The Press Box - ‘A Star Is Born’: Instant Analysis | The Big Picture (Ep. 535)

Episode Date: October 8, 2018

Ringer editor-in-chief Sean Fennessey is joined by colleagues Juliet Litman, Amanda Dobbins, Lindsay Zoladz, and Andrew Gruttadaro to discuss their immediate reactions to the ‘A Star Is Born’ phenomenon—weighing in on Bradley Cooper’s emergence as an auteur, what the film is saying about pop music, the press tour, Lady Gaga, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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And now, on to the show. It doesn't totally make sense on its own in the song, but when you're watching in the movie, it's perfect. And I have seen it twice now and cried both times. And I have seen that scene a thousand times in the trailer. I just think it's tremendous. Maybe it's time to let the old ways die. I'm Sean Fennacy, editor-in-chief of The Ringer. And this is the big picture, a conversation show.

about love, romance, music, and a star is born to talk to me about a star is born. I'm joined by the co-hosts of Jam Session and Ringer editors, Amanda Dobbins and Julietette Lippman. Hi. Hello, Sean. What's up? I'm excited. This is great. Guys, give me your instant reactions to seeing the film you both saw it last week.

Juliet, I'll start with you. I had a great time. I was blown away by Bradley Cooper. A new Lady Gaga was already great, and she was indeed. And it was like a touch slow. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Quite a take. Amanda, you're a little more medium on Gaga in general.

Yes. But you were anticipating the movie. What did she think? I was overwhelmed. I really loved it. Listen, I am, I have a lot of bluster, but at heart I'm a really sentimental person. And this is like an intensely manipulative, over-the-top sentimental, old Hollywood style film, obviously based on a lot of old Hollywood movies. And I love that. I'm a sucker for that every single time. I like La La Land and I like this version of Star is born. I am.

Julia, not as taking with the sentimentality. I liked it a lot. I was just really like distracted by how good Bradley Cooper was, like to the extent

that I had a hard time focusing on much else. I was just like, how was he doing this? Did he talk with this voice in between takes? Did he go a full method? And then there's so many stories

about like all the ways he'd basically trained for this. Like he approached like an athlete basically. And that, and that also in hindsight, makes the press tour make a lot more sense to me.

And so I just, I've just been thinking so much about Bradley Cooper. And I also just like, I love Lady Gaga, so I'm like happy to have new Lady Gaga music. So that's a plus. I agree about Bradley Cooper's performance. And I'm on record as like basically not being into Bradley Cooper. And I thought he was incredible.

And the movie's obviously about him, which like we should parse. It's hilarious that he directed himself in this film. And it's a rich text that I'd love to talk about. But I thought he was fantastic in it. It does not make the press tour make more sense for me. It makes the press tour make less sense. Okay. What do you mean by that?

Yeah, because he is so charismatic in this. film. Like, it's amazing. And you just want to watch him in every single frame. Like, even when Lady Gaga is singing on stage and he's kind of in the corner of the shot, I'm just looking at Bradley Cooper, which is not normally how I respond to Bradley Cooper. And there's a chemistry between them. There is just a whole presence, for lack of a better word, like a real movie star vibe that he's got in the movie. And then on the press where he's like a robot. It's, I like I don't, I can't reconcile them because there's no they're there. in person.

I mean, we've seen this before, and Chris and I talked about this little bit last week talking about movies that are coming out this fall. For whatever reason, Cooper just has a mode of operation when he's selling a movie and doing press. And we've seen the story before, obviously Taffy Ackner's story in the New York Times Magazine was the most overt version of this, but him keeping himself from the press in some sort of performative act to artistry and realness, I guess, is sort of like saving something true about himself so that we don't see it so that he can put it all in the movie.

Now, whether it's effective or useful for the movie or not, it's kind of hard to tell. I completely agree with you both, though, that this is through and through Bradley Cooper's movie. I wrote about it last week. It's a movie star, written by a movie star, shot by a movie star, focused on the movie star in service of him. And I think Gaga is actually quite good. And I was surprised by how subtle she was, even though when she's singing, there's a lot of over-the-top Gaga-ness. But as an actress, I was expecting her to be Ryan Murphy American Horror Story, and she's not. You know, she kind of inhabits this somewhat real person stuck living with her dad in, I guess, like, Arcadia, Los Angeles.

Like, it's kind of hard to tell where in L.A. she lives. But, man, Cooper just, he steals it. What do you guys think this means kind of for the celebrity of both of these figures since, you know, we catch them at an interesting time in their careers? I think there's a tension between what Lady Gaga wants to be and, like, what she's best at. And I think that she is just such a raw talent who can be, who's like also like moldable in like a surprising way. So many pop stars aren't like that. Like they are one thing and it's hard to get away from that. Like even Whitney Houston who acted and has like this like landmark soundtrack was like a ballad singer and like belted and like belted songs out more than anything else. Like Lady Gaga is is more of a Swiss Army knife than that.

