Maestro Reviews: Good, but, yes, it’s an “I Married a Fag” film

“…a positive portrait of America’s first (and most) acclaimed conductor, who was able to live his best life with the support of a wife whose presence confirmed his heterosexual privilege when it was publicly and privately imperative. But the actual masterstroke of Cooper’s Maestro is when it focuses on the woman whose time and career his own eclipsed.”

If this film is not about his own parents and specifically his mother, I will eat my hat.

"Perhaps the most crucial craft contribution is the enveloping sound design, making you hear famous Bernstein works like his epic-scale Mass, his opera A Quiet Place or his magnificent overture to Candide as if for the first time."

Um, I'm pretty sure that for most people this WILL be the first time that they hear a note of A QUIET PLACE.

“In that scene, Felicia watches on, wearily applauding one more time. “You will die a lonely old queen,” she tells her husband at one point…”

Kill me now.

Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan are being praised for their performances as Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre, respectively, in “Maestro,” despite an overall mixed reaction. The film made its debut Saturday at the Venice Film Festival to praise for its leads though the overall reaction has been far more muted than anticipated.

Why did they give Bradley a nose that looks so different then Lenny’s nose did?

Lenny had a glorious strong nose. They gave Brad a beak.

Smells like turkey.

Ha, sounds like a perfect vehicle for Neely.

Not everything is successful in this film—very far from it, in fact; its pleasure lies in how compromised and piecemeal it can be. Particularly in the opening courtship between Bernstein and Montealegre, a feeling of weariness can set in, as we wonder, really, what interest these two characters are supposed to hold for us, since the film has not made much of them outside their own self-contained relationship. Secondary characters are sketchily conceived, including an early boyfriend played by Matt Bomer with something that looks like regret. The film can be boring—especially in its final stretches, which drag out the couple’s last few days together, giving us something like five potential endings and never actually finishing.

Maestro will never be as big a crowd-pleaser as A Star is Born, and may find itself accused—perhaps not unfairly—of Oscar-baiting, with those two outsize performances at its heart—but something in the alchemy of cinema occasionally materializes here, bringing immense force to its project and leaving the viewer with many pleasingly unanswered questions to ponder.

Bradley Cooper is Chris Pratt with a high school diploma.

They're both galling, bottomless egomaniacs who mistake their current dollar value in Hollywood for actual talent or actual love.

There are many triumphant musical moments in Maestro but the one that takes the cake for me is the moment Bradley Cooper plays the bongos on Matt Bomer’s bare ass. #Venezia80

“It’s a shame, as there are promising elements of Maestro, but they form a rather forgettable, conventional biographical drama as a whole – one that sadly lacks Bernstein’s maverick spirit and warmth, or even captures anything about him you couldn’t glean from a quick skim read of Wikipedia. There’s no real sense of his passion, or what set him apart from his peers. One of the great jokes in Todd Field’s Tár is that Lydia Tár claimed to have been mentored by Bernstein; how is it that a single detail in a fiction could be more interesting and revealing than the entirety of Cooper’s long-gestating passion project?“

The reviews are weak enough that I would be surprised if Cooper got a Best Director nom which he really really really wants. It looks to be a crowded field this year with Nolan, Gerwig, Scorcese, and Lanthimos probably getting in.

It will definitely get a nom for the two leads. This could repeat the noms of another Netflix film, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, which got both lead actors noms and three below the line design noms (maybe swap production design for cinematography.)

Yawn.

*

This thing has zero BO potential which is why it's on Netflix. Can anyone say Red, White and Royal Blue.

"A Bradley Cooper Film"

Well, get a load of her.

Can't wait!

Forget the nose. Bernstein was a complete asshole. Do they portray that?

R9 Brad Cooper will act rings around Chris Pratt.

Does Bradley show cock or ass?

He shows nose.

Bradley Cooper is my inspiration. I will make it before 40.

[quote]Does Bradley show cock or ass?

He did that in Nightmare Alley.

He’s coming out in association with the film.

The Bernstein Mass is one of the most boring pieces you will ever hear. I saw it live and thought I'd give it another chance with the recording. Listening to Wagner's Ring from beginning to end in one sitting goes by like a breeze in comparison.

Does the film cover him abandoning his wife after a long marriage to live with a young man? To his credit he returned to her when she became fatally ill.

