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From what I understand, WSS will lose a lot on smaller screens, even on big screen TV.

I expect that the new COVID variant may hurt the new WSS more than any of the allegations about Elgort, and the people who are unhappy about it being made at all were never likely to be persuaded by anything Spielberg or Kushner say or do. It's not a star-driven movie and as I noted in my first post, the people most likely to be interested in an old title like WSS are the ones least likely to show up on opening weekend. They are also most likely to be busy in the weeks before Christmas. Critical praise also tends to resonate more strongly with older audiences. So all hope is hardly lost, but no, it's not going to be a barn burner.

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As for the height difference, that actually becomes a joke in the film. It's quite well done.

Thank you, canbelto.

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9 hours ago, canbelto said:
20 hours ago, Quiggin said:

 

With all due respect, I suggest giving this new movie a chance when it comes out streaming on HBO Max.

I probably should say that I'm not an ideal audience person for this type of musical. In general I prefer the pre-improved, pre-Sondheim/Hammerstein works of Rodgers & Hart ("I was reading Schopenhauer last night/and I think that Schopenhauer was right"), and among movie musicals, "Singing in the Rain" is probably my favorite Hollywood concoction. It is what it is, nothing more. I was curious though why critics like A O Scott jumped on the new West Side Story bandwagon. (And The Bandwagon is another fave.)

Edited by Quiggin
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Some strong comments in a Times piece, The 'West Side Story' Remake We Didn't Need, about how the producers were super-conscientious about getting all the details right, while on the whole perpetuating many of the same old problems.

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The over-accented Spanish, coaxed out of U.S.-born actors by dialect coaches, ultimately becomes a kind of linguistic brownface, providing little more than a facade of authenticity as thick and corny as the brown makeup worn by the actors in the original version. Was the point to make a film that speaks more authentically to a Latino public? Or one that non-Latinos would feel less guilty producing and consuming?

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If Mr. Spielberg and his team are truly committed to authentic Latino stories, they would do well to move away from trying to make old representations more palatable to a contemporary public. Instead, they should focus on nurturing and supporting not only emerging Latino actors but also directors, screenwriters, choreographers and cinematographers so that we may find the resources to tell our own stories, whether or not they fit Hollywood definitions of authenticity.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/15/opinion/west-side-story-remake.html

 

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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/24/arts/dance/west-side-story-dance-justin-peck.html

 

Interesting article regarding Peck's choreography in West Side Story.  I only skimmed it, but it was not exactly a rave.  But I guess nobody could ever fill Jerome Robbins's shoes.

I thought it was interesting that they noted that Peck brought in his wife - a ballet dancer of Cuban heritage - to consult on the Latin dance styles.  The article makes the point that there is no perceptible distinction between the dance styles of the Sharks and the Jets. 

 

 

Edited by abatt
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Justin Peck himself is half Latino - his mother was from Argentina - but there doesn't seem to be much Latin influence in his work so far.  He comes from an interesting family.  His grandfather was very involved in the civil rights movement,  and his grandmother was the famous baker and cookbook author Paula Peck.

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I think the article was an indirect insult to Peck  by implying that nepotism and friendship here resulted in a less than stellar result. 

The article also mentions that Craig Salstein, who was a soloist at ABT and also has a background in tap dance, was the assistant choreographer.  Again, the implication is that personal friendships here were paramount and the work product may have been diminished as a result.

Maybe Peck would have been better off hiring a notable expert or instructor in Latin ballroom dance.

I have not yet seen the film and will probably wait until it becomes available for streaming.

Edited by abatt
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West Side Story took a dive at the box office last weekend; dropping from $10.6 million in its first weekend to $3.7 million in its second. Not good for a movie that reputedly cost $100 million before promotional costs are taken into account.

It may pick up some during the upcoming week between Christmas and New Year's. But I still question who the audience was for a big-budget remake of West Side Story when a more-or-less definitive version already exists.

Edited by miliosr
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15 minutes ago, miliosr said:

West Side Story took a dive at the box office last weekend; dropping from $10.6 million in its first weekend to $3.7 million in its second. Not good for a movie that reputedly cost $100 million before promotional costs are taken into account.

It may pick up some during the upcoming week between Christmas and New Year's. But I still question who the audience was for a big-budget remake of West Side Story when a more-or-less definitive version alreay exists.