But I think that she has a very specific view of herself that imbued. the character of Ali. Yeah, can I ask you, what does Lady Gaga want to be? Because I don't understand that about Lady Gaga. And I also think that the movie doesn't know who she wants to be or who Allie wants to be. And it's like the major flaw in the movie for me. But you as I am not a Lady Gaga fan. I never have been.

I don't really do theater kids. But you like her. What does she want to be? I think she wants to be like an over-the-top icon who also can, like I think she wants to be almost like female Elton John, basically. And that'd be great. Yeah. I love Elton John.

But I think that she, the theatrics are still really important to her, but the theatrics of like pop stardom, not necessarily the theatrics of like a nuanced performance, basically. So Lindsay Zolads, I thought, had a really insightful comment about this. And we'll talk to Lindsay and Andrew Redidaro later in the show about some of the weirdness of this movie. But in her piece about it, she compared Gaga to Cher, which I thought was smart, given that share sort of over time morphed from this sort of... pop cultural flower child with Sunny Bono,

into kind of a diva songstress, and then, you know, particularly in Moonstruck and the work she did in that movie, became kind of a thoughtful movie star and consider it not necessarily subtle, but someone who really belonged on screen. And I never saw Gaga in this way before.

And now I kind of only want to see Gaga in this way. I don't know if it would be less effective if she wasn't belting the way that she does in a movie. And that really makes she, It really wins her over for you. But I don't know. What about Cooper? What do you think this does for him as a famous guy?

So this was very clearly his play to become anuteur, a respected director. He wants to, you know, he keeps calling Clint Eastwood Clint, and he wants to be in that level. And I think it really helps him. It was a gamble. I was quite skeptical. The movie is really effective. I think it's going to clean up at the Oscars. I think he'll, I would put money on.

him wanting for actor and not director right now, just because I think the performance is so astonishing. But the fact that he did direct it just gives him a level of credibility. He's not just the hangover guy anymore. And before this movie, you could just say he was like the hangover guy who was also in some like problematic but interesting maybe David O. Russell movies. And now he has directed a real hit. On the note of his directing, I thought the first montage of him playing on stage was hilarious. And the, like, really, like, the blinding lens flare that then, like, gave way to him with the guitar was, like, someone should have been like, dude, come on.

Like, let's not go with that. It's hilarious that he did it, but it was also effective. And I don't usually fall for that type of propaganda. And especially now with Bradley Cooper, and I was like, wow, I've seen it twice now. Works both time, guys. This just really looks good on the screen. There's a really similar shot and almost famous. It's the first time William Miller is standing on the same.

side of the stage and he's watching Russell Hammond play in Stillwater. And I was like, this is like, we're all Bradley Cooper watching Bradley Cooper play the movie star. And it's like he's living out his dream. And I thought it was funny. I mean, it's really that he decided to make this project for himself. And this is what he saw in himself. And this is what he wanted to put out in the world about himself is, I will be thinking about it for a long time. Well, there's a couple. We could draw some conclusions about his personal life. And then I I think we can draw some conclusions about his ambition. Obviously, Bradley Cooper is a sober person.

He's clean. And the fact that Jackson, Maine is completely riddled by alcoholism and drugs. There's clearly a correlation there. There's something that he wants to tell him the story. If he doesn't have daddy issues, I'd be shocked. I'd be completely shocked because there's so much going on between the Sam Elliott character and man. In the sort of like man-crying Hall of Fame, the scene between Sam Elliott and Bradley Cooper right near the end of the movie when they are in the truck together. Bradley shares his real feelings about his brother.

It's like, that's canon for guys talking about scenes that destroyed them in movies. Not women. I was talking to my wife about it last night. She was like, yeah, that was fine. Yeah, I'm the same way. Everyone's been responding to it. And I was like, it was okay. I thought the Andrew Dice Clay character blew Sam Elliott out of the water.

I'm the only person who thinks that. I think he was great, too. Yeah, he was great. But also in this scene when Bradley Cooper breaks down crying with Gaga and rehab and rehab, and he mentions, he was like, your dad? And he's, like, weeping about his father-in-law all. also in that moment. You're right. It's a dad text. I mean, you guys got to work that out. Very much a dad text. And then, you know, also, I think you're completely right, Amanda,

that he's trying to make himself into an otter, you know, a big, respected Hollywood filmmaker, and he's using old school classical structure to do it. And I think some of this movie is about him for sure, but some of it is just him knowing this is a great way to spotlight myself in the savvious way possible. I'm wondering what kind of future he sees for himself after this. I mean, you know, I think for most people he is the hangover guy. If you look a little bit more closely at his career as Rob Harvilla did a couple of weeks ago, you see that he's very aspirational and has always been and has tried to do good work but inevitably finds himself getting cast as kind of the fratty asshole. Juliet, do you think he can make kind of a transition to a fully respected

significant actor director? Probably not. I think. thought it was like noteworthy that the mule trailer played before and stars born. This is Clint Eastwood's new movie. Yeah. Which looks good. Love a drug mule story. I think it depends on also like how much he like is willing to like play the game, which it seems like he wants to do as little as possible.

