The stars at night are big and bright
👏👏👏👏
Deep in the heart of show biz
The ones that sing are doin’ their thing
👏👏👏👏
Deep in the heart of show biz
But soon the guy will be passed by
👏👏👏👏
Deep in the heart of show biz
And then the rest will be a mess
👏👏👏👏
Deep in the heart of show biz!
Previews
What, if anything, did we know about this coming attraction before we watched it?
Ellen: My immediate thought was “aren’t there already three of these?” and I didn’t learn much more beyond that!
Tyler: Lemme guess, you knew there were three because of Gilmore Girls1?
Anywho, after learning about Bradley Cooper from The Hangover movies, loving him in Silver Linings Playbook (for which he was robbed of an acting Oscar, in my humble opinion), and realizing that he’s a fellow lunatic Eagles fan (re-confirmed recently), I was more than willing to throw down some money (or, more accurately, MoviePass’ money) to see this in theatres. As I hinted at in our last post, I didn’t know anything about the overall Star Is Born story, but I came away impressed by Cooper’s acting (as always), directing (in his feature debut), and, most unexpectedly of all, Lady Gaga’s acting abilities. Let’s see if it holds up five years later!
Plots & Feelings
This one’s pretty self-explanatory.
Short Version (courtesy of IMDb): A musician helps a young singer find fame as age and alcoholism send his own career into a downward spiral.
Long Version (modified from Wikipedia and formatted to fit your screen):
43-year-old Jackson "Jack" Maine, a famous country rock singer, pops a handful of pills before a performance - a universally good sign! He appears to rock out the show, as Hannah Montana would say, but also appears he may throw up in his cowboy hat on the ride afterward. He gets his driver to stop at the first place he sees that probably sells alcohol and orders a gin on the rocks, another stellar sign. Who’s that taking the stage normally populated by drag queens? It’s none other than 31-year-old Ally, a singer-songwriter who primarily works as a waitress, singing “La Vie en Rose”2! (In French no less!) Enchanted by her performance and encouraged by her friend Ramon, Jack strikes up a conversation with Ally backstage. After she also hears him sing at the behest of one of the queens, they decide to go out for a drink together.
Ellen: There are several nods to the original movie in this one that I enjoy (aside from, you know, the entire plot), and keeping his last name as Maine is a subtle one I like.
They go to a cop bar, because according to Jack they serve all night3. As the two try to talk, inhibited both by differences in their lives and Jack’s trouble hearing (though they manage to flirt about her nose), a rando comes up, monopolizing the conversation and being awfully presumptuous with Jack’s time. Ally does not care for this, and when the man yells at her, she punches him in the face! The couple flees to a convenience store, where the shopping list consists of frozen peas (for her hand), a wrap bandage (she plays piano with those hands!), and Cheetos (for joy). In the parking lot, the two bond and talk about fame and songwriting, and Ally sings him a song she’s half-written. Jack’s driver takes her home, and as Ally walks inside, Jack asks for one last look at her.
Ellen: A departure from the original that I appreciate: we see more of Ally’s singing talent in the first 10 minutes than we saw of Esther’s acting in the entire movie.
Tyler: Do her impressions whilst waitressing not count?!
Tyler: That “I just wanted to take one last look at you” line got memed to death (apparently replaced by C-3PO, based on my attempts to find examples of such), but I was pleasantly surprised to realize it was a nod to the original all along!
Ally lives with her dad, a professional driver, who’s very taken with the idea of Jackson Maine, even if Ally isn’t just yet. She almost turns down Jack’s invitation to go to his show, but thankfully her job sucks so she and Ramon take off in Mr. Maine’s private jet! They’re ushered backstage, taking in the roar of the crowd and Jack’s playing. He tells his fans he has someone he’d like them to meet, and just plonks Ally on stage! He put together a simple arrangement4 of the song she sang him the previous night, and the two sing “Shallow” for the first time. After the show, despite the fact that he’s hammered and she’s wearing the world’s ugliest belt/pants combo, they hook up! He invites her to go on tour with him, and she accepts.
Tyler: I got chills when she hit the chorus of “Shallow” for the first time. To your earlier point, it’s a nice change of pace to again see actual evidence that she’s worthy of being a star.
