Chris Kowal

What a great film. Should've won for best picture. The young actor should have at least been nominated for best supporting actor. Best film I've seen in a long time.

Book was great, movie was just ok. So many important things left out, characters just empty shells. All the hard work done over many years was compressed into a fast timeline, just not believable. Ok cast didn't have much to work with. Even cinematography of rowing sequences was not great.

Original is way better. This story is mostly about the music, and the new version adds too much chitchat between the musical numbers. The male leads of Bernardo and Riff were weaker than the original leads. Also, the new one glossed over the real gang tension of the orig. The screenplay was very wordy, I was wishing for more editing. We turned it off halfway through.

I know why this won Best Pic. It was simply the best movie I have seen in decades. Moving and enlightening, fantastic acting.