West Side Story is immortal and he has many great recordings.

There's more to love, I NOSE, than making love....

R25 yes, Gideon Glick portrays the lover he abandoned her for.

Looks like every nominee for Best Actor this year will be for a gay character.

You get A Spike Lee Joint in every single one of his goddamn films.

This one should be subtitled A Bradley Cooper Schnozz.

Oppenheimer was not gay R28.

Actually considering Netflix is releasing two films at the exact same time about gay men in the public eye in pre-Stonewall America

It’s within the realm if possibility that Oscar voters could choose to nominate Colman Domingo for Rustin and punt Cooper.

Actually I wonder if anyone is aware of any time the Academy has nominated two actors for gay roles in lead actor in the sane year

Answered my own question

2005 Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Capote (won) and Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain

Although Capote while an iconic gay man, the movie didn’t deal with his sexuality much

Other than the fact that his being gay was taboo at the time and his brief flirtations with fashionable leftism, what dramatic potential does his life have? There can be only so many scenes of score studying, composition, and rehearsals before you put the audience to sleep. Without the gayness, you might as well make the Karl Boehm story.

was he a top or bottom?

Is this like a male Tar?

Actually Leonard Bernstein basically was a male Tar who would have been cancelled today for his predatory behavior

I predict The Nose will cost him the Oscar.

The AMPAS already made that mistake once with Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf; they won't make it a second time.

The movie might have been more enjoyable if it had drawn heavily from Joan Peyser's unauthorized biography of Bernstein. I think Cooper complete with Jewish nose prosthetic, might have gotten the Oscar if he had recreated Bernstein's serenading the dean of the Bloomington Indiana school of music to the tune of A Bicycle Built for Two:

Deanie, weeny, show me your penie, do! I'm all steamy, all for the love of you! You want to see mine? It's teeny! But that's because I'm a sheeny--- But you're a goy, And boy oh boy! I'll just betcha it's built for two.

Maybe the movie will inspire a Candide revival!

On one hand, Bernstein revelled in bridging classical and pop music. On the other hand, he was the most pretentious of classical composers. His piece for violin and orchestra, which is one of his best works, has the title “Serenade after Plato’s Symposium”.

The text to his Kaddish symphony is cringe-inducing, especially as enunciated by his wife.

Loser. Who does Cooper think is his audience? Does he dare of breaking even? I trust not.

R43. Gay men over 60.

R12, "Oppenheimer" will take both Director and Actor, as well as Picture and Cinematography.

Bradley Cooper isn't going to be nominated in any category, because his film will flop. Plus.....The Nose.

More like gay men over 70.

I will definitely be seeing this in the theater, as to not break my tradition of seeing every BC release theatrically since The Hangover.

People like Bernstein, Comden and Green, Jerome Robbins, Balanchine and others make me think that NYC was at its most romantic and wonderful in the mid 20th Century.

Symphonic music, ballet, musical theater, homosexuality, sexual predator of young apprentices, betrayal of a long suffering wife. Is this going to be another flopbuster unless they spent 5 million on it?

This is the kind of movie they had to make in the 50s sanitizing everything and ending with his triumphant taking over of the NY Philharmonic. Leaving out the part where he stole the position from one of the great conductors of the 20th Century Dimitri Mitropoulos.

[quote] Who does Cooper think is his audience? Does he dare of breaking even? I trust not.

Jesus Christ, what part of “Netflix films don’t have to make money in theaters” do people not understand?

[quote]Who does Cooper think is his audience?

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

2023 is the year of making movies about Jews. Oppenheimer, Maestro, Golda and even Barbie. Anything else in the pipeline?

I love Bernstein, but I'll wait for streaming if this is the angle.

[quote] I'll wait for streaming if this is the angle.

THAT IS THE POINT!

I find Carey Mulligan insufferable.

She **so overdoes everything** I've ever seen her in, including stage, where she stank up Skylight with a starchy RP accent in lieu of a character.

Was his kid’s show broadcast nationwide or just in the New York area?

CBS, if I remember correctly?

One would assume the former watchers are a built in audience.

See I would have approached Bernstein’s story from the pov of his success and influence as an educator, like the Mister Rogers movie. He was a brilliant educator who tried to use television to its most optimistic and humanistic potential.

