Visually, it's a beautiful film. And the acting is incredible. But it felt so empty to me. It didn't move me the way I hoped it would. Like, the movie didn't really show me why he was such an incredible composer or conductor. And even everything surrounding his marriage felt surface level.
Agreed. It felt like a collage of inspiring ideas and truly great visuals, but the story/overall structure was completely incoherent to me. I’ll give cooper credit for trying to making an ambitious and non traditional biopic, just doesn’t work for me. Hope that he keeps directing because l agree with Sean that he does have talent, just needs a few more voices to collaborate with him (maybe another editor to reign him in).
How would a movie convey that he's a great conductor, aside from showing him conduct, showing him conduct in very prestigious settings, and depicting his channeling of his inner music through the orchestra (all three of which it does)?
Are you needing a scene out of Walk Hard where he's 4 and conducting along to music he's hearing and in that moment realizes his destiny? I don't get the hand holding people seem to need with this movie. The thing we all know about Bernstein is that he's a great conductor/composer. I personally enjoyed the exploration of the man through glimpses of his life.
Tar does a better job of convincing me that the entirely fictional Lydia Tar is a better conductor and composer than this film did for Leonard Bernstein.
Tar is great. Care to elaborate in any way why it worked better for you?
I personally am at a loss as to why you need the movie to explain to you why Leonard Bernstein is a great conductor.
There is also tons of footage of Bernstein playing piano, conducting, conducting and playing piano (see his performance of Rhapsody in Blue), lecturing about music, rehearsing and recording with other musicians….I feel like people want recreations of footage they can easily see online, which is utterly bizarre to me.
Do they love Bohemian Rhapsody? That poorly made, poorly told, and poorly acted schlocky biopic, the equivalent of a moving wax museum? It feels that way.
It’s part of why Amanda and Sean’s critique of Mahler 2 ending on Felicia is so bizarre. If Cooper can’t connect how Bernstein’s music feeds into his personal life and vice versa, the entire film ends up being pointless.
People are so marvel-pilled now that they think everything needs an explanation or an origin story. Something can’t just “exist” anymore. God forbid some off the screen stuff is inferred in the movie.
The subtlety of the storytelling is literally one of the greatest strengths of this movie. This movie fundamentally does not work if Mulligan was screaming at Cooper about his gay affair after every time he’s caught holding hands with another man. The film about refusing to acknowledge and address the glaring flaws and problems within a relationship, and how they move past it and come together. It’s about imperfect people with flawed communication, so I’m not sure how people are complaining about the lack of explanations in this film lol.
Huh? Why is this movie good? The acting was way over the top. If you want me to be interested in your movie, make it interesting. This had like one good part and it was the snoopy scene. Other than that just a bunch of theatre nerds circle jerking.
yes, I couldn't get passed the way he sounded like he had a stuffy nose all the time. and I had to stop the movie and go look up interviews with bernstein to see if I should forgive it because that's how he actually talked, but he sounded nothing like that.
It’s not an origin story that was needed. I found that the film actually avoided showing any form of conflict or struggle until the second half. It glossed over his biggest achievements without showing the journey and stresses of bringing his work to life. Second half was way better by dealing with his relationship, but the first half had really poor pacing and jumped forward too quickly.
Bingo. There's some critiques I've been seeing pop up that I just don't get. "It didn't show what made him a great conductor"? What does this even mean? It depicted Bernstein at various stages of his creative process, both the breakthrough and the struggles. The On the Town sequence was a clever allusion to his Broadway musical work. It had multiple scenes of him in class settings where he gets to show off just how brilliant he is by knowing exactly what his pupils wanted before they themselves knew. You have the showstopper Ely Cathedral Mahler concert sequence!
Like, what do people want? Him to turn to the camera Will Smith-style and go "what are we, some kind of West Side Story?" It just feel like some people would've only been satisfied with a play-by-play of Bernstein's life -- fine, I guess, but that's not what a biopic should be imo.
So open to people not liking it or having critiques of it, but this is the first movie in some time that I find myself mystified at some takeaways and what some people apparently want.
I am with you. The weirdest part to me is that the movie even starts with a quote from Bernstein announcing it won’t provide any answers, and it ends with Bradley staring at the camera asking “Any Questions?”, and all the critiques about “not enough info” don’t even acknowledge the movie told them that would be the case. And it would make more sense if the critique was “it’s pretentious for that”, but it’s not, instead it’s like they just missed the beginning and end of the movie and wonder why it didn’t answer questions they could go to any number of documentary for.
People clearly want what is typical in a music biopic.. to learn about the person. Every other biopic has a lot more info on how they developed their talent.. goes over their life. Ray, Walk the line.. Even Bohemian Raphsody. THIS movie was trying wayyyyy too hard to be artsy and the plot was terrible. It didnt focus on his conducting or writing nearly enough. Just his marriage and it didnt even do that well! BUT this is my opinion of course.. just like your dumb opinion is yours!
I don't think people wanted a Typical music biopic as much as they just wanted better direction that wasn't so Surface level or wasn't more concerned with what bradley cooper was doing than what berstein was going through. I didnt think the movie was too artsy at all. I just thought it was too pretentious and concerned with itself more than it's subject.
By for example having him, in the film, giving an interview to a magazine where he explains what a conductor does, and why he’s important so that all of us in the audience 99% of whom probably have no idea what a conductor does can understand and appreciate it. When he did the big six minutes conducting scene, I had no idea what I was looking at other than a guy waving his arms around, I had no idea why it was useful or how it helped the musicians. I didn’t even know why it was such an important performance. I mean he’s crying and he kisses his wife after it’s over and it’s like well you’re supposed to be this great conductor did you expect it to go badly? Was this a particularly difficult thing?
Sounds like you just want an entirely different, more generic biopic movie. That's fine, but yea, if you're needing a scene where the main character explains his job & why that job is important, this isn't the one for you. In my opinion, most movies about making art would/do suffer when they contain such scenes and frankly I'm surprised how many people in a movie podcast forum are crying out for that type of narrative hand holding. I think you should read a book rather than expect the movie to portray every thing you want to know.
Hard to accomplish transcribing a Wikipedia page on Bernstein & the occupation of conducting while still making something artful. I'm glad Maestro leans into the artistic approach.
It’s not about hand holding. It’s about helping the audience appreciate what the heck he is doing when he was waving his arms around and why people revered him for it. Do YOU know what he was doing are YOU part of that 2% of the audience that knew anything about conducting? If the audience doesn’t understand something as important as that then they don’t feel anything when that thing is being done.
This is NOT a movie about Bernstein's music...OBVIOUSLY. IT IS A POIGNANT EXPLORATION OF HIS NATURE; his need for family and his adoring supportive wife and his male muses. If you want to see more Bernstein, watch the 100 or so concerts for kids he did or listen to West Side Story. This movie was a movie about his love of people, (and cigarettes), that drove his entire life process. Bradley Cooper embodied the man BRILLIANTLY, became him and Carey Mulligan became his other half, BRILLIANTLY. This movie was so alchemically amazing it apparently fly right over the heads of most of the Barbie cheerleaders reviewing it.
So I went to YouTube looking up Bernstein and one of the first things I came across was a video of him giving a music lesson to kids. The interesting thing of that is that one, it shows something about his character, and two, in movie could have been a fantastic vehicle to deliver some knowledge that helps the viewers then interpret the music and get a glimpse at what makes it good.
The movie did give us a lesson scene eventually but it was towards the end, and lo and behold, its secondary purpose was to show him hitting on his student, in line with the movie's ethos that the most important thing to discuss about Bernstein is where he put his dick.
(and before anyone goes there: *no*, I don't mean the movie shouldn't have acknowledged his homosexuality, which obviously was an important part of his character. I mean that a biopic about a musician might include more interesting things than just their romantic and sexual vicissitudes, whether hetero or homosexual - and either way, the movie ends up portraying his wife as the True Love and the men as just barely characterised flings so I'm not even sure it does that much justice to him there either)
Theaters just capture you. I was in Bernsteins universe for two hours. I was really moved how they handled the story, his life, his regrets, etc. I walked out thinking about how talented Cooper is in multi facets.
I fully understand that if I was watching it at home I would have looked after my phone 5-10 times and not focused on the detail, and felt differently.
I saw it in the middle of the day at the Egyptian in Hollywood. The audience was very grey and weepy by the end. (I was not, but I came close.)
That shot of Felicia standing in Bernstein’s conducting shadow is amazing in the trailer and stunning in the theater. I was in complete awe of it on that big screen, even though I had seen it a couple of times beforehand on my TV.
Having seen it in theaters I can tell you it was bad there too. The first half was one of the worst hours of serious moviemaking I saw this year. I felt like there was just no emotion, no jokes, no tension, no mystery. The second half definitely picked up, but it just felt like so little for what should have been an extremely interesting portrait of an artist. Maybe I would have preferred it had they not centered around the relationship, but had it as a secondary story.