But part of the talking point to the press tour was that like Clint East would suggest that he'd do this movie earlier. And he's like, no, I'm not ready yet. I haven't lived enough life or whatever. And so I think that he is trying to be really deliberate. And I guess it sort of, I guess it depends on like how much of the like one for them one for me game he's willing to play. I'm thinking a lot about his musical performance, which, you know, he's really modeled on

Eddie Vedder, I suppose, though that's not necessarily what he sounds like or even what he looks like. Whose songs do you like better, Lady Gaga's songs or Bradley's songs or the duets? Oh, I have a, I mean, Bradley Cooper times a thousand. I think the best song in the movie is when the sun goes down, the band won't play, which is called Always Remember Us This Way that she sings. Yes. I think that's the best song in the movie, but I think.

think overall the songs that were written for him are like more artful. I mean, there's a lot of like kind of rude commentary about pop music in this movie. Yes, there is. And the songs that that she sings after she gets famous are noticeably worse than the ones that like you see her like going through the act of songwriting. So it's it's really dismissive of her art form, which is weird to me. I don't understand that choice at all. I said this earlier, but it's the big flaw in the movie for me. There's no reason that she has to be a shitty pop star because you have Gaga and the movie really is commenting as much as it's commenting on Bradley Cooper's text. It's also commenting on Gaga. And we know that the stuff about the nose and she was told that she couldn't be a pop star because

she looked a certain way for a long time. And then she became Lady Gaga who is an excellent pop star. She's not my cup of tea, but has been really successful and is a lot more interesting than what they showed in the movie. And in the movie, and in the movie she's just crappy and then her bad S&L performance is what causes Bradley Cooper's character to start drinking again, which I mean, really? Do we need that?

I mean, that song does suck. It does suck, but I just don't... I have a lot of thoughts about this. The thing is, is that no one is ever good on S&L, so I've been trying to figure out if the message there is that every S&L performance is bad, so it's hard to tell if this song is even good. That song's bad.

Sure. No question. And I agree that she is absolutely deemed to be a pop star and also that the movie equates being a pop star with being shallow, selling yourself out, all of this sort of – it's a truly raucous movie in the real sense. And it's weird that we're all so excited about it in a lot of ways because the music that Jackson May makes, for the most part, unless you want to draw a direct correlation between him and, like, Eric Church, there's nobody who makes that music that is famous right now. There's nobody who makes soulful country rock on a mainstream level that people love.

It would be nice if Jason Isbell became a little more famous because of that. He wrote maybe it's time. Yes. And it's definitely just a Jason Isbell song that Bradley Cooper's karaokeing. And it's wonderful. Yes. Jason Isbell and Lucas Nelson, Willie Nelson's son, clearly were the two people helping Bradley Cooper make these songs so good. And they are so good.

And maybe sometimes it's funny, we always talk about how like NBA players, if they were soccer players, like which one would be the best soccer player? Because they have native skills. I wonder if more movie stars tried to be singers if we'd get like better rock stars. You know, there's something like, is there like some sort of, you know, skill gap? going on, where people are in the wrong job. Maybe if Bradley Cooper wholly committed to rock and roll, we'd have more rock and roll in the world right now. But there is something kind of unseemly about all of the,

this woman's inauthenticity ruined our marriage and drove me to drink again. But that is also true to kind of the text of a star is porn. Yes. You know, that is what is a big part of the previous iterations of this story. I guess I don't know if there was a way around it. Maybe just give Lady Gaga better songs. I think so. Because I think this movie makes, this movie is about Bradley Cooper.

And this movie is about his, that character's decline and falling apart. And you could still make it about a great man not being able to deal with his demons and also his lack of fame and give her good songs and make her a credible pop star. Like the basic arc of Jackson Maine is the same even if Lady Gaga is better at her job. I think they also just, they take away dimension from her character so quickly. Like, she also could struggle a little bit more with, like, you know, and there's, like, the motions of her, like, having a hard time. Like, oh, this is happening to me? Or, like, oh, I don't know how to sing with the backing track. But they abandon everything about, like, her insecurities. Like, that's just not a part of the second half of the movie. She's never, she, like, he's the one who comes back to her physical appearance, but she doesn't. And I find that very weird. And she also just so quickly overcomes her inability to sing her own songs. I mean, I've seen Coyote Ugly. It seems a lot harder than that, you know? And so I thought that was a real flaw. And I think part of the problem is Gaga as a pop star is just a confident performer.

