(5) Did you notice the debt "A Star Is Born" owes to "Silver Linings Playbook"? "Playbook" was--and is--Bradley Cooper's most artistically-successful movie. One of its main charming features was the chaotic working-class family that surrounded Cooper's character. Whenever Cooper stepped into his childhood home, the camera seemed to develop a case of ADHD; everything was kinetic; there was constant movement, movement, movement. The house seemed extremely cluttered, lived-in; it seemed to be its own world. Do you not get exactly the same impression when Lady Gaga's character enters her father's home, in "A Star Is Born"? And is Andrew Dice Clay not doing his best Robert De Niro impression? De Niro was nutty and delightful in "Silver Linings"; he revealed his eccentricity through his non-stop chatter w/r/t Philadelphia sports obsessions. Andrew Dice Clay is nutty and delightful in "A Star Is Born"; he reveals his eccentricity through his non-stop musings about Sinatra and the Career that Could Have Been. I'm not sure Cooper has openly acknowledged a debt to "Playbook"--yet. If he hasn't? That's odd.
(4) Cooper also owes a debt to "Titanic," of course. "Titanic": The high-stakes melodrama where two young people find love in a perilous and exotic mini-world, and the man dies, and the man's memory lives on in the (forever-changed) young woman. "A Star Is Born": Two young people find love, perilous, exotic mini-world, death of the man, yadda yadda. (What is more eye-popping: the first-class cabins of an old-timey luxury ship, or the set of "Saturday Night Live," with a guest visit from Alec Baldwin? You tell me.)
(3) A melodrama needs an over-the-top number, and Lady Gaga delivers in a big way--with "I'll Never Love Again." Melodrama needs ABSOLUTES. Big, crazy absolutes. "Near--far--WHEREVER YOU ARE, you are safe in my heart...." "I will ALWAYS love you...." "I have NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING, if I don't have you." Some of my favorite bits of wild hyperbole come from Gaga's number: "I'll never feel another touch....OR LET ANOTHER DAY BEGIN...WON'T EVEN LET THE SUNLIGHT IN!" Those are some apocalyptic sentiments. Celine Dion would be proud.
(2) The best thing the NYT has ever published is an interview with Diane Warren, who is responsible for a now-classic line: "Why'dja come around me with an ass like that?" (Gaga: "Yes, of course we can use that line. Why wouldn't we be able to use that line?") Diane Warren speaks with candor and wisdom. She says, "There's nothing wrong with a good pop song." (Take that, Jackson Maine.) Also from Diane Warren: "You write the stuff you were born to write. I did 'Blame It on the Rain.' You have to respect your own voice." God Bless You, Sister.
(1) This isn't at all related to Lady Gaga, but I have to put in a plug for Andre Dubus III here. I have finally picked up his collection of novellas, "Dirty Love." I'm in awe. Form matches content: The first novella takes place in the mind of a distressed, no-longer-young-or-youngish man, and the winding, propulsive sentences seem to recreate the distress, for you, even on a rhythmic level. The attention to gesture is stunning: At one point, a man discovers he is being cuckolded simply because his wife reaches for his balls in a new way, and he senses she is making a comparison in her head.
Twists occur as they occur in real life: A stranger is not the man you're expecting, and something you envision as a confrontation turns out to be a wacky moment of shared exasperation. And there isn't much in the way of authorial snideness/judgy-ness: As someone once said of Richard Yates, "This guy sees eye to eye with every one of us." I'm so happy to have "discovered" Dubus III--and intrigued by his filial relationship, given that his father was a monster and a genius, and a man responsible for the "Dirty Love"-ish novella, "We Don't Live Here Anymore." And, anyway, I'm eager to pick up Younger Dubus's brand new work--"Gone So Long"--maybe at Thanksgiving.
(4) Cooper also owes a debt to "Titanic," of course. "Titanic": The high-stakes melodrama where two young people find love in a perilous and exotic mini-world, and the man dies, and the man's memory lives on in the (forever-changed) young woman. "A Star Is Born": Two young people find love, perilous, exotic mini-world, death of the man, yadda yadda. (What is more eye-popping: the first-class cabins of an old-timey luxury ship, or the set of "Saturday Night Live," with a guest visit from Alec Baldwin? You tell me.)
(3) A melodrama needs an over-the-top number, and Lady Gaga delivers in a big way--with "I'll Never Love Again." Melodrama needs ABSOLUTES. Big, crazy absolutes. "Near--far--WHEREVER YOU ARE, you are safe in my heart...." "I will ALWAYS love you...." "I have NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING, if I don't have you." Some of my favorite bits of wild hyperbole come from Gaga's number: "I'll never feel another touch....OR LET ANOTHER DAY BEGIN...WON'T EVEN LET THE SUNLIGHT IN!" Those are some apocalyptic sentiments. Celine Dion would be proud.
(2) The best thing the NYT has ever published is an interview with Diane Warren, who is responsible for a now-classic line: "Why'dja come around me with an ass like that?" (Gaga: "Yes, of course we can use that line. Why wouldn't we be able to use that line?") Diane Warren speaks with candor and wisdom. She says, "There's nothing wrong with a good pop song." (Take that, Jackson Maine.) Also from Diane Warren: "You write the stuff you were born to write. I did 'Blame It on the Rain.' You have to respect your own voice." God Bless You, Sister.
(1) This isn't at all related to Lady Gaga, but I have to put in a plug for Andre Dubus III here. I have finally picked up his collection of novellas, "Dirty Love." I'm in awe. Form matches content: The first novella takes place in the mind of a distressed, no-longer-young-or-youngish man, and the winding, propulsive sentences seem to recreate the distress, for you, even on a rhythmic level. The attention to gesture is stunning: At one point, a man discovers he is being cuckolded simply because his wife reaches for his balls in a new way, and he senses she is making a comparison in her head.
Twists occur as they occur in real life: A stranger is not the man you're expecting, and something you envision as a confrontation turns out to be a wacky moment of shared exasperation. And there isn't much in the way of authorial snideness/judgy-ness: As someone once said of Richard Yates, "This guy sees eye to eye with every one of us." I'm so happy to have "discovered" Dubus III--and intrigued by his filial relationship, given that his father was a monster and a genius, and a man responsible for the "Dirty Love"-ish novella, "We Don't Live Here Anymore." And, anyway, I'm eager to pick up Younger Dubus's brand new work--"Gone So Long"--maybe at Thanksgiving.
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