So great on so many fronts. Singing, dancing, originality, humour, sadness...anything less than 8.5 is a disgrace.
BTW...how is it that Russ Tamblyn was not in more movies? He was awesome in this.
"Paging George Kaplan..."
Coulnd't agree more... IMHO, this is one of the best films of all time (the fourth, if we count the Oscars), and 7.7 is way too low for it
Agree also on Russ Tamblyn, who with Rita Moreno and George Chakiris made a great trio of supporters
Why the hell is this NOT in the Top 250??
This movie is on soooo many "Best Films of All Time" Lists and on many American Film Institute lists.
I kick ass for the lord!!
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It isn't in the Top 250 mainly because it needs a lot more votes than 32,000, and if it can average an 8.0. I gave it a 10. I did my part!!!!
sharethe fourth, if we count the Oscars
its a good movie but not a masterpiece. pls respect other people opinion.
share"its a good movie but not a masterpiece"
That is your opinion. Mine is that it is indeed a masterpiece.
"pls respect other people opinion."
Who says we don't? We are just expressing OUR believe that this movie has enough qualities to be ranked higher than it is. We never said anything like "Those who marked this film lower than 9 are idiots" or "Those who don't have our opinion are morons". They are not. There are people, as in any movie, who didn't like that much (as yourself) and those who didn´t like at all. To each his/her own, and that's all. Did you feel attacked with this thread or something?
peter_joshua (the first comment) wrote "anything less than 8.5 is a disgrace."whats mean of that? anyone who vote less than 8 or 9 must feel disgraced? I only answered to this "disgrace".
shareYeah, well, I give you that one. But I don't think it was aimed to anyone; I understood it more as "unbelievable" than an offense, perhaps because I agree with the idea that anything less than 8.5 is shocking. IMHO, it should be around 9.
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I can't imagine he meant a person might be disgraced, or anyone in particular is a disgrace, or take your pick ... it wasn't an insult. It would be a disgrace if a person went through life feeling bad because they assumed too much, eh?
shareWell, he may not like the movie, but what can you expect from a guy who can't spell? :)
shareIt is a masterpiece. It should be in the top ten. Only respect other people's opinions when they've shown they deserve your respect. A person can be intelligent. But people are stupid.
share>>> its a good movie but not a masterpiece
Oh, but it is most definitely a masterpiece. Truly one of the best musicals ever made.
Saying that WSS is not a masterpiece is like saying that:
- Pavarotti was not an outstanding tenor
- Shakespeare was not an outstanding playwright
- Beethoven was not an outstanding composer
etc.
I certainly agree that 7.7 is way off. If any movie was ever a 10, it is this movie. Every single moment, from start to finish, is a dazzling, mesmerizing string of cinematic perfection. A tour de force.
http://tinyurl.com/cjsy86c
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The choreography, the staging, the dancing, the cinematography and the score aim to be spectacular and succeed, but the rest: the dialog, the romance, the interior set design, the mix of Dead End Kids humor with sociological overtones and tragedy doesn't work. The film had 2 directors and it shows. In addition, I find the film too long and Wood at 22 seems too old for the virginal Maria, and her performance is overly-earnest. Wood and Beymer are pretty dull pair especially compared to the wild abandoment, and overacting of all the other actors.
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I thought so too considering the iconic nature of the film and production. And 10 Oscars!
BUT...
Now that I've seen the film I think it's about right. The dance sequences were superb but the singing, pacing and acting is not as memorable. I don't think it has weathered well over time.
I saw a stage production about 17 years ago here in Australia and it was better in almost every way. It had so much energy. The guy who played Tony (from the States) was amazing... and what a voice...
I agree. West Side Story deserves a higher rating, like somewhere in the 8s. I actually consider this this favourite film musical, and I have several favourites including Singin' in the Rain and Wizard of Oz, because the music and dancing never ceases to amaze me. I love the lyrics to Officer Krupkee as well, and I agree, Russ Tamblyn was awesome as Riff. I also saw him in tom thumb(1958), he was great in that too and the film is a lot of fun and very underrated, and he was excellent in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers too.
