Precious Doll wrote:ITALIANO wrote:Precious Doll wrote:
A Star is Born (2018) Bradley Cooper 2/10
Yeah. Sad but true. Now just read - if you have the courage - what the Americans on this board think of this movie (in the Star is Born thread). The way they reacted to it (or they say they did - some of them clearly didn't really like it but have to pretend they did) is, I believe, extremely interesting, and a sign of the times.
I'm really amazed at the critical response to the film, particularly from Venice & Toronto but I am of the opinion that professional film criticism is in decline. I think one of the problems facing young critics is that it is impossible now to see all the films of importance from the past as we are talking about over 100 years of cinema. There is also a 'fan-boy' mentality than didn't seem to exist prior to the internet that is playing a part in the overrating of so many mediocre to downright terrible films. Also, some people who see films first tend to overpraise them and in an awful lot of cases I think that has to do with the fact that they are seeing them before anyone else.
I must admit that I went to this with a degree of optimism, primarily due to all the raves. But I found the find a complete mess, unenaging and as a result boring as hell. I looked at my watch an awful lot. On the plus side Lady Gaga was a pleasant enough presence and she can certainly sing (I'm not familiar with her musical career) and I was impressed with Bradley Cooper's accent which was very close to that of Sam Elliott's. Something overlooked so often in cinema is that siblings can actually sound similar and this film pulled that off. I really don't get the acclaim. I can understand that fans of Lady Gaga would probably love it by her presence alone but one could say the same for the 1976 version for fans of Babs & Kris K. Though, I'm the exception. I love Babs but boy most of the films she has made are beneath her talent and ASIB is one of them.
I did though get a kick seeing a credit for great William Wellman on a 2018 film. I certainly don't object to a remake as its a timeless story but this like the 1976 brought nothing new to the table. I don't see any future for Cooper as a director. That scene where he embarrasses Gaga at the Grammys was straight out of a John Waters' film @1970s. But than I think its impossible to top James Mason 'slap' in the Minnelli version. One really feels Garlands utter humiliation.
Ultimately this film is a mess.
It was Cukor, as of course you know.
I think if you are American you are surrounded by so much enthusiasm for this movie (but this can be applied to other movies in the recent past) that you MUST like it. You can express doubts on specific aspects - as some even on this board have tried to do - but in general you have to like it. The amount of praise is so uniform - and let's say it, Americans aren't exactly champions of individual thinking - that nobody, or almost nobody, can rebel to it.
The result is, of course, embarassing. But while the movie is, as you say, a mess, and a bland mess I'd add, as a cultural phenomenon, and a proof of how easily infuenceable people - even expeienced cinemagoers - have become, it IS fascinating.
I won't name names, but if someone who grew up with Katharine Hepburn suddenly finds Lady Gaga's acting "sublime" (not even good, sublime!) you know that there's something wrong, very wrong even, in our perception of today's movies.
Someone else here loved the movie because in some ways it mirrored his past addiction problems. I respect, obviously, such problems which can be terrible and painful. But if someone who's gone through all that can be satisfied by this movie's banal, supeficial treatment of something which is actually very serious, sorry, but I become suspicious. Because anyone who truly experienced any kind of addiction should instantly recognize how easily the movie deals with this theme.