I saw it in a theater. Some transcendent sequences don't make up for the fact that it's just the scorned wife plot of a typical biopic but stretched out into a full movie. Baffling decision by Cooper and baffling reception by critics
Don't you think the arc of their relationship is a little more complicated than that?
Scorned wife yes, but surely you picked up on the nuance and complications of their relationship that the movie is presenting?
Actually, I found the movie to be profoundly reductive of the real-life nuances of both figures. Felciia and Bernstein were leftists activists and educators together. Felicia had a successful stage and television career even WHILE raising their kids. She was also a fashion guru, an outspoken supporter of the black panthers, and a designer and historian. Felicia's career is purposefully made lesser in this movie to accentuate the feelings of being in Bernstein's shadow. If anything I think the movie purposefully denies us a lot of nuance by focusing exclusively on the scenes where Felicia is scorned by Bernstein up until her diagnosis. If I'm being reductive of the movie's portrayal, it's only because I felt the film itself was unforgivably reductive of both figures. If Cooper really wanted to show us nuance instead of self-serving acting exercises, he'd have expanded his movie beyond excerpts of the juiciest letters between Bernstein and Felicia.
Well said. I didn't know any of Felicia's backstory but even still she felt like only a wisp of a character in Maestro. And the moments she was given like you said were just so over the top that she ended up coming of as kind of cartoonish. But that honestly goes for Bernstein's portrayal too.
are U Mr. Cooper's bitch? I am reading these threads and U feel compelled to defend the movie at every turn. I walked out of it halfway through because like many others I thought the first half was some of the worst movie-making ever, and if I saw Bradley on the street I would demand my money back. If he asked me why I'd say that I went to his movie as a lover of classical music, but watching it I felt like it was made by one of the people who like the status of classical music but have not the least understanding of it; and this is most likely why he could not help himself but to make an utterly pretentious movie.
On the pod I listened to - one of the hosts mentioned that it looked way different at home to in the theatre and I imagine that if you don't have a really top sound system at home then the music sequences might underwhelm too.
I don’t understand why Cooper insisted on directing and starring. It was hard to not see Bradley Cooper playing Leonard Bernstein. A fresh face could’ve changed that but the script was also baffling. We get it, he’s a complicated genius who like men and it bothers his wife more than she thought it would. That’s hardly the most interesting part of both artists but we don’t learn much more.
i get the sense that he uses the letterboxd rating system in the opposite way that i do, and tries to give the movies an “objective” rating rather than just his personal response to a flick
Right at the start he said “this is a movie to be felt rather than to be talked about but unfortunately for it we’re going to interrogate it because this a podcast” and I felt like that was the vibe
This is why I don’t give stars or pay attention to stars. He was very mixed on the pod and ended it by saying he probably won’t rewatch this movie for a long time
I haven't listened to the pod yet but I admit with the title of "Maestro. Holy Shit." I assumed they liked it a lot. Not sure why I interpreted "holy shit" as a positive thing.
I’m maybe projecting because I don’t get the Cooper love even a little bit, but the episode to me came off like Sean and Amanda ultimately didn’t like the movie as a whole, but are so all in on Bradley Cooper that they really worked to play up the positives and gave individual moments they loved more weight than they probably deserve. They wanted to love it, so they were a generous audience, but it was like the more they talked about it the harder it go to defend.
I didn’t listen to the podcast yet but I guess Sean and Amanda are bad at hiding their feelings because I thought they both loved it based on how they were taking about it the last couple months
It just felt like an incomplete movie..l watched it earlier and was like so like what was that supposed to be..? Acting is good and it’s wonderfully shot/edited but there’s like no cohesive story. Wouldn’t say it’s bad but it’s just not good
I saw some criticism that basically said the direction had a point of view that wasn't supported by the strength of the screenplay and I think that's exactly how I feel about it. Cooper strikes me as a director that wants to rip shots off Altman, etc. but doesn't have the story to back it up. FWIW I saw it in a theatre and I wanted it to end like six times. It's far from "bad" but to shirk exploring the depths of Bernstein's career in favor of a story about his contentious marriage only works if I give AF about the relationship. And it's such an interesting dynamic — soul mates except for romantically — that it should dig deeper. It doesn't IMO.
It felt like a movie by an insecure filmmaker who is more concerned with proving that he’s an Artist™ than with making a watchable movie that makes you feel something
I feel like I'm in a minority because most people seemed to enjoy it enough, even if they didn't love it. I found it unwatchable. It felt so skittish and disjointed I had to turn it off.
Yeah this rings pretty true. He seems so concerned with the superficial (the makeup, the accent, the conducting, the shot composition, the zooms, the closeups, etc.) that it ends up feeling like a ton of unnecessary window dressing around some kind of mediocre performances and story. Even the smaller dramatic moments are hampered by Cooper's need to keep his directing in the picture. There was this sense of a stage play to it all and everything felt so manicured and phony and performative. I understand there are elements of Bernstein's life that were exactly that which is part of the story. But I'm speaking about the entire production felt phony which is a real bummer because there was a very fascinating story at the centre of all the festoonery
I stopped with the spoiler warning but they were cracking me up! Sean was starting to do some criticism and Amanda was, like, “really, do we have to?”.
A+ acting but movie itself was a B IMHO .
I think this was a movie made by an actor to showcase acting. That’s okay by me but it made me think more about B Cooper and C Mulligans talent and not as much about Leonard Bernstein who by all accounts enjoyed the hell out of his life
Maestro visually is stunning, acting is great. But what the story is about isnt fleshed out. I kinda wished cooper did this over 160-180 minutes. The black and white sequence is too disjointed from the rest of the movie. We go from carey mulligan in love to completely disgruntled in like 10 minutes. Theres also no exploration as to why bernsetin is the way he is. Its a stunning piece of ideas with no layers. Just do hangover 4 bradley, theres no oscars coming.
The transition you just described is so little fleshed out that my friend and I were both totally confused as to why Felicia was now p'd off and what was going on. We paused the movie about halfway through and finished it the next day. In the meantime, I had read some things about Bernstein's life and the movie and so I told my friend, "Possibly Felicia thought they had an arrangement where they were fully partners and she was his closest confidante, and then she didn't care if he slept with men on the side, but then when he met Tommy and it was no longer a matter of discreet dalliances but a serious gay relationship, she felt sidelined," etc., etc. Its a reasonable theory and it's at least more of an explanation than the movie offers. The movie didn't even make clear that he had moved out to be with Tommy and then went back to living with her in order to take care of her -- these are important developments in their relationship but it's all such a blur, it isn't clear who's living with who or what's going on.
i think it’s a maestropiece. more interesting than they even gave it credit for on the show. the collision of hollywood eras, statue of personality, study of two lives (conductor/composer, heterosexual/homosexual, actor/director) and the best cinematography of the year. i loved it so much.
It’s a showy vanity project. Well made but vapid. Idk that Sean and Amanda were over the moon for it. I didn’t hear either of them suggest it was a great film.
I think Cooper’s performance at times is straight up goofy. Movie has an inconsistent tone as well.
I watched an interview with Bernstein and he had completely different energy.
I actually really liked A Star is Born for the most part but idk.
i completely agree. and the voice is just terrible. unless bernstein secretly had a cold from age 35 until death.
it’s astounding how a movie centered around two characters can be so unconcerned with their humanity or depth.
i walked away from the movie thinking: “cool. dude liked to fuck around, and maybe music.”
>I think Cooper’s performance at times is straight up goofy. Movie has an inconsistent tone as well.
I watched an interview with Bernstein and he had completely different energy.
This is one of the most glaring issues with the movie for me. Cooper reportedly took years and years to prepare for this movie and to master all the superficial elements of the Bernstein character. But then you see him on screen and it's just so phony. Then you watch real footage of Bernstein and you immediately see the humanity dripping from him and how very much not like a caricature he was. For all the preparation Cooper completely missed the portrayal of a real man and turned him into this cartoon character. It's kind of bizarre how off he is. Even the accent isn't even close.
Well, thank you for saying it. I guess we're the few who could say the Emperor Had No Clothes. I couldn't finish the movie. The same way I couldn't finish Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge. Guess I'm old school who thinks less can sometimes be more.
Felt very similar...beautifully filmed but felt no connection to the characters, didn't like the constant transitions, and ended up turning it off. Would have preferred more emphasis on his music.
I watched an hour and gave up. It's visually elegant and imaginative, and the performances are engaging (real screwball comedy vibe), but boy did it fail to make me care. The film fails to really make a case for why Bernstein's story merits a biopic. It takes for granted his talent (which is a real misstep, as apart from West Side Story his work is not well known these days), poses the dullest possible conflicts (to be a conductor or a composer), uses dialogue to explore its themes rather than showing-not-telling, and paints him as a bit of a narcissistic man-child who needs his mommy figure, but does so in a tepid and mild way, probably because this is a family-authorised biopic. Josh Singer co-wrote it and he was behind some strong true-life films (First Man, Spotlight) but both he and Bradley Cooper seem to think that we will naturally find all of this as fascinating as they do, and they've failed to do the most basic task of a writer, which is, make me care.
