You want to live in this lousy world you play it cool

      I remember to this day when I was told I was doing West Side Story. The only thing that came to my mind was a long play about dancing so I turned down the choreographer and said no way! Then the director came to me and told me it wasn't a show about dance or even a show about Romeo and Juliet she told me it was a show about gangsters. The director was indeed partially correct, its not about Romeo and Juliet. The story is about how kids handle the cruel world around them and the deaths that follow them like a ghost. One of my favorite lines happens between an old man named Doc and a young hot head named Action who is the character i played while it was being preformed in Havasu. Doc says to Action almost in tears "You kids make this world lousy" to which Action retorts coldly "We didn't make it". Yes this movie has a lot of Dancing in it( my personal favorite number http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy6wo2wpT2k ) and yes it is basically a retelling the most famous tragedy of all time but its so much more.


        The musical movie is a very hard genre to pull off its like horror its either a hit or a miss. and around this time when you saw a musical movie you basically saw a movie with no plot and Gene Kelly prancing around, and today you see great films that are casted wrong. These are you two-tone Crowe and your to deep Depp kind of movies, but West Side Story is the perfect story and the perfect cast. You add this to the classic songs like America (featured above. click it again you know you want to), Cool, and Maria and you have a top notch film.


        Even with all of this West Side Story has something else up its sleeve and that's its color pallet. Yesterday I talked about how bleak the thriller Se7en was if there was an opposite it would be the red and purple world of the jets and sharks. The sky is always an odd color which really brings a lot to the movie without it being to much. Another thing that I found weird but totally fresh was the use of hash lights on the actors. Most movies don't do this because it makes people sweat and look kind of like normal unimpressive humans and that's why its glorious. This movie doesn't look like barbie and ken dancing around it looks like dirty kids killing each other and crying over it. This is the best musical movie hands down.

Ebert's score 4 stars
Tyler's score 4 stars
Next time we get scary with Alien  and as always what are your feelings of today's flick