The movie doesn’t ask and try to answer the question, “Why was Leonard Bernstein important? What separates him from someone like Leopold Stokowski, whom the public has largely forgotten? Why do we need to remember him?” It doesn’t ask that, it just tells you he was important, and everything shown in service to the marriage/homosexuality story which should be only tangentially relevant to a biopic about him.

Oppenheimer was a brilliant biopic because it tells you why he was important. His marriages are used to give the character color but the movie is about a man and his place in the world.

R60. Stokowski was 35 years older than Bernstein. Let’s check back in 2058. More of Bernstein’s recordings are also on video and in modern stereo.

I do agree that his television work and his compositions, especially West Side Story, give him an advantage over Stokowski.

Exactly R60. My wife watched his 60s and 70s shows and just loved him.

R59. A ten-year-old in 1958 would be 75 now. A ten-year-old in 1972 would be 61 now.

I mean I would have approached him as a cultural figure first, then as a champagne socialist which is actually relevant to today, then as a Jew, and then as a homosexual. Because let’s face it, Leonard Bernstein was a lousy homosexual. Treated people horribly, both his wife and lovers, as well as the men he harrassed.

This should have never been offered to Bradley Cooper, because Bradley Cooper has an agenda, two films in a row about the long-suffering wife of a narcissist. You were never going to get a good biopic out of Cooper, it was always going to be awards bait.

The fact that Cooper worse a cartoonish prosthetic nose shows he does not relate to Bernstein as anything other than awards bait.

At least Jake Gyllenhaal actually said out loud, “I relate to him as a Jew.”

I don’t think the movie will do well. It’s around 2 and a half hours and the second half is said to drag. Zzzz

Are there any scenes in MAESTRO about the creation of WEST SIDE STORY? ON THE TOWN? WONDERFUL TOWN? Who plays Sondheim? Betty Condom? Roz Russell?

[quote]Betty Condom

Oh, DEAR.

R51, Mea culpa. I know nowt about Netflix, including that "Maestro" will stream, not be shown in theaters.

I must add, though: How conveeenient!

Actually, given my admonishing from r51, I would say that the audience will more likely simply be Netflix subscribers going, "Hey, look what's on. Let's watch, see if we like it."

As a 1949 Boomer of the 1st TV Generation, I don't remember watching Bernstein's series.

R67, I gather that Betty COMDEN appears in the film but not Sondheim or Roz.

No interest in watching another movie villainizing homosexuality.

The drama and horrors of a straight woman dealing sigh a gay man in a homophobic era.

An interesting thought:

“There’s a director with a beautiful film out this year who’d have made a wonderful Maestro (and given it a better title). His name’s Todd Haynes, he has form with true-life stories and the music world, and is queer and part-Jewish. There is nothing like authenticity.”

[quote]As a 1949 Boomer of the 1st TV Generation, I don't remember watching Bernstein's series.

I'm a few years younger. I remember CBS broadcast episodes on Saturday afternoons (maybe Sundays?). I didn't watch many of them. I wasn't really interested in any kind of music until I was 11 or 12, and popular music was everything to me. I know I saw Bernstein at Tanglewood in 1970 or 1971, and was not swayed.

There is a great movie to be made about Bernstein's life, the closet, and his wasted potential as an artist, but this doesn't sound like it's it.

Did Lenny smoke a lot of ciggies on all those children's concerts he did on TV in the 50s?

Bradley made this movie only in hopes that he would win an Oscar.

I give this movie three ovens and Brad’s nose one Star of David.

Why are they still doing gala premieres without the stars?

This is the movie I want to see, not the one about the fake marriage to the social climber wife.

Other times, his conduct was just unseemly. At one point, Bernstein’s receiving guests in his hotel suite nude except for a waist-length leather “Sharks” jacket (a gift from the 1980 West Side Story revival cast). A couple years later he’s taking an all-male troupe of Tanglewood composition and composing fellows out for a night on the town (or, more accurately, the Seven Hills Inn in Lenox, MA). “I prayed everyone at Seven Hills was of legal age,” Harmon writes – and he proceeded to take the night off.

