explain the inexplicable: Bradley Cooper’s A STAR IS BORN feat Lady Gaga

Didn't notice too many of those tbh.

I'm glad that there seem to be Maestro showtimes in Chicago even after it debuts on Netflix.

My possible challops is that the three main performances were all really good and made this worth watching.

who's the third, Snoopy?

(I broke down and watched this on Netflix)

I'm so tired of this kind of film, this approach to narrative.

who's the third, Snoopy?

Star of Screen & Meme, Maya Hawke.

excellent performances, movie was absolutely missing something, felt like it needed another 30 minutes to fill some of this out.

I did think the makeup was extraordinary in this, particularly the aging work they did.

Turning Leonard Bernstein's life into one of thwarted heterosexual misery took some makeup too.

This was such a pretty slodge.

*slog

Very superficial and gives you no sense of why anyone should care about Bernstein.

well that scene in (westminster abbey?) works very well and that's cooper's best bit of acting. he really does convey what is amazing to watch about Bernstein's composing. what it failed at for me was giving any sense of why his wife cared about him (or, also, why she suddenly had no patience for him). It needed more establishment of their relationship for me. The massive time jumps didn't serve the story well.

Ely Cathedral. Bernstein was intense, but always in control and focused. Cooper’s fake conducting has him looking like he’s having some sort of spasm, unconnected to what is actually happening.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8giUJbT9Yg

Lady Gaga didn't do a great job in Maestro tho

Very superficial and gives you no sense of why anyone should care about Bernstein.

Yeah, what made him special or interesting. It's just decreed that he's a genius of some kind.

I know the long Mahler scene is supposed to show us something about his conducting, supposed to sweep us up. But I was unswept. You can't capture that kind of power just by imitation.

the mahler scene and the one scene with koussevitsky were the only ones that try to reckon with his talent and cultural importance at all. the rest of the movie takes it completely for granted, seemingly saying “well of course he’s great, look at how rich and famous he is!”

it’s a pretty looking film, but completely solipsistic. you don’t get the idea that cooper admires bernstein or loves music, just that he loves himself

I don’t think this is a movie about his greatness or his artistry. Yes, it does take that for granted because I don’t think it’s the point of the film. It’s a movie about his relationship with his wife. His talent and celebrity aren’t the focal points - they’re complicating factors in his personal life.

I liked this movie a lot more than others in this thread. I generally hate Bradley Cooper—he seems very full of himself and seems like he’d be the first one to tell you how serious of an artist he is. And i found the PR rollout for this film excruciating. I don’t know if it’s because
I live in LA but every billboard and Instagram ad I see seems designed to campaign for specific awards (“the sound design is astounding!”). It’s all just really distasteful.

But my wife wanted to watch it so we did. And against my own wishes, I was hooked within five minutes and found the whole thing to be pretty outstanding. The costumes, the makeup, the performances, the cinematography, the script. And yes even the sound design! I was practically angry with myself by the end for liking it so much. And I think it’s precisely because
it’s actually a smaller, more domestic film inside the shell of a Great Man narrative. It skips over so much his Wikipedia beats and typical biopic cliches—for instance, the way it elides the fact that the performance in the church was for JFK’s funeral. His embrace of his estranged wife at the end was more important to the scene than the historical significance of the concert.

Their big climactic argument where she accuses him of hiding from his true self—to me, that came off as a real and sharp cut rather than a cliche Oscar Moment, because the film is more about just that—a portrait of a man hiding from his true self—rather than a biography of various great celebrity milestones.

agree with both of those posts

The quality of the sound design, I'll grant.

It’s a movie about his relationship with his wife.

Insomuch as it's about anything, yes. But his relationship with his wife isn't an inherently interesting story imo. And the story it tells of that relationship is telegraphed almost from the start and then driven home thuddingly by flourishes like the scene where she's literally standing in his giant shadow (that scene is the epitome of the need for kill-your-darlings editing — he should have admired it in the editing room and then left it on the floor).

"It's a movie about his relationship with his wife" coupled with Cooper's very transparent need for alms and validation all just adds up to "we want to win both lead acting Oscars for this one" to me

I wanted an entire film of Coop using boyfriend's butt as bongos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldFWvHa4Svg

Yes, the ostensible main point of the movie is the relationship but both characters are ciphers. Also, apparently in real life he wrote Felicia a letter before they married about his attraction to men and need for the occasional boy toy, and she wrote back accepting of it! On the other hand, the movie never makes it clear what sort of arrangement they had.

Coop no doubt thought American Netflix viewers couldn't stand the idea of an open marriage.

But his relationship with his wife isn't an inherently interesting story imo.

I guess we just disagree on this point.

"It's a movie about his relationship with his wife" coupled with Cooper's very transparent need for alms and validation all just adds up to "we want to win both lead acting Oscars for this one" to me

― stephen miller is not your friend (Eric H.), Saturday, December 30, 2023 bookmarkflaglink

I mean, it's that time of year isn't it? I'm willing to be there are other movies out right now that you like that are also transparently aiming for Oscars.

Yes, the ostensible main point of the movie is the relationship but both characters are ciphers. Also, apparently in real life he wrote Felicia a letter before they married about his attraction to men and need for the occasional boy toy, and she wrote back accepting of it! On the other hand, the movie never makes it clear what sort of arrangement they had.

― Expansion to Mackerel (Boring, Maryland), Saturday, December 30, 2023 bookmarkflaglink

I think you just missed it. She knew nearly from the beginning. The scene where they are watching, and then participating, in the On the Town dance number seems pretty clearly to say she sees him in his homoerotic desires. And this was before they married. And after they're married there are numerous scenes where she speaks to him directly about it.

Yeah, it's clear to me the wife knew; the film's Bernstein isn't hiding it from friends, why should he hide it from her? But I still didn't find this bit compelling.

Well I think the relationship wasn’t defined as “she knew but couldn’t accept it” or “She willfully looked the other way” or “ she tried to be tolerant but life is messy and she found herself unhappy about it”

I know she knew in the movie but her motivations remained obscure because her character was so poorly sketched out.

Please compare that with "Night and Day," the Cary Grant movie where he plays Cole Porter.

In the movie he is portrayed as "carrying a torch for" Linda, though some accounts suggest that he wanted the social cover of a marriage blanche, as they used to say.

Sorry blanc or maybe lavender

_"It's a movie about his relationship with his wife" coupled with Cooper's very transparent need for alms and validation all just adds up to "we want to win both lead acting Oscars for this one" to me

― stephen miller is not your friend (Eric H.), Saturday, December 30, 2023 bookmarkflaglink_

I mean, it's that time of year isn't it? I'm willing to be there are other movies out right now that you like that are also transparently aiming for Oscars.

the movie is about their marriage but for some reason it does not do a very good job of letting you inside to understand the push and pull of her attraction. On the one hand it's easy to say 'she knew what she was getting into so why does she have such a hard time with his homosexuality later on', but real relationships are complicated. The problem with the film is that it doesn't really sell that complication. Outside of the very first scenes I don't know that I ever believed she actually loved him. I don't know if this was the case in real life or a fault of the film.

Mulligan doesn't help either. She's supposed to be urbane but she looks stricken. I'm not sure she knew what she was supposed to play.

Blecch. What a shit script on this...

Hey, don’t blame me, I didn’t write it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW9Lfs-Fxmo