Is there room for a #1950's sensibility in the XXI Century?
I should hope not.
Yet, here we are on the road to the #AcademyAwards, with a movie that did just that.
An ode to old Hollywood, the #remake we were not waiting for, WEST SIDE STORY is as if old #Hollywood was back, with all of the color, all of the perfect lighting, all of the music and all of the #dance.
Sadly enough, we are presented with the same stereotypes that defined the movie back in #1961, [itself an adaptation from a 1957 #Broadway show, which borrowed its story from one William #Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet"].
The center of the story revolves around a good puerto rican girl, her overprotective big brother, with a tendency to get into trouble, and the good kid from next door, begging to be seen, yet stuck in the boring role of the goody two shoes in the eyes of our heroine. Cut to the perfectly lighted entrance of the #gringo with the heart of gold, and we have a tragedy waiting to happen.
And indeed it does.
While the painted faces have been replaced by actors from the right nationality for the remake, the film is still tainted with shades of racism, classism, sexism and even ageism, and I don't only mean towards the characters, but within the production itself. There are moments when the film just feels old, and not because it was originally made almost a century ago.
The music doesn't always hold, the story certainly doesn't, the acting is good and yet is not remarkable at all.
#Spielberg's love for the original, and iconic film probably got the best of him, there was so much room to improve the story and make good by the characters. Sadly they did not get what they deserved.
Some stories are better kept in the past, and I think this was the case for #WESTSIDESTORY.
Yet #musical lovers will love it, and they probably should, it is still a beautifully made piece of Hollywood #nostalgia. But if you don't enjoy your #movies to be interrupted mid sentence by a sudden musical number, better to skip this one out.
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