Driving on Jack’s motorcycle to the next tour stop, he tells her about how he bought the ranch he grew up on and gave it to his half-brother (and also manager), Bobby. It’s also where their dad is buried. Things take a turn, however, when Jack tries to take Ally there and realizes it’s now a wind farm! At the next venue, Jack yells at Bobby, and Bobby yells right back, not understanding why Jack hero-worshiped their dad, who treated him like a drinking buddy. Oh and by the way, Bobby already told him about the farm, but he was too drunk to remember. So yeah, he quits!
Ellen: During this fight, Bobby accuses Jack of stealing his voice, so I appreciate that there’s an in-universe reason for why Jackson’s singing is, you know, just doing its best! We’ll continue to see that Jack’s forte is guitar, and it was smart of the movie to not try to convince us that Bradley Cooper could compete vocally with Lady Gaga.
Tyler: I also appreciate that they acknowledge (and even joke about) how much older Bobby is/looks than Jack. I missed that in my first viewing and just assumed it was a weird casting choice.
A tour montage ensues, and as we progress, Jack in particular puts a lot of emphasis on using the time people are listening to you to Say Something. Everything is going great, and Ally’s star is on the rise, so much so that record producer Rez offers her a contract. People need to hear what she has to say! She’s whisked off to Interscope Records, and Jack, uh, tries to be happy for her. Rez has a particular vision for her, and it’s a lot more Pop Princess than Country Queen. As Ally works on choreography and her first album, Jack performs at a pharmacy convention in Memphis, work he calls “soul crushing.” Therefore Jack crushes many drinks afterward, misses Ally’s first solo concert, and wakes up on the streets of Memphis. His friend Noodles finds him, and eventually so does Ally. By way of apology, Jack proposes with a guitar string ring! They get married immediately.
Tyler: “They get married immediately” could describe so many other ILTBTA movies …
Jackson and Rez establish in one conversation that they are not fans of one another. Meanwhile, Ally is going to perform on SNL! Jack urges her to grab on, because the public won’t be listening forever. She performs a pop song, and it’s enough to drive Jack back to drinking. He and Bobby reconcile (mostly) backstage, but any peace in Jack’s brain is short-lived: Ally is nominated for three Grammys! Full of envy, he picks a fight with her. But of course he’d never just say he’s jealous, so instead he says he’s trying to figure out why she’d be nominated for the stuff she’s been putting out and he thinks it’s embarrassing. Much better than just admitting her rise is outpacing your decline! At the Grammys, Jack is relegated to playing backup for someone else, but hey: Ally wins Best New Artist! Jack, completely wasted and wetting himself, joins her onstage for her acceptance speech, prompting a trip to rehab.
Ellen: Jack’s indignation-covering-jealousy about the poppiness of Ally’s music reminded me a lot of Ryan Gosling’s character’s self-righteousness about the sanctity of jazz in La La Land.
Tyler: You have to do it all for the love of the artform and anything else is selling out to The Man! Although somewhat in Jack’s defense, Ally’s new sound gives the impression that it’s a bit more … surface level and vapid than something like “Shallow.”
Ellen: I wonder to what extent that’s because the movie is largely told from Jack’s perspective, and he thinks pop is frivolous.
Tyler: Eh I think it’s told just as much from her perspective as his. If anything, it shifts over the course of the movie from Ally to Jack’s perspective.
Tyler: Everything about the scenes at The Grammys made me physically uncomfortable (as it intended), I think I cringed the entire time that she was accepting her award with Jack next to her.
Jack spends about two months in rehab, during which time he gets hearing aids and confides to his counselor that he tried to commit suicide at age 12 using a belt. Ally is tentative around him when she comes to visit, but she brings a love song she found tucked in the pages of his notebook. He eventually returns home to his wife and their floofy doodle dog, Charlie. Ally’s success has continued, and though she asks Jack to come on tour, he knows Rez would not be into it, mostly because Rez tells him so, accusing him of holding Ally back. She later tells Jack the label is canceling the European leg of the tour to focus on recording her second album this summer. She asks him to at least come sing “Shallow” at her last show in LA, and he agrees to meet her there. Jack gives Charlie a steak for dinner and hangs himself in the garage with an old belt. We see Charlie lay down in front of the closed garage door, waiting for him.
Ellen: THE INCLUSION OF CHARLIE HURT MY FEELINGS. But seriously, this hit so much harder than Norman Maine’s death scene largely because they bothered to make Jackson a full person.
Tyler: I’m convinced Charlie was added to the script to make this scene in particular even more devastating. Regardless, it was damn effective.
