GBW #66: Music is My Life! (West Side Story [2021] / Dear Evan Hansen / Cats [2019])

Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Good, The Bad, and The What!? The show in which we discuss three films that we have deemed "good," "bad," or "what!?" within a subgenre, theme, motif, director or actor's filmography, and more! This week, Ryan and Chris dive into contemporary musical adaptations, as the last few years has seen the Golden Age of Hollywood favorite come roaring back, due to the combined success of 2016's Oscar-winning "La La Land" and Broadway smash "Hamilton." We start with Steven Spielberg's incendiary adaptation of "West Side Story," that was one of 2021's best films, Spielberg's best film since the mid-2000's, and finds freshness in a story that's well-worn at this point. Then, we swing into one of 2021's worst films, the adaptation of another Broadway smash, "Dear Evan Hansen," a movie that is earnest to a fault, shamelessly manipulative, and worst of all, has terrible musical numbers. Finally, we move into a film that's also probably objectively bad, but one of us has a bizarre affinity for, Tom Hooper's 2019 nightmarish adaptation of "Cats." You can find this and future episodes on our website thegoodbadwhat.com. You can subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, Anchor.fm, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, Google Podcasts, and more! Feel free to email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments, or just want to say hello. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram @thegoodbadwhat. You can also like us on Facebook. Our logo comes from Michelle Parkos, and our theme music comes from Paco.