explain the inexplicable: Bradley Cooper’s A STAR IS BORN feat Lady Gaga

I have seen the trailer for this movie in front of three or four dissimilar films this summer. Among my questions: why does this movie exist? Who is it for? Why does Hollywood still insist that brunettes with prominent noses are “ugly”? Why is the trailer so loud yet so mumbly? Is Lady Gaga still famous? Is middle America crying out for some sort of prestige country music melodrama? Does Sam Elliot have a clause in his contract that he gets to grab someone’s head like that in every movie? Why spend all this money marketing this movie but run a trailer this unintelligible? Is this a true story about Lady Gaga’s real life? How many people wrote this movie? Is this a Christian movie? Was it supposed to have NASCAR in it? If not, why not? How many more times will I have to see this trailer?

all good questions

not even addressing the movie - which surely is going to bomb? although who knows - I'm not sure why I used to like trailers so much as a kid, were they different, because now they are annoying 100% of the time and way too loud

it's not going to bomb

why though

counterpoint: this is going to bomb

It’s not a sci-fi tentpole starring a couple of nobodies - it has country music, Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga and a tragic love story, all things that “everyone likes” - therefore it will not bomb

counterpoint: i fucking hate bradley cooper

he has the cold dead eyes of a killer

He peaked in Wet Hot American Summer, it was all downhill after that

Rocket Raccoon tho

it has country music, Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga and a tragic love story, all things that “everyone likes” - therefore it will not bomb

basically this. also every time they make this movie it does well, so it has precedent going for it at least

where u can’t see his EYES man

it all makes sense

er xp

To explain the inexplicable: quite possibly, 'A Star is Born' has been remade more than any other movie. It is equally likely it has been remade badly more than any other movie. QED.

I expect this movie to "underperform" (the executives will only be able to afford two hookers and enough blow to kill a pony, rather than five hookers and enough blow to kill an elephant).

Re. country music: That's probably an attempt to reach out to Middle America (see the recent spate of explicitly "Christian" movies). Also, for all the hot air about liberal Hollywood, the business side is deeply conservative, especially when they can make money on conservative films. That also explains the remake--why would you take a chance on something new, when you can remake an established property?

Re. Lady Gaga: I'd have thought she peaked, but there is a substantial lead time involved in making a movie. And how many movies have been made featuring pop stars who were off their peaks by the time the movie came out?

Lady “The Rock” Gaga

i can't rememver which one's Bradley Cooper and which one's Gardy Butler.

I can't see a film about country music selling outside the US. Unless it's Lady Gaga is playing Johnny Cash.

.... ignore the "it's" there.. or imagine I'm deems, one of the two.

one deems is enough already thx

tbf the whole world loves country music, we just love it more here

Germans and Scotches love it for a start

Not enough to want to see this film, I'd put money on it.

A film about Jim Reeves or Slim Whitman or George Hamilton IV maybe.

It may be country but it's not Americana, so it might as well be what the alternate world Kris Kristofferson character from the 70s would be doing now anyway.

Modern country is not that popular outside the US.

... forgot the btw there.

dude there's a discussion to be had here but i thought we'd REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED

Hoping for a cameo from Kristofferson playing the Voice of God

and Terence Stamp

Why does Europeans never want to listen to country music?

fwiw my dad was a country musician in the 70s and what meager royalty checks he receives to this day largely come from europe

ok now on topic:

i have no idea what this movie is but it sounds bad

i think it might be ok.

i still want Bradley Cooper to die in a fire but the trailer looks pretty good.

OP the answer to all your questions is YAAASSS

So.... I was an extra in this. Might even be actually visible in it depending on how much non-stage footage from Hollywood Bowl was used. I actually forgot I was because principle filming was done over a year ago.

Damn son!

Did you have to actually experience Bradley Cooper/Lady Gaga performing country music or did you just pretend to experience it?

I just hope they keep one Dorothy Parker line from the first version's screenplay

(it doesn't matter which one)

The '76 A Star is Born, available on Netflix, is a curiosity: Streisand's hairdresser commissioning a script about country rock in which no artist plays rock or country, and, god, the dialogue.

is it worth trying to watch?

Babs wanted Elvis as her leading man!

Streisand's hairdresser

I worked for that guy for one week. Not long enough to get physically assaulted fortunately.