Indeed, Bernstein’s sexual appetite in On the Road and Off the Record suggests a voracious twenty-something constantly on the prowl, not a guy in his seventh decade. Harmon recounts a parade of LB’s lovers, one-night stands, and other shenanigans, culminating in perhaps the book’s most shocking passage where Bernstein grabs Harmon’s crotch late one night. We’re told this was a three-months-on-the-job ritual to which all LB’s assistants were subjected. But Harmon’s response to the experience reads like that of a sexual assault survivor – which, to some degree at least, he was.

Oddly it does sound like a movie of an erratic Bernstein in widowerhood would be the kind of showy role Cooper would relish.

Of course, he couldn’t be cast in it without wearing old age makeup.

And, perhaps more to the point, without doing any number of highly unflattering things onscreen.

Isn't it in that infamous Bernstein book that he was going to greet well wishers after a concert wearing nothing but a jock strap which when younger I'm sure he looked terrific in. Godard Lieberson had to ruin it all by managing to talk him into putting on clothes.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Miss Cooper with that fake honker looks like Batman's The Joker more than any other live action actor who has ever played that character.

Carey! Bring me the axe!

With Peter Saarsgard in the lead actor's race now, Cooper could be pushed out.

Let´s talk

I'm rooting for Mulligan to win awards just so the people who bitched about her playing Bernstein's wife will shut the fuck up.

Who plays Aaron Copland in this movie? Now THERE was a man who didn't play the hetero game (albeit keeping privacy because of his wisdom and class) and became THE giant of American composers.

Talk about over preparing for an Oscar!

Cooper has spent his whole adult life closeted. Wasn’t that enough rehearsal to play Bernstein?

Alexander Bernstein’s remark to his sister Jamie after Lenny left his wife and children to shack up with his boy toy in California for the summer . . .

“Daddy came out of the closet ass first!”

[quote] She **so overdoes everything**

I thought she was perfect in Inside Llewyn Davis.

Well, r90! That 6-year prep puts Austin Butler’s Covid-induced 3 years of "Elvis" prep in the shade! (Though BC does spout the same "I was absolutely terrified" line.)

Robbins and Copland have walk-ons. I think the actor playing Robbins says, "Hi, I'm Jerry!" Two actors playing Comden and Green do a very bad rendition of their chestnut, "Carried Away," and then they're gone. There's a little bit of CANDIDE. That's about all you get from Bernstein's Broadway career.

Decent film, far from great. Carey Mulligan deserves an Oscar nomination, but not, I think, an Oscar. That’s it. Cooper does not deserve an acting or directing nomination before this film. In my opinion.

Okay, Bernstein was gay, but do you think he bottomed for Lillian Hellman?

I hope she loses so r88 will shut the fuck up

Does BCoop reenact this moment from the out of town tryouts of West Side STtory in which Arthur Laurents photographed Lenny on the phone to Stephen Sondheim, complaining about how restrictive his marriage to Felicia is?

I kept up with the production of this for a time, but I have no interest in seeing it. I like some of Bernstein's work, but he was repulsive, and over time, Bradley Cooper has begun to annoy me for whatever reason. And it's Oscar bait (not the worst case I've ever seen, but bad enough).

My very picky ex texted me yesterday and said Maestro is his favorite movie of the year. Said he wanted to hate it, but absolutely loved it.

[quote] it’s an “I Married a Fag” film

I will never understand why straight people have such a fetish for these films. Between this and Fellow Travelers, I'm tired of this shit. What is this, 1995?

He was on Howard Stern this morning. It was a fun interview. Howard brought up closeted people in Hollywood and I instantly thought of DL.

So, the film doesn't really touch on his work on Broadway? He was undeniably a giant of classical music -- but that's far more in relation to his work as conductor, music director and television figure than his work as a classical composer. I'd argue that West Side Story and even On the Town are his most important works as a composer.

The movie is a standard bio-pic gussied up with some interesting camera work and boy-boy kisses. Like most biopics it tells too broad and shallow a story without much illuminating, riveting interpersonal drama You always get the aftermath but rarely see the cause.

Oh, that's okay, r104.

I hear Sofia Coppola will put things right with "Felicia."

Do they include his exhibitionist side? Like when he wanted to greet post concert guests in just a jock strap. Being once when I was young an exhibitionist I totally get it. Not in an illegal way. But inside as at home or locker room or dressing room.