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Great featurette, thanks for sharing. Not the usual fluff; I actually learned quite a bit watching it. Especially about Spielberg's involvement in the dance sequences; he stayed out of the professionals' way when it came to the choreography, but was intimately involved in plotting out how the...

It's worth noting that Sondheim was in the same room with Bernstein when he made those remarks. In more recent interviews, he's spoken of his frustration working on "West Side Story", because he wanted to make it grittier and more rooted in the vernacular of poorly educated street thugs, while...

I took my mother to see this, because she's a huge fan of the original movie, and she shared this criticism. I personally didn't have a problem with it. The Sharks hardly ever speak purely Spanish in this movie; they weave between Spanish and English, sometimes mid-sentence, in the way that the...

To be clear, the sentences you quoted were speaking to character, not comparing performances. I thought DeBose was phenomenal as Anita. I just thought the relationship between Anita and Maria in this version was a little more balanced. DeBose's Anita was allowed to be more vulnerable than...

My feelings may change once the high of having just seen it for the first time wears off, but right now I think I prefer it to the original just an immense, immense achievement. There was definitely a big divide between the location shooting on numbers like "Jet Song" and the studio work for...

Yeah, I don't have an issue with casting a non-binary performer in the role; the Variety article specifically referred to the character as being explicitly transgender though, as one of the reasons for the bans.

Interesting if true; the character has just been a tomboy in every other version of West Side Story I've seen. Did they even have the vocabulary for transgender identities in 1957?

That may well be true, but that doesn't mean that the day-and-date HBO Max release didn't cannibalize box office. I know there were a number of Warner Bros. movies this year that I streamed but would have otherwise paid to see in theaters. The fact that only two Warner Bros. movies broke $100...

If Rita Moreno gets nominated, she'll be the immediate favorite to win. Some Academy voters will vote for her as a sort of lifetime achievement award for her decades in Hollywood, regardless of the merits of her performance in this. However, favorites have lost plenty in the past, especially if...

The ban only applies to Disney-branded movies and movies distributed under the Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm labels because there is a presumption that those are "family" movies. Back when Disney acquired Fox's entertainment assets, one of the things that excited then-chairman Alan Horn...

That's still a better track record than 99.9 percent of working actors.

I don't know that that's true. She is one of only 16 people to have achieved an EGOT, and she won the other three awards after her Oscar for West Side Story. While few roles are as iconic as Anita, she's worked steadily since West Side Story and had a culture impact with The Electric Company...

I do love that they embraced the bold and specific use of color from the Wise film, though. This is probably the most colorful and saturated cinematography of Janusz Kamiński's career.

The thing that stood out to me is how some moments, like the shot of Maria hugging Anita in the bedroom, felt like they could have come straight out of the Robert Wise film, while many others felt completely different and new and significantly more cinematic. The original film's approach was to...

Yes, the division of labor wasn't on location vs. sound stages. If it involved dancing, then it was probably directed by Robbins. If it didn't involve dancing, it was probably directed by Wise.

It will be different. The original is a classic, and its place in cinematic history is assured. True Grit was one of John Wayne's most beloved films, and the one that got him an Oscar. That doesn't mean that the Coen Brothers' 2010 remake didn't have a lot to offer, didn't bring things to the...

Wood and Chakiris didn't have Puerto Rican ancestry. DeBose does. The fact that she doesn't "look" Latino to you doesn't change that fact. The Spanish Empire began importing slaves from Africa in 1511 and slavery wasn't abolished in Puerto Rico until 1873. Roughly 17 percent of the island's...

He's not actually denying that the encounter occurred, just his accuser's perception of that encounter. He's basically taking the Chris Hardwick approach.

It's interesting that Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and Deadline have all chosen not to run the story yet. Might be just a matter of doing their due diligence first, or it might be that they've found reasons to be skeptical about the accuser's story.

You're not wrong. It was just the first thought to pop into my head when I heard the allegations: What are the odds?

If these accusations are substantiated, I think we can count on it being dumped to a PVOD sooner rather than later. Tony's too big of a role to pull an All the Money in the World and recast in reshoots, and Rachel Zegler's young enough that she'd look visibly older if they had to shoot her...

Spielberg only shoots on film, and shooting on 70mm imposes limitations that don't exist with 35mm. Perhaps even more limitations than existed when Robert Wise shot the original, because there's a lot less 70mm equipment out there. The obvious choice, if Spielberg weren't so committed to...

If it gets pushed back, it will because one of the movies that was supposed to open this summer took its place. That being said, it's an awards contender, so I don't see them not opening it in December. There's no way the current lockdown lasts until December, even if it's the right decision...

The new promotional photos look gorgeous (click to enlarge):

If the trailer doesn't actively horrify moviegoers, it will already be ahead of Cats.

That is nonsensical. The Upper West Side is now one of the most affluent neighborhoods in the entire city. And most of the area where the musical takes place was razed to build Lincoln Center. The characters and their dynamics are so specific to that time and place, it's hard to take them out...

I believe he was speaking in the context of his own career. Without precedence for him.

Spielberg's letter: The Jets and the Sharks (click to enlarge): Rita Moreno in costume on set (click to enlarge):

Not to Tino, it's not.:) I think of Ana Gasteyer's Judge Lessner from "The Good Wife" every time this comes up:

Spielberg tends to shoot fast, so I wouldn't be surprised if all of her scenes were already in the can. Based on the bits we've seen, it seems like they've shot a lot of the big ensemble scenes early in the schedule -- which makes sense, since they're also probably the scenes that require the...