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I'm a bit torn on this. I wouldn't say it's a bad movie necessarily (though its, uh, "foreshadowing" is the farthest thing from subtle throughout, and screams first time director), despite being something that should be right up my alley, this movie really didn't do anything for me at all. And I know it's not a straight up traditional musical musical, but even so, I couldn't help but find my mind wandering anytime a number was underway, so it really wasn't even the catchiest or most engaging film in the genre. Also, it's entirely too long, and runs out of steam by about the third or fourth time Bradley Cooper's character overdoes it on the drugs and booze and does something bad. The performances and the chemistry between the actors were damn great all around however, so I give the film credit in that regard at least. But other than that, I dunno, this really didn't work for me. Unsure whether to go yay or nay at the moment. :\
That shot in particular is something pundits are going to lose their mind over this award season for a myriad of reasons.
Anyway, the story's grounding in contemporary reality works for most of the film's duration, but the melodrama sticks out like a sore thumb when it doesn't. It also does have more focus on Cooper's character almost to the point of self-indulgence, but as a director, his passion for music and everything that goes on behind the scenes shows in every frame through the gorgeous cinematography and authentic sound design. The captivating lead performances from him and Lady Gaga, as well as the stellar soundtrack also make this stand out on its own as a unique version of a tale as told as time, and a good directorial debut for Cooper, warts and all.
Also, this is worth seeing in Dolby Atmos, in my opinion. This was the first movie I saw in that format and once it started, I felt like I was in the very arena in which Cooper's band was about to perform.
I definitely expect Film Twitter to hate this come January, though.
This was very impressive for a big studio weepy. Nicely shot, outstanding music moments- Cooper's direction is very tight, and his performance is solid. Gaga's persona never seeps into her role on screen and I find that fascinating. She really strips away everything you know about her to appear only as this young naive singer- you see it in the very first scene she has a conversation one on one with Jackson. She's nervous, guarded yet intrigued by the moment with this rock star- the confidence grows as the picture progresses but she's still that young woman who hasn't been hardened by the industry that is affecting her lover. The whole cast overall is pretty great. Sam Elliot was probably my favorite side player, never wasting a moment when he faces off with Cooper.
I'll give it a yay, but this was less than I was hoping for. The best stuff happens early with the two of them meeting and discovering each other. Ally's viral moment is magical, but it's also been largely spoiled by the film's trailer. Once Ally becomes famous, the film bounces along a disappointingly shallow course. The exploration of fame and addiction lacks the kind of specificity and profundity that might have made these characters feel entirely alive. I found myself thinking more about Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga as people attempting to craft Oscar moments than I did thinking about Jack and Ally and the course of their trajectories. Lady Gaga is the film's greatest asset, but she is, in a sense, also its limiting factor. After all, how much investment can we have is watching someone who is already an enormous star achieve stardom? When she makes it, it doesn't feel like she's on a thrilling, bumpy ride into the stratosphere. It feels like she's settling in comfortably into the place where we expect her to be.
Dunno which shot you mean, but the shot with the [] is probably one of the toughest I'm gonna see this year.
This movie has moved me quite a bit even if character arcs could have been more convincing. Great observation by Spinal when he says that Ally's rise to stardom felt unearned - or a bit too easy - because of the person who was playing her. Still, should we hold that against the movie or is that our own preconceptions getting in the way? I mean, Lady Gaga was really good, which isn't a phrase I ever pictured myself writing in the last couple of months, let alone in this lifetime. She's so good in fact that calling her Lady Gaga is just weird. She's got an actual name you know. It's Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, which I grant you is a helluva mouthful, but it seems more fitting now that she's established herself as a legitimate actress. I'm rooting for Bradley come Oscar night. I read he sang his own songs, that's just fantastic.
And I know for a fact it is no coincidence that Greg Grunberg and Ron Rifkin are in this. Shit like that makes me geek out a little bit.
I was actually referring to []
I expect Twitter to say a combination of, 'Why did Cooper choose to keep that in the film?' and 'Wow, talk about on-the-nose foreshadowing,' among other, more irrational things.
63/100
It's fine. The first half is much better than the second; the former is much more relaxed and lived in, allowing the performers to bounce off each other, the latter just feels like a dutiful slog through the old story to reach a predetermined outcome. I would have like to have it been more about a decent man trying desperately not to let jealousy and a declining career get the better of him, rather than the inconsistent alcoholism angle (it's a disease! No, it's all his own fault!). Cooper's direction is sturdy, though there are elements of a lack of experience here and there (the final cut at the end happens way too late, for example, and the last shot is pure film ending cliche). Still, the music is good, and the cast is committed and at points it hums along with purpose.