Did you have to actually experience Bradley Cooper/Lady Gaga performing country music or did you just pretend to experience it?

My take on this is that this question should be "did you actually have to experience Bradley Cooper attempt to direct a movie or just pretend to experience it because Cooper was certainly pretending to direct?"

The '76 A Star is Born, available on Netflix, is a curiosity: Streisand's hairdresser commissioning a script about country rock in which no artist plays rock or country, and, god, the dialogue.

Ladies and gentlemen, the 3rd highest grosser of 1976

ET I want all the details

^^^^

Babs wanted Elvis as her leading man!

same tbh

counterpoint: this is going to bomb

― ghost beef (bizarro gazzara), Saturday, 18 August 2018 14:10 (five years ago) bookmarkflaglink

willing to consider the possibilty that i wasn't 100% otm with this

Bradley Cooper's been in Hollywood so long that he can only think in biopic cliches; the last half hour consists of waiting for Carey Mulligan to die so that he can feel guilty about the bisexuality we rarely see.

Bradley Cooper IS Steve McQueen

Danny DeVito IS Bradley Cooper in the Henry Winkler Story

I watched this with my sister last Xmas and the only thing I remember about it is thinking Sam Elliott's entire performance needed subtitles.

it had subtleties u mean

Didn't notice too many of those tbh.

I'm glad that there seem to be Maestro showtimes in Chicago even after it debuts on Netflix.

My possible challops is that the three main performances were all really good and made this worth watching.

who's the third, Snoopy?

(I broke down and watched this on Netflix)

I'm so tired of this kind of film, this approach to narrative.

who's the third, Snoopy?

Star of Screen & Meme, Maya Hawke.

excellent performances, movie was absolutely missing something, felt like it needed another 30 minutes to fill some of this out.

I did think the makeup was extraordinary in this, particularly the aging work they did.

Turning Leonard Bernstein's life into one of thwarted heterosexual misery took some makeup too.

This was such a pretty slodge.

*slog

Very superficial and gives you no sense of why anyone should care about Bernstein.

well that scene in (westminster abbey?) works very well and that's cooper's best bit of acting. he really does convey what is amazing to watch about Bernstein's composing. what it failed at for me was giving any sense of why his wife cared about him (or, also, why she suddenly had no patience for him). It needed more establishment of their relationship for me. The massive time jumps didn't serve the story well.

Ely Cathedral. Bernstein was intense, but always in control and focused. Cooper’s fake conducting has him looking like he’s having some sort of spasm, unconnected to what is actually happening.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8giUJbT9Yg

Lady Gaga didn't do a great job in Maestro tho

Very superficial and gives you no sense of why anyone should care about Bernstein.

Yeah, what made him special or interesting. It's just decreed that he's a genius of some kind.

I know the long Mahler scene is supposed to show us something about his conducting, supposed to sweep us up. But I was unswept. You can't capture that kind of power just by imitation.

the mahler scene and the one scene with koussevitsky were the only ones that try to reckon with his talent and cultural importance at all. the rest of the movie takes it completely for granted, seemingly saying “well of course he’s great, look at how rich and famous he is!”

it’s a pretty looking film, but completely solipsistic. you don’t get the idea that cooper admires bernstein or loves music, just that he loves himself

I don’t think this is a movie about his greatness or his artistry. Yes, it does take that for granted because I don’t think it’s the point of the film. It’s a movie about his relationship with his wife. His talent and celebrity aren’t the focal points - they’re complicating factors in his personal life.

I liked this movie a lot more than others in this thread. I generally hate Bradley Cooper—he seems very full of himself and seems like he’d be the first one to tell you how serious of an artist he is. And i found the PR rollout for this film excruciating. I don’t know if it’s because
I live in LA but every billboard and Instagram ad I see seems designed to campaign for specific awards (“the sound design is astounding!”). It’s all just really distasteful.

But my wife wanted to watch it so we did. And against my own wishes, I was hooked within five minutes and found the whole thing to be pretty outstanding. The costumes, the makeup, the performances, the cinematography, the script. And yes even the sound design! I was practically angry with myself by the end for liking it so much. And I think it’s precisely because
it’s actually a smaller, more domestic film inside the shell of a Great Man narrative. It skips over so much his Wikipedia beats and typical biopic cliches—for instance, the way it elides the fact that the performance in the church was for JFK’s funeral. His embrace of his estranged wife at the end was more important to the scene than the historical significance of the concert.

