A Star is Born (4/5 Stars)

Most popular movies spawn sequels. This is the case when we are more in love with the characters and/or the movie stars. “A Star is Born” is the type of movie that finds its staying power in its archetypal plot. This particular plot can be categorized as an evolutionary offshoot of Pygmalion, that ancient myth about a male sculptor who labors over the sculpture of his perfect woman. The goddess Aphrodite is so impressed by his creation that he deigns to grant one wish of the sculptor. The sculptor wishes that his perfect woman was real. Aphrodite grants that wish and the perfect woman becomes flesh, climbs down from her pedestal and embraces the artist. This myth has as its progeny in every “make-over” play and movie that followed, the best “My Fair Lady”. The “A Star is Born” plot is disarmingly simple but powerful. A famous man spies a talented but unknown woman. He helps her with her career. She becomes a star. Meanwhile, his personal demons and substance abuse set his career path on a downward trajectory. The movie is especially powerful in its treatment of its themes. Fame has both good and bad facets. Personal relationships are both a help and a hindrance. Art is created by both good fortune and personal destruction. Meanwhile we are treated to mandatory great performances, that which must attest as to why the Stars in the story should be considered Stars. For this reason, “A Star is Born” is continually remade. You know the story, but then you’ve always known it. What is interesting is how it is being done this time. And of course, the success of the movie ultimately depends on the “A Star is Born” test: The plot states that the characters are Stars? Do the actors and creators of this movie live up to this description?

A Star is Born (2018) was directed by the actor Bradley Cooper who also has a writing credit. along with two other screenwriters and a host of other story credits for the past three iterations of this movie. Bradley Cooper also acts in this movie in the lead role of Jackson, a country music rock star. I don’t know if he can actually play the guitar or whether that is actually him singing, but it sure looks like it. Bradley Cooper also speaks fluent French. Just thought I’d throw that out there. The look and feel of A Star is Born is a simple and straightforward style. You get the feeling that it does not really matter that Bradley Cooper is the director. However, one must recognize that the director’s invisibility is also a choice of the director. Bradley Cooper has decided to draw attention to his characters not his director’s self. This is probably a good idea.

Bradley Cooper is eminently believable as a country-music star named Jackson. One night, Jackson, needing a drink after a concert, randomly walks into a bar populated by drag-queens. They are tolerant of him and he of they. The drag-queens are having a revue. It’s almost all drag-queens, but they have made an exception. An old employee of the bar named Ally, played by Stephanie Germanotta aka Lady Gaga, performs a perfect rendition “La Vie En Rose”. Jackson falls in love with Ally’s talent, if not yet her person, at first sight. It is important to stress here the importance of this scene and how it is acted. We as an audience have to come to realization along with Jackson that we are watching a first-rate albeit unknown talent. To do this, Lady Gaga has to sing and perform a great version of “La Vie En Rose” without production value, backup, or flash. She does. The pipes on that girl. Holy shit.

Here is where the movie really works and what makes it arguably the best “Star is Born” to date. The soundtrack of this movie is first rate and performed by fantastic artists. Bradley Cooper can’t be said to be a great musician or vocalist, but he doesn’t noticeably suck either. I liked his songs. Lady Gaga just absolutely kills it every time she opens her mouth and/or is on some sort of stage. What is also interesting is the variety of music in the movie. Jackson has some good fast and slow country songs. Lady Gaga starts out in this vein and then, true to her character, she becomes her own star with her own voice, which in the 2018 version includes pop songs. There are also the customary romantic ballads. Like the best musicals, there isn’t a song which makes you want to fast forward the movie to the better songs. Can Lady Gaga act? Yes, and with brown hair. I bet she can speak fluent French too. These freaking talented people.

A Star is Born is further populated with interesting choices for supporting characters. Ally’s father is wannabe crooner turned blue collar limo driver. He is played by Andrew Dice Clay, a former comedian, who seems to have gotten out of bed playing the role. There is a certain warmth that one would not expect, but when he beams with pride about his daughter’s success you totally believe it and feel enthused with him. Another character that flits into the movie is an old colleague of Jackson, that had lived fast for a while and then moved on. He is played by the comedian Dave Chappelle. Something about the way Chappelle speaks, his laid back delivery of precise words, sounds preternaturally wise. I enjoyed his presence. The movie is populated with non-actors (I think the pop producer character might be an actual producer). They all do fine work.

