Maestro

[00:00:00] What you want, when you want it, where you want it, this is the mesh.

[00:00:08] Footcandal Films.

[00:00:13] Film news and reviews from two guys who really like movies.

[00:00:18] This episode is brought to you by the Footcandal Film Society.

[00:00:22] For a schedule of upcoming going on that we have to be a part of so it's a little bit like the shop is actually kind of taken over the shopping For me since my kids are all kind of grown They're still shopping involved, but not quite to the extent it was is now been replaced with Here's the stack of movies. I have to get through in the next two to three weeks So but but you know luckily we enjoy watching movies, and I'll see that is too bad of a chore I guess

[00:01:44] But today we're actually gonna talk about one of those aforementioned movies that we

[00:02:45] Are you ready to conduct this podcast and get it going?

[00:02:47] Start the performance. Are we ready?

[00:02:48] Yeah, strike up the band.

[00:02:49] Here we go.

[00:02:50] And this is our review and discussion of Maestro.

[00:02:57] If summer doesn't singing you, then nothing sinks in you.

[00:03:01] And if nothing sinks in you, then you can't make music.

[00:03:05] Something she told me.

[00:04:04] go ahead and direct this to and Bradley's like, sure, I'm sure that's exactly how the conversation went. And so Spielberg did step aside. He's an executive producer along with

[00:04:09] Martin Scorsese, but Bradley Cooper got into the director's chair and he also helped write

[00:04:15] the film. It stars Carrie Mulligan as his wife and then of course Bradley Cooper as Mr. Leonard

[00:04:21] Bernstein. So Alan, considering the pedigree of how I typically, I feel like usually review stuff,

[00:05:40] I usually mention off the top, immediate positives.

[00:05:43] And then if I have negatives, I kinda go into them,

[00:05:46] but then I always try to wrap it around

[00:05:47] like in on a positive note. And then, while I'm a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like, I do feel like Bradley Cooper is a good director. I said the same about a star is born.

[00:08:21] I remember when we reviewed it,

[00:08:22] I said look, there's, he is a good director.

[00:08:24] He knows how to make the people on screen But the early scenes, I guess, kind of set my expectations a little too high. Granted, usually you set expectations before you walk into see a film, and then, you know, that's your downfall. This, I had no expectations going in. And the early scenes were showed kind of a bravado storytelling style where Cooper, through his direction, I feel like didn't maintain

[00:09:42] for the rest of the film. There's an was a composer. I knew he did music. I didn't know a lot about his personal life, so I guess I did learn about, I had no idea that he had affairs and things outside of marriage. I had no idea that he was, I guess, which we would assume is bisexual.

[00:11:01] I had no idea about it, so I writing and the storytelling. I don't fault the direction on that because I do think even the scenes where there wasn't a lot to do, I've still found it captivating to watch

[00:12:22] even though I found the story to be very mundane,

[00:12:26] mundane and repetitive. the film about linearity is not going to be just one type of film. I mean, there's even like three different quote film stocks. I mean, I know it's all production-wise. It's all a moat. I'm shaking my head. Yes, I see that. And it's all to try to give you that same impression of, oh, this is not just one thing. This is not just one story about this person. It's a little gimmicky.

[00:14:42] I think it would suffer a lot more.

[00:14:47] I think I was just a president come away learning a little bit more.

[00:14:48] I wanna go back to what you talked about,

[00:14:49] like the aspect ratio is.

[00:14:51] And Graham, I think Bradley Cooper is a director.

[00:14:55] There again, I'm not saying he's a terrible director.

[00:14:57] I'm not saying this is a poorly directed film.

[00:14:59] I think you made me realize it's more of like the script

[00:15:02] or the pacing.

[00:15:04] I feel like, Graham, guess this is a script thing, not necessarily a direction thing, because it wouldn't be. And it's not a performance thing. It's not probably the actor's fault. I didn't feel like I really got a sense of his genius as a composer. They do show

[00:16:23] him performing and they show him waving his arms and being very passionate extremely familiar with his career. And I think the movie hinges on something very important that we don't get as a viewer. And you hit on it just a second ago. We're supposed to make the rest of the story work. We need to buy into the brilliance of Leonard Bernstein as an artist. And I don't feel like the film gives us that. I think the film makes us just as soon as we know.

[00:17:44] And I think that's a little bit of a fault because

[00:18:44] have helped a latter half of the film if I had already bought into that greatness of him as a conductor, as a musician. Does that make sense?

[00:18:49] Sure, sure. I'll say, since I've been ragging on Mr. Cooper, I'll say I do think a strength

[00:18:56] of the script was the fact a lot of times when you make or a lot of times filmmakers

[00:19:01] when they make biopics or when you make documentaries about somebody, either way, when you're telling bad person and here's exactly here's all the reasons why. No, it's Bernstein like most humans is a much more complicated person than that. It's not a pure black or white, yes or no thing with him. And I think the film does a great job of balancing that. So again, I admired everything it did on the personal side of him. I wish the script had given us a little more to

[00:20:22] build up the type of awareness and knowledge of a Bernstein that I feel or to have this one silent action moment. And I do feel like it's a little more on the nose that, okay, yeah, this is our showcase piece. This is our clip piece. This is our thing here. And it was just, it was almost playing to the awards a little bit more than I'd like to see it filmed. I'm curious, what scene you have to call them out by name,

[00:21:40] but are you mentioning scenes for Bradley Cooper

[00:21:43] or Carrie Mulligan or both?