Ally is absolutely grief-stricken and borderline inconsolable. Bobby comes to visit, and the two reminisce about Jack. He and Jack broke new emotional ground before he died, and Bobby tries to help convince Ally not to blame herself. The movie closes on her performing the song Jack wrote for them, introducing herself for the first time as Ally Maine.
Ellen: It would have been bonkers for her to say “Mrs. Jackson Maine,” so this was another update I appreciated, especially since her stage name had been just Ally to this point.
Tyler: As I wrote in my notes vis-a-vis that last song, “Songs with strings >>>”
Intermission
Even though ILTBTA is free, please indulge us further and enjoy this quick “advertisement.”
This installment of ILTBTA is brought to you by … slightly abnormally sized noses!
Has anyone ever made a comment about your nose? No? Well this isn’t for you. For the rest of us, a slightly abnormally sized nose is an unsung facial asset. Whether a big ole’ schnozz or a cute little nosey, your sniffer can help you stand out in a crowd of average nostrils and give your face some character. Just like what those people on House Hunters are always looking for, but on your face.
Use promo code ILTBTA for 60% off a transferable consultation for a nose job, to be given to someone who tells you can’t make it as a singer because of your nose.
Wiki-Wiki-Whaaat?
Love a good Wikipedia rabbit hole in search of some fun facts? Us too.
A Star Is Born’s Wikipedia page has some interesting facts and anecdotes that we recommend you read through, but here are a few of our favorites:
A Star Is Born (2018) is (obviously) based on the 1937 original, also adapted in 1954 and 1976. The 1954 version was a musical starring Judy Garland and James Mason, an English actor whose ashes are interred near the tomb of his close friend, The Last Dictator director-writer-star Charlie Chaplin. The 1976 version, starring Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson, veered away from the Hollywood focus of the earlier two and was set in the world of the music business.
Ellen: It’s interesting that the progression of the focus of the films seems to have gone: acting, acting with music, music, and now music again!
ASIB (2018) was co-written by Bradley Cooper, Eric Roth, and Will Fetters. Roth in particular is a well-accomplished screenwriter, with Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar nominations for his work on Forrest Gump (for which he won), The Insider, Munich, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, A Star Is Born, and Dune. He also wrote The Concorde … Airport ‘79, the fourth and final installment of the Airport film saga, the first of which we covered earlier this year.
Tyler: Roth also co-wrote Killers of the Flower Moon, so he’s worked with an absolute murder’s row of amazing directors: Robert Zemeckis, Steven Spielberg, David Fincher, Denis Vileneuve, and now Martin Scorsese. Damn.
Roth also co-wrote Ali, the 2001 sports biopic starring Will Smith, who chose to star in that instead of an A Star Is Born adaptation. Over the next 10-15 years over ASIB’s eventual development, a million different actors/musicians were attached to star or have a supporting role, including: Jamie Foxx, Aaliyah, Paul Walker, Lauryn Hill, Mariah Carey, Alicia Keys, Beyoncé, Christian Bale, Leonardo Dicaprio, Tom Cruise, Johnny Depp, Esperanza Spalding, Jennifer Lopez, Rihanna, Shakira, Janelle Monáe, Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, Kesha, Jack White, Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro, John Turturro, and John Travolta.
Tyler: What’s your fantasy A Star Is Born lineup from all the rejects? I think I’d go with Christian Bale and Janelle Monáe as leads, with Ray Liotta as the manager.
Ellen: I like your fantasy cast already, so I’m going with what I think would be the most bonkers: John Travolta and Mariah Carey.
Tyler: Something tells me we wouldn’t be watching that version for ILTBTA, but my gosh would I watch the heck out of that.
The power ballad “Shallow” was written by Lady Gaga, Andrew Wyatt (of Miike Snow), Anthony Rossomando (of Dirty Pretty Things), and producer Mark Ronson. The lyrics “I’m off the deep end, watch as I dive in” were inspired by the script’s original ending, which had Jackson die by drowning. As such, it was initially meant to only be a credits song, but as the script evolved “Shallow” earned a more prominent role in the film.
Between her acting and contributions to the ASIB soundtrack, Lady Gaga became the first woman ever to win an Oscar, Grammy, BAFTA, and Golden Globe in one year.
Honorable Mentions
What other movies should you be watching?