Like she doesn't seem to be like lack for confidence anymore, which is awesome. And one of the reasons I like watching her perform. But in terms of playing Allie, I thought that was a real flaw. I actually thought that she is like, her performance is better in the second half when she's playing a pop star. I thought it was hard to believe her as like a nervous, young, timid woman. But I think the character is more developed in the first half. The most appealing part of the movie for me by far, and many people have said this is the first hour. And the reason that I'm so enchanted by the first hour is because it's just about them coming together and them figuring each other out.

And there's something kind of inert about the back half of the movie where it decides like, well, their love is true and unbreakable. And so there is ultimately no conflict other than his conflict. Like she doesn't really have a conflict She doesn't really have a problem Even when she's making music that maybe she doesn't exactly want to be making She doesn't evince that to us Even when she has to cancel her tour for him She doesn't we never see her anguished over that

Or frustrated by it Even when you know ultimately what happens to him Happens to him It's not really There's something kind of like feta complete about that And so the movie kind of stops being hers in any significant way And she becomes a pawn I do feel like in the first hour of the movie though

When we're getting to know her And we see her in the drag club and we meet her father and we meet the guys surrounding her father, and you see they're all watching the video on YouTube and figuring out what the view count means, that feels much more like her movie as much as his. Yes. And as soon as it gets away from her and into his struggle,

I think he's very effective, and I agree, Amanda. I think he's absolutely the front runner for best actor right now. But I don't know, do you think I was a miscalculation to just kind of start to remove her slowly from her own story? I think so. And I think the second half does drag, as Juliet said, And it is because, I mean, for me and for anyone who knows the plot of Starsborn, which I've since learned, a lot of people didn't know the plot of Star is Born before seeing this movie.

But if you know what's coming, it's, and I think even in the movie, if you don't know what's coming, you can sense what's coming. It does have this inevitability. And it's really, really fixated on him. And I think to some extent that's why I'm a little resistant to the Sam Elliott scenes. Not so much the scenes. Sam Elliott is wonderful. I don't want to get yelled at.

But all of that backstory. and everything. It just, we get it, you know? It's the most expository part of the movie. Yeah, and you don't totally need it, and it kind of feels like he's working out some of his own issues, as you alluded to, through these character things. And it is a sidetracking from the story of the two of them, and it slows down a bit. Have any of you guys ever visited a pecan farm?

Yes, of course. Wow. Well, my grandparents have pecan trees, so, yeah. Is that a farm, though? It's not a farm. Okay. Did you notice that in the mule trailer, Clint Eastwood's is... Yeah, also Pekin.

Yeah, it's Peacants. That's called viral marketing. Yeah. Good job. Good job by those guys. Guys, what's your lasting takeout, your favorite scene from this movie? The first thing. When they sing Shallow for the first time, he pulls around stage.

No. Oh, on stage. That's an all-time movie scene. That is, I have seen that movie a thousand times in the trailers. And kind of, we all made jokes of it in the trailers, and I didn't really think Shallows 100% worked independently. I wanted to talk to you specifically about this because you pointed out when the song first leaked, you were like, this kind of just feels like three songs Frankenstein together and it doesn't

work. And the truth is, is it basically is two songs Frankenstein together. And I thought that was so beautiful in the plot. It made that song make so much more sense to me because she's just taking something she had written before with something she basically freestyles and parking lot and makes it into this triumphant, extremely catchy and sort of like it is in the full-time rotation of like shower humming for me? You know, I'm just like, how did this get into my head again? There's something incredible about that. But the trailer didn't ruin that scene for you in any way?

No, not at all. For me, it was a little bit like when you go to a concert and you're waiting for someone to play the hit song or your favorite song in that moment where it finally happens. And I had this moment of like, oh my God, it's happening. But there is also something about this song is written to the rhythm of the movie. Like there is even like a weird extra five seconds in the bridge. that is so that Lady Gaga can walk up to the front microphone to do the big oh. And it doesn't totally make sense on its own in the song,

but when you're watching in the movie, it's perfect. And I have seen it twice now and cried both times. And I have seen that scene a thousand times in the trailer. I just think it's tremendous. I mean, an all-time great scene. Great storytelling. Movies can be truly great. Amanda, Julia, thanks for doing this.

Sure. When we come back, we will learn that movies can also be incredibly weird with Andrew Grudadadadarro and Lindsay Zoll has. Let's take a quick break. Hey guys, it's Liz Kelly, here to tell you that we have a brand new podcast called Halloween Unmasked, premiering Monday, October 1st. Here's a sneak peek. There's trouble in the suburbs. A teenage girl named Lori Strode crosses a quiet street toward an ordinary house to find her friends. But Lori doesn't know that her friends are dead, and she doesn't know that she's walking right toward the masked killer of Michael Myers. The movie is Halloween.

And Halloween just, it was like a breath of fresh putrid air. He's a pure unknowable evil. I'm film critic Amy Nicholson and this is Halloween on Mast, a podcast series from the ringer celebrating the remarkable and terrifying rise of America's most revolutionary horror film. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast to Halloween Unmast and watch her back. I think the scariest part was that he doesn't die at the end. So when you're 10, it's like, that guy's still out there.

