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

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

I wish I had some juicy details. I don't make a career out of doing extra work, but I've done it enough times to get a sense of what's going on and what the mood of the set is like. TV productions are race car pit crews - they've all been working together for years, the director is a known quantity, the cast's roles are defined, and for the most part everyone knows what to do. The movie shoots I've worked on (almost all non-indie because you get paid and the food is great) weren't terribly different. Bigger crew, longer shoot, occasional luxury to dwell on one scene to explore different takes if you're ahead of schedule, nevertheless if it's organized there's some sense that there's a "there" out there for everyone to row towards together.

None of this was apparent on the ASIB set. The below-the-line crew were great and fun to talk with because absolutely nothing was happening. "What's going on? I don't know..." was the call and response I heard everywhere - on the walkie-talkies, among the crew, the extras, the stand-ins, everywhere. Coachella, the Hollywood Bowl, and the Shrine Auditorium are all rented out, several hundred crew members, hundreds more out in the crowd, and the band onstage are all patiently waiting. A LOT of money is being spent.

Cooper would come out, strum a guitar for a couple of lines, then remember he was the director and that he needed to assert himself as one. Hey AD & DP, can we get different angle from stage right? OK, We'll have to move the crowd, re-do the lighting, move the camera dollies to the other side - it'll take at least a hour of time and money to do this. BTW it's 9 in the evening and everyone has been here since 7am. Repeat this with every scene.

I don't really have an opinion on the guy other than he seemed to be in way over his head and that he was very appreciative and gracious to everyone regardless of who they were. That last bit goes a long way with me but if a good movie comes out of this it'll be in post.

Worth noting that there was an absolute electric change in on set energy whenever Gaga was around and unlike Cooper, sang live instead of miming along to a backing tape. Hopefully those live takes will make it into the movie.

heck that's pretty juicy as is imo

quite possibly, 'A Star is Born' has been remade more than any other movie

if you count things that started as books or stories, it's not even in sight of the running

if you count film-original stories, it's tied with King Kong at three non-sequel remakes, but Night Of The Living Dead is at six remakes and two in post.

if you count films that retell a story from different perspectives repeatedly but don't keep using the title of the original, Rashomon is probably way up there

lol

there’s no such thing as casual conversation with you, is there

sometimes I think these things are fun to follow through.

half the people on my wall who whined about it being remade didn't know the Streisand one wasn't the original.

(I didn’t know how many non-sequel Living Deads there were, just that there was some weirdness around the copyright which means nobody owns it. I definitely can’t think of another original-to-film story that’s been remade three times under the same title, and am delighted that Aimless has put the likelihood in the back of my mind for the future.)

<3

it's tied with King Kong at three non-sequel remakes,

There's the Dino De Laurentiis one from 1976, the Peter Jackson one, and???

Also, one can make a pretty good argument that the first A Star Is Born from 1937 is itself a remake of the 1932 film What Price Hollywood?

Victor/Victoria also ties for second with three remakes.

Crazy Heart made a bunch of money and won awards and that didn't have anyone as pretty as Gaga or Cooper.

There's the Dino De Laurentiis one from 1976, the Peter Jackson one, and???

Kong: Skull Island from last year

if you count things that started as books or stories...

Displaying 159 results for "the three musketeers"
https://www.imdb.com/find?q=the%20three%20musketeers&s=tt&ref_=fn_al_tt_mr

uh, The Bible, guys

Kong: Skull Island from last year

I'm going to disagree on this one - if we're going to include this one then we should include the Toho Kong vs. Godzilla movies.

I expect ben hur numbers

Why does the trailer emphasize that bcoop directed it? How is that a selling point?

people generally don't know who directors are

it's a selling point

it's a PASSION PROJECT through and through

Cooper's best acting might just be the PR campaign how he wanted to direct, passion project, blah blah.

famous-actor-directs-film is almost always a marketing point

if we're going to include this one then we should include the Toho Kong vs. Godzilla movies.

nah*, there are sequels to the 1933 and 1976 Kongs that also don't count. but Kong: Skull Island is a remake of King Kong that just doesn't have the New York bit.


*although the plot summary for useless moderator King Kong vs Godzilla does make me suspect that that one might be close enough. (I've only seen the 1933 and Skull Island.)

lmao talkhouse broke embargo, no idea who the reviewer is

And we are off to the races. pic.twitter.com/PTZ9IFNnqm

— Sean Fennessey (@SeanFennessey) August 27, 2018

well, i'm convinced

gonna hedge my bets and say this won't be the most impressive directorial debut by an actor since Night of The Hunter

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