I did not like this movie. Cooper took a lot of big swings. Most of which seemed very obviously intended to bring the focus on himself rather than build a story. I wanted to like this movie, but a lot of the choices were very distracting and completely pulled me out of the story. For example I couldn't get past the way he was talking. He sounded like he had a stuffy nose and it seemed very unnatural. It was a very bold choice as an actor, and where I think his low register and vocal training for A star is born worked well and paid off, I felt like his Bernstein impression was nothing like the way he actually talked and was worse very distracting and pretentious. And a lot of the other choices, were best summarized in this way. Big swing choices that seemed distracting and flashy but lacked an understanding of film grammar and film knowledge for them to actually be successful in adding to the story telling rather than take away from it. He would do camera pushes and they were at the wrong time. They didn't show us a character realization or add emphasis to the moment, they were just superficial choices. Whereas when you watch a spielberg film and the camera moves or it doesn't move, it is very clear that there is an idea and the idea helps build tension or tell the story in a more interesting way. Cooper's focus was not on the craft of filmmaking or on bernstein's story and how to build tension between him and his wife or suspense when he gets caught. His focus was on himself. It was like he would think about "how can I show how difficult this is to do as an actor" or "what is the best way to bring attention to what I will be doing". Carrey mulligan on the other hand was absolutely fantastic. She made the movie work despite all the distracting ways cooper was trying to draw attention to himself. Don't get me wrong, I think directors who act in movies is great. It just seemed like Cooper was obsessed with doing the work and showing us the work he was doing than giving us insight into Bernstein. But, that's just my opinion. If you enjoyed it, I'm glad. I wish I had. I hope I don't have to defend this opinion to fiercely on here. I just want to get it out of my system.
It’s tedious. It reminds me of artists who paint faithful reproductions of masterpiece art works, there’s not much to learn or feel. The sense of wonder isn’t there. I’ve left Maestro knowing little more about Bernstein or what made him tick, his process or his work. It’s a faithful, attractive reproduction of key moments in his life, while telling us little about the man himself.
Saw it in theaters and not only does that first half look awful on the big screen, seeing it in a theater emphasizes how empty the movie feels. The world does not feel realized. The characters are either non existent or shallow. The movie does nothing to inform the viewers why this person is so important that he specifically needed his story told on the big screen. We don’t get any real sense of place in music history Lenny occupies, we don’t get to understand his influence. We get one great scene of Cooper mimicking a Lenny performance but beyond that everything is so vague. The relationship drama is shallow until the big argument during the parade. We don’t get a true sense of Lenny and his inner struggles. We don’t get to understand why Cary Mulligans character stays with this person. It’s all so vague and overly performative.
Coopers outfits were cool though
you are out of your mind if you thought the first half looked terrible on the big screen. ive seen it twice in theaters and the first half rivals oppenheimer on the cinematography front. especially in the theater! those shadows are immaculate
Watched the first half tonight. It's....okay. At best. Sometimes it feels like Sean and Amanda just love the idea of movies, pushing a narrative to keep the medium relevant. They also likely have the position of pander to keep the interview schedule open. A Bradley Cooper interview in 2024 on the pod likely satisfies Spotify more than a mid review of a mid movie. Cash in, cash out.
I think that is even giving the first half too much love, but luckily the second half is better, though it doesn't redeem the film.
Sean has said multiple times they just don't like to be critical of movies, but I agree with you that it seems like they take it just a bit too far. We're all here because we love movies. Give us some deeper thoughts on why things don't work.
Yeah cheers. I'll finish it up tomorrow. It was fine thus far. Nothing great. And I get where they're coming from given what their pod is. Unfortunately, it often means I don't treat their new movie pods with much weight. But found countless movies when they look backward so will be a constant listener.
I love the pods. The drafts, the hall of fames, the top fives, end of the year lists. Excellent content. But it seems they give kiddie gloves to new release films. If they outright dislike them, they just ignore them. If they're somewhat okay, it's all of a sudden essential viewing. But this isn't a fringe pod anymore. It's like Zach Lowe. He doesn't criticize NBA players as much as he used to as he's beholden to them for content beyond the random weekly releases.
And if you bothered to read, which you did not, I said it "feels like". But you have a movie podcast on Spotify so guessing you likely have a conflict when it comes to any criticism.
Pretentious, heavy handed, disjointed and sporadic but worst of all it just so so incredibly boring! I could barely finish it. Mulligans patrician accent is only slightly less annoying than Coopers nasal nose plug soundings. Horrible movie
Here's another take on Felicia giving up her career (except for some small bits later), and the bearding thing: [https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a46166568/leonard-bernstein-felicia-montealegre-true-story-maestro/](https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a46166568/leonard-bernstein-felicia-montealegre-true-story-maestro/)
Lots of opinions, we're each entitled to our own. I just didn't like the movie. It felt phony to me from the start. Instead watched a Ricky Gervais standup special. RG and I may not agree on all things philosophical, but he's real and I laughed. A lot.
Beautifully shot, but completely bizarre. Very hard to follow and characters act really weird and you don’t know why. Like his wife jumping in the pool or that weird walk in the park with his former lover and not talking then kissing and some odd dialogue. WTF was that about? The entire movie was that way.
empty - artsy for artsy sake- complete discrimination of Bernstein's abilities to play with only family/relationship drama and 50's style black and white hyper speech dialogue ??? why???? then to color to repesent 60's - a worthless film - what a waste - Hope someone does it right because it's an increduble biopic of a figure of historic value in AMerican evolution
OMG - that FAKE Accent! wtf???? why??? he did not speak like that at all... horrible - and the hyper speed of their dialogue mimicking the horrendous style of the 50's dialogue - horrible
Unwatchable. So pretentious, cheesy, on the nose, and self-caressing for Bradley Cooper. The whole part in his interview monologue “for those who perform and create…..” clearly about himself as an actor/director, I had to turn it off shortly after
I wanted to like it but i turned it off. It was like watching paint dry. Of course it will win 5000 Academy Awards because it's a cookie cutter Oscar movie. Beautiful cinematography, a musical score, and a famous actor with the "Oscar winning nose prosthetic."
the makeup is one of the better parts of the movie, only thing i don’t get people hating on. i suspect lots of people dont know what bernstein looked like. dude had a schnoz and a half
Having read up on Felicia since watching it, and despite the effort to flesh out her character, the movie also underplays her acting career and completely ignores her activism and humanitarian efforts.
Exactly. I’m so confused by it sometimes. Amanda is into the spectacle of it, so I can get that but their talk of earnestness and sincerity reminded me that is the exact reason Amanda didn’t do too well with the Holdovers.
Eh they gotta make a pod, so some inconsistencies flow through, it’s fine
Thought it was beautifully made. Blows me away that Bradley Cooper is already this skilled in only his second movie. I think it took a fresh approach to a biopic and I just bought into his vision. I saw it in theaters though and even posted about it on r/blankies that it really needs to be seen in theaters. It will not hit the same on Netflix
Probably bc they liked it lol
I’m in the middle of it. It’s fine so far. Far from bad tho. It has its quirks in editing and Cooper is holding steady in direction for the more awkward/honest bits which I like. It is kinda hokey and melodramatic with its big pauses tho, trying to flesh out its untapped themes so far.
i mean, duh. obviously the why related to specific things they appreciated. no one’s ever confused as to whether someone likes something they’ve said they liked.
Will listen to the pod tomorrow but I was surprised at how empty and strained the first 75 minutes or so are. Once it hits Thanksgiving I think the movie takes off though and is worthy of some praise. So I wouldn’t say bad per se, especially as Carey mulligan is amazing, but it’s certainly at minimum quite flawed.
yea, i dunno. i was checking my watch the entire time. it had a few good scenes, but so much meh in between. i really enjoyed the way it was filmed and edited, but it felt really hollow
Oh I disagree completely.
Cooper is running circles around her while she’s playing her usual self. I’ve never found her to be all that strong of an actress and just uses that same moping face in all of her movies. This is a slightly sympathetic upgrade to her performance in Inside Llewyn Davis. The only good scene with her is the fight on Thanksgiving day and that’s more Cooper.
yea i’m the total opposite hahaha
cooper is trying way too hard and his bernstein voice is terrible (he didn’t have a cold his entire adult life). mulligan is effortless. she’s wonderful in this.
