Steven Spielberg's 'West Side Story' sees critics and paying audiences part ways: Critics rave about a woke masterpiece, but the American public don't seem to agree with a film that gives them the middle finger

American Thinker ^ | 12/14/2021 | Andrea Widburg

[SeekAndFind]

Full disclosure: I despise Steven Spielberg movies and dislike both Romeo and Juliet and the 1961 West Side Story (WSS) movie.  For that reason, I take particular delight in noting that Steven Spielberg's remake of WSS may have enthralled critics, but no one is rushing to see it.  And no wonder, given that it's so darn woke that parts of it are in a language most Americans don't speak, but Spielberg refused to include subtitles.

Let me quickly get through my biases.  I hate Steven Spielberg movies because I find them overblown, predictable, and incredibly boring.  I also dislike the way he presents children.  I gather from watching bios of him that he was an unpleasant little boy, and so are his characters.  Some say they're realistic; I say they're too disagreeable to be trapped with for a movie's duration.

I dislike Romeo and Juliet because it's hard to imagine two more nincompoopish young people.  At every opportunity, they take the stupid, thoughtless path.  There's nothing romantic about that.  The only thing that makes sense to me is the contention that Shakespeare didn't write the play as romance; he wrote it as a cautionary tale holding that impulsive young people should never be trusted to manage their romances and marriages.  Unfortunately, Shakespeare's writing was so transcendent that people loved the romance and ignored the message.

And I dislike WSS because the primitive pop psychology of 1950s leftists leaves me cold, and the movie was horribly miscast, with every lead character, except Rita Moreno, being embarrassingly bad.  I also dislike Marni Nixon's voice (she dubbed Natalie Wood's singing).  The opening Jets ballet is kind of fun in a '50s style, but everything else...meh.

You may disagree with me and probably will.  My answer is that nobody will ever accuse me of following the crowd.

[SeekAndFind]

John Nolte, who likes the original WSS, explains just how awful the remake is:

Spielberg openly sought to appease the most out-of-touch and fascist members of our society — left-wing racial activists. In this case, he sought them out in the crybaby, Puerto Rican activist community. This is a terrible idea, most especially for an artist. Racial activists in no way reflect what everyday Americans think or feel or want, and this includes Puerto Rican Americans.

Spielberg's racial patronizing was so pathetic, he decided to punish and exclude anyone who's not bilingual by not including subtitles in scenes where everyone speaks Spanish.

"If I subtitled the Spanish I'd simply be doubling down on the English and giving English the power over the Spanish," the virtue-signaling Spielberg squeaked from his gerbil cage.

What does that even mean?!?!

I'll tell you what it means… It means his West Side Story remake is more homework than entertaining.

Nolte quotes from an NBC article about the re-education portion of the movie (emphasis from Nolte):

In the new movie, Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner work to correct the original musical and movie's stereotypical depictions, adding more specificity and historical context around the Puerto Rican experience, and around the issues of racism and racial hostility.

Such animosity first becomes evident when the Jets vandalize a mural of the Puerto Rican flag with a quotation from Pedro Albizu Campos, the leading figure of the Puerto Rican independence movement. The quote reads, "la patria es valor y sacrificio," Spanish for "the homeland is value and sacrifice."

"Once you see that and you notice that the flag is the light blue flag, which is the original color of the Puerto Rican flag" before the U.S. colonized Puerto Rico in 1898 after the Spanish-American War."

Well, I feel appropriately politically indoctrinated now...

The good news is that, despite movie critics (most of whom are leftists) raving about the movie, the public isn't buying.  Nolte writes that, while Spielberg's WSS cost $100 million to make, the movie barely broke $10 million on its debut weekend.  Deadline tries to explain away the numbers by crying "COVID," but Nolte points out that everyone knew about COVID going in but still expected better of the movie.  Hollywood misread America.

[spel_grammer_an_punct_polise]

I know Puerto Ricans who would hound Spielberg to the end of the world if they could and they are not the activists. ;-)

[knarf]

I could never watch a WSS re-make because I enjoyed the original so much.

