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Post by The Rocketmen on Feb 19, 2019 10:17:25 GMT -5
In continuing the path toward the Best Picture nominees, we will discuss A Star is Born. #3 A STAR IS BORN Plot: A musician helps a young singer find fame, even as age and alcoholism send his own career into a downward spiral. IMDB Rating: 7.9/10 Rotten Tomatoes: Critics = 90% / Audience = 80% THINGS TO CONSIDER:These questions should help you think of and dissect the film you've seen. Try using some of these questions to help you participate in giving your assessment of the film and frame your opinion. 1. How did the film make you feel? 2. Did it exceed or fail to meet your expectations? 3. Were you immersed in the world the film created? 4. Did the film accomplish what it set out to do? 5. What does the film say about the world we live in? 6. What appeal do you think the film will have for audiences? 7. What are the film's strengths? 8. What are the film’s weaknesses? 9. How does the film differentiate or distinguish itself from other work? Any additional thoughts? What would you score the film out of 10? Anything you want to ask the other viewers of this film? WARNING - EVERYTHING BELOW THIS POST WILL CONSIST OF SPOILERS |
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Post by The Rocketmen on Feb 19, 2019 11:54:07 GMT -5
1. How did the film make you feel?
At first, I thought it was fun. Then I started to think that wasn't Bradley Cooper's real voice and he had a voice over, and then I kept listening too hard to the audio to hear a dub. Then I liked Lady Gaga's character, but got confused when she punched someone for no real reason and then spent the rest of the movie being a caring person. Very odd.
I feel like I watched 3 different movies, and 2 of them were bad.
2. Did it exceed or fail to meet your expectations?
Failed. Brutally. Another movie I went into wanting to like, expecting that I would because of the buzz around it, and then wondered what the fuck I was watching. This film had absolutely nothing new to say. The music was bad. Gaga's character was confusing and strange, and yet she carried the movie. Bradley Cooper looked like he was imitating someone else's performance, and I kept going "is he trying to be Kris Kristofferson or is this a weird coincidence because I know Kris did this role before?"
3. Were you immersed in the world the film created?
I think so. Everything in Gaga's house with Andrew Dice Clay and all those great actors - I wanted to watch the movie about them more than I did about a drunk musician (oh no really? Musicians are drunk and drug addicts? I had no fucking idea!) and a girl who tries to pick him back up.
I saw a better version of this movie about a hundred times, but Walk the Line was what this movie tried to be. Despite the fact this movie was remade 4 fucking times.
4. Did the film accomplish what it set out to do?
I don't know what this movie was trying to do. It didn't say anything I haven't heard a million times before, and I feel like it was a vehicle wasted on what was actually a pretty solid performance by Gaga - even though her character was 180 degrees different from the first 30 minutes to the last 2 hours.
5. What does the film say about the world we live in?
That musicians are drunks, and dad's mostly care about their daughter's, and that only a country singer can see someone's talent beyond their absolutely average looking nose.
6. What appeal do you think the film will have for audiences?
Lady Gaga fans will love it. Anyone that has ever played or enjoyed music should look at it as another cliché cotton candy movie. All fluff. Sam Elliot voice fans will also like it.
7. What are the film's strengths?
The first 25 minutes.
8. What are the film’s weaknesses?
Everything else.
9. How does the film differentiate or distinguish itself from other work?
Here's a guy who drinks too much, his dad was a drunk so he tried to kill himself as a kid and failed. So he becomes a drunk, destroys his relationship with his brother. Then meets a girl, drinks and drugs up more, ruins that relationship, embarrasses himself on stage and her in front of viewers and shit, then rehabs a bit, is told "you're a drunk that can ruin her career" goes "yep" and kills himself. But he wrote a song once, so I guess that's cool?
Any additional thoughts?
I don't know why this movie was made in 2019. I feel like everything it tried to say has already been said a million times, and it's the 4th time this film was made. Ridiculous.
What would you score the film out of 10?
2/10 - saved only by Gaga from a 0.
Anything you want to ask the other viewers of this film?
If you liked this, just, why? What about this movie is new? What have you not seen before (and better)?
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Post by The Sandmen on Feb 20, 2019 0:02:47 GMT -5
I feel like people keep getting caught up on this whole "It was remade 4 times" thing. As though we have not seen at least 5 different Batmen, 4 different Spider-men, etc.
I have not seen other various of this film, but if you think what you saw was the same experience as someone watching the Judy Garland film...I donno what to tell ya.
I thought this was fine. Just fine. No more, no less. It was watchable, a tiny bit long, but not as superfluously long as the average Marvel movie.
Gaga is good, but she is playing herself basically, so there's that. Cooper is good. Sam Elliot is always boss.
Overall, it was a fuck load better than La La Land.