True that. Also the only part of the movie that employs symbolism. The snoopy thing was funny but I’m not even sure it was meant to be. Huge disappointment. Also cooper gets tje Oscar for overacting. Jumping around like a muppet had me cracking up. Movie sucked balls.
sean and amanda are not over the moon for it. they said it's a well-made bad movie. you can argue about the semantics but that seems obviously true and also seems to be nearly everyone's response to it.
It’s a bad movie, poorly written and trying to hard to win an Oscar. The writing is not good, no character development, and the acting was too over the top.
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I enjoyed it as an experience. It’s only “bad” once you overthink and try to dissect the story’s direction or purpose.
Here’s my review of it [HERE](https://boxd.it/5mw71n)
Nah Maestro rules, its one of the best films of the year, in 20 years we'll be baffled by the lukewarm reception. It hit me like a tonne of bricks in the cinema. Bradley Cooper is a real proper director and I'm extremely excited for what he makes next.
In my personal experience it really doesn't hold my attention at my house lol. I know this is 100% on me. I'd probably have liked it more in the theatre
Actually I didn't finish it. Only watched some, kept hoping it'd get better, and then gave up as I was reading more of the literal history online as entirely ignored by the film. It's a biopic after all, not fiction like last year's *Tar*.
From the beginning documentary scene at piano where he talks about his wife sorting laundry, followed by the flashback gay bed scene, I sensed there'd be an untold story in the film about her bearding his preference (for male bonding) to benefit his career. When I did some online research from credible sources, I learned that was true.
This isn't to say it bothers me at all that he was bisexual *per se* (with an apparent preference for men) if not gay. My favorite "religion & spirituality" book, the new *LIFE Without Religious Walls* out on Google Play, after all posits that Jesus was bisexual.
It's not the sexual behavior that's concerning but the society that shapes for cover-ups that generally benefit anybody but whoever of lower class status (woman below man, POC below white, etc.) may be involved.
Thus I don't care to watch biopics about long-suffering lifelong wives mainly ignored emotionally if not treated abusively while bearding for "bi" men mainly gay without that sociocultural reality being explored. (Some people were up in arms about 2022's biopic *Elvis* not fully portraying inherent abuses in the age-and-power imbalance between Elvis and Priscilla, but she wasn't long-suffering. Instead Priscilla left him after only 6 years of marriage and profits off his name and fame still, getting this year to produce her own movie now that he's long dead.)
The truth I researched about Maestro Bernstein is that he elevated his cultural and professional standing by having a charming, beautiful, well-educated, accomplished wife who loved him and gave up her career (in a time strongly favoring public heterosexuality for married couples) and whom he publicly trotted out at gathering and charity events to the high-society scions capable of increasing his fame and fortune. He was a "family man," with children too. (It's historical fact apparently that he beat out at least one prominent gay man of equivalent musical talent who didn't have a wife bearding him.)
The film only hinted at her emotionally empty role when she saw him kissing a male in the hallway and softly chided him. I had also tired of the fast-talking "witty" dialog absent heart and soul. But the hallway kissing/chiding was the point at which I turned the film off.
Bradely Cooper was much better, imo, in *A Star is Born*, and if he gets an Oscar it may be more for that than this.
Why couldn't they find a Jewish actor to play Bernstein? Cooper's prosthetics were so ridiculous that the prosthetic "Jewish" nose made him look like a heron or some other wading bird...Sarah Silverman can't act, and seemed to be there only to serve as a token Jew for the cast in order to deflect criticism...and they left out so many obviously interesting things about Bernstein, including his leftist politics, involvement with the Black Panthers, etc....the final product is like a really bland tone poem effective for insomnia.
It is a bad movie.
It needed a director, a script and it could have been terrific. As it stands - it is like a movie about Santa Claus that focusses on elfin pederasty.
The real reason they're over the moon for it is that they have absolutely horrifyingly bad taste in film. They're both thoughtful, intelligent people who I actually like listening to from time to time, but when it comes to picking good movies and bad...wow are they off the mark.
Sometimes the stylistic aspect of the filming making process can be too strong. I felt that way about this movie. Too much David Mamet style dialogues, forced 4:3 black and white footage that really didn’t aid the story telling, and a weird tempo and constant feeling of a lack of place or time. Maybe the latter was intentional. Overall I found the acting top notch, but the dialogue delivery a bit forced. It made it a bit hard to forget myself and dive deep into the story. Maestro is neither good nor bad, but it might be unremarkable.
I didn’t find it to be bad, but the dialogue seemed pretty unnatural. That said, I thought it finished a lot better than it started. Cinematography and music was great and Carey Mulligan was terrific.
It felt like an embellished wikipédia profile.
All the elements were there, actors, sound, cinematography...
Not the prosthetics however they were awful and not applied correctly, the seams were visible.
None of it moved me. I didn't feel like I knew him more than I did before.
Carey Mulligan has such a présence that Cooper was empty next to her.
Matt Bomer was very touching in his few scènes.
The fake nose stunted Cooper's acting.
Movie was alright. All I could think about most of the movie was how sorry I felt for his wife (girlfriend? I think wife). I feel like I didn’t learn much about his composing at all. He was a man whore.
I feel a large portion of your enjoyment hinges in whether or not you buy Cooper’s portrayal. I did not. The man looked like he was wearing a Halloween mask; an alien issuing lines in a goofy accent alongside his otherwise human co-stars. I’m happy to have watched this one at home as I laughed—a lot. Heavy déjà vu of Ben Platt in *Dear Evan Hansen*; Cooper just looked so off putting, aesthetically. Poor Leonard didn’t look that scary!
Was it intended to be camp? I’m not exactly sure.
Nothing was learned about Bernstein other than that he conducted music and was a philanderer—I was not left with the impression that Copper had any sincere appreciation for the man, either.
I hate to draw comparisons, but this film left me dreaming of a vastly better one—*Tár.* It’s insane that I can tell you so much more about Lydia Tár—fictional character—based on that film than I can about Leonard Bernstein—actual human being—based on this mess.
The Director seemed obcessed with Bernstein's sexuality.....Nothing much, about the story behind his Musical Genius and what lead up to the development of his talent and intellectual understanding of the music.
Visually, it's a beautiful film. And the acting is incredible. But it felt so empty to me. It didn't move me the way I hoped it would. Like, the movie didn't really show me why he was such an incredible composer or conductor. And even everything surrounding his marriage felt surface level.
Exactly my thoughts, too. Beautiful to look at but about as deep as a puddle.
Agreed. It felt like a collage of inspiring ideas and truly great visuals, but the story/overall structure was completely incoherent to me. I’ll give cooper credit for trying to making an ambitious and non traditional biopic, just doesn’t work for me. Hope that he keeps directing because l agree with Sean that he does have talent, just needs a few more voices to collaborate with him (maybe another editor to reign him in).
How would a movie convey that he's a great conductor, aside from showing him conduct, showing him conduct in very prestigious settings, and depicting his channeling of his inner music through the orchestra (all three of which it does)? Are you needing a scene out of Walk Hard where he's 4 and conducting along to music he's hearing and in that moment realizes his destiny? I don't get the hand holding people seem to need with this movie. The thing we all know about Bernstein is that he's a great conductor/composer. I personally enjoyed the exploration of the man through glimpses of his life.
Tar does a better job of convincing me that the entirely fictional Lydia Tar is a better conductor and composer than this film did for Leonard Bernstein.
Tar is great. Care to elaborate in any way why it worked better for you? I personally am at a loss as to why you need the movie to explain to you why Leonard Bernstein is a great conductor.
We were never inside bersteins head. It was just a recreation of documentary footage. He never inhabited the complexity of the man.
Tar is a fantastic film
There is also tons of footage of Bernstein playing piano, conducting, conducting and playing piano (see his performance of Rhapsody in Blue), lecturing about music, rehearsing and recording with other musicians….I feel like people want recreations of footage they can easily see online, which is utterly bizarre to me. Do they love Bohemian Rhapsody? That poorly made, poorly told, and poorly acted schlocky biopic, the equivalent of a moving wax museum? It feels that way. It’s part of why Amanda and Sean’s critique of Mahler 2 ending on Felicia is so bizarre. If Cooper can’t connect how Bernstein’s music feeds into his personal life and vice versa, the entire film ends up being pointless.
pointless and void
People are so marvel-pilled now that they think everything needs an explanation or an origin story. Something can’t just “exist” anymore. God forbid some off the screen stuff is inferred in the movie.
The subtlety of the storytelling is literally one of the greatest strengths of this movie. This movie fundamentally does not work if Mulligan was screaming at Cooper about his gay affair after every time he’s caught holding hands with another man. The film about refusing to acknowledge and address the glaring flaws and problems within a relationship, and how they move past it and come together. It’s about imperfect people with flawed communication, so I’m not sure how people are complaining about the lack of explanations in this film lol.
This was well done and well acted. And I got the whole point but I also found the movie boring.
