#montealegre

[admireforever]

Maestro

[junkyarddemento]

ALIEN: MONDAY

Sit down and watch this. If you love the Alien franchise, or animation, or anime in general, you'll really enjoy this ambitious and superbly made film by Paul Johnson and Claudia "Maki" Montealegre. Created over the course of 6 years.... let me state that again: 6 years... this is truly a love letter to the Ridley Scott's scifi franchise. With the soon-to-be release of ALIEN: ROMULUS, this is the perfect watch to get you ready to see more chestburster and xenomorphs!

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Leonard Bernstein, music director of the New York Philharmonic, rehearses the orchestra in Arthur Honneger's Joan of Arc at the Stake in Carnegie Hall, April 22, 1958. The Chilean-born actress Felicia Montealegre is the narrator, Joan. Montealegre was then Mrs. Bernstein.

Photo: Associated Press

[fangerine]

"All anyone needs is to be sensitive to each other."

MAESTRO (2023) dir. Bradley Cooper

[you-belong-among-wildflowers]

Films Watched in 2024 [1/?]

↳ "I have one or two saving factors. One is it that I love people, and I love music. I love music so much it keeps me glued to life even when I’m most depressed. And I can get very deeply depressed. But I have a work ethic and that keeps me afloat. And the other is that I love people so much that it’s hard for me to be alone."

- Maestro (d. Bradley Cooper, 2023

[justanothercinemaniac]

I don’t see people talking about the whitewashing in Maestro so I will.

Maestro is a movie about Leonard Bernstein, an iconic film composer who was also Jewish. It’s been criticized for casting Bradley Cooper (who is not Jewish) as Bernstein and wearing a fake nose to play the part (which some have referred to as “jew-face”). Bradley Cooper also directs the movie, but there’s been a lot of discussion about him. I’m here to talk about Carey Mulligan.

Felicia Montealegre was a Latina actress (Costa Rican) who married Leonard Bernstein. But instead of casting a Latina actress to play a real life Latina, they cast Carey Mulligan. AND NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT IT.

I don’t know what else to say about this except what the hell? What year is it? Are we still doing this? You have a million incredibly talented Latinas in Hollywood, but you decide to whitewash a real life film icon instead??? And instead of talking about how shitty that is, you reward that racism with praise and a Golden Globe nomination? Why are we still doing this in 2023???????

Not to mention the real Montealegre was only 4 years younger than Bernstein but Mulligan is 10 years younger than Bradley Cooper, continuing the misogynistic/ageist Hollywood trend seen in Oppenheimer and Napoleon of portraying real life women as way younger than they really were.

Anyways, representation matters, latine representation matters, and fuck whitewashing.

[dialogue-queered]

“The American poet Wallace Stevens suggested there were 13 ways of looking at a blackbird but with Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) that barely scrapes the surface. He was conductor, composer, pianist, writer of popular musicals, educator and celebrity. One might devote entire volumes to his identity as a Jew, a homosexual, or a political activist….Like so many creative giants he is clearly bipolar, subject to crushing depressions, bouts of self-hatred and sadness When the pendulum swings the other way, he becomes a social and artistic juggernaut overpowering everything in his path. While Bernstein was clearly homosexual, we can’t dismiss his marriage to Felicia as a cover story…[Nonetheless]….Cooper and his co-writer, Josh singer with help from cinematographer Matthew Libatique have chosen to view their subject through the lense of his sexual proclivities….Instead of seeing Bernstein as a great man or an artistic genius, we take these things for granted and look at the ferment beneath the carapace of fame….A great part of the bond between Felicia and Lenny is her belief in his talent….Apart from the concert sequences, the music is all by Bernstein, so we are subliminally absorbing his creative efforts while we watch the whirlwind of his life play itself out. Maestro’s patchwork narrative will polarise audiences, but…this restless montage…so perfectly echoes the personality of its subject”.

Source: John MacDonald (2023), ‘Maestro Is a Masterwork’, Australian Financial Review Weekend, 16-17 December, p39 (originally from the Washington Post).

[roysexton]

A Tale of Two Closets: Maestro and Fellow Travelers

Gay film and television drama always includes suffering. A lot of suffering. We in the LGBTQIA+ community don’t get a lot of Julia Roberts/Hugh Grant frothy rom coms. Hell, we don’t get any Marvel epics, Disney fables, sci-fi adventures, or even glitzy musicals of our own. C’est la vie. But sometimes in the suffering, Hollywood gets it right. That is indubitably the case with…

[alyensmemoir]

Maestro (2023)

[higherentity]

[admireforever]

Maestro

[costumedump]

Costume For Carey Mulligan As Felicia Montealegre

Maestro

Designed By Mark Bridges

Art Of Motion Picture Costume Design (2024)

ASU FIDM

[comediesmusicales]

Official teaser for the Leonard Bernstein Netflix biopic.

[submersivemedia]

Imagine getting to direct an actor who needs no notes.