[00:21:45] There's a couple for both.

[00:21:45] Okay, yeah.

[00:21:46] And again, I'm not trying to... I don't know how you... How do you say it is even spoilers to deal with a film that's a biopic about somebody's life, but you know she's dealing with some physical ailments

[00:23:01] and pains and I feel like the camera and his life and everything. I think you enjoy this film more Yes, I think if you kind of come into it like I think you did like I did on where we don't know as much

[00:24:24] We know he was a composer you may come away a little like well It shows him pulling up to some place where he's going to work on with some musicians. I think the car is actually playing. Yeah, the car is playing it. I was like, oh, okay, that's kind of a funny side. The funny thing was I was watching this with some other people at my house and they were all musically inclined.

[00:25:40] So they all knew Burnseam's life a lot more than I did.

[00:25:43] Sure.

[00:25:44] So you're right, this does play better with people who know his career. a climb to start him and his, kind of why the public started to really appreciate him more. Because we see some glimpses of it, but I don't feel like we really ever get a full sense of it. It's a little bit more assumed that we would know that. Those are the things I think that are the faults. I think if they could have pulled that off, we would have had a really, really, really great

[00:27:00] film out of this. As it is, like I said at the beginning Is that a fair word to say? Yeah, I mean probably three stars, right? Scale one to five, yeah, probably three stars. I'm probably at three and a half. I might be a little bit higher on it than you, but I still feel like a bit of a missed opportunity as a film, because it had so many other factors and elements going great for it. So, okay.

[00:28:21] All right, well that was my stroke.

[00:28:22] Let's take a quick break, Chris, when we come back.

[00:28:25] I think you have a on the horizon for us now And we want to spend a little time talking about it. So I Have one and I'm bringing this one up Chris because there is a connection to our review of my stroke Okay, I want to kind of make as well I

[00:29:41] Always am surprised and one of my greatest joys in life is stumbling across a

[00:30:41] he liked his performance. I have come around on,

[00:30:42] I was not a big fan of Paul Danner early on,

[00:30:44] but he has definitely in more recent roles,

[00:30:47] worked for me a lot better.

[00:30:48] But it also has a Mr. Adam Sandler as the lead in this film.

[00:30:54] Adam Sandler and Netflix to me,

[00:30:57] throws up a red flag.

[00:30:58] I like Adam Sandler, I think he's done some good work.

[00:31:01] I liked him and uncut gems.

[00:31:03] And he has put it a lot,

[00:31:05] when he pairs with Netflix,

[00:31:07] if you understand, he does is according to a variety here, the synopsis of the film reads that six months into a solitary research mission to the edge of the solar system, an astronaut realizes that the marriage he left

[00:32:20] behind might not be waiting for him when he returns to Earth. So desperate to fix things with his This is not a grown-ups in space. I don't think this is going to be that level of film. And the fact that he's got Kari Mulligan and Paul Dano and this thing as well makes me think, okay, I think there's something here. I'm very intrigued at this point. Now there's a teaser they came out with, but I will tell you Chris, it is the epitome of a teaser, meaning it tells you nothing.

[00:33:43] It is-

[00:33:44] Is it more than just text on screen?

[00:33:46] Oh yeah.

[00:33:46] Well, barely. is coming out. Yeah, it's for language. Okay. Yeah. So there's not gonna be a lot of violence, which I mean, if it's just him and a creature, I wouldn't think there could be a lot of violence. Yeah, I'm just, I'm fascinated by this film. The director of the film, I wanted to bring that up to you because I do believe it's his first film directing. Okay. Let me verify that for sure here, hold on, and

[00:35:01] just to make sure, oh, where is it directed by Johan and yeah, and the cast, it has all the elements that make me not afraid of a Sandler Netflix project. So yeah, this is interesting. Could be good, good, be good. All right, well that is coming March 1st, two Netflix as well. So you got Maestro out there now, you got a few more months for Spaceman.

[00:36:22] Good old Netflix, keeping me at just enough reason

[00:36:25] to keep my Netflix subscription every month

[00:36:27] by peppering out these films. He's been in foster care and it's just all these kind of like the whole system working against her. You see her just struggling and struggling to try to make things work. Tiana Taylor, she's the reason to watch this film. Her performance is just outstanding. I came to realize the film because it was the end of the year of Rush and some other

[00:37:40] North Carolina critics kind of threw that out as, hey, this is a performance film.

[00:37:43] You should check out just her performance.

[00:37:46] And I did. and you kind of think you know what you're in for. And you do get that for the majority of the film, but there's something that kind of happens in the last, I don't know, five or 10 minutes that kind of recontextualizes some things that you've thought. So it's called a 1,001. And as I mentioned, it's streaming on Amazon Prime and Teana Taylor, she's the reason to definitely check it out.

[00:39:02] I'm trying to check real quick there again.

[00:39:04] I think my intern has already left for the holiday break.

[00:39:07] She's been in some other things. was following in the footsteps of Jesus and trying to like get the same kind of notoriety. I don't know. If you're familiar with the life of Brian, you kind of know roughly the concept. I'm not sure the exact concept of this movie, Book of Clarence. But anyways, she's in that movie. So I think she's kind of a star on the rise. And based on her work in a thousand and one, which I'm recommending, I think you can see why.

[00:40:22] Okay. All right. A thousand and one recommended We will be back next week with another review and some more movie talk and

[00:41:42] discussion. Thanks for listening. Hope you're having great holiday season and we'll talk