WAKE ME UP BEFORE YOU GAGA........SUFFERING THROUGH "A STAR IS BORN"

A Star Is Born (2018)    The only comfort we took from this..........that's we'll be long gone by the time some other foolhardy director decides to remake it for......what, the 5th time? 6th?

                Even if you're one of Lady Gaga 'little monsters', this is one miserable piece of crap to sit through...........you'd be better off sticking to her albums......

                 Every 'Star Is Born' (Judy Garland's, Streisand's) hinges on the glories of the girl singer eclipsing the burned out, asshole celebrity who jump-starts her career......(James Mason, Kris Kristofferson, Bradley Cooper)

                  Mason fully used his genteel vulnerability to bring some genuine tragedy to the role........Kristofferson, as he did throughout his incomprehensible 1970's stardom, just rasped and deadpanned his way through it.......he couldn't have cared less.....(nor did anyone else....).

                 Bradley Cooper, with little or no subtext or backup from the skeletal script. tries to Actor's Studio improvise the living shit out of the role.......in the hopes that he'll discover or illuminate the character in between the lines.  Never happens.

                So it's up to the deliberately de-glamorized Gaga to go-go for the gold.....and belt out the pre-fab 'belter' songs while sometimes putting on distressful faces at Cooper's self-destruction.....

                 At 136 draggy minutes, this all becomes as entertaining as your last dental checkup.

                 We do understand the showbiz attraction to the 'Star Is Born' template........a golden opportunity for an actor and actress to suffer 'n sing their way into Academy Award nominations.....a swirling crescendo of romance cynicism,inflated tragedy and performance pizzazz.......(it's a wonder Bob Fosse, with his jaundiced view of the 'Biz',  never took a crack at it.....)

                  But for the rest of us mere mortals, it's just a long, long, depressing... pain in the ass.....sometimes broken up by a few showstopping songs. Ugh....yuck....1 star (*)

                  BQ memo to the poor suckers who try to remake this again in 20 years........ for God's sake, give it a rest and make something else.......something original.