Spielberg’s West Side Story remake getting acclaim

That was truer sixty-odd years ago than it is now: today, we have flash mobs. 

If one doesn't like musicals, that's just the way it is for some viewers (I don't happen to cotton much to westerns, and superhero or mythical-world fantasies bore me silly). But aside from anything avant garde or experimental, the musical has always been the most stylized of film forms, which carries over from its stage-bound roots. Perhaps it's that very aspect that puts some people off. But of course, "people spontaneously burst[ing] into song" doesn't represent the totality of the genre. Within that form, there has always existed a subset wherein musical performances take place only in realistic contexts, such as a theater, concert venue, nightclub or what have you. The very first film musical, 1927's The Jazz Singer, followed this template.

But for those of us who love them, performances of great music and dance are more than enough, even in films that have relatively little else to recommend them.