I suspect that could also be due to bad timing with Omicron revving up, everyone wanting to lay low before holiday gatherings.

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1 minute ago, Balletwannabe said:

I suspect that could also be due to bad timing with Omicron revving up, everyone wanting to lay low before holiday gatherings.

I can't wait to see the new West Side Story, but there's no way I'm headed into a movie theater with Omicron. I'm waiting for it to appear on HBO, HBOMax, or a streaming service. DirectTV sent out coupons for one free movie this month, but WSS isn't available there yet. So I'll keep waiting.

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30 minutes ago, miliosr said:

West Side Story took a dive at the box office last weekend; dropping from $10.6 million in its first weekend to $3.7 million in its second. Not good for a movie that reputedly cost $100 million before promotional costs are taken into account.

It may pick up some during the upcoming week between Christmas and New Year's. But I still question who the audience was for a big-budget remake of West Side Story when a more-or-less definitive version alreay exists.

Others have wondered the same, including me upthread, but I would say the audience in non-COVID circumstances would be, in the main, families and older people, mainly women, who would come out because they remember the old movie and know Spielberg's name, and people who would be influenced by the great reviews (who would also skew older). As pointed out upthread, these are the people most likely to be spooked by the virus. Not much anyone could do about that.

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People did come out in droves for Spider-Man, and Encanto is holding up a lot better. When was the last time the screen adaptation of a stage musical was a big hit? Maybe the target audience doesn't exist? At least not in a sufficiently large size to justify the production budget.

And since the movie is a box-office dud, why is the NYT wasting space on an article two weeks after the film's release? That baffles me more than the film's receipts, frankly.

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Probably this piece has been in the works for awhile. However, I would hope that the status of "box-office dud" doesn't disqualify a movie from critical attention. Peck is a prominent young choreographer and this was a major commission. Naturally Kourlas would want to write about it and I'm glad she works for a publication that will give her the space.

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When was the last time the screen adaptation of a stage musical was a big hit? Maybe the target audience doesn't exist? 

A reasonable point. I think there is an audience, and generally around this time of year Hollywood does release one "big musical," but it's going to be tougher.

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The Spiderman audience is a lot younger and much less risk adverse, and the risk factors for it are a lot lower for the large, if not vast, majority of it.

I don't know what the demographics for the "Hamilton" film (taped live performance) shown on Disney are, but I'd guess they were broader, especially given that it is still a hot ticket.  But I don't know if it was shown in movie theaters.

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6 hours ago, abatt said:

I think the article was an indirect insult to Peck  by implying that nepotism and friendship here resulted in a less than stellar result. 

Yeah,  there was some shade thrown in the article.  But Patricia Delgado was brought into Ivo Van Hove's recent Broadway production,  along with Rafael Trujillo,  ostensibly to bring Latin flavor to Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker's choreography as well.  So apparently Mrs. Peck can get work without her husband's backing.

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On 12/14/2021 at 1:28 PM, Helene said:

I'm planning to see it at some point for Rita Moreno, and I'm also curious to see what Peck has done.

But I'm not a big fan of many of the songs, so I'd rather be in a place that I can fast-forward/skip.

"América" always makes me cringe. It has the effect of nails on a chalkboard on me. If Balanchine’s "Tea" fingers is supposed to be offensive,  then "America" is the Queen Mother of Offenses for us Hispanics. Note....I don't "feel" particularly offended whatsoever, and would NEVER EVER advocate for its killing or even worse...a "re imagining". It is what it is and we should be able to see it as it was originally composed and created. But man....that's awful....🤣

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3 hours ago, dirac said:

Probably this piece has been in the works for awhile. However, I would hope that the status of "box-office dud" doesn't disqualify a movie from critical attention. Peck is a prominent young choreographer and this was a major commission. Naturally Kourlas would want to write about it and I'm glad she works for a publication that will give her the space.

It is natural that the NYT dance critic should write about Peck's choreography for Spielberg's WSS. I'm just scratching my head about why the piece was published so late. Had it appeared within a week of the film's release, it might have generated a lot more attention and clicks. Now it no longer seems especially "relevant," which is kind of the stock-in-trade of dailies. 

