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02/09/06
Maestro (2005)
38 %
Reviews Counted: 16 Fresh: 6 Rotten:10 Average Rating: 4.7/10
Runtime: 3 hrs 43 mins
Synopsis: MAESTRO is a feature film documentary, 4 years in the making. It tells the story of how a group of people found refuge and a call for life outside the mainstream. What evolved was a scene that set the groundwork for what was to come in dance music culture worldwide, a rare insight into the secret... [More]
Genre: Musical & Performing Arts
Starring: Larry Levan, David Mancuso, Frankie Knuckles, Nicky Siano
Director: Josell Ramos
Reviews
1 - 17 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Top Critic Top Critic
Ramos is the most exasperating sort of scenester — the guy who keeps telling you how great something is but lacks the skills and inclination to tell you exactly why
07/28/05
Maestro traces the roots of today's global dance-music culture with a passion, knowledge and insight that is as infectious as the music itself.
07/06/05
Top Critic
Ramos appears not to have learned the cardinal rule of documentary filmmaking: Assume that your audience knows nothing about your subject and needs to be cajoled into caring.
05/28/04
Most of the screen-time is taken up with people remembering how 'amazing' this event, that place or that person was, debating who was 'the first.' But there's precious little here by way of demonstration.
05/28/04
Clearly, Maestro is for people already aware of this history. For everyone else, this is pretty much invitation-only.
05/07/04
Maps an evocative history of the underground dance music culture of the '70s and '80s.
03/22/04
Top Critic Top Critic
Anybody involved in the underground scene might get a kick out of Maestro -- but others will likely be bored stiff.
03/12/04
A much-needed celebration of an important era in which subcultures connected and sometimes clashed, and what the DJs were spinning had the power to change lives.
03/12/04
A passionate but messy home movie that looks back at the multicultural, mostly gay underground dance movement in New York that coalesced in the early 1970's.
03/11/04
Top Critic
Ramos says he was after a raw, underground ambience, but the result is less authentic than amateurish.
03/09/04
With its stylish mix of interviews and superb vintage footage of Levan on form, Maestro is a rapturous yet inevitably tragic vision of Paradise (Garage) Lost.
02/11/04
1 - 17 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Related Forums
maestro gets four stars!!
by: filmcritic101 2/16/04
by: filmcritic101 2/16/04
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