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Arts
Tuesday, December 4, 2018 — 5

MGM

FILM SERIES

I’m
not
quite
sure
how
one could possibly put a sour
spin on the illustrious and
stunning masterpiece that is
“A Star is Born.” Truly, though,
it would be a flat-out lie to
pretend that “Shallow” and its
hauntingly-beautiful lyrics are
not permanently playing on a
loop in our heads ever since
the big screen went dark. With
breathtaking performances from
Bradley Cooper (“War Dogs”)
and
Lady
Gaga
(“American
Horror Story: Hotel”), a spine-
chillingly-killer
soundtrack
and a tone of authenticity that
prevails throughout, “A Star is
Born” is an electric knockout
(and it better win a damn Oscar).
The
film’s
portrayal
of
what appears to be such a
real romance speaks volumes
to
the
technology-saturated
generations of today. Jack’s
question of whether Ally is
“happy in this modern world,”
or
“need(s)
more”
ripples
through the minds of millennial
and Gen Z viewers alike. We
ponder Jack’s throaty lyrics,
wondering
if
perhaps,
in
today’s social-media and tech-
overdosed world, we do need
more than Tinder “dates” and
raunchy, late night “u-ups.” The
film perfectly resonates with an
audience that feels nostalgic for
a time they never knew, a time
when romance was concrete,
raw, built on genuine connection
and, well, not dead.
Let’s rewind to Jack and Ally’s
written-in-the-stars
meet-
cute at the drag bar. Jack’s first
encounter with Ally is one where
she doesn’t know he is watching.
She is in her zone. Performing
at her local bar, Ally radiates a
relaxed, yet sexy sophistication
and
intensity
that
Jack
is
enticed by almost immediately.
Right from the start, Jack is
introduced to the real Ally.
This first meeting is unsullied
by superficial impressions from
profile pictures or bio captions,
and instead, Jack and Ally are
introduced to one another in

their natural states, Jack slow-
talking and buzzed off more
than a few drinks and Ally
performing
an
enchanting
rendition of “La Vie en Rose.”
Cooper’s
superb
directing
weaves this same vibe of realness
throughout the remainder of the
film, hooking us into a love so
outstanding and wondrous, we
swear it is from another time.
Following the evolution of Jack
and Ally’s relationship from
their initial run-in at the bar
to their ridiculously charming
gas station non-date to their
cross-country
road-tripping
adventures and finally, to their
married life, our fascination
with
their
otherworldly
chemistry and music continues
to grow, ultimately reaching its
peak with Jack’s gut-wrenching
death. As our tears, or rather,
our sobs, echo through the
theater walls, we can’t help
but glorify Cooper’s directing
chops and say a prayer of thanks
for the gift that is Lady Gaga’s
vocal chords. By the end of
this film, a realization that we
could never have known hours
before sets in: We may never
be ready for another movie-
romance because this one was
just that good. Like Ally, we
find ourselves believing that
we too may “never love again.”
And once “A Star is Born” enters
on-demand streaming, we may
never have to.
— Samantha Nelson,
Daily Arts Writer

***

Hesitant after the impression
the trailer of Bradley Cooper’s
“A Star is Born” had left, I asked
a male friend: Does the film
imply a woman needs a man
to succeed? He paused briefly,
before answering, “no.”
Hesitant after realizing I had
asked a male friend a question
about gender relations, I asked a
female friend the same question.
She paused slightly longer, but
also answered, “no.”