We got to get him. We're back on The Big Picture and I'm so excited to be joined by my colleagues, Andrew Gratadero. Hey. And Lindsay's old lads. Hi. I know that both of you guys love this movie as much as I do. I want to first get your emotional responses to when you first saw it. You both saw it last night.

Tell me, Lindsay, when you came out of the theater, how did you feel? I was crying. And I went to the ladies' room, which was just every woman who was in the theater was like fixing her eye makeup and still sobbing a little bit at the mirror. So it was like a lovely communal experience. But it really, it kind of leaves you right on the tear-jurker note. And the ending I thought was, was beautiful. But also there was no beat to like clean your eyes up a little bit. That's true.

It just like leaves you with the deep sadness and then throws you back out into the cruel world. Yes, hard credits, big song. And then you have to leave the house. How many times did you cry? I think, too. You said you cried four times. I did. I think I might have had a weird morning when I saw it.

But the minute that they, the minute that they were having their moment in the parking lot, I was like, oh, no. I've lost a kind of control of myself that I usually have in movies. It's definitely like a movie that men will cry at, which I love that. There's a lot of just, male sadness, brotherly repressed love. Really sad dog stuff that we will talk about. But it's all the beats of like, I almost feel like more men will cry at this movie than women. I think that's right.

I could never endorse something more than a movie that can put that description. Andrew is a fellow man. Were you? Yeah, no, I agree with that assessment. The Sam Elliott driving away after Bradley Cooper tells him that he's the one he idolized was like the one that got me. That's brutal. Oh, my God.

For best supporting actor, I'm like starting the Oscar campaign now. He's so good. Fully on board. So we should talk about that. So Sam Elliott obviously plays his brother. And also Bradley Cooper has entirely emulated his performance on Sam Elliott's human being. You know, his act, his voice, his affectations, his look to some extent. And there's something really weird about that because Sam Elliott is a good 24 years older than Bradley Cooper. Yeah.

But somehow by dint of storytelling, they kind of make you believe. believe it? Yeah, they explained it. I was really happy about that. He's my half-brother and he moved to a farm, pecan farm because he had a midlife crisis. There's a lot of explaining. I noticed in Manola Dargis's review of the movie that she was like, Bradley Cooper really seems to be going out of his way to do exposition on this movie. Did you guys feel like there was too much information at any given time? A few times, but I also welcomed it. And I felt like a lot of the exposition was really odd. Yeah.

The whole thing where he was like, his father was 63 when he gave birth and his mother was 17 and died in childbirth. Those are just throwaway lines too. Yeah. Yeah, like I think if anything, I wanted more exposition. Right. Yeah. Should we try to get the prequel going at Ringer Films?

The sort of, yeah. The Jackson, the main family saga. Yeah, I also want to know their like father's son band and like what that looked like. But the young Sam Elliott is just played by Sam Elliott. Just young actors in Sam Elliott. I think he's always been that age. He does. He has.

There are some movies in the 70s pre-mustache, Sam Elliott. Weird. That are really off-putting, but also kind of amazing. But he seems like a different man, even though he has that's a striking voice. So you mentioned that, you know, that exposition is kind of odd. I think the weirdness of this movie is one of its great merits. I think it's one of the things that makes me like it so much, aside from the obvious, there's a lot of heartstring tugging going on.

What stuck out to you guys as some of the stranger choices that Bradley Cooper may have made for this movie? Okay, well, he touches Lady Gaga's face repeatedly in this movie. And her nose in particular. Yeah. I was saying it to you earlier this morning, Sean. She's covered in frosting twice in this movie. There are multiple times where she's covered in frosting. He rubs a donut on her face for an extended amount of time.

It's just like, what? In my notes, I see Bradley Cooper has nose fetish. There's a lot of sensual touching this movie. There's a lot of sensual touching of the nose and kind of what the nose signifies about her character too, which we can go into. So here's my defense of that thing. Yeah.

Let's hear it. I think that Cooper, too, is credit. And maybe Eric Roth and the other screenwriters on the film. we're trying to make an effort to say this is what relationships are actually like where you do something when you have that early flirtatious moment and then it becomes this ritual in your relationship

where you have a nickname and you always return to it 30 years later. I mean I know I have that in my relationship where like things that we said to each other when we were young, we still say to each other. However, it's very hard to make that stuff seem reasonable when you've got two huge, massive superstars

who are supposed to be kind of perfect all the time. This movie is about a lot of their imperfections, obviously. But I don't know, were you, were you thrown off by the nose thing, or did you like it, Lindsay? I liked it in, because also it's in the context of the character, Ali, saying, you know, everyone in the music industry, early on in the movie, she says that everyone she's met in the music industry has told her her nose is too big, and that's why she can't be a star. And so much of this movie is also meta-textual about Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper's star personas. And so in that moment, that's also Lady Gaga saying people told me my nose was too big,

