Lady Gaga was out in New York last night, 48 hours away from the wide release of the much-hyped, much-anticipated A Star is Born. Do you have your tickets yet? I’m going again this week for a re-watch and then I can’t wait to talk about certain moments, specific scenes, and reaction to them next week.
ASIB is already an Oscar contender in several categories. A Best Picture Oscar nomination seems likely. Mark Hughes, writing for Forbes, has already declared that it will actually WIN Best Picture. I don’t know if I’m ready to say that, not yet, but it will be in the conversation, no doubt. There is no way the Academy will deny ASIB an invitation to the big show. And at this point, it doesn’t even need a major box office performance to get there…even though some of Lady Gaga’s fans are doing the most to make that happen.
Have you heard about this? Apparently a small faction of Gaga’s Little Monsters are trying to sabotage Venom, which is opening tomorrow, just like ASIB, tweeting sh-tty reviews of the movie in an effort to tank its first weekend take to make ASIB look that much better. The Hollywood Reporter is calling it “weaponized fandom” and relates this situation to what happened to The Last Jedi last year and other toxic fan behaviour.
To be fair, most fans, I hope, are not deranged assholes with agendas. They’re there to cape for their faves and focus only on their faves and not on the destruction of anyone who is not their fave. It’s probably frustrating for them, then, that they’re being lumped in with the assholes. In this case, as THR points out, ASIB doesn’t really need to decimate Venom at the box office. The goodwill around the film is already there. It has been warmly received by a majority of critics. I’m telling you, many people who aren’t fans of either Lady Gaga or Bradley Cooper will still embrace the story. I can’t wait to hear from you about your experience, especially since so many of my friends came out of the theatre sobbing and overcome after the screening. A Star is Born is going to be fine – more than fine. That’s been obvious since the trailer came out. Which adds to the confusion. Why are these Little Monsters so worried?
Let’s focus instead on Gaga and what you’re going to get from her when you see her in character this weekend because this question has been coming up in my inbox. I read an article recently, and I’m sorry, I can’t remember which and now I can’t find it, but if you can find it, I will come back to this post and link to it, that referenced the work that she does with her eyes in this film. How wonderful it is to see her engaging, in character, through her eyes. That in every scene, even when she’s not speaking, or singing, you can see in her eyes how present she is, how open and sensitive she is to what’s happening around her, through her, to her. This is who Ally is – and Ally is, in many ways, an extension of the many iterations of Gag – and in a story that’s all about big dreams and over-the-top Hollywood melodrama, it’s this quality that gives ASIB its soul. She is what keeps the story real. It’s quite an experience, processing the movie through her face. Let me know what you think.
Also I love this red dress on her, the drop waist, and the fit, and the slit. Although I’m not convinced on the boots.