Little did I know that the
question I should have been
asking all along went something
more like, “Does the film imply
that for a female star to be born,
a male star has to die?” Given
that each of the four iterations of
“A Star is Born” stay loyal to this
detail, apparently the answer is,
“yes.”
I
cannot
withhold
Lady
Gaga’s
due
praise
for
her
portrayal
of
Ally.
With
a
commanding
performance,
she manages to seize control
of every scene — perhaps even
ones she wasn’t supposed to
dominate. That paired with
her and Cooper’s chemistry
makes for an unconventionally
balanced love story in terms of
how it treats each respective
lover as independent though
their stories may intertwine.
But “A Star is Born” has to
be held to more than its acting
performances. It’s yet another
instance of Hollywood’s raging
reboot fever, so it is also about
the stories we consider worth
retelling, as well as how we go
about retelling them.
Every “Star” has been about
stars, of course. The near-
century
of
remakes
would
suggest the story continues
to
allow
insight
into
the
entertainment
industry.
However, the latest iteration
hardly ever averts its eyes from
the leads, so the film lacks the
contextualization
that
could
help not only justify the remake
but also help it say something
new.
Instead, the main strategy
Cooper’s version employs to
modernize the story are minute
reversals
of
gender-based
injustices. For example, Cooper’s
character
Jack
expresses
a
fetishistic
appreciation
for
Gaga’s character Ally’s nose
after she reveals it barred her
from success in the industry.
In another scene, Ally throws a
punch at an overbearing fan in
defense of Jack.
But the film remains loyal to

Irreconcilable differences: ‘A Star is Born’ divides

other formulae, many of which
yield disconcerting biproducts.
From 1937 to the present day,
every time the female star
is born, the male star dies.
Regardless of whether that male
star is self-destructive, a female
cannot seem to rise without
causing her man to fall.
Which brings me to my last
point (Can I say it? I have to
say it): I’m tired of love stories
— formulaic ones. Love stories
that seek to gratify audiences
with hasty marriages rather
than questioning our reliance
on a flawed institution, that
prescribe
romance
as
the
ultimate
form
of
intimacy
between a man and a woman,
that ask us to go gaga over
another white, heterosexual,
cisgender couple.
No matter how many minute
reversals
accumulate,
these
larger tropes make 2018’s “A
Star is Born” the same old song
and story. It might not be worth
retelling.
— Julianna Morano,
Daily Arts Writer

***

This fourth edition of the
well-trodden,
self-destructive

musician story leads off with
a powerful 45 minutes. Held
up by a great one-two punch
performance
form
Bradley
Cooper as the vodka-guzzling,
fallen-star
Jackson
Maine,
and Lady Gaga as the industry
newcomer Ally, the film’s first
act is an affecting road movie
about two characters who act
as each other’s moments of
salvation. The relationship is
inviting, though fraught, and
has just enough sour to it to
breathe the mustard-gas breath
of what’s to come. “A Star is
Born” first finds its strength in
the two characters it presents,
and only begins to lose its way
when it forgets that.
As soon as Gaga’s Ally signs
a record deal, as soon as she
begins her own musical journey,
the plot then somewhat split
between the characters, the
film’s texture begins to slip
away. Quickly, “A Star is Born”
becomes a movie about self-
destructive tropes instead of a
movie about the two characters
who had grabbed our attention
so far. The last hour or so
focuses, then, on how the two
drift apart, how the rifts of
career and pride tear rifts in
their household. It would be

wrong to say that the film isn’t
allowed to be sad, instead my
criticism would be that the film
doesn’t seem interested in being
anything else. Sometimes the
visceral reaction you get from
a movie like “A Star is Born” is
conflated with abject quality
in the work of art. The film is
difficult and sad through and
through, but I’d closer classify it
as a work in grief-porn than as a
terrific piece of cinema.
The
dissociation
of
the
characters in “A Star is Born”
is interesting, as it shows how
a movie can lose itself when it
puts its themes in front of the
characters that are supposed
to carry them. The second
and third acts of “A Star is
Born” could have been out of
any movie about a troubled,
alcohol-abusing musician in a
relationship — and that’s not a
good thing. It’s understandable
that the film wanted to see
itself as two halves — building
the relationship up, and then
tearing it back down — but in
order for it to do that properly,
in order to turn those two halves
into a whole, it has to feel like it’s
the same movie the entire time.
— Stephen Satarino,
Daily Arts Writer

Irreconcilable Differences is a format where we talk about movies that we just can’t decide on. Is it good? Is it bad? What are its merits as a
work of cinema? Irreconcilable Differences is meant to be read with some knowledge of the film in question and a strong set of opinions.

