Meanwhile, This Song
Posted on October 3, 2018 Posted by John Scalzi 13 Comments
From the movie A Star is Born, which comes out tomorrow. The song is surprisingly good — which seems like I’m damning Lady Gaga (who co-wrote it) with slight praise. I’m not meaning to minimize her talents at all (they’re pretty obvious at this point), but songs written for movies are often about something else than being a good song. This is a good song, and it seems to fit the movie. If I understand the story correctly, this is a song she wrote but Bradley Cooper’s character arranges with the intent of encouraging her to come onstage to sing it (and thus kickstart her path to stardom). Even in video you can see how that emotional interplay is working, and Gaga sells it perfectly. If the actual movie is as good as the moment the video covers, this is going to be a contender.
It’s a little fascinating to me how yet another Star Is Born movie has somehow become something I am really jonesing to see tomorrow night. And this song…damn, that’s good.
You shouldn’t be too surprised. The director is Damien Chazelle; all of his movies have focused on music, and all of them have had outstanding scores and award-winning performances.
Ack. No, it’s not Chazelle… it’s Bradley Cooper. Never mind. I plead slightly premature senility; Chazelle has an upcoming movie (First Man) and I somehow got confused. Advancing age is a terrible thing, even if it does beat the alternative.
Funny thing is, I don’t like most of her music — often, either the music itself or the theme of her words turns me off. But I like this song a lot. And the movie looks like it might be interesting.
Not to say that I think she’s a bad singer — she’s definitively not. Her music just isn’t usually much to my tastes.
As a huge Gaga fan this was always on my must see list anyway; good to see that the soundtrack is looking like a good purchase too.
I’m also amazed that another Star is Born has been made and it looks just as good as the last.
As a fan, I’m really proud of Bradley Cooper. He’s a great guy with a great attitude. Also, he’s a bit of a nerd, just like me :)
Perhaps this will be the thing that will get him more pull in Hollywood. Maybe even he can take a “real” shot with GK Films and get a Hyperion adaptation off the ground.
The music and the visuals compliment and amplify each other. In that sense, it’s pretty well done. For me…. meh. I end up feeling manipulated rather than entertained.
As a geezer, let me say it is neither of the stars who make me say that the chances of my seeing this are less than one.
Who says Hollywood is out of original ideas?
And keep off my lawn!
I haaaaaaaaaaaate the plot of A Star Is Born. I don’t want to see Bradley Cooper drink himself to death or whatever. But this moment looks so lovely it pains me not to see the movie…except I know I’d hate the movie.
You know how people tell you to see some visually remarkable films on the biggest screen possible? This is that, but for audio. Warner Bros. held all of its press screenings at theaters with Dolby sound, to show off the fact that all of the film’s performances — singing and music — were recorded live, and it sounds amazing. (The movie itself is pretty darn good, too.)
Kind of a June Carter and Johnny Cash vibe?
I dunno about the assertion that songs for movies not being good songs– I went on an 80s music binge yesterday on youtube and was shocked at how many classic 80s songs have crappy movie clips in their music videos because they were written for crappy 80s movies. Great song, painful video. I mean, I vaguely remember watching Mannequin on tv as a kid, but I know Nothing’s gonna stop us now. (I guess technically Hazy shade of winter wasn’t written for what Wikipedia tells me was “Less than Zero”, but it was covered by the Bangles for that purpose. And Goonies is a classic movie in its own right.)
I hate the plot of A Star Is Born too, and this video doesn’t make me feel any warmer toward it. The song is okay (good, not great), but the montages are hackneyed as hell. BUT: from a couple of articles I’ve read (NY Times and somewhere else), my strong impression is that Cooper added some emotional depth to the story this time. I never thought I would say this about any A Star Is Born movie r anything involving Lady Gaga (talented, yes, but not my cup of tea), but I really want to see this movie.