A musical movie set around the romance about gangsters is not something you come across often. But Steven Spielberg came up with this idea in 2021 that got seven Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. West Side Story (2021), starring Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler in the lead, made a splash on the silver screen, with critics giving the movie rave reviews.
A prolific filmmaker himself, Quentin Tarantino is one such person who loved the movie. According to the director, he thought West Side Story should have won the Best Picture Oscar that year, and could not stop praising the movie or Spielberg. It is the second feature-length adaptation of the 1957 stage musical after the 1961 movie of the same name.
Quentin Tarantino Can’t Stop Praising West Side Story
Quentin Tarantino is one of the most talented filmmaker’s of this generation. And when he is not making some of the best movies of our era, he is watching movies from every part of the industry. A movie critic in his own right, Quentin Tarantino recently revealed one os his favorite movies during The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast. Raving about Steven Spielberg’s 2021 musical romantic drama, West Side Story, Tarantino spoke (via World of Reel) about how he thought the movie should have won Oscars in rhe 2021 season.
“I loved ‘West Side Story.’ The best movie of 2021, should have won the Oscar and the guy who played Riff should have won the Oscar. It’s the only film that I’ve seen, on my own, at the theater, twice. It was beyond the beyond. It was right up there with ‘Fury Road.'”
West Side Story is considered one if the best musical movies of all time and was nominated for seven categories at the 94th Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Ariana DeBose won the Best Supporting Actress award for playing the role of Anita, which was previously played by Rita Moreno in the 1961 version. Moreno also played a part in the 2021 movie and served as an Executive Producer for it alongside Tony Kushner, who wrote it’s screenplay.
Quentin Tarantino is Making His Last Movie
After giving out so many hits, Quentin Tarantino has decided that his next movie would be his last as a director. Titled The Movie Critic, the film is set to star Brad Pitt in the titular role. This will be their third collaboration as director-actor after Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019).
The movie is also rumored to star Tom Cruise. Cruise was initially in talks to star as Cliff Booth in the 2019 movie, before Tarantino decided to go with Pitt instead. And his decision was right, given Brad Pitt went on to win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar that season. This will also be Pitt and Cruise’s second collaboration after 30 long years – Interview of a Vampire (1994).
The Movie Critic is expected to release sometime in 2025. West Side Story is available on Apple TV.
