The Unloved, Part 100: West Side Story

We are honored to present the 100th installment of UNLOVED!

What do you even say? An idea you had, to get people to watch “Alien³” with an eye toward forgiving its narrative sins and looking past a botched studio edit, to see a work of visual beauty from a director born with an eye who won’t even stand up for it … it’s now old enough to be in the third grade. 

I decided not to pick a new film to stand in for 100, but rather, at the suggestion of my editorial team, Brian Tallerico, Matt Zoller Seitz, and Nick Allen, to take the longview. I looked at the whole project and took on a white whale, someone who would never organically qualify for The Unloved because well … he’s too loved. 

But that also didn’t seem sufficient, so I asked for a little help. Special guest stars on a video essay series about failure, feels wrong, but hey, I had to pull out all the stops. 

This video essay is the culmination of a lifetime of thinking about the misbegotten, forgotten, underrated and unrepresented. The olympics of failure. 

Here it is. The 100th Unloved. 

Editor’s Note: Stay tuned for more information about an upcoming virtual event on Thursday, April 14 that will celebrate Scout Tafoya and his Unloved series!