22nd October 2009

West Side Story was a dvd I got for my birthday last year (in August, to be exact). It's been sitting on my shelf for a while, but I am now pleased to say that I have finally watched it. I love musicals. They open up a whole new world where people can break out in song and dance anytime it suits them. I would like to live in that world, but then again it would be quite annoying and cheesy. So watching this, I felt a few of the songs were misplaced and sounded a little cheesy, but the dance routines were amazing. When my best friend gets home from Fiji, I'm going to force her to watch this, because all the dance routines are a little like ballet and she is obsessed with ballet. The story is one of my favourite stories of all time, Romeo and Juliet. Yet, it's not changed so Romeo's a supernatural being (you know who you are, Edward Cullen), but Maria is Puerto Rican and Tony is American, and the two groups they belong to are at war. A musical version of Romeo and Juliet is all you could hope for. Natalie Wood was perfect as Maria, one thing I got annoyed at was her singing voice, sometimes it didn't suit the songs she was singing. It may have been quite long at the start, but towards the end the once happy story turns to tragedy, and you can see the connections with Romeo and Juliet easily.
9/10