Knee deep in a Maestro takedown before I even knew it

The coverage of prestige end-of-year releases and my access to watch them has been way out of sync this year, such that I've left several episodes of my favorite movie podcast, Filmspotting, unplayed. Usually in this situation I try to "listen loosely," letting the words go by in order to get to the parts of the podcast that don't relate to the movie in question, without really taking in what's being said. But this failed so stupendously when I tried to do this for Anatomy of a Fall -- one of those movies that may slip by me after I missed seeing it at MIFF -- that I gave up the endeavor entirely for the next few that were up.

It's not necessarily that I think the two opinions on these movies will either alter my anticipation of the movies, letting me know in advance whether I should actually be looking forward to them, or even that they will spoil the movie, since Filmspotting in particular takes care to advise us if they are going into spoiler territory -- usually handling such material in its own separate segment at the end of the show. It's that I will potentially be reviewing many of these movies and I don't want them putting ideas into my head about what I might say.

Maestro seemed likely to escape this fate, as it doesn't appear as a discussion topic in any of the waiting Filmspotting podcasts, and releases on Netflix on Wednesday I believe. A good chance for me to pop up a review next week, at a time of year when I'm generally too busy to get out to the theater with any regularity and I need something I can watch at home, my opinions unmolested by outside influence.

Imagine my surprise when another favorite podcast, A Typical Disgusting Display, hit me right up front with a surprise broadside of Bradley Cooper's new movie. 

The podcast bills itself as "a podcast for writers, by writers who hate writing," and true enough, the two co-hosts, Alec Sulkin and Julius Sharpe, are Family Guy writers and former or current showrunners. (I also went to high school with Julius, though that's his stage name.) They do sometimes talk about movies, but they're more likely to talk about something that's been in the culture for years, sometimes giving humorous re-appraisals of the plot's core components.

Alec likes to joke about his big nose (as Julius likes to joke about being bald), so his point of entry was faux outrage about the fake nose Cooper dons to play Leonard Bernstein. But then he proceeded to just rip the movie to shreds, using observations I can now no longer make in my own review. 

I thought of turning it off, but it was into the deep end of the diss so quickly that it hardly seemed worth it at that point. (And his rant was funny.)

It puts me in mind of an issue I'm sure I've discussed here before, which is how to remain unbiased in the wake of a cultural conversation that crops up almost immediately about these entertainment products as they are released. And unfortunately, Maestro is already out for its brief theatrical run, which means I'm not really getting it at its first availability to me if I wait until Netflix to see it.

I guess it's another reminder of how real critics -- I mean, those who write reviews as part of their paid full-time job -- get to the first pre-release screenings, before anyone knows what we will all think about the movie once it comes out. I do sometimes go to these -- I've already seen Ferrari, and I don't think that comes out in any country for a few weeks -- but most of the rest of the time, it's catch as catch can.

I will still review Maestro, I think, but there's no doubt the words of a funny podcaster will be ringing in my ears as I do.