which also was something that people told Barbara Streisand, who played this role before her. So it's just so much of this movie, I think I was saying it's both this emotional escapism and like a very well put together just like Hollywood crafted thing. But then on another level, it's so meta that it's disorienting and you're just like who wrote this line what are they trying to say but yeah I do so I do like the nose thing because I think there is

there's both like the silly meme part of it and then there's just like a lot of commentary around that too for sure I think this movie does at its best yeah I think image is a huge part of the story that they're trying to tell I want to talk if we're going to talk about faces

a little bit about Bradley Cooper's face so Bradley Cooper's face is very red in this movie. It is beaten. It is like he has been like huffing gin for days. And do you think that that's just a lot of makeup? Do you think he methoded his way into that look? How do you think he arrived at that place?

It's probably a little bit of both. Every time he drank, I got the feeling that he was actually drinking. Every time he did anything as Jackson Main, I got the impression that he fully thought he was Jackson Main. I think he is Bradley Cooper is sober now, though, right? He is sober. Yeah. Because I kind of don't understand

how one space could get that without actually it's pretty impressive. Yeah. But I guess maybe he just like weathered his face, like stood in heavy weather. Right.

He visited a sandstorm, yeah. Yeah, it's a really weird choice. I don't know. What are some other weird choices? I mean, just the voice in general is he's committing so hard to it and there are points where he's just like, and you're like,

What? He's incomprehensive. And you really don't know what he says and no one goes back to it. He's going so hard in a way that I love. Yeah, I wrote that he, it's as if his tongue has been stung by a bee. You know, it's like you can't get it out of its own way. And so it's interesting in a movie like this to have moments where the star, the lead character, you just can't understand him. You just don't know what he's driving out.

I mean, obviously we see that he's very fucked up. But aside from that, long stretches of him stumbling around rooms and saying things that you don't understand. And in the New York Times magazine profile of him, he talked about how he did sort of physically transform, like, the way he held his body and his throat to get his voice like this and was, like, initially in pain, which is incredible, but also such a encapsulation of, like, Bradley Cooper in this movie and how much work and work he's putting in and how much he wants you to see the work that he's putting in, both through directing and co-writing. this, but also to playing

this role that feels you know, it's a role he wrote for himself to embody and there's just a lot of work going on in the voice, in the body language, in the guitar playing. He learned how to play guitar for this movie and like, it was pretty good.

Yeah, I was going to say, he's kind of, he's a pretty credible musician in general. It's just so earnest in a really rare way right now. Like, he's going so hard and he wants you to take it fully seriously and he's not really even considering

the possibility that you might find it funny. Yes, so I mentioned this to you both yesterday. It is probably the least self-aware, self-conscious, big Hollywood movie in a long time. And I'm wondering if there was any part of you guys that's sort of bucked against that or if you were willing to accept it full stop. Long pause.

An earnest long pause. I think it's the ton of, of this movie is so strange, and it's even stranger that they pull it off, because I think it's so self-serious that it becomes kind of silly, but then it moves past the silliness to become serious and actually moving again, which is so hard to do. It's very easy to do self-seriousness into, like, so good it's bad. I mean, that's my favorite genre of movie, and this is not that. But I do, I think there are elements of Gaga's. performance that are self-aware.

Even though she, I think part of why she's so good in this movie is she's an incredibly earnest artist, too. I think we tend to think about her with these big personas and artifice, but underneath it all, I think what's always been driving her is this very earnest theater kid love of putting on a show and music. And there's something kind of old school and throwback about her in the same way that there is about someone like Bradley Cooper. But I think there are just parts where.

she's bringing, like I love the parts where she'll kind of, something crazy will happen, like when she has the frozen peas on her hand, and she'll be sort of like along for the ride, and then suddenly be like, what the hell am I doing? And the character is saying that, but it's these little asides to the audience almost. Those got really big laughs in the theater. It just her, those little muttered asides played really well. And I do think there is a level of self-consciousness the way she delivers that. Yeah, I want to see the shooting script to see how much of this was.

there versus how much it was her just kind of breaking in the moment and saying something that was naturally charming. Yeah, we were talking about that with the with the socks. Let's talk about the socks. Andrew, can you, like, let's set up the scene there. So, if I remember correctly, Bradley Cooper is with Allie's, sorry, Jackson Main, let's call him what his real name is. Jackson Maine is with Allie's manager. So evil, by the way. Who is an evil man from the UK. Yes, the embodiment of British slees.

And Jackson notes, he says, oh, you're not wearing socks. You're not something else. There's like a lead into about his drinking, and then he totally deflects to talk. Right. And then he points to the man not wearing socks, which then prompts the man to be like, well, I am wearing socks. They're these little things. And then the camera pans to the man's foot. Yeah.

