What I've Seen
A Star is Born
1937, 1954, 1976, 2018. Four versions of "A Star is Born' and there's no wonder why - the medium may change but the spector of self-doubt and imposter syndrome remain the same.
The passing of the baton
Brought to the screen via the sure hand of first time director/co-writer Bradley Cooper, "A Star is Born" is essentially a moderately budgeted mumblecore film and it works for the characters he adapted.
When singer-songwriter Jackson Maine (Cooper), a hard drinking, rugged, grizzled man who looks not unlike a Maine Coon, meets drag club singer Ally (Lady Gaga)
he's instantly taken by her voice. Although hesitant to get involved with a drinker and singer, who reminded her of her father's past (Andrew Dice Clay in a surprisingly tender role), Ally embarks on a romance with Jackson. While on tour with him, Ally catches the attention of AR guy Rez (Rafi Gavron, Counterpart) whose label wants to take on Ally - a dream come true for her. But as her star rises and her relationship with Jackson grows, their paths threatens to diverge as Jackson grapples with his issues.
I was waiting to be disappointed because from all the fawning reviews after the film played Venice and TIFF
and I was sure it was lip service and that it couldn't stand up to that type of response. While I wasn't as enraptured by it as so many others were, it is an great film that doesn't fall back too hard on the tropes that comes from these rise and fall type of films. Cooper provided a more affecting film.
The title would suggest this is more about Ally's rise and there are aspects of that where we get to see Ally hit career milestones, but at its heart (and there is a lot of heart in this film), Jackson’s self-immolation which has little to do about his career but about his past hurts, his expectations and shortfalls.
This film had many stops and starts as Clint Eastwood had the option for many years and considered casting Leonardo DiCaprio, Will Smith and Beyonce Knowles and Esparanza Spaulding. He settled on Cooper, who declined the role initially because he felt he wasn’t old enough for it, but when Eastwood dropped out, Cooper took it on and I’m glad he did. I think it would have been overblown if any of the other actors floated and Eastwood took this on. Cooper’s minimalistic style and care for realism is excellent.
Cooper shadowed Eddie Vedder, and performed at Stagecoach to get into character. And he was coached by Lucas Nelson (son of Willie), who also cowrote some songs on the soundtrack
And I was just moved by Sam Elliott as Jackson’s brother / right hand assistant Bobby.
Showing that he is alwats holding onto "Alias" Cooper gave roles to his former costars Ron Rifkin and Gregg Grunberg.
Venom
I love Tom Hardy so there is no way I will completely pan this film. Any and all problems with "Venom" lies at the foot of the script and the director and not Edward Thomas Hardy even though his comedic timing is lacking or could never completely understand where his eye-line was when looking at "Venom". I would say "Venom" is not as bad as other awful comic book films "X-Men: The Last Stand" or "Spider-man 3", but it's so subpar that I counted five walkouts within the first 45 minutes. But jokes on them! The movie takes about that long to get marginally better.
Lush-lipped and tattooed investigative reporter Eddie Brock (Hardy) considers himself a champion of underdogs and less privileged, but after using his fiancé Ann's (Michelle Williams)
contacts to sound the alarm over the ethnical medical experimentations by Dr. Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed)
, he loses his job and Ann and decides to opt out of caring for the plights of others.
That changes when he is sought out by Drake's scientist, turned whistleblower Dr. Skirth (Jenny Slate) who has grown alarmed by what she's seeing transpiring in the labs. What Skirth reveals to Brock is worse than he imagined - Drake is experimenting on how to use alien organisms - Symbiotes - to create symbiosis with humans in order for humans to survive eventual space inhabitation. When Brock investigates he is overtaken by such organism -Venom.
Venom, who becomes the Audrey II to Brock's Seymour is a threat but not like its fellow Symbiotes who want to conquer humans. Together, Eddie and Venom must come up with a way to stop Drake from implementing his plan.
The best element of the film is when Eddie gets over being spooked by Venom and accepts their meld. Hardy says time and again he likes the “Jekyll and Hyde” aspect of their relationship but to me it’s more like Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin in “All of Me”, as Venom quickly comes to value Eddie and their bond.
I think because it’s an origins story the film didn’t have enough time to get to the meat and potatoes of the Eddie/Venom dynamics and if it gets a sequel (the post credit scene shows that they are planning for one), then I hope the film can work out the tone. And hopefully Tom could work on his character thanks to the note his son Louis gave him which was that he was playing Eddie Brock wrong.
Damn, Louis’ a tough critic
Well, others like it like one of the zillion Skarsgard kids.
Writer Ira Madison shares my frustration.
Tom is still sexy. Why, I’d even take Tom of today over his 17 year old self.
Barely. Damn, those lips are dangerous
“Venom” was released just in time for Kinktober!! All of the comics’verse “Venom” fan were waiting for this month to unleash their Eddie/Venom kinkart on the world
It’s Kinkober, this is normal
Actually, in the most recent run of “Venom” this isn’t too far off from their dynamic. Eddie and Venom have split up over the years with Venom occupying different hosts, but eventually made its way back to Eddie. Venom and Eddie are now bonded and to ensure no one separated them, Venom murdered a priest in a Bizarro version of a wedding.
Venom even spawned a Symbiote and wanted Eddie to be its other parent so that their spawn could have a good influence.
Lady Gaga’s Little Monsters launched an online attack on “Venom” ahead of its release by posting fake reviews and pushing people to see “A Star is Born”.
“A Star is Born” made #2 with a box office haul of $42.6 million leaving Little Monsters furious and wishing that the days of comic book films disappear. Whereas “Venom” overperformed earning $80 million domestically and $205.5 million globally.
The Little Monsters vs the actual monster of Venom made me miss FandomWank. I am without a fandom so I can only catch bits and pieces of passing wank like there’s something going in Voltron (yes, there’s a Voltron fandom) where people are furious at the creators.
There’s a bit of wank in the Armie Hammer / Timothee Chalamet fandom where some Armie fans hate Timothee because they think he’s overpraised and some Timothee fans who hate Armie because they feel his bull-in-a-china-shoppe ways of dealing with people online is a bad influence
Sometimes Armie hits back for good. He was getting grief for posting the number for ppl to urge their Senators to vote against Kavanaugh going forward
and they feel that Armie and the missus has used Timotay to up their own social media cache. To that end, both sides were waiting for the day that the two would inevitably stop being friends with some saying that when the press tour for “Beautiful Boy” commences, all the Armie fans will realize Timothee is this effusive and close with all of his costars and he will no longer have anything to do with Armie.
But, this can’t really happen if the press doesn’t stop asking him about Armie.
Time Magazine not asking him about “Beautiful Boy”
What did Armie write to make him emotional? This tribute in Variety's New Yorkers issue. Michelle Williams penned a tribute to Cardi B and Jake Gyllenhaal for Ryan Reynolds.
The social media handlers of sites can’t stop bringing Armie up
TBT the Oscars
Who is Armie pointing to, I wonder?
Maybe when Armie starts doing press for “On the Basis of Sex” he can stick to that film instead of CMBYN and Timotay
He’s too damn tall
-NY Comic Con gave fans a first look of Ethan Peck as Spock on CBS All Access’ “Star Trek Discovery”
He looks like a Monchichi or Wes Bentley in “The Hunger Games”.
More attractive than Zachary Quinto, but not as handsome as grandfather Gregory
-NYCC also featured a panel with the cast of CBS All Access’ upcoming fairytale meets real world series “Tell Me A Story” starring none other Lucas Luthor himself, Pau Wesley.
Paul was at a recent con with his mom.
Only a mom could love hater L’il Ian!
