Netflix DVD – they rated it at 3.9 stars for me, and 3.8 for the general audience. I got this movie because Christina is studying Romeo and Juliet, which this movie is apparently based on. She was able to point out the differences between it and the original story. It’s a musical, based on a 1957 Broadway play, and I found three songs that are famous enough that I’ve heard of them: “America”, “Tonight”, and “I Feel Pretty”. This movie won 10 Academy Awards in 1961, including Best Picture, and I found it to be a lot of fun.

It was very clever to adapt the Shakespeare story to rival street gangs and introduce a racial perspective to it. The main Puerto Rican character makes an insightful observation that “Your ancestors are from Sweden and you’re an American, but ours are from Puerto Rico and we’re immigrants!”.

The dancing was great, and at times reminded me of Michael Jackson’s music video “Thriller” – I wonder if this influenced him at all? Natalie Wood was totally adorable here, and I was wondering if she was Latino at all. No, apparently both of her parents were from Russia! Somehow, her father, living in Vancouver, and her mother, living in China, ended up meeting, marrying, and moving to California.