Movie Review Maestro

Maestro (2023) 

Directed by Bradley Cooper

Written by Bradley Cooper, Josh Singer

Starring Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan. Maya Hawke, Matt Bomer 

Release Date November 22nd, 2023 

Published ?

There are many things to like about Bradley Cooper's Maestro. This biopic of legendary composer Leonard Bernstein is incredible to look at. Cooper and his cinematographer, Matthew Libatique, and production designer, Kevin Thompson, have put exceptional craft into the movie. Several of the films scenes simply pop off the screen in composition, detail, and the use of color. There is no denying that Bradley Cooper has a wonderful directorial eye aided by an exceptional team behind him. Where Maestro falters, sadly, is storytelling where the tenets of the movie biopic restrict and restrain. It's as if there was simply too much life in Leonard Bernstein to be constricted to the film form. 

Maestro begins its story with Leonard Bernstein being interviewed about his life and reflecting mostly on his beloved wife Felicia. Then we are thrown into a flashback, black and white, a young and eager Leonard Bernstein gets the phone call that will change his life. The main conductor of the New York Philharmonic is ill and cannot perform. His replacement is snowed in upstate. The 25 year old Bernstein with no rehearsal time, will have to fill in. He crushes it, he delivers an incredible performance that skyrockets his career. 

Meanwhile, in his private life, Bernstein is enjoying life as a gay man in New York, collaborating on various musical projects and spending time with his lover, David Oppenheim (Matt Bomer). These moments are brief but show a playful and wildly creative Bernstein constantly in creative mode, in the flower of his youth. Soon after however, he's met a woman at a party. Her name is Felicia (Carey Mulligan) and the two spark immediate chemistry. It's never stated that Bernstein is bisexual and the movie is remarkably vague on this point, perhaps because, until late in his life, Bernstein himself was vague on this point. 

The two undergo a whirlwind romance accompanied by Bernstein's remarkable successes on the stage, screen and as a composer of numerous symphonies. A lovely scene has Bernstein take Felicia to the stage where a musical he's working on with Jerome Robbins is rehearsing. The two get swept up in the dance rehearsal before being pulled apart. The symbolism rages aloud in this scene as the two sides of Bernstein's sexuality are pulled in different directions, one toward Felicia, one away from her. Dancers keep pulling both in different directions with Felicia imagining a man who might have taken her from Bernstein earlier in their life. It's an exceptional and exciting sequence that demonstrates Cooper's terrific direction. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Kill Room

The Kill Room (2023) 

Directed by Nicol Paone 

Written by Jonathan Jacobson 

Starring Uma Thurman, Maya Hawke, Samuel L. Jackson, Joe Manganiello 

Release Date November 3rd, 2023

Published October 30th, 2023

The Kill Room stars Uma Thurman as a New York City art gallery owner who has fallen very hard times. Thurman's Patrice has fallen behind and the fast paced world of art patronage and is beginning to lose her roster of artists. Desperate for a way to buy back her credibility and place in the hierarchy of the art world, Patrice decides that money laundering doesn't seem like such a bad idea. Having recently been approached by a man named Gordon Davis (Samuel L. Jackson) regarding just such a scheme, Patrice decides to take Gordon up on his offer to pump new cash into the gallery. 

The scheme works like such, Gordon will bring in a painting, Patrice will take the painting, run it through her database, price it and sell it to someone that Gordon is doing business with. Gordon's business involves having a hitman named Reggie (Joe Manganiello) choke out men who are marked for death by local Russian mobsters, something that Patrice is unaware of. She assumes Gordon is a drug dealer and thus doesn't feel bad about taking his dirty money. With Patrice's gallery giving Gordon's money a faux legitimacy, the cover up of payments for murders goes swimmingly. 

Then, Patrice actually gets a painting and things start to take a turn. With Patrice having obviously agreed to sell a painting for the sum of $300,000, her assistant, Leslie (Amy Keum), cannot resist telling the art world about the first time artist whose work is selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars. The artist happens to be Reggie, the murderer for hire, and though his paintings aren't great, he does have a soulful and revealing aspect to his approach to sculpture. To appease the apprehension of the art world, Patrice gives Reggie the moniker 'The Bagman' and tells reporters and patrons that he's incredibly private about his work. 

It turns out that Reggie actually doesn't want to be a killer. He was dragged into the world of so called 'wet work' by an obligation to his drug addict sister. In reality, Reggie is a thoughtful, soulful and sad guy with the soul of a real artist. His art just happens to involve throwing a plastic bag over the heads of bad guys and wrestling them until they stop moving and die. Naturally, Patrice will figure out who she's really dealing with and though you might expect a romance plot to unfold between Reggie and Patrice, The Kill Room sidesteps inter-personal politics by remaining firmly in the world of mocking the trade of art and how easy art patrons can be manipulated by buzz and the notion of scarcity. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media