BOOK REVIEW

“I Might Regret This” is
the kind of book that doesn’t
come along very often. Freshly
heartbroken from her first love,
Abbi Jacobson — of “Broad
City” fame — sets out to drive
from New York to Los Angeles,
hoping the change of pace and
scenery would both distract
her and give her insight. The

book she wrote about this
experience isn’t literary in any
traditional sense; it’s not really
about language or plot. Instead,
it’s messy and rambling. It feels
unedited in the best way.
“I Might Regret This” takes
a few chapters to settle into.
Jacobson throws convention
out
the
window,
and
it’s
sometimes hard to keep up
with the breakneck pace of
her mind. At one point, for
example,
Jacobson
recalls
filming “6 Balloons” and being
unable to hit breakaway glass
with a set of keys, and while
she has explaining this she’s
in a field in Southern Utah in
the middle of the night, and
somehow the whole time she’s
been joking about a wooden
buffalo
keychain
and
Hot

Pockets and her reckless alter
ego, Babbi.
A few pages earlier, Jacobson
lists “A few thoughts on the
1997 film ‘My Best Friend’s
Wedding,’” the first of which is:
“How was Julia Roberts such
a respected and feared food
critic by the age of twenty-
seven? Is this possible?” She
contemplates
later,
“Maybe
hotels
put
out
so
many
different-size towels so you
have lots of options to cover up
light sources in the middle of
the night.”
This writing style is both
thrilling
and
frustrating.
Much
like
when
viewing
“Broad City,” part of the joy
of reading “I Might Regret
This” is the scramble to follow
along with the barrage of jokes
and moments of clarity. By
the second half of the book,
though, Jacobson settles into a
more contemplative voice, and
it’s the sections at the end of
the book that elevate “I Might
Regret This” from a playful,
frenzied romp across America
to a truly exceptional memoir.
The turning point comes
during
a
strip
mall
aura
reading in Sedona (of course),
when Jacobson breaks down
crying. “This part of myself I’d
been trying to hide, the thing
I avoided communicating to
anyone: that I might be right
back where I started, unlovable
and unable to love,” she writes.
“But I gave them five stars on
Yelp, because … damn.”
On the drive from Sedona
to Jerome, Ariz., Jacobson
catalogues the best bagels of
her life. Like almost everything

in “I Might Regret This,” the
list is really about love, in all
its iterations and peculiarities,
and
about
the
interplay
between love and identity —
how over and over love makes
and remakes us, through its
absence as well as its presence.
Jacobson
writes
fondly
about The Bagel Factory, where
she hung out in high school and
which provided “the perfect
food for the past version of
myself that wore headscarves
and operated at peak weed
consumption.”
College-
era Hidden Bean Bagels are
a
conduit
for
Jacobson’s
memories of riding the bus
alone from Baltimore to New
York City every weekend: “I’d
stare out the window listening
to
music,
chomping
on
a
cinnamon raisin bagel with
butter I’d grabbed from the
cafe for the ride. Soon I would
step off the bus on my own, in
the most interesting place in
the whole world.”
Jacobson is tuned into the
ways that physical objects,
details, smells and tastes shape
the bigger things in our lives.
Our loves, our insecurities, our
heartbreaks, our griefs: She
understands that these things
are
intricately
constructed,
that their incongruities and
moments of humor lend them
texture and weight. The ability
to understand that sadness
and joy and ridiculousness
are necessarily intertwined:
This is what has always made
Jacobson’s comedy so tenderly
funny. Like “Broad City,” “I
Might Regret This” is in a
league of its own.

