Hollywood Elsewhere will catch an invitational screening of Steven Spielberg‘s West Side Story at the Bedford Playhouse on Thursday, 12.9. Blue-chip restoration guru Robert Harris oversaw the technical projection and sound quality at this recently recreated cinema (633 Old Post Rd, Bedford, NY 10506), so it’s a safe bet that this screening will be as good as the one I caught at Manhattan’s SVA theatre a week ago.

Which reminds me: There’s no other award-season film out there that delivers as fully as West Side Story does. Emotionally, I mean. So because my eyes welled up three or four times, it’s more than likely that WSS will take the 2021 Best Picture Oscar. Yes, 59 years after the previous version, directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, won the exact same prize.

I know everyone (myself included) said over and over that one West Side Story Best Picture Oscar was sufficient and that history doesn’t need to repeat itself and that it’s better to hand the big prize to another deserving film (but not The Power of the Dog — Jane Campion‘s Best Director Oscar is safe but that’s it). But I don’t see any way around a WSS win at this point.