[Movies] Flick Check: A Star is Born

It is not something I would do under normal circumstances. I will not go into details about how I ended up seeing A Star is Born in a movie theatre, but I did. Let's leave it at that.

This is the fourth version of this movie. The first was back in the '30s I think (I'm feeling too lazy to look it up and I don't really care anyway). All are the same plot: an over-the-hill music star takes a younger talent under his wing. She eventually outshines him and he dies in some heartbreaking manner.

Bradley Cooper is a talented guy. He did a good job of playing a genial, well-meaning alcoholic but the script eventually called for that alcoholic to go off the deep end and, given the way he played the role, it ended up seeming out of character for him to do so. More impressive is the work he must have put into his voice, since he actually does all his own singing. That is best thing I can say about this movie.

The worst thing is the music. Cooper was apparently supposed to be some sort of hard rock guitar player/country music idol. I have no idea what sound they were looking for out of the music his character is given. This movie was big on stereotypes so I guess they wanted the washed-up white guy to be a country singer, but they also needed him to have a groupies and snort coke like rocker so they just sort of mashed it up. It was some sore-thumb weirdness. Within the scope of the movie, the lyrics of his songs could be interpreted as poignant, but just about any song can be relevant to anything if it's generic enough.

The up and coming talent is played by Lady Gaga, who is a thoroughly contemporary diva-style singer. What does it mean to be a thoroughly contemporary diva-style singer? There are two common qualities: 1) Narcissism and 2) Volume.

1. Your garden variety Contemporary Diva is enthralled with herself. Nearly all the songs are about her personal empowerment, how no hardship can stop her, how she won't let anyone stand in her way. The ultimate prizes are fame, validation, and personal status. She may occasionally sing about love, but only to the extent it demonstrates her fierce drive for self-fulfillment. She may occasionally sing about social justice, but only to demonstrate that it's OK for her to be self-absorbed because she is so good and woke.
2. Whatever emotions your garden variety Contemporary Diva is trying to express, it is done with volume. Whether she needs to express heartache, anger, despair, joy, regret, glee, ennui -- you name it, it is done by increasing the volume, exaggerating the sustain, and wavering the tone haphazardly. This is understandable, I suppose, given the limited range of subject matter there just aren't that many emotions to convey. It is the sort of thing that causes the judges on those excruciating American Idol-type shows to gush.

When one of these women releases an autobiographical album entitled "Howls About Me" we can assume a peak will have been reached.

So, yeah, Lady Gaga: not a fan. There is no accounting for the ebb and flow of musical fashions and the world is not obligated to be ordered in alignment with my tastes, but the state of commercially successful music is atrocious. I don't want to be one of those grouches who rants about how everything was better back in the day. Crappy music has always been with us and I should acknowledge that good and creative music is still being produced everyday. But you gotta look hard for it -- it's all niche and obscure. Alas.

Back to the movie.

Apart from the music the other horrible thing was the overall milieu. Every insipid aspect of popular culture was on display and exalted. The presentation of queer folks and self-styled rebels as inherently good, and common proles as dolts; the worship of celebrity and the elevation of their privilege and nobility; all the thoughtless stereotypes -- it was just...wearying. Every minute was another gut-punch of trite, pop cultural arrogance. In the end, the only emotion I was left with was exhaustion. And relief that it was over.

Aside: If you want a starting place to look for good music, you could do worse than Ted Gioia's best albums of the year. The cross all countries and genres, including some you didn't know existed (including things like "Three-Voice Appalachian Rural Polyphony" and "Hot New Bands from Serbia"). None of this will you hear on the radio or America's Next Pop Star. This is how you find good music nowadays. Pour over lists like this, investigate what sounds interesting, use AllMusic or something other source to see what is related. You would think in the age of Google there would be an easier way to do this, but I haven't found it.