‘FEEL PRETTY’ GREAT!
Fresh Spielberg jolt on 'West Side'
★★★
Running time: 156 minutes. Rated PG-13 (some strong violence, strong language, thematic content, suggestive material and brief smoking). In theaters Dec. 10.
THE best part of Steven Spielberg’s new film of “West Side Story” isn’t the dance at the gym, or the Sharks and Jets’ scuffle in the prologue, or Tony and Maria’s love duet.
Oddly enough, it’s the jazzy song “Cool,” which is performed ahead of the rumble. “Got a rocket in your pocket. Keep cooly cool, boy!” the antsy Jets sing before their battle with their Puerto Rican gang rivals.
This is show-queen blasphemy, I know, but the jolting number tops Jerome Robbins’ iconic original choreography and Robert Wise’s Oscar-winning 1961 film. It’s absolutely ferocious. Spielberg transplants the sparky scene to a decrepit dock by the river — it has the bleak river look of the final scene of “On The Waterfront” — and choreographer Justin Peck has Tony (Ansel Elgort) and Riff (Mike Faist) fight in a glorious dance over a loaded gun.
Those shifts in locale, subtly updating the tunes’ drives and motivation, are what make Spielberg’s very good adaptation of Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents’ musical memorable. It’s the “E.T.” director’s most visually exciting film in a zillion years.
Still, it’s not gonna become a classic in the way the 1961 original did. Where this “Story” occasionally walks into West Side Highway traffic is screenwriter Tony Kushner’s many needless additions to the script. The “Angels in America” scribe has never met a plot he couldn’t stretch out like a medieval torture victim.
Now young lover Tony is an ex-convict. Maria’s (Rachel Zegler) parents are dead (clearly to avoid any implication that they’re absent). There’s a gentrification subplot about how the neighborhood is about to be demolished to build Lincoln Center and the streets are covered in rubble. It’s too much.
Getting uber-specific and justifying every single choice that dumb teens make saps the story of its magic and universality. There’s no ironclad equation for why we fall in love or why we hate.
There is a gorgeous line in the 1957 show, that’s naturally been cut. Doc admonishes the boys and tells them, “You make the world lousy.”
“That’s the way we found it, Doc.”
A lot more compelling than blaming a construction project, no?
Kushner doesn’t totally derail the movie, though, which is a great pick to bring your family to over the holidays. Ninety percent of it is the “West Side” you know and love.
It’s the classic tale based on “Romeo and Juliet” — Did Shakespeare tell us the reason the Capulets and Montagues are feuding? Nope! — in which Polish Tony, one of the Jets, falls in love with Puerto Rican Maria, the little sister of Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks.
So begins a whirlwind romance that, over the course of just one day, has its leading man sing, “Always you, every thought I’ll ever know! Everywhere I go, you’ll be!” That’d be a dating red flag in 2021, but here it makes your heart soar.
Or it’s supposed to. Unfortunately, we don’t fall in love with Elgort like we should. There are a lot of choices an actor can make with Tony: puppy dog, sexual, obsessive, whatever. But Elgort, who was excellent in “Baby Driver,” picked “stoner needs a nap.”
“Maria” is one of the most beautiful songs ever written in a musical, yet here, it’s a shrug. That’s a shame, because Broadway audiences were briefly treated to Isaac Powell’s interpretation in 2020, which was as good as it gets.
The mood is instantly lifted, however, when Elgort meets up with the wonderful Zegler on a fire escape. Smart Spielberg locks it, so there is a sexy barrier between them. Zegler shows us her sweet singing voice and a radiating goodness that evokes Maria the singing nun.
It’s the ensemble that wows most, though. Faist makes an unusually spindly Riff, yet he is scarier than any I’ve seen. Bernardo, the best role in the show, is given real intensity by David Alvarez, and Ariana DeBose dances the dickens out of “America” as Anita.
And then there’s Rita Moreno. The original Anita plays a new role, Valentina, the owner of Doc’s Drugstore. The late Doc was her husband and she takes Tony in as a tenant. At 89, there is pathos and tenderness in her every word, breath and note. In the song “Somewhere,” she sings, “There’s a place for us.”
Be glad Spielberg found a place for her.
The 15-year-old student who allegedly opened fire in a Michigan high school Tuesday, killing four, was a troubled youth who was reportedly bullied and now faces multiple counts of murder and terrorism.
Ethan Crumbley used a semiautomatic handgun his father bought for him just four days before the attack at Oxford HS, authorities said, as new details emerged, including that his parents met with school officials hours before the attack.
“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” a since-deleted Instagram account bearing Crumbley’s name read, according to Fox 2 Detroit. “See you tomorrow, Oxford.”
Part of that quote comes from a sacred Hindu text that nuclear sciOppen“father” entist Robert heimer, the of the atomic bomb, said he thought of in 1945 as he watched a test detonation.
On Wednesday, officials at the Oakland County Sheriff ’s Office said the teen also recorded a video the night before and spoke about killing students — and made similar threats in a journal found in his backpack. Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said investigators also learned that Crumbley had gotten in trouble at school, with his parents summoned to meet with administrators just hours before the shooting.
“We also were told that the school had some information or some kind of contact with the school the day before and the day of the shooting for behaviors in the classroom that they felt was concerning,” Bouchard said. “In fact, the parents were brought in the morning of the shooting and had a face-to-face meeting with the school. The content of that meeting of course is part of the investigation.”
On Wednesday, the teen was arraigned as an adult on 24 criminal charges and transferred from a juvenile facility to the Oakland County Jail.
Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said Crumbley was hit with four counts of first-degree murder, seven counts of assault with intent to murder and multiple counts of gun possession. He has pleaded not guilty.
Authorities have not revealed a motive for the attack, but other students have reported that the teen was bullied at the school.
Bouchard said Crumbley went into a school bathroom hours after his parents left the grounds, armed himself and came out firing.
The sheriff said the victims were all shot in the hallway on the south side of the school and added that Crumbley never went into any of the classrooms — despite earlier reports to the contrary.
Prosecutors said more criminal counts could be filed against the teen while they also consider filing charges against his parents.
James Crumbley purchased the 9mm Sig Sauer his son used in the shooting just four days earlier, on Black Friday, Bouchard said.
Police raided the family’s home, which is about two miles from the school, and seized several long guns from the house, the Daily Mail said.
The outlet said the father works for a local office software supply company, Autonomous Inc.
Ethan Crumbley had posted photos of the gun, and him firing it, in the lead-up to the school shooting, the sheriff added.
Investigators said his parents advised their son not to speak to authorities following his arrest.
Police must get permission from a juvenile’s parents or guardian in order to speak with them, Undersheriff Mike McCabe said.
Crumbley was taken into custody minutes after deputies arrived.
Three of the students who were killed in the shooting were identified Tuesday by authorities as 16year-old Tate Myre, 14-year-old Hana St. Juliana and 17-year-old Madisyn Baldwin.
A fourth teen, Justin Shilling, 17, died of his wounds Wednesday.
Myre died in a patrol car as a deputy tried to get him to an emergency room, according to the sheriff.
Seven students, ranging from 14 to 17, were hospitalized with gunshot wounds, including several who were in critical condition.
One 14-year-old girl was placed on a ventilator after surgery.
Officials said they had no indication that Crumbley had prior disciplinary issues at the school before this week’s meetings with administrators.
But at his arraignment Wednesday evening, attorney Nadine Hatten told Judge Nancy Karniak that she had represented the teen “on a juvenile matter” in the past.
She did not specify what the case involved.