Maestro

9/3/2023

FULL SPOILER-FREE REVIEW @ https://fandomwire.com/maestro-venice-film-festival-review-bradley-cooper-is-a-certified-talented-filmmaker/ "Maestro exceeds expectations, certifying Bradley Cooper as a filmmaker with innate talent, just like Leonard Bernstein, who the former portrays brilliantly. An inspirational biopic focused on an exponentially compelling romance elevated by emotionally genuine performances filled with intensely, passionately authentic interactions. Carey Mulligan joins the actor/director in the race for awards with a remarkable, spectacular display that will bring tears to even less sensitive viewers. Technically sublime, the conductor's music induces many chills in the audience through a story about love, family, artistic passion, and all the obstacles and dilemm

12/5/2023

I don't know if maybe "Bohemian Rhapsody" (2018) or "Rocketman" (2019) have made me a bit immune to the rather hedonistic lifestyles of the musical rich and famous, but I found this beautifully photographed depiction of the life of the enigmatic Leonard Bernstein to be remarkably tame. The monochrome presentation is glorious to look at, but the narrative is weak, I found. Carey Mullian, his long-suffering wife Felicia Montealegre is easily the most meritorious of praise here. She portrays the increasingly frustrated, betrayed yet still loving woman with a strength and subtlety that is really engaging - especially towards the end of the film. Cooper, on the other hand - well, was he meant to be mimicking Barry Manilow or Tony Bennett? We learn very little about what made the man tick, about

12/25/2023

A great talent deserves a great biopic. Regrettably, in the case of the late conductor/composer/musician Leonard Bernstein, he doesn’t get it. Writer-actor-director Bradley Cooper has made a film that I’m sure he thinks of as his cinematic masterpiece when, in fact, it comes across more like a tribute to the filmmaker’s own ego than as an homage to his subject. Perhaps the biggest problem here is the screenplay, which can never really decide if it wants to be a litany of the accomplishments of the artist (Cooper) or a love story between him and his adoring wife, Felicia (Carey Mulligan). The constant switching back and forth between the two leaves viewers wondering which will be the focus that the director settles on. Then there’s Cooper’s increasingly hammy overacting, which grows progres

12/29/2023

This biographical movie about Leonard Bernstein is directed and written by Bradley Cooper (and Josh Singer - “Spotlight”) and produced between others by Martin Scorsese (that declined to direct it after seeing “A Star is Born” and to be able to film the Irishman) and Steven Spielberg. It stars Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein an Jew American conductor and composer (1918–1990) and Carey Mulligan as Felicia Montealegre Bernstein American actress (1922–1978) who married Lenny in 1951, by social convenience of that epoch. Leonard Bernstein had a brilliant career playing in Broadway (West Side Story is by him), Carnegie Hall and New York Philharmonic and had also an intense career on teaching, having intense presentations that showed his true love for music - it was also a controvers