Staying on the Bradley Cooper train, our next Honorable Mention is the 2012 rom-com-dram Silver Linings Playbook, starring Jennifer Lawrence and the aforementioned Cooper. Based on the 2008 novel of the same name, SLP follows a bipolar man (Cooper) who returns from a stint in a psychiatric hospital intent on doing whatever it takes to win back his wife with the help of a new friend (Lawrence). Along the way, they yell at each other, dance with each other, and talk about the Eagles with each other.
Also starring Robert De Niro and Jacki Weaver, it was the first movie since Reds in 1981 to be nominated for all four acting categories at the Oscars, and the first since Million Dollar Baby in 2004 to be nominated for “The Big Five” (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Actress).
Described by Ellen in The Spreadsheet as “Wonderful and emotional” with a soundtrack that “slaps,” SLP is an incredibly acted, well-directed, and unique movie that perfectly blends mental health, family, and football.
Silver Linings Playbook is available to watch for free with a Netflix subscription, and can be rented from everywhere else.
Fill In The Blank
How did we really feel about The Academy nominating this?
Ellen: I’d like to help the Academy quit the job they hate and hop on my private jet! There were so many good choices made here: the casting and playing to our stars’ strengths, shooting in a beautiful way, and making us connect with the story through music. The result was really impactful, and I think it was enhanced by seeing how it had evolved from the original. I had avoided watching this because I wanted to watch all of the other versions first, and while perhaps that exact plan was overkill, I’m still really glad we at least watched the first one before this. While it’s not perfect (i.e. some dangling plot threads, such as Jackson’s struggles with hearing loss and Ally’s dad’s questionable enamourment with fame), I think it’s a worthy addition to 2018’s lineup!
Tyler: I’d like to invite The Academy onstage to give it the moment in the spotlight it deserves. Unlike our other esteemed author, I’m not typically one to rewatch movies or TV shows (there’s too much other unexplored, worthy content!), so I was anxious that A Star Is Born wouldn’t hit as much as it did when I first saw it. Great news: it did. While my impression of this iteration of ASIB is undoubtedly buoyed by having recently watched the original, which is surpassed in almost every way by this latest installment, I still found myself struck by … everything? The acting of the leads (whose chemistry was undeniably strong), nearly every directing choice made (as partially evidenced by the beautiful shots we chose as gifs throughout Plots & Feelings), the writing (which paid homage to the original but also deviated in refreshing and modern ways), and of course the music (which is full of songs that are either a banger, beautiful, or both) were all fantastic. And with Bradley Cooper’s next directorial effort, Maestro, also receiving critical acclaim, perhaps we’re seeing a directing star being born before our eyes.
Let The Credits Roll
Thanks for reading! Some quick housekeeping as you exit the theatre:
If you have plots and feelings of your own (on the movie or ILTBTA in general), feel free to comment on the post or simply reply to the email. If you liked reading this: tell your friends! If you hated reading this: tell your friends how much you hated it by forwarding it to them!
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ILTBTA is also on Letterboxd, the social networking site for movie fans. Follow us there to read our Spreadsheet comments of our ILTBTA movies, plus our ratings of other movies we watch!
If you’d like to start a wild Best Picture journey of your own, feel free to download a copy of The Spreadsheet. Bonus: checking off the boxes is oddly satisfying.
Post-Credits Scene
Get a sneak peek at the next ILTBTA installment.
And just like that our Starcember, and another year of movies, is over! We’ll be back in your inboxes in the new year on 1/2/24, and in honor of the next post’s release date, we’ll be covering the classic legal drama 12 Angry Men (12, 1/2, half of 24 is 12 … work with us here). Widely considered one of the best movies ever made, 12 Angry Men tells the story of a jury as they deliberate whether to convict a teenager of murder, and features an ensemble cast led by Henry Fonda.
12 Angry Men is blessedly available free of charge on YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Tubi, Pluto TV, … The Universe has removed any and all financial barriers that would prevent you from watching this critically acclaimed movie, so take advantage of that!
Until then, we’ll take another look at ya in 2024!
Ellen: A. Yes, and B. I mistakenly called it season six in the last post, and it’s in fact season five. Please don’t revoke my Stars Hollow citizenship.
Ellen: In our quest for our first dance song, this was a contender, and as such I always get a little extra mood bump when I hear it!
Tyler: Shout out to Wall-E (a movie I can’t wait to cover for our retirement-era ILTBTA spin-off for Best Animated Feature nominees) for the inspiration!
Sounds like my ex-wife!
Ellen: I mention the simple arrangement because it added to the realism that he managed it in like a single morning.