A Star is Born (2018 - Bradley Cooper & Lady Gaga) (1 Viewer)

[Robert Crawford]

I watched A STAR IS BORN (1954) on TCM on Sunday, my first time viewing it in 44 years. Dave Karger was the host and his guest was Bradley Cooper (who didn't even bother to comb his hair). Not a word was said about the movie they were about to show. Instead, Karger talked to Cooper about the new version. The movie starts. About 40 min. in there are ten minutes of scenes that are largely a series of sepia-toned still images accompanied by the dialogue. How very odd. I looked in Maltin and he explained that when they restored the film in 1983 there was footage missing from the cut scenes, but an intact soundtrack so they put in the stills to bridge the gaps. This is what Karger was supposed to have told us in the intro instead of sitting there blowing smoke up Bradley Cooper's ass for four minutes. I was furious.

This is one of those stills:

I guess those of us that have seen that version recently should have mentioned that, but I thought it was so well known about the cut footage and stills. That Karger interview is part of the 19 minute interview I mentioned earlier in this thread.

 

[TJPC]

I think the cut footage replaced by stills is shorter isn’t it? This restoration also adds two cut numbers — the proposal scene and “lose that long face”. I remember seeing this version in the theatre and after seeing the mutilated version many times, it was a thrill to finally getting something approaching the original version.

The Blu ray version further restores the image so that it is now hard to tell (except for stills!) what has been re-inserted. I of course live in hope that a complete version, always rumoured to exist, will be found.

 

[Sam Posten]

I liked it. The two leads had great chemistry. I really didn't buy into the sellout tho, and agree it's a miss pacing wise in an otherwise near perfect film. It would have been better if she had been ground down into accepting it rather than embracing it with little need. Maybe if they had played off her hangups about her looks more, I dunno.

I wish Chappelle had more screen time. I don't think the Sam Elliot character is worthy of the hype he is getting, tho there is one terrific scene as a heel. I had no idea that was Dice until the credits rolled!

 

[Vic Pardo]

I guess those of us that have seen that version recently should have mentioned that, but I thought it was so well known about the cut footage and stills. That Karger interview is part of the 19 minute interview I mentioned earlier in this thread.

I'm sure I'd heard about it, too, 35 years ago when the restoration was done. But I'd forgotten all about it. This is just an educated guess, but it seems likely to me that thousands of people who'd never seen any version of A STAR IS BORN before were tuning in to TCM on Sunday to see the one previous version that has been the most talked about in the hype for the new film. It's a safe bet that the overwhelming majority of these viewers had no idea about the restoration and would have appreciated a heads-up about the stills-only scenes. TCM's disregard for these viewers is inexcusable.

 

[JohnMor]

This quote is a recurring line in the two earliest films, and is turned into a song in the Babs version.

Kristofferson also says the line twice in the 1976 film as well.

 

[benbess]

Saw this today. Agree with Colin and Tino's thoughts on it. Liked it a lot. My rating: "A-"

 

[Wayne_j]

I saw this today and enjoyed it a lot. Did anyone else notice the use of the cut introduction to Somewhere Over the Rainbow during the "A Star is Born" title screen? I think this is a nod to both Judy Garland (star of the 1954 version) and to Harold Arlen (writer of the music for both Somewhere Over the Rainbow and also the songs for the 1954 version of A Star is Born).

 

[Robert Crawford]

I saw this today and enjoyed it a lot. Did anyone else notice the use of the cut introduction to Somewhere Over the Rainbow during the "A Star is Born" title screen? I think this is a nod to both Judy Garland (star of the 1954 version) and to Harold Arlen (writer of the music for both Somewhere Over the Rainbow and also the songs for the 1954 version of A Star is Born).

The preamble to "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" was a nod to Judy Garland per Bradley Cooper. The title card was a nod to her 1954 version.

 

[Malcolm R]

Warner Bros.confirms to IndieWire it is submitting “Shallow,” “I’ll Never Love Again,” and “Always Remember Us This Way” into the original song race for the 91st Academy Awards. Oscar rules state there can only be two nominated songs from one film, so Warner Bros. is hoping to maximize their chances by submitting three songs for consideration.

 

[Jake Lipson]

That seems like a dumb move.

Better to submit only one and concentrate all the voters' attention around it. Otherwise, they run the risk of splitting the Star is Born vote and letting some other film sneak out the win.

 

[Vic Pardo]

That seems like a dumb move.

Better to submit only one and concentrate all the voters' attention around it. Otherwise, they run the risk of splitting the Star is Born vote and letting some other film sneak out the win.

"And the Oscar goes to...'Love Theme from HALLOWEEN'!"

Hey, that would be Carpenter's first Oscar, right?

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Better to submit only one and concentrate all the voters' attention around it. Otherwise, they run the risk of splitting the Star is Born vote and letting some other film sneak out the win.