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Post by Lord Byron's Conquistadors on Feb 20, 2019 2:50:11 GMT -5
not the biggest Bradley cooper fan most of the time but he was hot in this movie. music was good. also wtf is this trashin la la land sandmen??? that was a good movie. ryan gosling and emma stone are always the best
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Post by The Rocketmen on Feb 20, 2019 7:31:46 GMT -5
I feel like people keep getting caught up on this whole "It was remade 4 times" thing. As though we have not seen at least 5 different Batmen, 4 different Spider-men, etc. I have not seen other various of this film, but if you think what you saw was the same experience as someone watching the Judy Garland film...I donno what to tell ya. I thought this was fine. Just fine. No more, no less. It was watchable, a tiny bit long, but not as superfluously long as the average Marvel movie. Gaga is good, but she is playing herself basically, so there's that. Cooper is good. Sam Elliot is always boss. Overall, it was a fuck load better than La La Land. I can't believe I'm saying this... La La Land was a much, much better movie. La La Land was more honest to music than this movie was. |
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Post by The Sandmen on Feb 20, 2019 8:35:58 GMT -5
***La La Land Spoilers***
If you could turn your brain off for La La Land, but not A Star is Born, that seems like viewer-error, and nothing to do with the movies. La La Land is objectively pointless, with a far more pointless journey than A Star is Born. Granted, the "stories" in A Star is Born are probably more overused to high hell than La La Land, but that is because La La Land was not about anything. And anything it was about had to do with egotistical people who were unlikable. At least A Star is Born doesn't involve people dragging their spouses to go eye-fuck their ex-lovers who taught them everything there was to know about a shitty, meaningless, culturally-appropriated form of music.
Plus, Sam Elliot.
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Post by The Rocketmen on Feb 20, 2019 8:59:33 GMT -5
***La La Land Spoilers***If you could turn your brain off for La La Land, but not A Star is Born, that seems like viewer-error, and nothing to do with the movies. La La Land is objectively pointless, with a far more pointless journey than A Star is Born. Granted, the "stories" in A Star is Born are probably more overused to high hell than La La Land, but that is because La La Land was not about anything. And anything it was about had to do with egotistical people who were unlikable. At least A Star is Born doesn't involve people dragging their spouses to go eye-fuck their ex-lovers who taught them everything there was to know about a shitty, meaningless, culturally-appropriated form of music. Plus, Sam Elliot. La La Land actually had the idea to try and entertain it's audience. The dance scene in the Observatory alone is better than every single thing in A Star is Born. The most honest scene in A Star is Born happens in the first 2 minutes of the movie, and then crashes and burns. When Cooper is drunkenly fucking up the easiest guitar solo on the planet, that is the only time I felt like his character was authentic. The rest was an imitation of a country-rock singer who is drunk. Hell, even his own character admits that his character is trying to imitate Sam Elliott. Sam Elliott is the only thing worth listening to in A Star is Born. Gaga played herself, as you said, and the story about a drunk musician who is drunk is so fucking overdone that I am embarrassed it is even considered for any award at all. It's a further stereotype that all musicians will eventually do drugs, alcohol and then kill themselves because they were told they were a drunken drug addict. It's ridiculous. La La Land, on the other hand, has a white guy who is obsessed, completely obsessed with Jazz music. A relationship that should never have happened. And it ended the right way. It's not a good movie. But here is where I disagree with you. You're getting too caught up with me saying the story has been done over and over, but then you instantly downgrade a music genre to "shitty, meaningless, culturally-appropriated". Ok. If you google best white jazz artists of all time, you know what you find? No one. But that doesn't mean there aren't jazz players who aren't black. In this movie, you have a white guy who is in love with jazz and trying to make it big. You hear of his story - he's good, but he's an asshole - completely accurate. And who tells him this? A black guy in a black band trying to find new innovative ways to explore jazz to an updated audience that is pop-music obsessed. Just this story alone is more interesting and honest to the world of music than A Star is Born. If A Star is Born was a period piece from the 80s, I would respect it, still would've found it cliché'd, but I would have at least respected that time and place for drugs and alcohol. I can't respect this story-telling theme from 2019. La La Land has a theme of old-school Hollywood, but set in modern day and that is why the music trying to drive itself forward in genre-bending Jazz-pop form is progressive. And in the end, he settles for a small club to play his style of Jazz, while the progressive dude seemingly presses onward, hopefully with a less asshole-ish player who actually wants to find some mainstream appeal with jazz influences. How anyone can find Bradley Cooper's character to be anything but utterly hateable is beyond me. Charismatic guy who can't get around a bottle if he tried. Does drugs. Becomes an annoying whiner, does more drugs, falls in a bush, gets up, gets married on the spot for some reason, does more drugs, becomes a complete asshole, starts to drag his wife down, treats his wife like shit, is jealous of her every move, is obsessed with her appearance pretty much at all times (she changes one thing and he basically accuses her of selling out). And then he goes to rehab, becomes a sad puppy, is told "you were an asshole and a liability because you're an alcoholic" and his response to this is to cowardly allow his wife to cancel her tour to look after him, and then while she's on her final gig of the tour, he kills himself. How anyone could celebrate this character is absolutely beyond me. Especially when we just had a year of many celebrity suicides. Celebrating a movie like this feels very dirty. |
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Post by The Texas Rattlesnakes on Mar 5, 2019 19:43:57 GMT -5
Basically I have a mix of both of The Sandmen and The Rocketmen's feeling on the movie. I thought the music was good, enjoyed Gaga and Cooper's acting in the film. Thought it was a bit too long, and thought the ending ruined all the character development of Cooper's character, which felt stale and unoriginal. Overall I thought it was fine. Didn't think it was best picture worthy, and thought Bohemian Rhapsody was way better. But I didn't think it was awful. Thought Gaga and Cooper had good on screen chemistry, and also thought Cooper's character was kinda a douche. Overall, I dont regret seeing it. |
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Have 9 points in celebration of this monumental achievement!