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Whole comic book story: https://truelovecomicstales.blogspot.com/2019/10/weird-halloween-romance-not-brand-echh.html?m=1>/a>
Posted on 12/18/2021 3:32:55 AM PST by Kaslin
I had serious reservations about the Steven Spielberg version of the film classic West Side Story. Rumors of wokeness haunted the new movie from the first casting call through to its dismal opening weekend. I expected to wince throughout, but Spielberg did something brave and unexpected. He gave the Jets a rationale for their existence and their resistance.
The 1961 original did not. As a 14-year-old living in a "transitional" neighborhood very much like the one the Jets and Sharks inhabited and not far away, I fully identified with the white gang, the Jets. My friends, even my black friends, did as well. Despite our affection for our homies, we had a grudging respect for the Puerto Rican gang, the Sharks. Their guys were arguably cooler, their girls hotter.
Missed by liberal observers, then and now, is that vestigial urban whites saw Puerto Ricans not as another "race," but as another ethnic group, no more alien than Italians were to Irish or Irish were to Germans in generations past. Like Tony, we would definitely date their girls if they'd have us. The absurd racial delineation for "Hispanics" would come later.
As much as I liked the original movie, however, it struck me even then as a confection. The Jets were too soft, feckless, even, especially Tony, their legendary leader. They seemed ungrounded, their defiance more cinematic than real. Spielberg's critical revision was to root the new version in the real world of New York's West Side circa the late 1950s. Much has been said about the "texture" he gave to the Puerto Rican characters, but he gave equal texture to the Jets. That is what surprised me. It would have been so easy in today's environment to portray them as Archie Bunkers in training, Proud Boy wannabes,
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Drive-by shootings? Random smash-n-grab looting?
A lame attempt by the writer to save the film, hope he fails.
The end credits, for example, contained only a few misspellings.
Regards,
Westside Story has been done and redone from movies to high school musicals.
Time for some fresh material.
“Romeo and Juliet” was seen as a little old-fashioned for the 20th century audience, so they moved it into mid-20th century NYC and had street gangs face off with knives. Not a bad idea.
But now “West Side Story” is seen as a little old-fashioned for the 21th century audience, so they just remade it all over again.
Sigh.
In my experience, Dr. Cashill is always right.
Remake, other word for laziness and lack of creativity. No interesting books to make into a movie? Gee, why is that? Laziness and lack of creativity.
It sounds pretty good to me. I grew up in on the Upper West Side and was familiar with that neighborhood during the time they were destroying it to build Lincoln Center. Everything the author says is correct, and I certainly plan to see this movie.
The original movie was really very bland and the singing was dubbed. The stage version was better…in fact, I actually saw the final original cast performance (with Carol Lawrence, etc.)! I had saved up my dog-walking money to get a ticket! It was great.
Big miss on two points:
* “...Proud Boy wannabes ...” - Buys into the notion that the Proud Boys is a racist white supremacist organization.
* “One of Spielberg’s smartest moves was to toughen up the “Tony” character.” - The Tony character is a pretty-boy simp that looks like he wouldn’t survive a single day in prison (he, supposedly, “just a spent a year in prison for nearly killing a guy.”).
Mad magazine did a spoof of the movie back in the 60’s...called it East Side Story. About U.S./USSR relations instead.
Once upon a time, their equipment truck broke down, so we (Spirit of Atlanta) loaned them our horns and drums, and they beat ut with our own equipment.
The banning of "switchblade" knives was sort of a trial run for gun control efforts, using the same sort of media propaganda/government collusion.
excerpt from the article:
In 1958, the United States congress passed a law that banned the manufacture of switchblade knives for interstate commerce.
Most states followed the federal example. It was a stupid and pointless law that had no serious effect on criminals, but which ensnared tens if not hundreds of thousands of innocent people.
Fortunately, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) did not exist at the time, or we might have had the BATFK. The history of this law, the yellow journalism which promoted it, and the corrupt politicians who brought it into being, were recorded by Bernard Levine in 1990.
I always wonder why Hollywood frequently does a remake of a movie in the first place. Sure, they aren’t resourceful enough to write a new story; but, there are thousands of great novels that haven’t been made into movies. Are they just to proud to use outside writers, or are they too cheap to pay royalties?
As for the new version, I think it's more the current moment that people are objecting to. Everything is race. Everything is PC and victimization and intersectionality, and it's hard to see the new picture without reacting to all that stuff. Spielberg might have done better to pick a different project and not try to be so relevant and Zeitgeisty.
Another Presold Property.
The problem with any version of West Side Story is the play it’s based on: Romeo and Juliet is populated by a bunch of morons; it only works when it’s portrayed as a black comedy.
I saw a college production about 25 years ago that was *amazing* (that university was blessed with an unusual amount of talent at that time).
Do go see it. The film is excellent. The actor playing Tony is a little wooden. Rachel Ziegler as Maria is like a young Julie Andrew’s. She’s going to be a star.
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