{"id":375421,"date":"2021-12-02T17:01:36","date_gmt":"2021-12-02T14:01:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/spielberg-does-decent-job-with-classic\/"},"modified":"2021-12-02T17:01:36","modified_gmt":"2021-12-02T14:01:36","slug":"spielberg-does-decent-job-with-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/spielberg-does-decent-job-with-classic\/","title":{"rendered":"#Spielberg does decent job with classic"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Spielberg does decent job with classic<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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The best part of Steven Spielberg\u2019s new film of \u201cWest Side Story\u201d isn\u2019t the dance at the gym, or the Sharks and Jets\u2019 scuffle in the prologue, or Tony and Maria\u2019s love duet.<\/p>\n

Oddly enough it\u2019s the jazzy song \u201cCool\u201d that\u2019s performed ahead of the rumble. \u201cGot a rocket in your pocket. Keep cooly cool boy!,\u201d the antsy Jets sing before their battle with their rival Puerto Rican gang.<\/p>\n

This is show-queen blasphemy, I know, but the jolting number tops Jerome Robbins\u2019 iconic original choreography and Robert Wise\u2019s Oscar-winning 1961 film.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s absolutely ferocious.<\/p>\n

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\n movie review <\/span><\/p>\n

Running time: 156 minutes. Rated PG-13 (some strong violence, strong language, thematic content, suggestive material and brief smoking.) In theaters Dec. 10.\n <\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Spielberg transplants the sparky scene to a decrepit dock by the river \u2014 it has the bleak river look of the final scene of \u201cOn The Waterfront\u201d \u2014 and choreographer Justin Peck has Tony (Ansel Elgort) and Riff (Mike Faist) fight in glorious dance over a loaded gun.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those shifts in locale, subtly updating the tunes\u2019 drives and motivation, are what make Spielberg\u2019s very good adaptation of Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents\u2019 musical memorable. It\u2019s the \u201cET\u201d director\u2019s most visually exciting film in a zillion years.<\/p>\n

Still, it\u2019s not gonna become a classic in the way the 1961 original did. Where this \u201cStory\u201d occasionally walks into West Side Highway traffic is screenwriter Tony Kushner\u2019s many needless additions to the script<\/a>. The \u201cAngels in America\u201d scribe has never met a plot he couldn\u2019t stretch out like a medieval torture victim.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, young lover Tony is an ex-convict. Maria\u2019s (Rachel Zegler) parents are dead (clearly to avoid any implication that they\u2019re absent). There\u2019s a gentrification subplot about how the neighborhood is about to be demolished to build Lincoln Center and the streets are covered in rubble. It\u2019s too much.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Ariana
Ariana DeBose, center, plays Anita in \u201cWest Side Story.\u201d<\/figcaption>
JB NICHOLAS \/ SplashNews<\/a>.com<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n