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West Side Story Message Board


mplo posts on 3/11/2014 7:18:47 AM Not only did I attend the BSO/West Side Story (film version) concert at Tanglewood last July, but I also attended all three (yup--you read right!) performances of the Boston Symphony Orchestra/West Side Story concert at Boston Symphony Hall last month as well....and also had a wonderful time! All three performances pretty much sold out, and a wonderful time was had by all!
mplo posts a message on 8/9/2013 2:31:46 PM Tanglewood Boston Symphony Orchestra/West Side Story (film) Concert last month: Hi again, everybody! Last month, I had the honor of attending the Tanglewood Boston Symphony Orcheestra/West Side Story (film) concert, out in Lenox, MA, which is in the Berkshires, in Western, MA. Despite the death of my 10 year old car when I was almost there, the weekend turned out to be wonderful, and had been saved courtesy of an extraodinarily helpful tow-truck driver who towed me the rest of the way to the Tanglewood area, to a car repair shop, and to where I was staying after the concert. The BSO/West Side Story concert was fabulous. While the Boston Symphony Orchestra played a fabulous live rendition of the Bernstein musical score to the film, while a digitally-restored, re-mastered, High-Definition version of the film version of West Side Story was shown on screens in various parts of the shed (where I had my ticket/seat), and on the lawn. It was an almost 3-hour concert, including a 20 minute intermission, and the place was packed with 20, 000 people, as this concert had sold out. What a spectacularly beautiful concert it was. I look forward to going again, as well as other screenings of the film West Side Story in the future.
mplo posts a message on 2/14/2012 10:49:54 PM Not only did I attend the big 50th year Anniversary Event screening of the film West Side Story in a theatre here in Boston with a friend (we both had a wonderful time and loved every minute of it!), but I attended a screening of the film West Side Story five days later, at a local independent movie theatre in our area, where it was played as the final part of their Big Screen Classics program! The theatre was 3/4 filled, and, it was wonderful. West Side Story is a film that I can watch again and again and again, and never get tired of it. To me, West Side Story is the classic that never grows old.



independentminded posts a message on 11/15/2009 8:42:07 PM I've recently seen two TV airings of West Side Story on EncoreL and MoviePlex. Watching WSS on television, however, whets my desire to see West Side Story on a great big, wide screen, in a real movie theatre, with the lights down low, with tons of other people around me, whether I know them or not. It's a film that I can't get enough of, after all these years. heh. To digress a little bit from the earlier subject: West Side Story also points out something else that occurs regularly, in real life. The very system that pits poor people, be they native-born, or immigrant, against each other, is still very, very much in place, even today. Ofcr. Krupke and lt. Schrank are part of that system, and the way in which the way the Sharks and Jets treat each other is the result of a system that's pitted them against each other for so long.
independentminded posts a message on 7/19/2009 3:50:53 PM As a devout fan of the film West Side Story, and due to my intense love for this great movie/musical classic, I have a tough time picking out what scene(s)/song(s) are my favorites, but I do think that the Dance at the Gym, Cool, America, The Jet Song/Prologue, Ofcr. Krupke, the pre-Rumble Quintet and the Rumble itself, in no particular order, all stand out as being strong pillars of this golden oldie-but-goody classic movie/musical. The same can be said of the various characters of WSS: Riff, Ice, Bernardo, Anita, Baby-John, Lt. Schrank, and Action, A-Rab and Anybodys all stand out as strong characters in this film. Richard Beymer, alas, is a rather weak, lacklustre Tony, but, given his poor rapport with Natalie Wood (Maria) off-screen, and the fact that Natalie Wood had, in fact tried to get Beymer kicked off the set on more than one occasion, I'm more willing than I was before to give Richard Beymer a bit of the benefit of the doubt and say that it's possible that had Beymer's and Wood's rapport off-screen had been better, Beymer would've been a stronger, better Tony for West Side Story. All told, although I've seen some wonderful newer films lately, my heart always goes back to West Side Story. Can't wait for another screening of WSS to come to my general region.
independentminded posts a message on 7/7/2009 11:13:07 PM Just this past June, I got my wish to see yet another screening of West Side Story; this time in Portsmouth, NH, which is a little over an hour's drive north of where I presently reside. The Music Hall, which is in Portsmouth, NH, while it doesn't look like much from the outside, is clearly a cool, beautiful place, from the moment one walks inside. A cavernous waiting lounge, and an old fashioned movie theatre exists, with a red curtain. After years of being in very bad shape, the Music Hall underwent some renovations and improvements . Although the screening of WSS didn't sell out, a good crowd filled the 900-seat auditorium. A real old-fashioned concession stand, which sold popcorn, soda and the works was in the Music Hall, too. All in all, it was quite reminiscent of many movie theatres I'd attended as a kid. The WSS print was wonderful, and everybody, including myself, had a great time seeing the great film West Side Story.
independentminded posts a message on 5/17/2009 1:06:02 PM I can't wait for the next screening of West Side Story to come around!
independentminded posts a message on 5/4/2009 11:02:21 PM Just this past March, the Coolidge Corner Theatre played the film West Side Story as part of a "People's Choice" series that's part of the theatre's yearlong celebration of its 75th Anniversary, where Coolidge patrons were free to vote for movies of their choice for each decade from the 1940's to the present, either through the card and ballot box, or online, by Election Day. Happily, West Side Story was voted in by Coolidge Corner Patrons and Trader Joe's Customers alike(Trader Joe's was one of the program's sponsors) as the number one movie of the 1960's, by people, including myself. I was very, very happy, the print was great, everybody including myself, had a wonderful time, the screening of WSS was well-attended, and the program director of the theatre even dedicated this screening to me. What a tender evening!
independentminded posts a message on 8/13/2008 9:42:16 AM Last Saturday, I drove from the Bay State down to Hartford, CT for yet another viewing of the great, golden oldie-but-goody classic film, West Side Story, at the CineStudio Theatre, which is part of the very pretty Trinity College campus. CineStudio Theatre is another epitome of what movie palaces really looked like, and the new 35mm print (the new 70mm print of WSS that just came out wasn't available) looked just beautiful on the 50-foot wide, slightly concaved screen. Again, as always, I noticed things about the film West Side Story that I hadn't noticed before. The various facial expressions of anger, exuberance, arrogance, recklessness, hubris, sorrow, hatred, combativeness, etc., on the Jets and Sharks alike were much more noticeable, yet the Sharks seemed much calmer and more businesslike than the Jets. The pained looks of sorrow, nervousness and apprehension on the faces of the adults, from Doc the Candy Store owner, to Ofcr Krupke were also more noticeable. One particular thing that I hadn't ever noticed before, however, was the fact that, during the time when Anita entered the Candy Store to warn Tony about Chino and the Jets began roughing up and insulting her, was the fact that Anybodys wiggled her hips and made a face at Anita while saying "mambo".
independentminded posts a message on 7/6/2008 10:52:49 PM I saw a very good stage production of West Side Story at a Boston high school back in early May, with a couple of longtime friends of mine, and, then, a week later, I got to see two screenings of the film version of West Side Story at a movie theatre in Cambridge, MA, which is just outside Boston. There was a beautiful new print of WSS, and it played as part of the 90th-Anniversary of United Artists series. Since WSS is a very hard film for me to resist, I saw both screenings of it that day.
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