West Side Story Preview

The question lingers in the air.

If it ain't broke, why fix it?

There's a reason nobody reimagines Casablanca.

Should we remake the Searchers and replace Scar with an actual Native American?

Maybe Brian DePalma can reimagine ET.

James Cameron should take a shot at It's a Wonderful Life.

Let's redo Gone With the Wind and remove the racial stereotyping.

Remember when Van Sant tried to make a shot by shot remake of Psycho? Probably not and if you do, are you still trying to forget it?

Why Stephen, why?

I more than understand your love for the original West Side Story. If you love it, set it free.

Maybe try Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with Ryan Gosling and Ryan Reynolds?

I know, let's remake From Here to Eternity or Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf with a real college professor.

I cherish the original West Side Story. I saw it at exactly the right place at the right time with the right companions...at the Empire Drive-in with my father and my brother. I was pretending to be eleven years old so I could get in free. It worked.

I was really twelve. I had never seen a movie as perfect as West Side Story. I didn't know about Romeo and Juliet. We lived two minutes from East Main Street. We were city kids who spent every day at the playground/baseball field behind our house. From that night forward, we snapped our fingers a lot when we were at home on our turf, playing ball, smoking cigarettes watching out for the actual hoods who hung out at Skinny's and who were always an imagined threat to our field.

We could all the jump the fence surrounding our field like acrobats, like Riff.

Why doesn't Fincher we remake City Lights with sound?

Maybe Ridley Scott should take a shot at 2001.

How about Singin in the Rain by the Coen brothers.

I've been advised that I need to see West Side Story because I' m a fan of the original? I'm more than a fan. The original is at the heart of my life. I know all the words. I know every move. I've seen it at least a dozen times.

I know every gesture. Every note.

Watched them dozens of times. Heard them hundreds of times.

I love it when Bernardo takes off his jacket during America. I love it when Anita pulls on her delicious stockings. How bout that moment when Riff yanks out his knife or Tony on his way to the balcony. Ice snapping his fingers. Maria whirling around in the gym. On and on.

I love the whistles at the very begining. I even love the parallel lines and the background for those lines as the overture plays and the background changes colors until the whole thing dissolves into Manhattan and zooms in on the Jets snapping their fingers until it turns into a ballet eventually ended with a cop who looks like Vince Lombardi and his huling sidekick Krupke.

Then the soundtrack album which we played continuously and always felt that something great would be coming our way.

I put on the original a couple nights ago and got so worked up that I had to pause right after Tonight as I was getting too emotional and didn't appreciate the level of attention that Lynn was paying to the show. Lynn didn't appreciate my hyper attention nor my singing of every word nor my tears.

We were gonna see the "reimagining" on the next day but decided not to go because it would be just too emotional.

How bout Tarantino taking a shot at Bonnie and Clyde?

The original West Side Story won all the Academy Awards including Chakiris and Moreno. What more do ya want?

The rush is over. I'll see it eventually. Apparently the critics love it. Good for the critics. I'm glad.

I'll eventually catch the flick only because I'm a Spielberg fan.

He must have had his reasons.

I hope he doesn't reimagine Titanic nor Field of Dreams.

If he was trying to re-acquaint this millenial generation with Sondheim and Bernstein and Tony and Maria and mid-century New York city, maybe he should have simply encouraged the kids to catch the original, always available on stream.

I'll let y'all know when I see the new version.

It might be awhile.

Not tonight.

Someday

Somewhere.