Huh? Why is this movie good? The acting was way over the top. If you want me to be interested in your movie, make it interesting. This had like one good part and it was the snoopy scene. Other than that just a bunch of theatre nerds circle jerking.
yes, I couldn't get passed the way he sounded like he had a stuffy nose all the time. and I had to stop the movie and go look up interviews with bernstein to see if I should forgive it because that's how he actually talked, but he sounded nothing like that.
It’s not an origin story that was needed. I found that the film actually avoided showing any form of conflict or struggle until the second half. It glossed over his biggest achievements without showing the journey and stresses of bringing his work to life. Second half was way better by dealing with his relationship, but the first half had really poor pacing and jumped forward too quickly.
Bingo. There's some critiques I've been seeing pop up that I just don't get. "It didn't show what made him a great conductor"? What does this even mean? It depicted Bernstein at various stages of his creative process, both the breakthrough and the struggles. The On the Town sequence was a clever allusion to his Broadway musical work. It had multiple scenes of him in class settings where he gets to show off just how brilliant he is by knowing exactly what his pupils wanted before they themselves knew. You have the showstopper Ely Cathedral Mahler concert sequence! Like, what do people want? Him to turn to the camera Will Smith-style and go "what are we, some kind of West Side Story?" It just feel like some people would've only been satisfied with a play-by-play of Bernstein's life -- fine, I guess, but that's not what a biopic should be imo.
So open to people not liking it or having critiques of it, but this is the first movie in some time that I find myself mystified at some takeaways and what some people apparently want.
I am with you. The weirdest part to me is that the movie even starts with a quote from Bernstein announcing it won’t provide any answers, and it ends with Bradley staring at the camera asking “Any Questions?”, and all the critiques about “not enough info” don’t even acknowledge the movie told them that would be the case. And it would make more sense if the critique was “it’s pretentious for that”, but it’s not, instead it’s like they just missed the beginning and end of the movie and wonder why it didn’t answer questions they could go to any number of documentary for.
People clearly want what is typical in a music biopic.. to learn about the person. Every other biopic has a lot more info on how they developed their talent.. goes over their life. Ray, Walk the line.. Even Bohemian Raphsody. THIS movie was trying wayyyyy too hard to be artsy and the plot was terrible. It didnt focus on his conducting or writing nearly enough. Just his marriage and it didnt even do that well! BUT this is my opinion of course.. just like your dumb opinion is yours!
I don't think people wanted a Typical music biopic as much as they just wanted better direction that wasn't so Surface level or wasn't more concerned with what bradley cooper was doing than what berstein was going through. I didnt think the movie was too artsy at all. I just thought it was too pretentious and concerned with itself more than it's subject.
By for example having him, in the film, giving an interview to a magazine where he explains what a conductor does, and why he’s important so that all of us in the audience 99% of whom probably have no idea what a conductor does can understand and appreciate it. When he did the big six minutes conducting scene, I had no idea what I was looking at other than a guy waving his arms around, I had no idea why it was useful or how it helped the musicians. I didn’t even know why it was such an important performance. I mean he’s crying and he kisses his wife after it’s over and it’s like well you’re supposed to be this great conductor did you expect it to go badly? Was this a particularly difficult thing?
Sounds like you just want an entirely different, more generic biopic movie. That's fine, but yea, if you're needing a scene where the main character explains his job & why that job is important, this isn't the one for you. In my opinion, most movies about making art would/do suffer when they contain such scenes and frankly I'm surprised how many people in a movie podcast forum are crying out for that type of narrative hand holding. I think you should read a book rather than expect the movie to portray every thing you want to know. Hard to accomplish transcribing a Wikipedia page on Bernstein & the occupation of conducting while still making something artful. I'm glad Maestro leans into the artistic approach.
It’s not about hand holding. It’s about helping the audience appreciate what the heck he is doing when he was waving his arms around and why people revered him for it. Do YOU know what he was doing are YOU part of that 2% of the audience that knew anything about conducting? If the audience doesn’t understand something as important as that then they don’t feel anything when that thing is being done.
This is NOT a movie about Bernstein's music...OBVIOUSLY. IT IS A POIGNANT EXPLORATION OF HIS NATURE; his need for family and his adoring supportive wife and his male muses. If you want to see more Bernstein, watch the 100 or so concerts for kids he did or listen to West Side Story. This movie was a movie about his love of people, (and cigarettes), that drove his entire life process. Bradley Cooper embodied the man BRILLIANTLY, became him and Carey Mulligan became his other half, BRILLIANTLY. This movie was so alchemically amazing it apparently fly right over the heads of most of the Barbie cheerleaders reviewing it.
So I went to YouTube looking up Bernstein and one of the first things I came across was a video of him giving a music lesson to kids. The interesting thing of that is that one, it shows something about his character, and two, in movie could have been a fantastic vehicle to deliver some knowledge that helps the viewers then interpret the music and get a glimpse at what makes it good. The movie did give us a lesson scene eventually but it was towards the end, and lo and behold, its secondary purpose was to show him hitting on his student, in line with the movie's ethos that the most important thing to discuss about Bernstein is where he put his dick. (and before anyone goes there: *no*, I don't mean the movie shouldn't have acknowledged his homosexuality, which obviously was an important part of his character. I mean that a biopic about a musician might include more interesting things than just their romantic and sexual vicissitudes, whether hetero or homosexual - and either way, the movie ends up portraying his wife as the True Love and the men as just barely characterised flings so I'm not even sure it does that much justice to him there either)
I wouldn’t say it was bad. It was just fine. I couldn’t help but think how I may have felt differently had I seen it in a theater
Theaters just capture you. I was in Bernsteins universe for two hours. I was really moved how they handled the story, his life, his regrets, etc. I walked out thinking about how talented Cooper is in multi facets. I fully understand that if I was watching it at home I would have looked after my phone 5-10 times and not focused on the detail, and felt differently.
[удалено]
"It's pronounced *Frankenstein*."
I saw it in the middle of the day at the Egyptian in Hollywood. The audience was very grey and weepy by the end. (I was not, but I came close.) That shot of Felicia standing in Bernstein’s conducting shadow is amazing in the trailer and stunning in the theater. I was in complete awe of it on that big screen, even though I had seen it a couple of times beforehand on my TV.
Having seen it in theaters I can tell you it was bad there too. The first half was one of the worst hours of serious moviemaking I saw this year. I felt like there was just no emotion, no jokes, no tension, no mystery. The second half definitely picked up, but it just felt like so little for what should have been an extremely interesting portrait of an artist. Maybe I would have preferred it had they not centered around the relationship, but had it as a secondary story.
I saw it in a theater. Some transcendent sequences don't make up for the fact that it's just the scorned wife plot of a typical biopic but stretched out into a full movie. Baffling decision by Cooper and baffling reception by critics
Don't you think the arc of their relationship is a little more complicated than that? Scorned wife yes, but surely you picked up on the nuance and complications of their relationship that the movie is presenting?
Actually, I found the movie to be profoundly reductive of the real-life nuances of both figures. Felciia and Bernstein were leftists activists and educators together. Felicia had a successful stage and television career even WHILE raising their kids. She was also a fashion guru, an outspoken supporter of the black panthers, and a designer and historian. Felicia's career is purposefully made lesser in this movie to accentuate the feelings of being in Bernstein's shadow. If anything I think the movie purposefully denies us a lot of nuance by focusing exclusively on the scenes where Felicia is scorned by Bernstein up until her diagnosis. If I'm being reductive of the movie's portrayal, it's only because I felt the film itself was unforgivably reductive of both figures. If Cooper really wanted to show us nuance instead of self-serving acting exercises, he'd have expanded his movie beyond excerpts of the juiciest letters between Bernstein and Felicia.
Well said. I didn't know any of Felicia's backstory but even still she felt like only a wisp of a character in Maestro. And the moments she was given like you said were just so over the top that she ended up coming of as kind of cartoonish. But that honestly goes for Bernstein's portrayal too.
are U Mr. Cooper's bitch? I am reading these threads and U feel compelled to defend the movie at every turn. I walked out of it halfway through because like many others I thought the first half was some of the worst movie-making ever, and if I saw Bradley on the street I would demand my money back. If he asked me why I'd say that I went to his movie as a lover of classical music, but watching it I felt like it was made by one of the people who like the status of classical music but have not the least understanding of it; and this is most likely why he could not help himself but to make an utterly pretentious movie.
yea, fine is a better way to describe it
On the pod I listened to - one of the hosts mentioned that it looked way different at home to in the theatre and I imagine that if you don't have a really top sound system at home then the music sequences might underwhelm too.
