MovieChat Forums > Maestro (2023) Discussion > Worst movie in a long time. Somewhere in...

Worst movie in a long time. Somewhere in the bottom 5.

posted 4 months ago by Narwhale37 (713)
16 replies | jump to latest

I don't know how to tell Netflix or Bradley Cooper this, but this movie is really bad. Like bad enough to knock out I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer from the Bottom 5 movies.

Why such a harsh rating?

1)That quote at the beginning sucked. Sure this is a small in the grand scheme of the movie but it immediately got me bitter before even a character even said anything.
The quote is:
“A work of art does not answer questions, it provokes them; and its essential meaning is in the tension between the contradictory answers.”

Are you serious? This isn't true at all. This is just an excuse to make your art as "ambiguous" as possible so you don't have to answer for any seeming problematic areas (Case in point:Joker and Fight Club) or to hide the fact that you don't know the answer because you don't know what you're talking about.

If anything, I'm tired of "provoking questions". Crackpot Conspiracy Theorists love "Asking Questions". That doesn't mean they are of any value. Anyone can ask seemingly vague questions that don't have answers and just because they have arguably contradictory answers, doesn't mean that the answer are meaningful. The quote is silly and clearly is made by someone wants to seem deep at the expense of obvious logic.

Anyways,
2)This whole "le older movie filter" is getting annoying fast. If I wanted to see a black and white movie, I would just watch a black and white movie. Why do boomers need to push their nostalgia into the newer movies? We get it. You don't like newer movies because their woke or degenerate or soulless or cashgrabs or something. Well don't make the newer movies go back in time for some so called feeling of the older times. Just go and watch a different decade. All you're doing is ruining the visuals so it can feed your particular nostalgia and I hate it.

3)Literally what's the point of this movie? Nothing happened. No one knows who he is (I didn't have a clue who Leonard Bernstein was until they mentioned West Side Story). It's just some movie that follows some guys life like some sort of Truman Show reboot. Sure there was some drama, but it wasn't anything unusual. Just a flat out waste of time with no plot. It didn't even do a good job telling his life either. It kept flash forwarding to random moments. They never explained to you how successful or wealthy he was. Just poorly done altogether. Also it focuses too much on his wife. I get that she's important, but the movie isn't about her. If you wanted to make a movie about the two of them, then make that clear. There's no lesson or "provoking questions" either. It's literally just watching some guy age.

4)Terrible dialogue. It's like they were adamant in making this movie over 2 hours so they just ad libbed or ChatGPT'd every conversation that we over 2 minutes.

5)The music wasn't that good. Isn't he supposed to be some sort of music guy? Why did 90% of the soundtrack just sound flat out soulless? Nothing was memorable outside of the occasion West Side Story music that didn't fit the movie and (what I think was) the climax. What a waste.

6)It's just boring. I fell asleep for about 10 minutes despite starting this movie wide awake. It doesn't help either that it's over 2 hours. The boringness makes it feel like 3-4.

I probably would've turned this off or played Pokemon Go PvP to distract myself from it if it wasn't an Oscar nomination or something.

Good things about this movie:
The acting is really great.
The aging effects are good.

Overall:.5/5 just rewatch Oppenheimer. It's better in every way. Also I'm just glad I won't have to ever rewatch this forced Oscarbait ever again.

[–] TheHardSell (614) 4 months ago

The film is a love letter to Jewish America !

[–] TheKeel (102) 4 months ago

And your comment is a veiled hate letter against it.

[–] BrandNewPoster (6431) 4 months ago

Totally disagree. I thought it was great.

[–] HerrStrauss (122) 4 months ago

I have to agree. The movie was bad like almost any other movie in 2023. Oppenheimer, Killers of Flower Moon, and this, all super long super boring movies hyped by the media. There is nothing to watch anymore, prefer to rewatch older movies.

[–] Ripkens25 (1906) 4 months ago

I heard similar feedback to what the OP says.

I've heard it's basically just watching Bernstein and his wife live their lives (with no real plot, drama or big moments)....and listening to them speaking in an extremely annoying, self-indulgent, shee shee dialect.

It's like if you were to spend good money and time watching Thurston Howell III and his wife talking for 2+ hours.

