A Star is Born is a remake of the 1937 A Star is a Born, a remake of the 1954 A Star is Born and the 1976 A Star is Born. So Hollywood decided it’s about time for yet another A Star is Born, so this fourth version is about the romance between a famous guy and a rising star and it’s all tragic and stuff.

Just to put it out there straight away I haven’t seen any of the other A Star is Born movies so I don’t know how this one compares to those older movies. But I imagine this new one is basically the same as those other ones except for the type of music that was popular at the time. Also it’s about time I saw a romantic drama movie because as far as I’m aware I’ve been avoiding those all year and it also gives me the opportunity to learn what romance is because I knew I was doing something wrong up to this point.

So if you’ve seen the other versions then I guess you know it’s about a drunken rock star who meets a girl and the guy goes ‘Oh she’s hot, I can get behind this’. The girl becomes a big star and the guy isn’t really doing very well. Firstly the main guy, Jack I found to be a very creepy manipulative guy. He never gave me the feeling he really cared for his lover until much later in the movie after he becomes a wreck. Lady Gaga as Ally I think was the only choice you could go with. I believe this because you need a talented singer, someone who is sexy and someone who can act and she does all that very well, I was pleasantly surprised by her performance.

I think the most interesting part of the movie is the themes relating to the music industry. The movie starts off with the rock star who kind of resembles someone like Bruce Springsteen or Chris Isaak and he’s mostly well known for his heydays. Then you’ve got Ally who probably resembles someone like Pink or Katy Perry or Lady Gaga! She enters the modern day music industry and her career is completely under the control of her manager. Foremost on her manager’s mind is “the look”. She needs a good body image, she needs a good public image, she needs to be a sex object, she needs to be relevant, she needs to move around, she needs to write a whole album in time for Christmas and she needs to always be on a tour. As Ally becomes a bigger focus Jack’s old ways become more irrelevant. Just another thing – all of Jack’s shows take place outside at a park or something and Ally’s shows are in a big concert hall or a theatre, I liked that touch.

I guess I should mention the music which plays a big part and I liked the music. They’re all good songs except for some of the scenes that go on for way too long. I liked this movie but for a 2 hour movie it did feel like it was dragging along a bit in the middle after Ally became a big star and Jack starts to fall from grace. Ally’s main arc was finished; I was just waiting for the drunk to move it along. Speaking of the drunk, in this next paragraph we’re going to include spoilers so if you haven’t seen the movie then you could skip ahead or, if you’ve seen the other versions or just don’t care about spoilers, you’ve been warned!

Spoiler Section

So after Jack humiliates Ally at the Grammys he goes into rehab and things are looking good. But Ally’s manager says she needs to dump Jack because he is ruining her good image. She tells Jack he’s a disgrace and he’s getting in the way of her career. She goes on tour while Jack hangs himself in the garage. I know it’s supposed to be tragic but the movie did a really bad job at foreshadowing Jack’s fate. At the beginning of the movie Jack’s car stops near a billboard of a neck rope and pans onto this for too long and then re-confirms his fate when he says he tried to hang himself when he was younger. I wasn’t really convinced that Jack had a good motivation to kill himself, he was a miserable guy and he had a few fights with his wife but why would ending your own life be your solution to such problems. But I liked the imagery of Jack’s death – that you could only see his body through the garage window. I liked this movie, I’m trying to give it credit

Spoiler Free

I also thought the movie was shot very nicely and it looks very nice when the characters are at a crowded place like a bar or a concert. Bradley Cooper did a pretty good job for his directional debut as it felt like a lot of care and heart went into this movie. This movie feels like it was made by people who really wanted to make a good reimagining of the classic tale instead of remaking it just because of money and nostalgia.

Like I said before, I haven’t seen any earlier versions of the story to know if it’s a good re-telling or not, but I had a pretty good time and I’ll give it a 7/10. If you’re overly emotional or like anything music related or you like watching good movies like I do then this should definitely be up your alley.

Hey guess what everyone! It’s my 50th post on this website and I have nothing special planned for it. But I do have something special planned building up to Halloween so stay tuned for that.

I’ll see you all again next week, Blog Complainer, Signing Out.