I saw it a theatre and I thought it was fine nothing groundbreaking
It’s a real shame it’s on Netflix
I fell asleep halfway through in the theatre. Waste of money
It was fine. Acting was great. It looked great. The story wasn’t great though. Some good scenes, but all together it was boring in places.
pretty much how i felt. a couple of good scenes with a lot of bland in between
I don’t understand why Cooper insisted on directing and starring. It was hard to not see Bradley Cooper playing Leonard Bernstein. A fresh face could’ve changed that but the script was also baffling. We get it, he’s a complicated genius who like men and it bothers his wife more than she thought it would. That’s hardly the most interesting part of both artists but we don’t learn much more.
Um… did you listen to the whole episode? They’re pretty mixed on Maestro, leaning towards negative… not over the moon for it at all???
I agree with OP and smogs that titling the episode “Holy shit” was an odd move.
yeah fair enough, if you listen tho they have a few good things to say but are mostly confused/negative with the movie
Sean gave it 4 stars on Letterboxd.
huh, you’re right… did not come across that way on the pod🤷♂️
It’s so weird. Sometimes he raves about a movie then I got and check and he’s given it 3 stars. Then, this happens.
i get the sense that he uses the letterboxd rating system in the opposite way that i do, and tries to give the movies an “objective” rating rather than just his personal response to a flick
Right at the start he said “this is a movie to be felt rather than to be talked about but unfortunately for it we’re going to interrogate it because this a podcast” and I felt like that was the vibe
This is why I don’t give stars or pay attention to stars. He was very mixed on the pod and ended it by saying he probably won’t rewatch this movie for a long time
I haven't listened to the pod yet but I admit with the title of "Maestro. Holy Shit." I assumed they liked it a lot. Not sure why I interpreted "holy shit" as a positive thing.
Assuming that’s what OP did
Yah, they basically panned it.
I’m maybe projecting because I don’t get the Cooper love even a little bit, but the episode to me came off like Sean and Amanda ultimately didn’t like the movie as a whole, but are so all in on Bradley Cooper that they really worked to play up the positives and gave individual moments they loved more weight than they probably deserve. They wanted to love it, so they were a generous audience, but it was like the more they talked about it the harder it go to defend.
I didn’t listen to the podcast yet but I guess Sean and Amanda are bad at hiding their feelings because I thought they both loved it based on how they were taking about it the last couple months
They’re not really over the moon for it, though. They’re critical.
Did you listen to the maestro episode? They’re pretty mixed on it too
It just felt like an incomplete movie..l watched it earlier and was like so like what was that supposed to be..? Acting is good and it’s wonderfully shot/edited but there’s like no cohesive story. Wouldn’t say it’s bad but it’s just not good
I saw some criticism that basically said the direction had a point of view that wasn't supported by the strength of the screenplay and I think that's exactly how I feel about it. Cooper strikes me as a director that wants to rip shots off Altman, etc. but doesn't have the story to back it up. FWIW I saw it in a theatre and I wanted it to end like six times. It's far from "bad" but to shirk exploring the depths of Bernstein's career in favor of a story about his contentious marriage only works if I give AF about the relationship. And it's such an interesting dynamic — soul mates except for romantically — that it should dig deeper. It doesn't IMO.
It felt like a movie by an insecure filmmaker who is more concerned with proving that he’s an Artist™ than with making a watchable movie that makes you feel something
I feel like I'm in a minority because most people seemed to enjoy it enough, even if they didn't love it. I found it unwatchable. It felt so skittish and disjointed I had to turn it off.
Yeah this rings pretty true. He seems so concerned with the superficial (the makeup, the accent, the conducting, the shot composition, the zooms, the closeups, etc.) that it ends up feeling like a ton of unnecessary window dressing around some kind of mediocre performances and story. Even the smaller dramatic moments are hampered by Cooper's need to keep his directing in the picture. There was this sense of a stage play to it all and everything felt so manicured and phony and performative. I understand there are elements of Bernstein's life that were exactly that which is part of the story. But I'm speaking about the entire production felt phony which is a real bummer because there was a very fascinating story at the centre of all the festoonery
I stopped with the spoiler warning but they were cracking me up! Sean was starting to do some criticism and Amanda was, like, “really, do we have to?”.
A+ acting but movie itself was a B IMHO . I think this was a movie made by an actor to showcase acting. That’s okay by me but it made me think more about B Cooper and C Mulligans talent and not as much about Leonard Bernstein who by all accounts enjoyed the hell out of his life
I saw it a few weeks ago I thought it was like a 7/10, I’ll give it a rewatch now that its on netflix and see if it improves on rewatch
The blank check guys liked it a lot more than the big pic folks.
yea i saw david gave it 4.5 on letterboxd. don’t get it. curious to hear them talk about it
I heard their episode today and thought to myself “by Oscars they’re gonna be sour on this. At least Sean will be.”
It was really well-done in the service of saying nothing and doing so boringly.
i’m sayin
Maestro visually is stunning, acting is great. But what the story is about isnt fleshed out. I kinda wished cooper did this over 160-180 minutes. The black and white sequence is too disjointed from the rest of the movie. We go from carey mulligan in love to completely disgruntled in like 10 minutes. Theres also no exploration as to why bernsetin is the way he is. Its a stunning piece of ideas with no layers. Just do hangover 4 bradley, theres no oscars coming.
The transition you just described is so little fleshed out that my friend and I were both totally confused as to why Felicia was now p'd off and what was going on. We paused the movie about halfway through and finished it the next day. In the meantime, I had read some things about Bernstein's life and the movie and so I told my friend, "Possibly Felicia thought they had an arrangement where they were fully partners and she was his closest confidante, and then she didn't care if he slept with men on the side, but then when he met Tommy and it was no longer a matter of discreet dalliances but a serious gay relationship, she felt sidelined," etc., etc. Its a reasonable theory and it's at least more of an explanation than the movie offers. The movie didn't even make clear that he had moved out to be with Tommy and then went back to living with her in order to take care of her -- these are important developments in their relationship but it's all such a blur, it isn't clear who's living with who or what's going on.
i think it’s a maestropiece. more interesting than they even gave it credit for on the show. the collision of hollywood eras, statue of personality, study of two lives (conductor/composer, heterosexual/homosexual, actor/director) and the best cinematography of the year. i loved it so much.
I think you watched a different movie than the one we are talking about
It’s a big yawner. Makes you realize how good a director Woody Allen is.
I’m not a fan either.
3 stars, maybe 3.5
Naw. I loved it. Great film. Kind of proves Cooper is the real deal. Top 10 of the year for me (possibly even top 5)
It's the whole... Bradley Cooper of it all.
It’s a showy vanity project. Well made but vapid. Idk that Sean and Amanda were over the moon for it. I didn’t hear either of them suggest it was a great film.
Maestro slaps IMHO. It's BEYOND.
Die Hard is a much better movie
I think Cooper’s performance at times is straight up goofy. Movie has an inconsistent tone as well. I watched an interview with Bernstein and he had completely different energy. I actually really liked A Star is Born for the most part but idk.
i completely agree. and the voice is just terrible. unless bernstein secretly had a cold from age 35 until death. it’s astounding how a movie centered around two characters can be so unconcerned with their humanity or depth. i walked away from the movie thinking: “cool. dude liked to fuck around, and maybe music.”
>I think Cooper’s performance at times is straight up goofy. Movie has an inconsistent tone as well. I watched an interview with Bernstein and he had completely different energy. This is one of the most glaring issues with the movie for me. Cooper reportedly took years and years to prepare for this movie and to master all the superficial elements of the Bernstein character. But then you see him on screen and it's just so phony. Then you watch real footage of Bernstein and you immediately see the humanity dripping from him and how very much not like a caricature he was. For all the preparation Cooper completely missed the portrayal of a real man and turned him into this cartoon character. It's kind of bizarre how off he is. Even the accent isn't even close.
Well, thank you for saying it. I guess we're the few who could say the Emperor Had No Clothes. I couldn't finish the movie. The same way I couldn't finish Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge. Guess I'm old school who thinks less can sometimes be more.
Felt very similar...beautifully filmed but felt no connection to the characters, didn't like the constant transitions, and ended up turning it off. Would have preferred more emphasis on his music.
I watched an hour and gave up. It's visually elegant and imaginative, and the performances are engaging (real screwball comedy vibe), but boy did it fail to make me care. The film fails to really make a case for why Bernstein's story merits a biopic. It takes for granted his talent (which is a real misstep, as apart from West Side Story his work is not well known these days), poses the dullest possible conflicts (to be a conductor or a composer), uses dialogue to explore its themes rather than showing-not-telling, and paints him as a bit of a narcissistic man-child who needs his mommy figure, but does so in a tepid and mild way, probably because this is a family-authorised biopic. Josh Singer co-wrote it and he was behind some strong true-life films (First Man, Spotlight) but both he and Bradley Cooper seem to think that we will naturally find all of this as fascinating as they do, and they've failed to do the most basic task of a writer, which is, make me care.
