Tag Archives: Bradley Cooper

Film Reviews

Film Review: Maestro (2023)

STORY & REVIEW

In 1943, a maestro and an actress met at the party. They develop a relationship and get married. As time passes, their personal lives cope with troubles and suffocate in the complexity of their choices.

Starring Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan as real-life couple Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre, Maestro is a two-hour but timeless journey into their lives. The film doesn’t have a particular plot but a screenplay and the beauty of writing lies in their complicated times. This is a passion project about the world of Leonard and his partnership with Felicia and his passion for music.

Maestro is more driven towards the drama inclining towards Leonard’s love life with Felicia. With the given title, I was expecting the dramatizing about the making of arguably 20th century’s greatest music conductor. So the hopes dashed for not getting to watch more about his musical works for West Side Story and On The Waterfront.

The chemistry of Leonard and Felicia is heartwarming. The writing about their affair is rich, you can feel the growth and that tickle of passion is right there in their exciting moments at the closed theatre, in the park, and on the table.

When the first half settles the audience into their lives, the other half shifts the gear to some eye-catching moments that crafts the relationship drama into excellence. Have a look at their heated argument that runs for four straight minutes in one shot. Cooper and Mulligan opens a theatre there.

And this is followed by Bradley Cooper’s mind-blowing solo act as a conductor for around five or six minutes. He performed it with such perfection and incredible body language of a conductor that I forgot it was Bradley doing a Leonard impression for so many minutes. That act is going to blow everyone’s mind.

In fact, Bradley was phenomenal throughout the film. Breaking his typical norm of his usual acting and shaping into the character with a different accent, mannerism, and behavior. I sense Bradley is a more serious contender to win the Oscar for the Best Actor than Cillian Murphy for Oppenheimer.

A major plus above Bradley’s performance is Carey Mulligan equally giving a splendid performance that stamps Maestro to more critical approvals. She is the best other half that completes the film. From the moment the doctor breaks the news, Carey doesn’t stop impressing us. Observe her distress when she attends the visitors. Her hopelessness, agony, and crying is so heartfelt.

To understand the beauty of filmmaking, always observe the film shooting techniques. That is the major game that gathers the praises from the audience. Why Maestro is a supreme quality of filmmaking is due to the selection of camera angles where the screenplay heavily grows on Bradley and Carey.

The one-shot scene is an art, a technique that needs to be carefully implemented. But also, the zooming angles of some important shots like Felicia’s discomfort in attending visitors, the doctor breaking the news, the couples sitting opposite in the park, are some reminders of the classical style of filmmaking.

HISTORICAL ACCURACY

To all who cares about the accuracy in the truthfulness of the film’s storyline, much of the developments in Maestro are highly accurate.

Daughter Jamie asking the rumors about her father’s sexuality is true.

Felicia was aware about Leonard’s bisexuality before marrying him.

Leonard and Felicia did meet for the first time in a party.

As depicted, Leonard took the stage as a substitute conductor from where he rose to prominence.

And the most delightful of all, multiple scenes in the film are shot in Leonard’s actual country house situated in Fairfield, Connecticut.

CLOSING REMARKS

I am not sure if I must call Maestro a masterpiece. Because films like Maestro generally qualifies as masterpiece as some 150-minute slow-burners. Maestro was like that but broke the taboo. In two hours, Maestro proved that one can dramatize such drama with pace in the screenplay and race with time. I am very impressed with Bradley Cooper as a director this time. I sense a faithful virtuosity in doing justice with a story about a legendary musician with sincere ambition.

For me, Maestro is a captivating drama and is recommendable to all who appreciate quality of filmmaking with magnificent performances.

RATING 8.8/10

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Film Reviews

Film Review: Licorice Pizza (2021)

So I am writing about someone who himself is some institute of filmmaking, Paul Thomas Anderson. Looking at the plethora of critical acclaim his films earn every time his new work is presented, I waited this moment to watch his latest venture, Licorice Pizza. And I knew the spark is there, the spark is just there.

Two hours of beautiful feeling and those instincts of cold whispers amongst young bloods that brood or shroud the gospel of emotions from head to toe. A kind of blue-ish feeling when a young boy Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman) and a girl Alana Kane (Alana Haim) meet each other first time and try to reason the birth of those unaccomplished meetings. We have watched trillions of times but there is a way to make young kids take their chances, accept or refuse, make a joke out of it, or make a point out of all seriousness. Paul made us feel that in some boozy vibrance. A magnitude of spectacle.

The warmth of the chemistry proceeds like the flourishing pinnacle. The relation leads to thick surprises and their excitement being together is the epitome of the symphony. Even when they are not together, impatience grows. I felt a lot, a bloody lot, when Gary and Alana phone each other and say nothing. The depth of the story surprises and gives its whataboutery of awkwardness. I embrace the entirety of the intense moment when the cops arrest Gary from nowhere; what a spectacular shot when Alana runs and tells him not to worry, and the handcuffed Gary stares at her like a d***head.

Licorice Pizza also tests the complicated relationship in some situational comic moments that also occurs out of nowhere because life is so uncertain. Alana grabs the opportunity to gather with big boys and make Gary feel. The whole change in shift to the restaurant and that silly stunt was necessary as the story assumed that humans, in all complications, can reach different places reasoning and finding their own identity until they slip and realize. A kind of this scene may have never appealed but Paul’s writing about the complicated relationship of two confused kids was berzerk.

How smartly the gas issue was raised?! The film portrays California of 1973 and OPEC‘s oil embargo also occurred the same year. Bradley Cooper as John Peters was so perfect! Very impressive soundtracks were played. The Mikado hotel reference also hints that Paul did this on purpose to show the early years of the first Japanese restaurant in San Fernando Valley that approves meticulous writing. And why not? After all, Paul’s film aesthetics are usually centered around San Fernando Valley.

I loved the onscreen pairing of amateur actors, Cooper and Alana. Looking at their personalities and stature, they do not remind you of some ideal figures but the story of common people. Both made their debuts and how impressive were they. For Paul, this was a friendly project as Cooper is the son of late Philip Seymour Hoffman and Alana is an established music celebrity from the pop-rock band Haim for whom Paul has directed many music videos.

If the audience has ever loved Paul’s Boogie Nights, they will definitely love watching Licorice Pizza. Talk about a coming-of-age, raw buildup of young relations, desperate attempts of making money, and a few more, Licorice Pizza is an exceptional masterpiece.

Ratings: 8.8/10