Maestro (2023) - Movie Review

Bradley Cooper is one of my favourite people working in Hollywood right now. As an actor, he just got done completing the heartbreaking character arc of a talking raccoon and solidifying him as one of the greatest modern superheroes with Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3. As a producer, he backed another whopper of a comic book flick with Joker, a film I still hold in rather high regard and am beyond curious to see what in the hell the sequel is going to shape into. And as a director, his debut with A Star Is Born was a monster hit when it came out, and one of my faves from that year. The man just keeps making power moves, and always with this unmistakable confidence that, no matter what direction he takes, it’s the right one for him.

It's the kind of quality that makes him helming a film like this (or, more specifically, why Steven Spielberg would emphatically insist that he helm it) make total sense, and something of a necessity in order to do it right. While I freely admit that I don’t know all that much about Leonard Bernstein, the legend around his name carries a lot of weight, and with the take that’s being attempted here, there’s a incredibly high degree of difficulty in making it work.

West Side Story (2021) - Movie Review

The 1961 film adaptation of West Side Story is widely considered to be one of the greatest films of all time, let alone musical films. And while I definitely get everything that makes it so memorable (the choreography, the music, the reworking of classic Shakespeare), I wouldn’t say it’s among my favourite musical films out there. Sure, that could just be because I’m so accustomed to how much it’s influenced pop culture since its release that I’m not able to appreciate it as much on its own terms, but in my own defense, both the film and the original stage musical feel like dry runs for things that the creatives involved would end up perfecting later on.

As a grand big-screen musical directed by Robert Wise, it’s good… but it’s no Sound Of Music. As a musical with lyrics from theatre extraordinaire Stephen Sondheim (who tragically passed away earlier this year), it’s good… but it’s no Sweeney Todd or Into The Woods.

So, yeah, I’m already a little bit lukewarm on the original production as is… but I’ll be honest, I can at least understand why someone would try and remake the film today. As much as I can sympathise with how the Hays code really did a number on a lot of productions at the time through executive meddling and general BS to do with non-white romantic leads, having a film all about conflict between different racial cultures, while half of the cast is in full brownface, makes it difficult for that intent to ring through.

As such, remaking it at a time when… well, I won’t say that colorism is no longer a thing within the industry (and not just in Hollywood either), but at least when filmmakers are under less pressure to pull heavy makeup tactics, could help revive it for a new generation. Hell, even though Steven Spielberg somehow hasn’t made a musical before this, he’s done pretty much everything else under the sun, so he’s as good a choice as any to give it a crack. And it’s an attempt that seems to have worked out for the better, as it manages to keep everything that makes the original musical what it is, but with just enough modernisation to help translate it into a post-millennium film market.