Interesting historical fact on that: In the last thirty years, every film that has had multiple songs nominated in the Best Original Song category has won:

• 62nd Academy Awards: "Under the Sea" won for The Little Mermaid (also nominated: "Kiss the Girl")
• 64th Academy Awards: "Beauty and the Beast" won for Beauty and the Beast (also nominated: "Be Our Guest" and "Belle")
• 65th Academy Awards: "A Whole New World" won for Aladdin (also nominated: "Friend Like Me")
• 66th Academy Awards: "Streets of Philadelphia" for Philadelphia (also nominated: "Philadelphia")
• 67th Academy Awards: "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" won for The Lion King (also nominated: "Circle of Life" and "Hakuna Matata")
• 81st Academy Awards: "Jai Ho" won for Slumdog Millionaire (also nominated: "O... Saya")
• 89th Academy Awards: "City of Stars" won for La La Land (also nominated: "Audition")

 

[Jake Lipson]

Interesting historical fact on that: In the last thirty years, every film that has had multiple songs nominated in the Best Original Song category has won

Every bullet point you listed is correct, but your statement is not because you've inadvertently left out the years where multiple nominees canceled each other out.

Dreamgirls (released 2006, ceremony 2007) had 3 nominees - "Listen," "Love You I Do," "Patience" - and lost to "I Need to Wake Up" from An Inconvenient Truth.

Enchanted (released 2007, ceremony 2008) also had 3 nominees - "Happy Working Song," "So Close," "That's How You Know" and all lost to "Falling Slowly" from Once.

It was after this happened that the new two-songs-per-film limit was initiated. The back-to-back incidence of vote-splitting causing the presumed frontrunner to lose out entirely is likely what caused this rule change.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Every bullet point you listed is correct, but your statement is not because you've inadvertently left out the years where multiple nominees canceled each other out.

Dreamgirls (released 2006, ceremony 2007) had 3 nominees - "Listen," "Love You I Do," "Patience" - and lost to "I Need to Wake Up" from An Inconvenient Truth.

Enchanted (released 2007, ceremony 2008) also had 3 nominees - "Happy Working song," "So Close," "That's How You Know" and all lost to "Falling Slowly" from Once.

It was after this happened that the new two-songs-per-film limit was initiated. The back-to-back incidence of vote-splitting causing the presumed frontrunner to lose out entirely is likely what caused this rule change.

I appreciate the correction! It was late when I was writing that, and the list I was going off of only listed Dreamgirls and Enchanted once, rather than giving each song a separate line. Half-asleep, I missed it despite going over the list two or three times.

 

[Jake Lipson]

We've all done that late at night before. Despite your having left those off, your point is well-taken that multiple nominees does not automatically mean a loss by any means. But it certainly doesn't make it easier to win, as the potential for vote-splitting does exist.

With the '90s Disney musicals you cited in your original post, every single time the winner was the song that had the end credits single (and for Mermaid, which I know was '89 but still falls into the stylistic grouping, Under the Sea was repeated on the credits even though there was no pop version.) That gave those songs radio airplay and got the voters to hear them twice in the course of the film, rather than only once, and was essentially picking one song and saying to voters, "Focus on this one."

With Slumdog Millionaire, all the For Your Consideration ads and everything after nominations pushed voters toward Jai Ho - Fox essentially anointed it the chosen one.

Submitting three for A Star is Born is a calculated risk, and in fact they are submitting more than can be nominated, so one of them will have to fall off. It will probably win anyway because the movie is a major contender in categories other than Song, which is often not the case with other nominations in this category. However, so was Dreamgirls. and that didn't stop the loss. We'll see.

I think the nominees end up being Shallow and I'll Never Love Again, with Always Remember Us This Way falling off due to the limit, and Shallow ultimately wins.

 

[mattCR]

Which is sad, because I enjoyed "Maybe It's Time" better than any of these three songs

 

[Jake Lipson]

A small awards season hiccup: the soundtrack won't compete for Grammys until the 2020 ceremony, due to its release date.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/r...-soundtrack-wont-compete-2019-grammys-1156291

 

[JimmyO]

lol nevermind. I wrote a post stating confusion, and missed where it was talking about Grammys, not Oscars.

Ignore! lol

 

[Bernard McNair]

We saw A Star Is Born today and I thought it was very poor. I could not believe how poorly written it was and how totally disengaged with the characters I felt.
Clearly I am in a minority but I feel that it s one of the worst movies I have seen in ages (and I like Bradley Cooper and love musicals).

 

[Robert Crawford]

We saw A Star Is Born today and I thought it was very poor. I could not believe how poorly written it was and how totally disengaged with the characters I felt.
Clearly I am in a minority but I feel that it s one of the worst movies I have seen in ages (and I like Bradley Cooper and love musicals).

Oh well, one man's work of art is another man's garbage.