I never thought I’d write about political pundit Megan McCain, but here we are, the industry is vastly shut down until next week and this is a rather amusing story.
The 39-year-old McCain is very angry at director-star Bradley Cooper. Why? She watched “Maestro” last night and hated it, so McCain decided to go on X to slam the film as difficult to sit through.
"Watched Maestro last night and….I could barely get through it. I’m frustrated I wasted what little free time I have open at night (with 2 young kids) watching it," the conservative pundit tweeted Wednesday, taking aim at Hollywood's annual awards offerings at 7:51 a.m. "Why are so many Oscar buzz movies like this so disappointing? Who are these movies for?"
Surprisingly, the replies to her tweet were filled with others agreeing that the movie felt tedious, though others did push back against her sentiments. “Maestro,” despite its lacklustre viewing numbers on Netflix, is definitely polarizing plenty of people.
With over 450 top ten lists counted,“Maestro” is the 20th most acclaimed film of 2023. It has its fans. Some folks, like Time’s Stephanie Zacharek and Variety’s Owen Gleiberman, are willing to die on a hill for Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein biopic.
There’s also been a lot of hate directed at Cooper these last few weeks … “Maestro” is supposed to contend for a slew of Oscars, including in the Picture, Actor, Actress and, possibly, Director category. However, it seems as though audiences are rebelling against Cooper’s arthouse biopic.
I’ve already tackled the lacklustre audience response for “Maestro.” Outside of film critic circles, the reactions to Cooper’s film have been rather blah. It currently has a 6.8 on IMDb, 73% audience rating on RT and tepid 3.3 score on Letterboxd.