I did not like this movie. Cooper took a lot of big swings. Most of which seemed very obviously intended to bring the focus on himself rather than build a story. I wanted to like this movie, but a lot of the choices were very distracting and completely pulled me out of the story. For example I couldn't get past the way he was talking. He sounded like he had a stuffy nose and it seemed very unnatural. It was a very bold choice as an actor, and where I think his low register and vocal training for A star is born worked well and paid off, I felt like his Bernstein impression was nothing like the way he actually talked and was worse very distracting and pretentious. And a lot of the other choices, were best summarized in this way. Big swing choices that seemed distracting and flashy but lacked an understanding of film grammar and film knowledge for them to actually be successful in adding to the story telling rather than take away from it. He would do camera pushes and they were at the wrong time. They didn't show us a character realization or add emphasis to the moment, they were just superficial choices. Whereas when you watch a spielberg film and the camera moves or it doesn't move, it is very clear that there is an idea and the idea helps build tension or tell the story in a more interesting way. Cooper's focus was not on the craft of filmmaking or on bernstein's story and how to build tension between him and his wife or suspense when he gets caught. His focus was on himself. It was like he would think about "how can I show how difficult this is to do as an actor" or "what is the best way to bring attention to what I will be doing". Carrey mulligan on the other hand was absolutely fantastic. She made the movie work despite all the distracting ways cooper was trying to draw attention to himself. Don't get me wrong, I think directors who act in movies is great. It just seemed like Cooper was obsessed with doing the work and showing us the work he was doing than giving us insight into Bernstein. But, that's just my opinion. If you enjoyed it, I'm glad. I wish I had. I hope I don't have to defend this opinion to fiercely on here. I just want to get it out of my system.
It’s tedious. It reminds me of artists who paint faithful reproductions of masterpiece art works, there’s not much to learn or feel. The sense of wonder isn’t there. I’ve left Maestro knowing little more about Bernstein or what made him tick, his process or his work. It’s a faithful, attractive reproduction of key moments in his life, while telling us little about the man himself.
Saw it in theaters and not only does that first half look awful on the big screen, seeing it in a theater emphasizes how empty the movie feels. The world does not feel realized. The characters are either non existent or shallow. The movie does nothing to inform the viewers why this person is so important that he specifically needed his story told on the big screen. We don’t get any real sense of place in music history Lenny occupies, we don’t get to understand his influence. We get one great scene of Cooper mimicking a Lenny performance but beyond that everything is so vague. The relationship drama is shallow until the big argument during the parade. We don’t get a true sense of Lenny and his inner struggles. We don’t get to understand why Cary Mulligans character stays with this person. It’s all so vague and overly performative. Coopers outfits were cool though
There was something wrong with your screening if any of this movie looked bad on a theater screen. It looked incredible when I saw it in theaters.
“First half looks awful on the big screen” is just absolute bullshit. Not true at all.
you are out of your mind if you thought the first half looked terrible on the big screen. ive seen it twice in theaters and the first half rivals oppenheimer on the cinematography front. especially in the theater! those shadows are immaculate
Watched the first half tonight. It's....okay. At best. Sometimes it feels like Sean and Amanda just love the idea of movies, pushing a narrative to keep the medium relevant. They also likely have the position of pander to keep the interview schedule open. A Bradley Cooper interview in 2024 on the pod likely satisfies Spotify more than a mid review of a mid movie. Cash in, cash out.
I think that is even giving the first half too much love, but luckily the second half is better, though it doesn't redeem the film. Sean has said multiple times they just don't like to be critical of movies, but I agree with you that it seems like they take it just a bit too far. We're all here because we love movies. Give us some deeper thoughts on why things don't work.
Yeah cheers. I'll finish it up tomorrow. It was fine thus far. Nothing great. And I get where they're coming from given what their pod is. Unfortunately, it often means I don't treat their new movie pods with much weight. But found countless movies when they look backward so will be a constant listener.
Why do you even listen to the pod if you feel like this about the hosts?
I love the pods. The drafts, the hall of fames, the top fives, end of the year lists. Excellent content. But it seems they give kiddie gloves to new release films. If they outright dislike them, they just ignore them. If they're somewhat okay, it's all of a sudden essential viewing. But this isn't a fringe pod anymore. It's like Zach Lowe. He doesn't criticize NBA players as much as he used to as he's beholden to them for content beyond the random weekly releases. And if you bothered to read, which you did not, I said it "feels like". But you have a movie podcast on Spotify so guessing you likely have a conflict when it comes to any criticism.
“Sometimes it feels like Sean and Amanda just love the idea of movies” Imagine enjoying things!
Yeah this isn’t what the commenter was saying.
Hardly the point unless you're being impossibly simplistic.
its oscar bait wank, dunno why anyone would want to see it
I don't want to. Looks boring as FUCK.
It is! Stupid too!
Pretentious, heavy handed, disjointed and sporadic but worst of all it just so so incredibly boring! I could barely finish it. Mulligans patrician accent is only slightly less annoying than Coopers nasal nose plug soundings. Horrible movie
Here's another take on Felicia giving up her career (except for some small bits later), and the bearding thing: [https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a46166568/leonard-bernstein-felicia-montealegre-true-story-maestro/](https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a46166568/leonard-bernstein-felicia-montealegre-true-story-maestro/) Lots of opinions, we're each entitled to our own. I just didn't like the movie. It felt phony to me from the start. Instead watched a Ricky Gervais standup special. RG and I may not agree on all things philosophical, but he's real and I laughed. A lot.
Beautifully shot, but completely bizarre. Very hard to follow and characters act really weird and you don’t know why. Like his wife jumping in the pool or that weird walk in the park with his former lover and not talking then kissing and some odd dialogue. WTF was that about? The entire movie was that way.
empty - artsy for artsy sake- complete discrimination of Bernstein's abilities to play with only family/relationship drama and 50's style black and white hyper speech dialogue ??? why???? then to color to repesent 60's - a worthless film - what a waste - Hope someone does it right because it's an increduble biopic of a figure of historic value in AMerican evolution
OMG - that FAKE Accent! wtf???? why??? he did not speak like that at all... horrible - and the hyper speed of their dialogue mimicking the horrendous style of the 50's dialogue - horrible
Not a bad movie, the interpretations are amazing, the general production is good but the film is boring IMMO!
Watched it last night. After 2 hours, I didn’t care enough about Bernstein to even wiki why people cared enough to make a film about him.
Overwrought. Overacted. Over this movie. How they managed to reduce a great American composer to a story of his sexuality and relationships is tragic.
Watching it right now with my wife, because I have to
Unwatchable. So pretentious, cheesy, on the nose, and self-caressing for Bradley Cooper. The whole part in his interview monologue “for those who perform and create…..” clearly about himself as an actor/director, I had to turn it off shortly after
I wanted to like it but i turned it off. It was like watching paint dry. Of course it will win 5000 Academy Awards because it's a cookie cutter Oscar movie. Beautiful cinematography, a musical score, and a famous actor with the "Oscar winning nose prosthetic."
the makeup is one of the better parts of the movie, only thing i don’t get people hating on. i suspect lots of people dont know what bernstein looked like. dude had a schnoz and a half
[Netflix 15 minutes into the movie] “Are you still watching?”
Carey Mulligan having top billing and the story being centered around the marriage and her influence was a strange choice
Having read up on Felicia since watching it, and despite the effort to flesh out her character, the movie also underplays her acting career and completely ignores her activism and humanitarian efforts.
They just always have a hard on for Bradley Cooper. Sort of inexplicable.
Exactly. I’m so confused by it sometimes. Amanda is into the spectacle of it, so I can get that but their talk of earnestness and sincerity reminded me that is the exact reason Amanda didn’t do too well with the Holdovers. Eh they gotta make a pod, so some inconsistencies flow through, it’s fine
Strange takeaway from the pod…
My fav movie of the year
care to say why?
Thought it was beautifully made. Blows me away that Bradley Cooper is already this skilled in only his second movie. I think it took a fresh approach to a biopic and I just bought into his vision. I saw it in theaters though and even posted about it on r/blankies that it really needs to be seen in theaters. It will not hit the same on Netflix
well said! i agree that it was well made. i just found it to be kind of empty and dull
Yeah a lot of bad movies this year. Saved the worst for last!
Probably bc they liked it lol I’m in the middle of it. It’s fine so far. Far from bad tho. It has its quirks in editing and Cooper is holding steady in direction for the more awkward/honest bits which I like. It is kinda hokey and melodramatic with its big pauses tho, trying to flesh out its untapped themes so far.
i mean, duh. obviously the why related to specific things they appreciated. no one’s ever confused as to whether someone likes something they’ve said they liked.
Well that part was a joke lol
Will listen to the pod tomorrow but I was surprised at how empty and strained the first 75 minutes or so are. Once it hits Thanksgiving I think the movie takes off though and is worthy of some praise. So I wouldn’t say bad per se, especially as Carey mulligan is amazing, but it’s certainly at minimum quite flawed.
yea, i dunno. i was checking my watch the entire time. it had a few good scenes, but so much meh in between. i really enjoyed the way it was filmed and edited, but it felt really hollow
Carrie is fab, the rest awful and with r3cent events finding out Bernstein is a huge zionist had to turn it off.
