four Saints in Three Acts by Virgil Thompson and Gertrude Stein. That, in turn, led me to start to read Gertrude Stein. Then, in the late 70s, I came full circle when rep houses in NYC began to show the original film of Show Boat with Paul Robson as Joe!
That is how great art and even middle-brow art works on children and young adults. Remakes a bad movies such as has been mentioned here cannot do that.
Pauline Kael gave WSS a bad review. She hated film musicals based on Broadway musicals. But unlike folks here, she appreciated the Nicholas Brothers!
Those revivals sound absolutely HIDEOUS !
I only saw the one. After that, I gave up. I will say Jerome Robbins’ Broadway which starred Jason Alexander a thousand years ago recreated several dances from West Side Story. Beautifully done.
Aren’t you the passionate little television watcher. Laurel and Hardy primarily played off each other. Amos n Andy included Saphire the long suffering wife of the Kinfish who was always embroiled in some get rich scheme. Sound familiar?
Sadly, all of that stopped sometime in the '60s.
Early T.V. showed great old movies, so I saw all of the Nelson Eddy Jeanette McDonald movies when I was bitty and loved them!
I had a terrible case of the mumps when I was 7, but it was then that I first saw the movie TALES OF HOFFMAN and fell in love with the music and ballet bits.
Early T.V. had full operettas, some Broadway shows, ballet, modern dance, and amazing plays on net work stations, FOR THE GENERAL AUDIENCE!
Radio, films, and T.V. used to offer for real "culture", which actually once was part of the web and woof of American life.
And yes, one thing always can spark interest in one thing that leads to another thing and then another; just as you wrote.
So I have really have to wonder why so many here not only know nor appreciate such things, but revel in their own mordant stupidity, which they proudly show off for all the world to see.
A well rounded person should be able to appreciate many different things and not put down the beauty of the arts, which know no politics nor social strata.
Robbins was a spectacular choreographer!
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