My Thoughts On West Side Story

Knocked another movie off of my Must See list this weekend: West Side Story, the musical about (of all things) two rival gangs in New York City.

Oh West Side Story … you never really even had a chance. I wouldn't say that I hate musicals per se, it's more that I find the singing and dancing mildly irritating. And really, does there have to be that much singing and dancing? I would probably totally groove to musicals if there were less signing and dancing.

Except Grease. Grease is perfect. There is just the right amount of singing and dancing in Grease.

And Tata doesn't help matters at all when she repeatedly refers to West Side Story as West Side Boring.

I knew almost nothing about West Side Story except that it involved The Sharks, The Jets and a chick named Maria. For some reason, in my head, I decided that West Side Story would be like Grease, only with less sex and more gang fights.

I was off. Way, way off.

Oh there was a fight alright, a real rumble. But it involved jazz hands and several guys doing pirouettes.

I just don't know how to process this kind of fight.

Going to the 8th Grade Prom? Nope. Going to a rumble.

Really? Those are punks? Street toughs? With the skinny trousers and jazz hands? I felt like I was watching an Old Navy commercial directed by Jack McFarland.

The longer I watched the movie the more I changed my mind about the dance rumble. In fact, I decided that a dance fight might become my preferred method of conflict resolution. With choreographed dance moves, of course. And perhaps an upbeat song accompanied by some finger snapping.

In a heated argument, you can't go wrong with an upbeat song and some finger snapping.

All kidding aside, I did love the music in this movie. The songs got into my head and I'm considering downloading the soundtrack from iTunes. It's true that the lyrics to 'I Feel Pretty' will never be as amazing as 'I got chills … they're multiplyin' … and I'm loooooooosin' control', but they are still pretty darn good.

To recap: Watched West Side Story and I kinda sorta liked it, much like the way you enjoy a ham sandwich that someone makes for you. Which is to say you enjoyed the bread, the meat, the cheese and the lettuce, but some fool monkeyed around with your optimal mustard amount and drowned the poor thing in French's yellow. The sandwich was somewhat enjoyable (the plot and the songs), but you'd prefer it with less mustard (the jazz hands).

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