Their big climactic argument where she accuses him of hiding from his true self—to me, that came off as a real and sharp cut rather than a cliche Oscar Moment, because the film is more about just that—a portrait of a man hiding from his true self—rather than a biography of various great celebrity milestones.

agree with both of those posts

The quality of the sound design, I'll grant.

It’s a movie about his relationship with his wife.

Insomuch as it's about anything, yes. But his relationship with his wife isn't an inherently interesting story imo. And the story it tells of that relationship is telegraphed almost from the start and then driven home thuddingly by flourishes like the scene where she's literally standing in his giant shadow (that scene is the epitome of the need for kill-your-darlings editing — he should have admired it in the editing room and then left it on the floor).

"It's a movie about his relationship with his wife" coupled with Cooper's very transparent need for alms and validation all just adds up to "we want to win both lead acting Oscars for this one" to me

I wanted an entire film of Coop using boyfriend's butt as bongos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldFWvHa4Svg

Yes, the ostensible main point of the movie is the relationship but both characters are ciphers. Also, apparently in real life he wrote Felicia a letter before they married about his attraction to men and need for the occasional boy toy, and she wrote back accepting of it! On the other hand, the movie never makes it clear what sort of arrangement they had.

Coop no doubt thought American Netflix viewers couldn't stand the idea of an open marriage.

But his relationship with his wife isn't an inherently interesting story imo.

I guess we just disagree on this point.

"It's a movie about his relationship with his wife" coupled with Cooper's very transparent need for alms and validation all just adds up to "we want to win both lead acting Oscars for this one" to me

― stephen miller is not your friend (Eric H.), Saturday, December 30, 2023 bookmarkflaglink

I mean, it's that time of year isn't it? I'm willing to be there are other movies out right now that you like that are also transparently aiming for Oscars.

Yes, the ostensible main point of the movie is the relationship but both characters are ciphers. Also, apparently in real life he wrote Felicia a letter before they married about his attraction to men and need for the occasional boy toy, and she wrote back accepting of it! On the other hand, the movie never makes it clear what sort of arrangement they had.

― Expansion to Mackerel (Boring, Maryland), Saturday, December 30, 2023 bookmarkflaglink

I think you just missed it. She knew nearly from the beginning. The scene where they are watching, and then participating, in the On the Town dance number seems pretty clearly to say she sees him in his homoerotic desires. And this was before they married. And after they're married there are numerous scenes where she speaks to him directly about it.

Yeah, it's clear to me the wife knew; the film's Bernstein isn't hiding it from friends, why should he hide it from her? But I still didn't find this bit compelling.

Well I think the relationship wasn’t defined as “she knew but couldn’t accept it” or “She willfully looked the other way” or “ she tried to be tolerant but life is messy and she found herself unhappy about it”

I know she knew in the movie but her motivations remained obscure because her character was so poorly sketched out.

Please compare that with "Night and Day," the Cary Grant movie where he plays Cole Porter.

In the movie he is portrayed as "carrying a torch for" Linda, though some accounts suggest that he wanted the social cover of a marriage blanche, as they used to say.

Sorry blanc or maybe lavender

_"It's a movie about his relationship with his wife" coupled with Cooper's very transparent need for alms and validation all just adds up to "we want to win both lead acting Oscars for this one" to me

― stephen miller is not your friend (Eric H.), Saturday, December 30, 2023 bookmarkflaglink_

I mean, it's that time of year isn't it? I'm willing to be there are other movies out right now that you like that are also transparently aiming for Oscars.

the movie is about their marriage but for some reason it does not do a very good job of letting you inside to understand the push and pull of her attraction. On the one hand it's easy to say 'she knew what she was getting into so why does she have such a hard time with his homosexuality later on', but real relationships are complicated. The problem with the film is that it doesn't really sell that complication. Outside of the very first scenes I don't know that I ever believed she actually loved him. I don't know if this was the case in real life or a fault of the film.

Mulligan doesn't help either. She's supposed to be urbane but she looks stricken. I'm not sure she knew what she was supposed to play.

Blecch. What a shit script on this...

Hey, don’t blame me, I didn’t write it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW9Lfs-Fxmo