Strangechord

Last night, Jeremy and I scooted down to the Hollywood Theatre to catch the final evening showing of “West Side Story” on the big screen. He had never seen it, but it’s always been one of my favorite musicals music-wise (”Cool”! “America”!) and I remembered the film fondly from when I was a teen.

If you have never seen the movie, or haven’t seen it in a really long time, I recommend a viewing for three reasons: 1) the music, 2) the choreography (blew me AWAY!), and 3) Rita Moreno and George Chakiris in the lead Puerto Rican roles (Anita and Bernardo). Those three elements combined in a scene will knock your socks off if you let them and make the film quite worthwhile.

The three worst things about “West Side Story”?

1) Richard Beymer (a very wooden Tony), 2) no chemistry between the two romantic leads (Beymer and Natalie Wood), and 3) too-long romantic scenes combining 1 and 2.

The funny thing is, I’ve met Richard Beymer several times. He lives in the town I’m from - Fairfield, Iowa. He moved there in the mid-90’s to be part of the T.M. community and was (is?) a good buddy of one of my best friends, Rachael. The few times I went over to her place and he was there, he struck me as very quiet and a little stand-offish. I’m sure I probably gave him some cheesy acknowledgment about his having played Tony. ick. Anyway, he’s one of the few famous people I’ve ever talked with in person (the few others being Mike Love of the Beach Boys, director Gus Van Sant at a Portland indie video store I used to manage, the writer Dave Eggers, and Medea Benjamin of Global Exchange).