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 ...
It appears to be USELESS to get some posters to look at the facts; facts they do NOT know.
1959 “Ben Hur”: massive success at the box office, 11 Oscars. 2016 Ben Hur remake: massive box office bomb, heavy financial damage to Paramount.
Original “West Side Story” movie: huge success at the box office, 10 Oscars. Remake: high probability of another huge bomb.
There are some great movies that should never be remade.
Nope, not making this up: the remake of “Oliver” will feature Ice Cube as Fagin. Unbelievable.
Why, pray tell, would it be “telling” whom they cast? They can cast Theresa May and Sadiq Khan as Maria & Tony and I wouldn’t care. It’s a non-issue with me.
Gigi has never been one of my favorites. That’s just a personal opinion; other people whom I respect like it.
You’re saying casting isn’t important in a movie, that it isn’t a factor in a movie’s success?
I don’t think you understand what a convention within a film or musical is. It’s not about an audience clapping. That might be more a tradition.
A convention would be the audience’s mutual agreement to accept certain unrealistic behaviors on stage - such as breaking out into song and dance. Or an actor standing to the side of the stage speaking to himself (or the audience) while the other actors on stage can’t hear him.
Now you have me laughing my socks off, re what your husband and his friends think about the credits of WSS, the movie. LOL
We have ALL of McCabe's books; some of them signed by him. He is the experts' "EXPERT", when it comes to all things Laurel and Hardy.
Chuck was not only a great actor, but a lovely person.
Have you read "HOT TODDY"? It's a very interesting and compelling book about Thelma and her murder.
And yes, that tickle scene is hilarious.
Your brother runs a Thelma Todd fan page? Oh WOW!
And it is great that he ran L&H shorts for you. :-)
We have some on film too, but ALL of the "the boys" stuff on discs, now.
Yes tradition is a better word.
O-M-G.........I’m disgusted and heart broken on so many different levels. I have always been a gigantic Dickens fan, love “OLIVER”, in both its forms, and so, your news is killing me. :-(
Have you ever seen the non-musical French film, GIGI? It's very good and just about word for word, the same, sans music, as the musical.
Louie Jordan is my favorite thing about the movie. He’s lovely. I’m not a fan of Chevalier (sorry about that).
I’m serious about the credits. They’re brilliant.
No, the script always comes first. Without a script, there is no film or theater piece. The last thing “cast” in anything is the cast.
I agree, if the script is bad, not much else matters. But if casting is bad, ex: Ice Cube as Fagin, that does matter.
IMHO, there’s getting to be way too much PC casting in the name of “diversity.” I have no interest in ever seeing “Hamilton”; our founding fathers were not a bunch of hip hop and Puerto Rican rappers.
Well, you can sit around pondering the new Oliver Twist and West Side Story while I ignore such absurdities. There is so much beautiful film to see on Filmstruck, Roku, Turner and dvd, why should I care?
I don't like that Chevalier made his accent heavier, for the American audience, but I can take him or leave him, usually. OTOH, I much prefer him in the movies he made later in life: "GIGI" and "FANNY", to his early ones; he was awful if THE MERRY WIDOW!
Now I’m going to have to pull the disc out and just watch the credits! LOL
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