And they continue to riff about the socks for at least another minute. And then it moves on. Like, was that in the script? I would also love to see a shooting script because there were parts of this that felt improvised. But I don't know if Bradley Cooper is the type of director that that would, like a lot of the rest of it felt very controlled. Yeah. It's funny. You know, Rob Harvilla wrote about Cooper earlier this week on the site.

And he noted that there's, he's really on this. thin line between Academy Award and Nicholas Cage. And that scene in particular, I was like, what is this? Like, what are we supposed to learn from this scene? What are we supposed to glean from these characters? Like, you sense that there is a kind of iciness between Jackson and the manager character. But their interplay, like, I guess it's like, well, they don't have much to say to each other because they kind of despise each other.

But it would be okay for them to just openly despise each other. There wouldn't be a problem with that. But there's almost like an attempt at subtlety in a lot. of moments in this movie that weirdly falls flat because it feels like the opposite of subtle. Does that make sense? Yeah, there's nothing that Jackson Main can do that reads as subtle on screen. It's just because he's got that Sam Elliott voice playing opposite the actual Sam Elliott. Like, that's another weird meta thing.

I mean, Sam Elliott actually says you stole my voice in the movie. Yeah, I screamed. It actually happens. Let's talk about another really good performance in this movie, which is a performance by a dog. Oh, boy. There's a very good dog in this movie. Lindsay, you want to talk about the dog? I don't know if I can without crying, actually.

So the dog, Charlie, is played by himself. Charlie Cooper, Bradley Cooper's pup. I think some sort of golden doodle maybe just as a breed. It's like a little golden dodle. just a sweet, sweet boy who we just learned earlier today won a special award for this film from Pita.

The first ever Compassion and Film Award was given to Charlie Cooper and Bradley for just being a really good boy on screen. What does that award look like? Is it in the shape of like a bone? It's just a large bone. It's a big steak.

Yeah, yeah. The dog stuff at the, like that was when my heartstrings were really just the scene before, you know, when he's kind of preparing to leave this world and gives a very large stake to the dog who has to be encouraged to eat it. Yes. Heartbreaking. And then the shot of the dog, like where you kind of see his like body hanging from the rafters and the dog is like waiting outside. But I can't even talk about it. So I have a sort of logistical question about that scene, which is very beautiful, haunting moment and very essential to

the ending of the movie. But is there a doggy door in this house? How'd that dog get outside? Whoa, yeah. There's got to be a doggy door. Okay. Because that's the only explanation, right? This is probably not appropriate, but I was very emotional during this movie.

I was very engaged. I was really feeling close to it. But when that happened, I was like, how did that dog get outside? That was my first reaction. I like the way you're thinking. Well, I'm just, I'm looking for logic in all my movies for whatever reason. If there's not, that would be a good goof on IMDB. Yeah, maybe when we do the rewatchables on a Star was born 25.

five years from now. We'll put that in the nitpicks category. No, we're going to do that like six months now. Honestly, you're the only movie I'm going to watch. You're exactly right. Any other weirdness you guys want to note? What other notes did you take where you said, what is going on here? I wrote that he really hates windmills. So, you know, and I think I can expand this to a larger point that so much of this movie

is about this sort of outdated man getting angry at modernity and the way things are and his own obsolescence. And it's perfectly encapsulated not only in the musical stuff, but in the way that Sam Elliott, the older brother, sells the family ranch, and now it's a windmill farm. And that just sets Jackson Mean off. Does Jackson May know that windmills have been around for 100 years? But they're the really modern-looking kind.

That's true. I hate to say that it's the only thing I think Jackson Moon shares with Donald Trump is the hatred of windmills. I'll just leave that there. But yeah, I liked that. Does Jackson Main have a cell phone? Whoa. I would guess no.

We never see it if he does. He would definitely have a flip phone if he had any phone. I had this conversation with someone recently who had seen the movie, and we were trying to find the real world comp for Jackson Maine. So I want you guys to help me figure this out. I'll give you some of my theories and maybe you can give me some of yours. So we get the sense that he sort of arrived on the music scene, maybe late 20th century, early 21st century, became a big star making soulful pop country rock. Is that right?

Yeah. Okay. So that period of time is what? It's the strokes. It's the white stripes. It's the killers, the black keys. It's nickel back. It's creed.

What are the popular bands in that time? The only band that I could think of where I was like, oh, I see who could have? headline Coachella that is like this is Kings of Leon. So is Jackson Maine just like Caleb Fowalwell from Kings of Leon? Because it seems like, and it's to your point about modernity, Lindsay, that he's basically just a guy from 1978 that they put in 2018. Yeah, 100%. That's why the Caleb Fowalwell thing, it's like he's just, I guess fame-wise it makes,

it tracks, but like coolness-wise. it doesn't exactly track. Like, he seems much older than Caleb Fowloa. Definitely. Does he seem much cooler? I think he seems less cool than Caleb Fowloa. Like, appeals to a less cool audience than, I guess, Kings of Leon did in whatever, 2005. Right.

