A Star is Born

I made a point to not see this movie right away for the fact that everybody was talking about it in 2018. Then I reached a point where it wasn't in the conversation anymore and I kind of forgot it in 2019. Then a virus happened and I figured it was time to see what the hype was all about.

A Star is Born is a film that is the third remake of a film made in 1937 and no I haven't seen any of the previous versions so I can't really speak on how it rates.

The film follows the story of a country rock artist by the name of Jackson Maine (played by Bradley Cooper) who has pretty much peaked in his musical career and has started to decay into an alcoholic with a hearing problem. Then he meets a waitress named Ally (played by Lady Gaga).

Jack recognizes her talent right away and through a string of events, and a really catchy song, he displays her talent to the world and the two start a relationship that is the centerfold of the entire movie. You spend the entire movie watching his career sink while her career rises and how that affects their relationship.

Now, I would argue that Bradley Cooper starts out this film coming off as a little bit creepy and definitely should have posed a lot of red flags to Lady Gaga's character. I guess he's supposed to come off as charming(?) but to me I was waiting for there to be a real conversation about Bradley Cooper kind of abusing some power dynamics over this woman who has nothing and then is given A LOT in a short period of time.

I do think this is remedied as the movie goes on. Cooper and Gaga have a lot of chemistry in this film and it is a romance movie so I guess you can overlook some of those issues as long as the chemistry and the relationship for the majority of the movie is good. And it is, for the most part.

What was probably supposed to be the purpose was to show how the relationship might have been doomed from the beginning but the improvement of it along the way makes it even more tough near the end? And these two do a really good job playing off one another. Not only are they musically talented, but they both deliver really good performances. It's interesting thinking about it now because everyone has collectively agreed that Lady Gaga gave a good performance, but I imagine when this movie first came out, that might have surprised a few people. I'm glad that she did such a good job.

And I guess my viewing experience suffered because I think I was expecting more. I don't really know what I was expecting since this isn't really my kind of film to begin with, but I think I was expecting something else and when the movie overall was good, but not great, it might have tainted my perspective.

I think if you want to set your expectations for this movie, its that its a pretty formulaic band movie combined with a romance. Performers start up from nothing, have a pretty explosive start with a happy montage in the middle and things go awry pretty quickly in circumstances that may or may not be egged on by the manager but also just because the characters face that tension.

A Star is Born doesn't do it badly, it just does what we've seen before in other band movies, just from the perspective of a couple with differing levels of success. It's a good look into two people either rising or falling from fame and the drama that comes with them starting a relationship.

Aside from Cooper and Gaga you had a good performance from Sam Elliot that I really wish would have been fleshed out more. Also Dave Chapelle's in that movie for a very short time for like no reason.

A Star is Born is a good film. It's not mind blowing. It's just good. I think one of the last effects of this movie will be the music because it does have some good tunes that I'll probably end up checking out on Spotify here soon. It also has some good performances worth mentioning from the weird year that was 2018.

Maybe it hit people more in 2018 because it was a breath of fresh air in a year that I don't remember having a lot of great non-blockbuster films. But for me, the movie was fine. It wasn't bad at all, I just don't know how big of an impact its going to have on me long term. And that's fine too. Movies don't always have to have that long term effect to be considered good. This movie was good.

But those are my thoughts of A Star is Born. What did you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should watch in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!