Perhaps too shaggy and depressing for me to be completely in love with it, but this is a much better debut film than you would ever expect from Bradley Cooper. There's a drunken naturalism that harks back to John Cassavetes' films. The form matches Jackson Maine's inebriated state with hand-held (but often quite beautiful; praise to Aronofsky's DP Matthew Libatique) camerawork and editing meant to juice tank your sense of space and time.
Mostly this lives or dies on the chemistry between Bradley Cooper and Gaga, which is here in spades. Cooper -unsurprisingly since he's an actor- gets really strong performances out of Sam Elliott, Dave Chappelle, and (no kidding) Andrew Dice Clay.
Without making any value judgements about their respective methods, there's a fundamental difference between Cassavetes' approach to narrative construction and exposition and Cooper's, which is essentially classical. One never has the sense here that one has in Cassavetes films of simply being dropped into a scene and having to try to figure out what's happening, how the characters are related to one another, and how the scene relates to everything that's come before (e.g., the scene in Husbands of the three men berating a female singer). Whether Cooper went to the Actors Studio or some scenes were partially improvised is irrelevant to the final result.
a) there's plenty of drunken discombobulation going on in this version of A Star Is Born, formally brought on by both camerawork and editing and b) I don't think Cassavetes is nearly as radical as you are making him out to be. Faces and A Woman Under the Influence in particular were fairly well seen within what today would be called indie film audience circles. They were both nominated for Academy Awards. I've never been lost watching any of his films. I also think both Cooper and Cassavetes are uninterested in exposition and plot mechanics.
a) The characters may have been discombobulated (and perhaps the camera as well at times, although I can't think of any examples now), but as a viewer, I never felt that way.
b) Popularity doesn't preclude radical formal procedures. Ozu and Tati are two obvious examples, and while one could argue that Cassavetes isn't quite as radical as those filmmakers, his films begin from a philosophical position antithetical to that expressed in A Star Is Born: Whereas Cooper's film is about staying true to yourself, which implies that everyone has some immutable essence, Cassavetes' characters are in a state of perpetual becoming. (Incidentally, both Faces and A Woman Under the Influence were self-distributed by Cassavetes' own company because no distributor wanted to handle them.)
That doesn't mean anything. It took forever for The Hurt Locker to find a distributer and it wound-up winning Best Picture.
I saw Steven Soderbergh at SFIFF and he told a story about seeing Memento in the early 00s and how no one wanted to distribute it. He mentioned he was going to quit filmmaking if no one distributed it because it would mean independent film was truly dead. I wonder whatever happened to the director of Memento?
Let me just say that the first hour of this movie I was pretty convinced this could've been "favourite of the year" stuff for me, and I still hold the movie in generally high regard because of it being able to give me that portion of it, but yeah, it definitely begins to feel like it's straying from the path of greatness somewhere after that.
Perhaps it's when the movie speeds along the initial tour (and as a result, their relationship) in quick montage mode, or it's also more possible that it's when the somewhat distracting meta-ness of Ally's very Gaga-like ascent takes over the narrative of the relationship between her and Jack that it starts to feel more about real-life parallels than the world they're creating. And I realize in basic narrative terms her becoming the pop star is an intended strain on them, but I was just left mostly thinking about if Gaga was finding a way in code to comment on how she hates songs like "Love Game" and others from her debut The Fame, despite what they may have done for her. (But for the record, "Paparazzi" still owns.)
Otherwise I think it may be more to-the-point if I just share which moments got me so good that I gleefully shed tears:
[]
So anyway, I think it's mostly pretty excellent, but not entirely. Though for when it is, it's a extremely endearing and engaging cinematic time that I'd have trouble not recommending to anyone because of those strongest stretches.
As I mentioned earlier, that cut you mention in the spoiler happens too late in the sequence I think. Cooper hasn't quite found the rhythm yet of an expert director, but he gives it a good try. The very last shot is just lazy cliche though.
(Also, the guy who plays the manager is a terrible actor.)
Isn't there two flashback cuts? One of him working the song out solo on guitar and then the one with the two of them on piano? I think it would be more affecting with just the one flashback cut of the two of them at the piano.
And yeah, I think the 'staring into the camera before a hard cut to black' is the Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah" of film endings; something that used to be heartfelt and unique becomes shorthand for "this is how a bunch of other movies ended, so let's do that."
Ah right, after the latter one I didn't even remember that they may have cut to another string of flashback visuals earlier as you continue to hear her sing. But yeah, that second one where the bombast cuts out and it's suddenly just them quietly on the piano with him playing it for her for the first time was the one that I was referring to that joyously wrecked me.
Pretty much haha.. Even when The Revenant did it a few years back I thought "Ennnhh why do this?"
I'd argue it works more in a film that literally wants to turn to the audience to confront them in some way, but I'm not even sure if this film is doing that, or what it intends to mean by the gesture at all.