Nailing the dialect and mannerisms isn't enough. You need a compelling STORY. It needs to be either interesting, enjoyable, fun or heartbreaking....(and maybe even a combination of these). From what I've heard, this has NONE of those.

Sorry, it just sounds......boring. Well done, sure. But.....boring.

[–] TheArgentinian (6457) 4 months ago

I bet you loved the new Transformers.

[–] Stratego (29272) 4 months ago

2 could be a legitimate point, but your reasoning is nonsense. Not every moviemaker has to follow the latest trends in their profession. If they feel more comfortable with older techniques and methods, they have the right to use them. If you don't like it, then just go watch Transformers (yes, I'm being serious). I'm not a boomer, but I can't stand modern cinema with its wokeness, CGI, unoriginality and plain ugliness.

[–] Narwhale37 (713) 4 months ago

Whatever Gramps. Just go back to "da good ol' days" or just die off like the dinosaurs already.

[–] Stratego (29272) 4 months ago

It seems you need a change of diaper.

[–] jacotodd47 (1015) 4 months ago

I hear that - I always hated the "Well when I was young...", "Well in those days......", "Well, we used to....."

If you feel that way you're living in the past. However, I have to say, in this case, I kind of agree with Stratego. I'm not a boomer either, actually a GENX'r. One has a real hard time finding entertaining movies nowadays. I started and stopped probably 100 movies in the last 6 months or so. There were 3 or 4 I finished, but didn't like. I found 4 movies, out of all this viewing, I thought were good. That's it.

I'm certainly not going to start with the "Well, back then...." argument, however, in fact, I do think films were better in the past. Particularly the 1970s. Some terrific stuff came out of that decade.

[–] Narwhale37 (713) 4 months ago

Gen X movies were terrible as well.

"Gen X box office":
1)Singular white man fights terrorist in a funny accent #48573726
2)Halloween knock off 4:Part 5
3)"Mysterious" Alien kills humans #9175
4) Children's movie with the theme "Why don't we all just get along" #29463
5)"That had a sequel?" Box office bomb #362740

[–] jacotodd47 (1015) 4 months ago

I think you are speaking only of 1980s movies ("Die Hard", "Friday the 13th", "ALiens" - I don't know the other two)

What I said was films were better in the past. The past for me is the 1970s, 80s, 90s and 2000s.

It's when you get into the 2010s I think movies start to weaken.

ANyway, back to the 80s, not much has aged well out of that decade (the music sounds ridiculous to me now). "Raging Bull" is my fave.

[–] jgm4661 (80) 4 months ago

Agree.This was supposed to be to be one of the best movies of 2023. It was a boring snooze fest It didn't' even really highlight his career. This guy did the score for West Side story.

[–] MrEdofCourse (33) 4 months ago

This movie had some flaws, but there were also moments of brilliance and overall I enjoyed it.

That quote at the beginning sucked.

Do you know who they're quoting? Your definition of art may be different, and that's ok, but this was literally Bernstein's exact definition and becomes a part of the whole movie.

This whole "le older movie filter" is getting annoying fast.

I agree. Even worse this year was Saltburn (also with Carrey Mulligan). Maestro used both aspect ratio and black & white to convey different eras, but at least there was proper composition with Maestro, wherein with Saltburn, while the director wanted to "convey a sense of peeking in", most shots were just making you feel like they would've been much better with a proper wide aspect ratio.

The music wasn't that good

I'd highly recommend not seeing a movie about a person when you don't like the music from that person.

Literally what's the point of this movie? Nothing happened. No one knows who he is

The narrative in this film is choppy at best and definitely one of its biggest flaws. It felt like this move was originally 1.5 hours longer and they cut out the wrong parts to shorten it.

It also feels like they didn't know what this movie was supposed to be... was it a love story that happened to be about Bernstein and his wife, or was it a biopic about Bernstein?

The latter should be complete in of itself and someone not knowing the character at all should be well informed after. That was not only not the case with this movie, but most scenes left us trying to guess where/when/what instead of having things clearly story told to us.

The technical editing was great, but the narrative editing sucked.

Still there was enough to like in this film that I'd give it an 8 out of 10.

[–] TheArgentinian (6457) 4 months ago

You sound stupid.

[–] liscarkat (16565) 4 months ago

"Maestro" was one of the best movies in a long time. Somewhere in the top five, probably number one. IQ-challenged people need not watch.