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MsZLS
Reviews
Maestro (2023)
Pretentious, trite & contrived
If you're hoping to learn something about Leonard Bernstein through this movie you won't. This movie is about as trite as it can get and could've been on any famous person whether in music, cinema, literature, etc.
Carrie Mulligan is formulaic as the long suffering wife of a talented but unfaithful man, but she of course accepts his infidelity because of his genius. The only thing that's supposed to add a layer of sophistication here is that Leonard Bernstein cheated with men. Wow, how groundbreaking.
Then there's the embarrassingly pretentious dialogues (Leonard Bernstein's wife tells him 'your truth sucks the air out of everyone else in the room', whatever that means), the 1.33:1 ratio and b&w for the past are supposed to add an artsy dimension but absolutely do not work here in the unbelievably talentless hands of Bradley Cooper, the frequent tropes of film (at a moment of frustration Bradley Cooper puts a cushion over his mouth and screams into it so that his family doesn't hear him) and finally the affected accents just add to the inability to sustain disbelief and submerge yourself in the film, nor feel any empathy for the characters.
I didn't know much of Leonard Bernstein going into the film, what I know of him now is that he was bisexual.
Heaven Knows What (2014)
Big fan of their movies but not really this time
Movie felt like it was going round in circles never arriving anywhere, which I get is the point here seeing as it depicts heroin addicts. Still, from a viewer's perspective it becomes quite tedious.
The Nightingale (2018)
Traumatising, do not watch!
Around 80% of the movie are scenes are brutal violence, rape, torture and the massacre of men and women. What's worse is that the violent scenes well acted, directed and thus very hard to watch (I'm still having nightmares). If you've watched 12 yrs a slave or hotel Rwanda I can tell you that this movie depicts far more brutality and injustice than those, but as opposed to them, it offers very little comfort or solace to the viewer at the end. This is partly because other than the violent scenes, those scenes depicting the friendship ensuing between the 2 main protagonists are trite, superficial, unconvincing and thus fail to provide much relief to, and leave any impression on, the viewer. Also, unlike Solomon in 12 yrs a slave, the main protagonists aren't freed at the end, far from it-one is left to literally die alone at the end. The fate of the other is implied and in my opinion is even worse. One of them says in the movie something along the line of 'life is suffering' which seems to capture the main message throughout the movie. If you want to get depressed and PTSD'ed or if you are extremely sadistic, do watch this film. If you're the latter you'd probably enjoy it.