Is this the best “A Star is Born”. Well, I wouldn’t know. I’ve only seen the Judy Garland version. I can say this one is better than that one. I never bought a forty-year old Judy Garland as a twenty-year old neophyte (whereas Lady Gaga here seems to be playing her own age). I’m pretty sure this is better than the Barbara Streisand version simply because I’m pretty sure Babs wouldn’t allow her ego to act like she wasn’t a Star the entire way through the movie. The first movie I heard does not have any music. A bet this “A Star is Born” is the best one. I look forward to the next one, like thirty years from now.

Bad Times at the El Royale (4/5 Stars)

1968 in all its terrifying glory

Welcome to the El Royale. A classic party hotel near Lake Tahoe on the border of California and Nevada. I mean right on the border. The border runs right through the hotel and neatly divides the rooms available into California and Nevada rooms. There are a lot of available rooms. The hotel recently lost its liquor license and with it all of its regular customers.

“Bad Times at the El Royale” is a nice compact story that uses some old tricks of the trade to confine its characters in time and place. These tricks of the trade (I won’t get into too many details) will feel like familiar tropes of horror and mystery stories. For instance, many horror movies requires that all the characters stay in the same place so as to limit the chance of escape. Mystery movies limit the amount of characters so as to help flush out a culprit. “Bad Times at the El Royale” is not a horror or a mystery movie. What it does is use the above tropes to gather and force a suspicious and varied group of characters to interact with each (sometimes violently) within the course of one day/night. Like most great writing, the writer/director Drew Goddard imposes these constraints through the reasonable choices of his characters. The movie acts at many points like a very good play with areas of extended conversations that never get tired punctuated with reveals and reversals.

The movie is divided into chapters based on the rooms that each of the characters originally let. There is Laramie Seymour Sullivan (Jon Hamm), a sociable southern traveling salesman, intent on taking the Honeymoon Suite he can finally afford since no-one uses the hotel anymore. There is Father Daniel Flynn (Jeff Bridges) in town to visit an old acquaintance. There is Darlene Sweet (Cynthia Erivo) a “Wall of Sound” backup singer in town for a gig in Reno. There is a surly woman (Dakota Johnson) who won’t give her name. And finally there is the Royale’s one and only employee Miles Miller (Lewis Pullman) a meek lad who doesn’t seem to be particularly good at anything. No-one is as they seem and some reveals as to who they actually are always good, and sometimes great (particularly the first and last reveals). By the end, it seems the Drew Goddard has decided to lump all the outrages of 1968 into one day/night at this one hotel. We have government conspiracies, Manson-like cultists, Vietnam trauma, and mafia schemes. Darlene Sweet is the most exact reference, obviously referring to the real life Darlene Love of Six Feet to Stardom replete with an obvious Phil Spector-like creepy manager. Her story is the most straight-forward in that she is actually who she says she is. Her character more than pulls her weight though by providing the music’s soundtrack, great acapella versions of “Wall of Sound” doo-wop music. If you love that sound like I do there will be long stretches of this movie you will find particularly enjoyable.

Chris Hemsworth shows up without a shirt half-way through though I won’t be able to tell you why. Jeff Bridges’ performance is great too though the scene he is particularly memorable in I can’t give away either. Several people die. A couple of other people get rich. Everyone in the audience has fun.

Drew Goddard has only one other writer/director credit to his name Cabin in the Woods (He is a prolific producer and writer though of TV shows like Lost). I have not seen that one but I heard, and now believe, that it is was made by a man who knows his stock characters inside and out. More than anything, that is what “Bad Times at the El Royale” is. It is a genre piece from a certain period of time with recognizable characters. Drew Goddard mixes it all up and makes it interesting again. Weirdly it is an original script, though the material really could not be more adapted.