ONE NAKED FARMER (1NF)

Monday, April 4, 2022

WEST SIDE STORY

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Steven Spielberg

USA, 2021

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It's not very often that I comment on the films I watch - this is just a journal. But ... Jesus Fucking Christ. What a mess.

The good: Rita Moreno's Valentina was one of the few positive changes (or additions, whatever) and her performance is really nice, though I can't fathom why she would have touched the film. Another that plays well is Graziella's attempt to defend and rescue Anita in the drugstore. And the repeated visuals of the Upper West Side being torn down - displacing thousands and thousands of poor people - to build Lincoln Center and fancy apartments are stark and effective.

Speaking of Anita ... Ariana DeBose's performance is terrific but I have no clue how anyone could have noticed her for the Oscar let alone awarded her with it since Spielberg cut away from her face every other time she opened her mouth. Disrespectful in the extreme, as if he was ashamed of her.

Having scenes in locations far from the setting? A slap in the face to the book and story. The editing throughout the film is horrific. I would love to have seen the dancing - Jerome Robbins was one of the best film choreographers ever - but Spielberg cuts every three seconds deliberately downplaying every number

Building from there, I think Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein, and Arthur Laurents knew who was supposed to sing each song and what order they are supposed to be sung. The decisions by Tony Kushner and Spielberg to royally fuck that up are inexcusable. (Yes, I know Robert Wise swapped "Officer Krupke" and "Cool" in the first film, but he didn't change their goddamned meanings.)

And finally, the performance by Ansel Elgort is abysmal. Dead on arrival. He's been terrific in other films, but here .... The least Spielberg could have done is have him revived from his coma and display an IQ over 50.

If I gave review scores, I'd be hard pressed to say 3.5/10. It really is that bad.

Bottom line: It's no wonder Sondheim died just days after seeing the premiere.

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SOME QUOTES

MARGARET ATWOOD

Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results.

DOROTHY ALLISON

If it’s true, I have the absolute right to terrify you with it.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

I am absolutely convinced that the main source of hate in the world is religion and organized religion. Absolutely convinced of that. And I think it should be - religion - treated with ridicule, hatred, and contempt.

So when I say that I think religion poisons everything, I’m not just doing what publishers like and coming up with a provocative subtitle. I mean to say it infects us in our most basic integrity.

It says we can’t be moral without “Big Brother,” without a totalitarian permission. It means we can’t be good to one another without this. It means we must be afraid.

We must also be forced to love someone whom we fear - the essence of sado-masochism, the essence of abjection, the essence of the Master/Slave relationship. And that it knows death is coming, and can’t wait to bring it on.

I say that is Evil.

And though I do, some nights, stay home, I enjoy more the nights when I go out and fight against this ultimate wickedness and this ultimate stupidity.

JACK LONDON

The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time living.

ROBERT A. HEINLEIN

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, and die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

STEPHEN BATCHELOR

It has taken four billion years of evolution to generate this kind of organism with this kind of brain, and yet we wake up in the morning and feel bored. How extraordinary it is to be here at all!

DOROTHY PARKER

Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.

URSULA K. LE GUIN

There’s no right answer to the wrong question. Now what do we do?

CARL SAGAN

I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues.

When the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.

The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites - now down to 10 seconds or less - lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.

MARGARET MEAD

It seems to me very important to continue to distinguish between two evils. It may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good.