Edited by volcanohunter
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"Tea" was meant to paint Chinese peoples of all origins and classes with a very broad brush.  "West Side Story" was specific to young Puerto Rican males who were members of street gangs (and the young women who loved them) who lived in a specific neighborhood at a specific time in American history.  "America" might be cringeworthy to the people it portrayed, or to their parents -- noticeably absent in WSS -- but it wasn't about all Hispanics.

That is not to deny that plenty of Americans lump all Hispanic/Latino/Brazilian people into one giant group, just like the person who killed a Chinese man because he thought the man was Japanese, and the killer believed the Japanese had destroyed the US auto industry.

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Gia Kourlas makes some good points: that the dances are more about the camerawork than the choreography, and that the sharks don't move differently from the Jets. And while the choreography is good, it's not part and parcel of the whole work – which was the whole idea of the musical after "Oklahoma," where everything, including the songs and dances, were there to advance the story. She also wishes that they had included the dream ballet – and the nightmare that turns into – to provide more dramatic heft.

Maybe too many people – Spiellberg and his cameraman, Kushner, and Peck – working in different directions?

Edited by Quiggin
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27 minutes ago, Helene said:

That is not to deny that plenty of Americans lump all Hispanic/Latino/Brazilian people into one giant group, just like the person who killed a Chinese man because he thought the man was Japanese, and the killer believed the Japanese had destroyed the US auto industry.

Yes. The targeting of Puerto Ricans in NYC, or New York Ricans, is certainly an item on WSS. I guess other Hispanics are not meant to identify with the specifics of the story, but the whole accent mocking is quite a much broader umbrella, that goes from Desi in "I love Lucy" to WSS to Sofia Vergara in Modern Family. "América" sounds and feels 100% like a caricature. And at times a grotesque one. But true to the core...I don't  feel identified by it.

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And you shouldn't:  it's not your story, or Desi Arnaz' story -- and his character on I Love Lucy was under his own control as producer/owner of Desilu -- or Sofia Vergara's story.  (I love Gloria: she's the only sensible adult in the whole family, which, I've always assumed, was the point.)  For one thing, it's not an immigrant story, since Puerto Ricans born from the end of the 19th century have been US citizens since 1917, and the given of going back-and-forth and choosing in "America" was not an option for a large number of immigrants to the US.  It's also not the story of people of Hispanic descent who lived in Florida or the American southwest and California long before where they lived became a US territory or state, and it's not the story of people, Hispanic and indiginous, who didn't move an inch, but, around whom the border did, like people who lived in Mexico-became-Texas.   Just like "Fiddler on the Roof" isn't the story of the Jewish characters in Berlin in "Cabaret." (At least in the movie version: I've never seen the musical on stage, only the straight play on which it was based, possibly abridged for a high school production.)

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1 hour ago, volcanohunter said:

It is natural that the NYT dance critic should write about Peck's choreography for Spielberg's WSS. I'm just scratching my head about why the piece was published so late. Had it appeared within a week of the film's release, it might have generated a lot more attention and clicks. Now it no longer seems especially "relevant," which is kind of the stock-in-trade of dailies. 

Kourlas is fortunate to work for one of the remaining publications that isn't yet a slave to clicks - which is why it still hires dance critics. While I take your point, I think it unlikely, however, that this article would have qualified as clickbait regardless of whether it was published a week earlier or later.

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She also wishes that they had included the dream ballet – and the nightmare that turns into – to provide more dramatic heft.

I'm afraid I rolled my eyes when I read that. I may change my mind after seeing the movie, but a dream ballet, which had become a hoary staple of prestige musicals by the time of the original film of WSS, never mind this one - would be a truly terrible idea, and I imagine Robbins and Wise had reasons for not doing it.

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6 hours ago, volcanohunter said:

Maybe the target audience doesn't exist? At least not in a sufficiently large size to justify the production budget.

I think two things can be true at the same time: That the target audience, which I'm assuming is primarily female and older, is wary of attending movies in a theatre, and that said audience (as volcanohunter notes) would not be large enough under normal circumstances to justify that kind of budget.

Note: I'm assuming $100 million in production costs and $50 million in advertising. If the old "rule" still applies that a film has to earn twice its total budget to break even, then West Side Story would have to earn $300 million to claw its way out of a money-losing situation. It's not going to come close to doing that at theaters. Now, over a period of years, it may claw its way to break even status. But I doubt the studio will be happy settling for that outcome.

Edited by miliosr
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