I guess the kind of guy who would perform a Roy Orbison tribute at the Grammys. With a British guy who sang so much like for Orbison that it was weird. He was good. Another oddity. I was thinking more contemporary and I know like a great fact about Bradley Cooper's preparation for this role as I'm sure you guys know is he based

he talked to Eddie Vedder a lot and got advice the first bit of advice I think was don't do this Bro don't do this One of the great quote Maybe the only great quote of this press tour Bro don't do this Eddie better

I'm going to throw out there I don't think Jackson Main could be in a band I think he has to be a solo artist Okay. He would be a terrible person to be in a band with because he can't cooperate with anyone. I was not to like, I was getting a little bit of like Eric Church vibes from him. Although that's maybe too, but the real kind of outlaw country guy. I also think a larger part of this movie is like, I don't know that Bradley Cooper has the firmest grasp on the modern music scene.

And I think that comes through more in the alley character than in Jackson. Maine, but I did not really find this movie to be any sort of, you know, as a music critic, did not find a lot of deep commentary on like the way the industry is right now. Let's use that as an opportunity to pivot to Allie and Allie's pop stardom.

Ladies and gentlemen, Allie. Allie, Ballard. One Allie is the worst name for a pop star that I've ever heard in my life. Let's also think about a world in which this is a movie directed by Clint Eastwood, starring Bradley Cooper and Beyonce. Yeah.

That is almost what happened. It didn't happen. I think it's pretty merciful that it didn't. I don't think it would be half as funny or even half as emotionally engaging, if it were. But what did you guys make of sort of the alifying of Lady Gaga? One, it happened really quickly. Yes. In a way that was jarring.

It happened while I was in the bathroom. And also dating the bells. Yeah. That's a whole other thing. But, yeah. Yeah, like, I think the first hour or so the movie covers like a week at most. And then the next hour covers maybe years or a year. Time is very fuzzy.

And things just start happening. Boom, boom, boom, boom. I think that's part of why the first hour is such like a perfect piece of movie. And then the second hour is a little, you know, kind of loses you here and there. Yeah. And we, I guess we've been debating whether Allie's supposed to be a good pop star. Yeah. What do we think? No.

It's very hard to say. She gives a kind of classic SNL musical performance movie that is clearly bad and clearly kind of misarranged and phony. I loved it. It's meant to reveal that, you know, Jackson is authentic and real and Allie is leaning into the commercialism of pop music and she's lost her way or whatever. It's kind of like this is not a pop-timist movie by any means. but it's weird because everybody is kind of bad on SNL. So it's plausible that if she were in, we saw her in the studio more,

making records more. The one time when we see her at the piano doing basically a Lady Gaga thing, I like that song. That song is good. So it's kind of hard to know how good Allie really is. Yeah, it does feel to me, though,

I think the whole Allie persona is the weak part of the movie to me and it feels like a wasted opportunity when you have Lady Gaga who's really one of the most visually inventive pop stars of the last decade. And Ali, like, it does feel to me like a creation of Bradley Cooper as literally everything in the film. And I just don't, like, her fashion is really bad and her hair is weird.

And she, like, the first outfit she's wearing with the sequins and the Pocodot skirt is like Forever 21's. sale bin. It's very, it just like looks cheap and weird too. So the idea, I don't know, I think that he, there is an idea that pop stardom is easy in this. And I don't think that's true. And I don't think Ali, there's no reason for us to believe as a modern audience that the alley would, you know, suddenly win the best new artist Grammy and, uh, which Halsey. Halsey passes the torch. Yeah, that's the biggest question mark I'm left with. And in playing that part, is Gaga repudiating her past a little bit? Or is she kind of just sticking with the script that was given her?

Because I don't necessarily think that we're meant to think by the end of the movie, she completely abandons that aesthetic. The closing moments of the film, though, there's a kind of elegance to her final performance. And she's dyed her hair back. which is a little bit. And yeah, I don't know. I'm at a loss. Okay, let's end on this.

Whose debut single are you more likely to spend American currency on Jackson, Maine or Allie Main? Andrew. I'm going to listen to Jackson, Maine more. Lindsay? Don't make me choose. I mean, the Allie songs were not peak Gaga. Yeah. I think I'm going to choose the like Alley's, well, who am I kidding? I'm going to choose shallow. Yes, the duet. The duet. That's true. That's fair.

That's the correct answer to this question. Okay. It's time to let the old ways die. Lindsay Zolads, Andrew Grettedaro. Thank you for doing this. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much for listening to this A Star is Born themed episode of The Big Picture. Please check us out later this week where we have another episode with the first time writer-director, Ike Barronholz. you may know him from the Mindy Project. He's got a very funny, very interesting, surprisingly thoughtful satire coming out called The Oath.

And if you want more on a Star is Born or the movie Venom, please go to the ringer.com where we have been covering those movies exhaustively. Until then, see you next week.