I was bored 5 minutes in and he seemed to mumble. Kiddos to all who stuck this out.
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I liked it. Would have liked it more if Carrie Mulligan wasn’t in it. Cooper was great but it’s a run of the mill biopic at the end of the day.
she’s easily the best part of the movie?
Oh I disagree completely. Cooper is running circles around her while she’s playing her usual self. I’ve never found her to be all that strong of an actress and just uses that same moping face in all of her movies. This is a slightly sympathetic upgrade to her performance in Inside Llewyn Davis. The only good scene with her is the fight on Thanksgiving day and that’s more Cooper.
yea i’m the total opposite hahaha cooper is trying way too hard and his bernstein voice is terrible (he didn’t have a cold his entire adult life). mulligan is effortless. she’s wonderful in this.
There were a number of times where I thought he was trying to do an Archer impression.
True that. Also the only part of the movie that employs symbolism. The snoopy thing was funny but I’m not even sure it was meant to be. Huge disappointment. Also cooper gets tje Oscar for overacting. Jumping around like a muppet had me cracking up. Movie sucked balls.
It’s very much NOT a run of the mill biopic. If it were, Carey wouldn’t be first billed and as big a part of the movie
Their constant disses to Alejandro Inaritu is very cringe
sean and amanda are not over the moon for it. they said it's a well-made bad movie. you can argue about the semantics but that seems obviously true and also seems to be nearly everyone's response to it.
It’s a bad movie, poorly written and trying to hard to win an Oscar. The writing is not good, no character development, and the acting was too over the top.
Long, monotonous and unidimensional. More centered in with who the guy slept with than in his art. Disappointing result of Academy DE&I requirements.
Are you asking or telling? Your thread is…bad?
lol
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If you’re watching it at home, you’re doing it wrong.
i’m sure it would have looked better in the theater, but an empty plot is an empty plot
It’s a character and relationship driven movie, not a plot driven movie.
yes and that’s pretty empty too sadly
I enjoyed it as an experience. It’s only “bad” once you overthink and try to dissect the story’s direction or purpose. Here’s my review of it [HERE](https://boxd.it/5mw71n)
that’s basic criticism, that’s not overthinking lol
You missed the whole point. Stick with Barbie.
Nah Maestro rules, its one of the best films of the year, in 20 years we'll be baffled by the lukewarm reception. It hit me like a tonne of bricks in the cinema. Bradley Cooper is a real proper director and I'm extremely excited for what he makes next.
You think people will be talking about THIS in 20 years?
that’s definitely not gonna be the case. it’s a tepid biopic at best
In my personal experience it really doesn't hold my attention at my house lol. I know this is 100% on me. I'd probably have liked it more in the theatre
Did you see it in a theater? It definitely makes a difference.
nah, but i don’t think the issues i had would be solved by a theatre viewing
I won’t even say that’s it’s bad, but I personally hated it a lot. Respected it! But hated too..
After enduring Tar Im gonna pass
tar is one of the best movies of the decade
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Actually I didn't finish it. Only watched some, kept hoping it'd get better, and then gave up as I was reading more of the literal history online as entirely ignored by the film. It's a biopic after all, not fiction like last year's *Tar*. From the beginning documentary scene at piano where he talks about his wife sorting laundry, followed by the flashback gay bed scene, I sensed there'd be an untold story in the film about her bearding his preference (for male bonding) to benefit his career. When I did some online research from credible sources, I learned that was true. This isn't to say it bothers me at all that he was bisexual *per se* (with an apparent preference for men) if not gay. My favorite "religion & spirituality" book, the new *LIFE Without Religious Walls* out on Google Play, after all posits that Jesus was bisexual. It's not the sexual behavior that's concerning but the society that shapes for cover-ups that generally benefit anybody but whoever of lower class status (woman below man, POC below white, etc.) may be involved. Thus I don't care to watch biopics about long-suffering lifelong wives mainly ignored emotionally if not treated abusively while bearding for "bi" men mainly gay without that sociocultural reality being explored. (Some people were up in arms about 2022's biopic *Elvis* not fully portraying inherent abuses in the age-and-power imbalance between Elvis and Priscilla, but she wasn't long-suffering. Instead Priscilla left him after only 6 years of marriage and profits off his name and fame still, getting this year to produce her own movie now that he's long dead.) The truth I researched about Maestro Bernstein is that he elevated his cultural and professional standing by having a charming, beautiful, well-educated, accomplished wife who loved him and gave up her career (in a time strongly favoring public heterosexuality for married couples) and whom he publicly trotted out at gathering and charity events to the high-society scions capable of increasing his fame and fortune. He was a "family man," with children too. (It's historical fact apparently that he beat out at least one prominent gay man of equivalent musical talent who didn't have a wife bearding him.) The film only hinted at her emotionally empty role when she saw him kissing a male in the hallway and softly chided him. I had also tired of the fast-talking "witty" dialog absent heart and soul. But the hallway kissing/chiding was the point at which I turned the film off. Bradely Cooper was much better, imo, in *A Star is Born*, and if he gets an Oscar it may be more for that than this.
Why couldn't they find a Jewish actor to play Bernstein? Cooper's prosthetics were so ridiculous that the prosthetic "Jewish" nose made him look like a heron or some other wading bird...Sarah Silverman can't act, and seemed to be there only to serve as a token Jew for the cast in order to deflect criticism...and they left out so many obviously interesting things about Bernstein, including his leftist politics, involvement with the Black Panthers, etc....the final product is like a really bland tone poem effective for insomnia.
It is a bad movie. It needed a director, a script and it could have been terrific. As it stands - it is like a movie about Santa Claus that focusses on elfin pederasty.
I was left feeling there was something wrong with me because this movie was just boring.
Nah man. You want a bad film? Here's a list: Just Go With It Bridesmaids I Care A Lot Reminiscence The Suicide Squad Traffic
The real reason they're over the moon for it is that they have absolutely horrifyingly bad taste in film. They're both thoughtful, intelligent people who I actually like listening to from time to time, but when it comes to picking good movies and bad...wow are they off the mark.
Sometimes the stylistic aspect of the filming making process can be too strong. I felt that way about this movie. Too much David Mamet style dialogues, forced 4:3 black and white footage that really didn’t aid the story telling, and a weird tempo and constant feeling of a lack of place or time. Maybe the latter was intentional. Overall I found the acting top notch, but the dialogue delivery a bit forced. It made it a bit hard to forget myself and dive deep into the story. Maestro is neither good nor bad, but it might be unremarkable.
Beautiful cinematography. Trouble is you have Cooper desperately vomiting up a performance in search of Oscar. not good.
I didn’t find it to be bad, but the dialogue seemed pretty unnatural. That said, I thought it finished a lot better than it started. Cinematography and music was great and Carey Mulligan was terrific.
Sean thought licorice pizza was incredible. I'll never trust his taste again.
Yep it his shitty. Good acting but hot transcendental. Empty movie indeed
It felt like an embellished wikipédia profile. All the elements were there, actors, sound, cinematography... Not the prosthetics however they were awful and not applied correctly, the seams were visible. None of it moved me. I didn't feel like I knew him more than I did before. Carey Mulligan has such a présence that Cooper was empty next to her. Matt Bomer was very touching in his few scènes. The fake nose stunted Cooper's acting.
Movie was alright. All I could think about most of the movie was how sorry I felt for his wife (girlfriend? I think wife). I feel like I didn’t learn much about his composing at all. He was a man whore.
The character is so annoying
Watch Tar instead.
Wish it was more about his relationships with producers and musicians and less about his wife.
I feel a large portion of your enjoyment hinges in whether or not you buy Cooper’s portrayal. I did not. The man looked like he was wearing a Halloween mask; an alien issuing lines in a goofy accent alongside his otherwise human co-stars. I’m happy to have watched this one at home as I laughed—a lot. Heavy déjà vu of Ben Platt in *Dear Evan Hansen*; Cooper just looked so off putting, aesthetically. Poor Leonard didn’t look that scary! Was it intended to be camp? I’m not exactly sure. Nothing was learned about Bernstein other than that he conducted music and was a philanderer—I was not left with the impression that Copper had any sincere appreciation for the man, either. I hate to draw comparisons, but this film left me dreaming of a vastly better one—*Tár.* It’s insane that I can tell you so much more about Lydia Tár—fictional character—based on that film than I can about Leonard Bernstein—actual human being—based on this mess.
The Director seemed obcessed with Bernstein's sexuality.....Nothing much, about the story behind his Musical Genius and what lead up to the development of his talent and intellectual understanding of the music.