"Life after death is as improbable as sex after marriage"- Madeline Kahn(CLUE, 1985)
It's at 7.8 now.
shareI just came back from a special screening of West Side Story with a fully restored soundtrack. George Chakiris was there to introduce the screening at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood.
After seeing this on the big screen again, I must say I was shocked that this movie isn't at least an 8.5. The cinematography is masterful, and the choreography is the best I've ever seen in a musical. It's never been topped.
And the music? What musical has ever had a better score?
Anyone who thinks this movie doesn't hold up... well, we all have a right to our opinions and I just can't agree with that. At all.
Except for the "daddy-o's" and other occasional period slang that has fallen into disuse, this movie hold up extremely well.
>I agree. West Side Story deserves a higher rating, like somewhere in the 8s. I >actually consider this this favourite film musical, and I have several >favourites including Singin' in the Rain and Wizard of Oz, because the music and >dancing never ceases to amaze me. I love the lyrics to Officer Krupkee as well, >and I agree, Russ Tamblyn was awesome as Riff. I also saw him in tom >thumb(1958), he was great in that too and the film is a lot of fun and very >underrated, and he was excellent in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers too.
'deserves' doesn't really apply in the realm of ratings, as each person should rate it according to their impression of the movie, and not according to some external standard another person has set.
There is no way to enforce this, but let's encourage people to "vote their heart" and not "vote our heart" or just vote a certain way because it's the opinion of the majority.
I have no problem with everyone voting according to their own honest opinion and letting the chips fall where they may.
However, people who vote so as to try to "correct" the average to match their opinion more closely (for example: think it is a 6, see an IMDb average of 7, so vote 1) would be banned from voting for life if I were the Omnipotent God of the IMDb.
The same thing would apply to people who vote down a movie (which they may not even have seen) in an attempt to get one of their personal favorites to leapfrog it in the Top 250. Also, anybody creating multiple accounts so that they can vote multiple times should also have all of their accounts banned from voting.
Basically, any attempt to manipulate the rating average (instead of just a straight-up vote) would permanently invalidate all of that person's movie poll votes, in a perfect world. The fact that a non-trivial amount of such garbage goes on is why the IMDb ratings are one of the more meaningless ratings of movies around.
I've seen way better movies on IMDb with way lower rating. The people on this site are cynical and vengeful at best, giving movies one star because they don't like the director or an actor and never actually bothering to see the movie. Be happy that it has 7.7 stars, because it doesn't get much better than that. Even Finding Nemo, which for a long time had 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, only has half a star more than West Side Story. And, plus, a lot of people absolutely abhor this movie because they absolutely abhor the show in general. When I even broached the subject of /wanting/ to do this show at school on facebook, within minutes, half the theatre department gave the show a big "hells no". I like it. You like it. Some people do not like it.
shareThat's really strange, I've been acting and performing for over ten years and I don't think I've ever talked to someone involved in theatre that doesn't like West Side Story. In my experience it seems to be one of the best-loved musicals by theatre people.
"All I need are some tasty waves, a cool buzz, and I'm fine." -Jeff Spicoli
The play is ten times better than the movie. There are many plays that they turned into movies that worked very well. But they tried to make the movie too much like the play instead of making it a movie, and so the play was much better.
shareUh...no. The play was awkwardly written, had poor song arrangement, and had inconsistencies with characters and situations. The movie made all that better.
Also, have you even seen the play? Parts of it are NOTHING like the movie.
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Frankly, I think at at least an 8 or 9 rating by imdb would've been far more suitable than a 7.7 rating for West Side Story.
West Side Story, imho, is an equally beautifully musical, on stage and on screen. As a devout fan of the film West Side Story who has seen several stage productions of this musical and who largely enjoyed the more up to date Broadway stage revival of West Side Story, I viewed this particular Broadway stage version of WSS with a harder, more critical eye than many, if not most people.
I also believe that the fact that West Side Story was kept as sort of a larger-than-lifesized piece of theatre when it was transferred from live stage to screen is one of the strengths of the film version of West Side Story.
I, too, disagree with the notion that the play was better than the movie. I personally think that West Side Story, as both a stage play and a movie, worked equally well. West Side Story, as a musical, was/is equally successful on both stage and screen.
shareBack then this type of thing may have been acceptable to "sensitive" audiences