If Spielberg’s remake isn’t as brilliantly colorful as this, it is inferior by default. Yeah?
It’s been 60 years since Wise and Robbins’ West Side Story stormed the world of cinema with its revolutionary syncing between dance choreography and theater music + score, and even to this day, it holds up… enough; perhaps not perfectly — the plot is as infuriatingly far-fetched as they come so prepare to have your suspension of disbelief set into full gear, and its melodrama outside of the tunes sure do punch in that central message to death with repeated conflict for better and worse as much as it‘d make Shakespeare proud — but some of the numbers here still surprisingly provide a moderate amount of simple yet insightful awareness into the multi-variating lower-class American experience, and scrutinizes competently too on the childish nature of ethnic conflicts in general as a means to continue justifying a sacred hate-led lifestyle, and it’s all wrapped up in some seriously crafty shots on top of that so who am I to not have at least some fun with this?
PLUS HOLY S**T THAT’S BEN HORNE!
Verdict: B-
“West Side Story” is now available to rent on Amazon Prime.
Burning the Celluloid 
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