IMO, unless a movie is SO badly made, but is an interesting or important story .... re-makes are lazy make-works

[peggybac]

That’s too bad Spielberg and Kushner ruined the film. I love the original and had hopes for this remake.

[MinorityRepublican]

I think people are just bored with remakes. This is Hollywood being lazy. Instead of spending 100 million dollars on a remake, why not spend 10 million dollars on a original story? Make a nice little profit, let’s say 50 million dollars and call it a day?

[Sgt_Schultze]

I don’t bother with subtitled films. I’d rather they be dubbed. I can either read dialogue or watch the story.

[MinorityRepublican]

IMO, unless a movie is SO badly made, but is an interesting or important story .... re-makes are lazy make-works

You need an actor with charisma. Or sometimes the dialogue is so campy that the movie turned out to be entertaining.

But usually in this case, it's just unwatchable crap. By the way, I haven't seen this movie yet so I could be wrong.

[Dr. Ursus]

What part or parts of the movie didn’t you like?

[Right_Wing_Madman]

I know Puerto Ricans who would hound Spielberg to the end of the world if they could and they are not the activists. ;-)

Spielberg's complete dissonance and arrogance leads to box office disaster. According to this review, you have a 75-year-old white Jew lecturing to Puerto Ricans how they should feel about themselves and their heritage. Talk about out-of-touch.

[Caipirabob]

Conservatives have been joining together in mixed ethnicity marriages that our now grown kids have voted twice for President Trump.

Typical of the left to dig up the rotting cadaver of leftist racism and segregation that made our decades old marriages a thing of scandal back when democrat KKK clansmen held sway over things.

Hey democrats; that LatinX thing? It’s just Latin, y’all can go suck X.

[peggybac]

I haven’t seen the remake, just the trailers.

[LibertyWoman]

When the critics ‘Rave’ about a film, it is a sure sign the film sucks.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

"Once you see that and you notice that the flag is the light blue flag, which is the original color of the Puerto Rican flag" before the U.S. colonized Puerto Rico in 1898 after the Spanish-American War."

Puerto Rico had already been colonized by Spain centuries before.

The Puerto Rico "flag" was a fantasy about a country that has actually never existed. It was a colony and a "overseas province" of Spain.

Oh and West Side Story was horrible in all of it's incarnations.

[SoCal Pubbie]

Please, please someone interview Spielberg in Spanish, and don’t allow a translator.

[Williams]

Spielberg wanted to film Harry Potter with Hogwarts as multicultural and students from all over the world.

I also find Spielberg movies shallow and predictable with cardboard cut out characters.

There are a few notable exceptions but he’s mostly a bore.

[livius]

I think a lot of Puerto Ricans would be cheering for his disappearance into the shark infested Caribbean.

I grew up on the Upper West Side, which actually was considered to run down to 59th St. That was the location of this (real) community, which was composed of Irish folk, Puerto Ricans and some Italians.

There was gang activity, and it was a problem, and it was often along ethnic lines. But other than that, people got along well.

The buildings were mostly brick walk-ups and the neighborhood was not beautiful but not high-crime either. It was home to many people. All of this was destroyed to build Lincoln Center and the big “luxury” residential buildings surrounding it.

I was lucky enough to see the final original cast performance of West Side Story on stage at a theater on 50th St. I had saved my dog walking money to go see it. It was beautiful.

The first film was not so great, and the new one doesn’t sound even worth bothering with.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Ever notice that if the critics love a move and the public hates it, the critics never change their view?

But if the public loves it and the critics hate it, the critics will gradually start pretending they were in front of the parade the whole time?

[Blood of Tyrants]

Me, too. I can’t read the dialogue AND pay attention to the action on the screen.

[cgbg]

This reminds me of the true “insurrection” at the US Capitol—the year was 1954.

Puerto Rican nationalists pulled out weapons and fired 30 rounds onto the legislative floor while unfurling a Puerto Rican flag.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_United_States_Capitol_shooting

[Dave W]

It’s not a subtitled movie. You misread the article.