A Star is Born

Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga stars as Jack and Ally in this remake version 4.0 of a tried and true Hollywood story.  Crumbling older star finds a young, ambitious and upcoming young woman and shapes and molds her talent, only to see her star eclipse his.  His sun goes down, hers comes up.

Directed also by Cooper, its an intentionally spare look to the movie.  The real star is the original music, produced mainly by Lukas Nelson, son of Willie, who knows a lot about an aging star.  Gaga does great of course, but Coop does a servicable job as his version of Gregg Allman.  Gaga seems to play a Taylor Swift version, starting out young and country and progressing to pop, dancing.

At time it's a bit cartoonish, with the hat of Cooper signaling his return to craziness, like a version of Jim Carrey in The Mask.    He's either completely smashed or bright-eyed lucid.  Gaga plays it more straight. I expect we'll see more of both.

Overall, excellent music and look.  Reminded me a bit of La La Land, surprisingly, with music filling the role of the dancing.

* * * * *  (highest)