‘I Might Regret This’ an
exciting, original memoir
Over Thanksgiving break I
watched “Sorry to Bother You,”
Boots Riley’s absurdist, amazing
directorial
debut.
After
the
movie was over, I scoured the
internet for takes — my jaw still
dropped — and landed on A.O.
Scott’s New York Times write-
up. In the review the film critic
claims “If Mike Judge’s ‘Office
Space’
and
Robert
Downey
Sr.’s ‘Putney Swope’ hooked
up after a night of bingeing on
hallucinogens, Marxist theory
and the novels of Paul Beatty and
Colson Whitehead, the offspring
might look something like this.”
That’s a loaded critique, but
upon reading it I had a gratifying
realization: I’ve read Paul Beatty
and Colson Whitehead. That’s
right; I, Mr. Scott, understand
your reference, for I am an
English major, which instills in
me the ability to find thematic
threads between Beatty’s “The
Sellout” and Whitehead’s “The
Underground
Railroad”
and,
most crucially, formulate an
intertextual framework to then
contextualize “Sorry to Bother
You.”
As we enter the holiday season,
I should recognize that grappling
with everything I’ve read in the
course of my studies as an English
Language & Literature major
at the University — analyzing,
discussing, writing about it — is
the gift that keeps on giving, a
yearly routine of Big Intellectual
Shit.
There comes a time in your
academic career — for me it
took two full years — when you
need to narrow your educational
concentration
and
make
a
decision on your major. This is
a choice that definitely won’t
pigeonhole you into an industry
for at least the first three to
five years of your professional

life, structurally limiting your
personal growth for a formative
portion of your young adult
experience.
In any case, opting to study
English signals a distinct turn at
an otherwise universal fork in
the road, and its consequences
are one millionfold. For one, you
never need to lug a calculator
around, a major relief because
the emotional baggage of lugging

around one of those beautiful,
burdensome
TI-Nspires
can
surpass the real breakdown you
experience when you see actual
numbers on a Scantron exam.
Instead your precious cargo
comes in the form of Norton
Anthologies, which make you
look sophisticated enough and
also justify a formidable amount
of physical working space at
library tables. Perhaps most
importantly, majoring in English
gives you more credence to make
sweeping, sappy claims that
studying English makes you a
better person, which is exactly
what I’m doing right now.
You see, I operate at a
wavelength far more complex
than that which is given meaning
by
programming
languages
like Python, C++, Java, because
software
engineers
can’t
possibly comprehend what it’s

like
to
establish
characters
that
flip
binaries,
or
use
language that subverts image,
or splice narratives with split
temporalities existing on the
same timeline. I think.
Elevated thought, I’m aware.
Thanks to such a critically-
thinking
background,
I
can
defuse
the
grandparents
at
Thanksgiving who ask about
postgrad plans for the fourth
time in one conversation despite
insistence that no, Grandma,
I don’t think I’d have much
common
discussion
material
with your book club friend who
specializes in private equity,
because I don’t know what
private equity means, but I can
tell you about how Peter Barry’s
notions of the post-structuralist
inform my takeaway on your own
standards of post-professional
life.
I’ll have you know, Grandma,
that over the years I’ve listened to
a handful of professors say things
that very much changed the way
I think about learning itself.
When you reinvent your own
foundations, you work from the
ground up to create a new outlook
altogether,
and
the
results
are
(initially
uncomfortable)
rewarding gravy. We don’t know
much about anything at this stage
of existence, so taking unfamiliar
risks only makes sense.
Besides,
I
get
to
walk
out of class feeling smarter,
better equipped for a range of
dialogues, and eager to, um, do
my homework most of the time.
Not to mention, of course, the
social upside: When all else fails
conversationally,
you
always
have the patented English major,
“yeah, it’s really cool, don’t know
what I’m going to do with it once
I graduate though (haha).” A real
laughing matter.

Big intellectual

DAILY HEALTH & WELLNESS COLUMN

JOEY
SCHUMAN

MIRIAM FRANCISCO
Daily Arts Writer

“I Might
Regret This”

Abbi Jacobson

Grand Central
Publishing

Oct. 30, 2018