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There’s a scene early into Bradley Cooper ’s crowd-pleasing “A Star is Born” that distills what it’s really about and why it will hook viewers till the last frame. Cooper’s Jackson Maine, an alt-country singer with a bit more heavy guitar, is getting drunk in a drag club after a show when he meets Lady Gaga ’s Ally. Having worked at the club before, and now waitressing elsewhere, she’s come back to sing a song, a jaw-dropping version of “ La Vie en Rose .” She sashays her way down the bar and ends up locking eyes with Maine as her vocals continue to rise. He is blown away by her talent, but there’s something deeper in that eye contact. Something ineffable. Not long after, while Ally is getting ready to leave with Maine to get another drink, he plays a heartfelt song of his own for the club owner, and she comes out as he’s wrapping up, making eye contact as his vocals find emotional depth. These are two people who fall in love with each other’s talent as much as anything else, inspired by one another in a way that artists often are. This story has been told several times before—and influenced other similar romances—but Cooper and Gaga find a way to make this feel fresh and new. It’s in their eyes.

Before that first night is over, Jackson has realized the depth of Ally’s talent, even hearing her sing part of a song she wrote that will soon become a massive hit for the two of them. These early scenes of “A Star is Born,” especially the first in which Ally sings in front of a Maine audience, are magical. There’s an unforced chemistry between Cooper and Lady Gaga that makes these characters easy to root for, and I’ll admit to a natural affinity for stories of true talent finally coming out of the shadows. The real Gaga knows a thing or two about how one rises from waitress to superstar, and she nails the blend of apprehension and confidence that this kind of thing takes. Of course, Ally is nervous to go on stage or to write songs, but she also senses she’s pretty damn good at it. She’s no mere wallflower watered by a confident man. She’s a force of nature who Jackson gives the encouragement to do her thing.

Of course, the arc of all versions of “A Star is Born” is pretty much the same in that it’s about one comet rising while another crashes. The first time we see Jackson, he’s popping pills, and he’s deeply alcoholic. He allows his demons even more space as he watches his partner achieve massive fame with a form of pop that he finds shallow. Cooper does some of the best work of his career as the kind of man who’s always restless. A friend played by Dave Chappelle tries to offer the advice that every man needs to eventually settle down and stay in a port instead of pulling anchor and moving on again, but Jackson can’t stay still. He's one of those addicts who uses any excuse to fuck things up. He is as self-sabotaging as he is talented, but Cooper avoids just enough of the clichés of the "alcoholism movie" to keep him real. It’s an excellent performance, one that balances Gaga’s in fascinating ways. As she becomes more of a pop legend and he maintains his whiskey-drinking aesthetic, it’s easy to see them pulling apart but the performers keep us believing that these people care about and even need each other. Sometimes the same need that builds us up can eventually destroy us.

“A Star is Born” loses its way slightly in the second half as Ally becomes a household name. Some of the pop fame material doesn’t work, especially a misjudged “SNL” musical performance, as it seems to almost treat what Ally (and even Gaga herself in the real world) do a bit too superficially. The movie seems to agree too easily with Jackson’s belief that pop is disposable. It isn’t always. And the triangle that forms between Ally, Jackson, and Ally’s manager is the most clichéd and least effective aspect of the film. Luckily, Cooper the director regains his footing in the end, bringing his debut film in for the emotional conclusion that even those who haven’t seen the originals will be able to predict is coming, but be moved by nonetheless.

Cynics may be tempted to rip apart “A Star is Born” but there’s just too much that’s been done right here for them to sound legit. (A friend joked, “It’s a musical even angry people can like.”) It's about the people. As is so often the case with actors-turned-directors, Cooper knows how to direct his cast, getting great work from Gaga, Sam Elliott , Andrew Dice Clay , and more. And the film is anchored by its heart-baring music—Cooper wisely allows Gaga to sing complete songs more than once, while also holding his own as a singer himself. A lot of ticket buyers go to the movies for the characters, people they can feel like they know and maybe even care about, and “A Star is Born” delivers two of the most memorable of the year. It’s a film that believes in the power of a song to connect with its listener in a way that can change their lives. And it will be a beloved piece of work for those who believe in it too.

This review was originally filed from the Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, 2018.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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A Star Is Born (2018)

135 minutes

Bradley Cooper as Jackson Maine

Lady Gaga as Ally

Sam Elliott as Bobby Maine

Dave Chappelle as Noodles

Andrew Dice Clay as Lorenzo

Alec Baldwin as Saturday Night Live Host

• Bradley Cooper
• Will Fetters

Cinematography

• Matthew Libatique
• Jay Cassidy

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‘A Star Is Born’ | Anatomy of a Scene

Bradley cooper narrates a sequence from his film, in which he stars with lady gaga..

“My name is Bradley Cooper, and I co-wrote and directed “A Star Is Born.” So we’re at the beginning of the movie now where the two characters just met, and this scene is really the anchor for the rest of the film. If as a filmmaker I don’t securely plant the audience in these two people and their relationship, then the rest of the movie won’t work. When I first went to Hollywood and met some people that were really famous, and I remember going out with them in the night. And their access to stuff is always very interesting. But the other thing that always blew me away is to see somebody like that in a pizza place at 4:00 in the morning with regular people, or at a grocery store. You’re like, oh, they go to these places too. I always found that very thrilling. And this, I wanted to feel like you’re in real time, almost, with these people. That was the only way I could get my head around the fact that you would actually believe that they’re falling in love, is that you need to see these moments sort of broken down into three things. One is the first visual look that two people have. And then there’s the tactile moment. And then it’s revealing their souls to each other. And in my life, having met people and fallen in love, it usually happens when you feel as if someone’s seeing you in a way that no one else is seeing you. And this is the scene where she’s seeing him in a way. And the movie’s showing you him take in that knowledge.” “(SINGING) Tell me something, boy. Aren’t you tired trying to fill that void? Or do you need more? Ain’t it hard keeping it so hardcore?” “Is that me?” “That’s you.” “You just write that now?” “Yeah.” “It’s pretty good.” “Her, from the very beginning of the movie, the movie knows she’s a star before she does it. And the movie’s almost searching for her. And with this scene, when she stands up and starts singing, the camera’s over her shoulder looking down at him.” “(SINGING) I’m off the deep end, watch as I dive in. I’ll never meet the ground.” “So she’s in this empty lot at 4:00 in the morning in the outskirts of Los Angeles, and Jackson Maine, this very well-regarded musician, is one of her fans, almost like a boy. So I really love that shot of him just looking up at her.” “(SINGING) — shallow now.” “And what was great about when we found that location was it functioned as almost a stage. There’s all those lights behind her, as if she’s up on a huge stage at Coachella or something without even realizing it.” “I think you might be a songwriter.”

By Manohla Dargis

• Oct. 3, 2018

“A Star Is Born” is such a great Hollywood myth that it’s no wonder Hollywood keeps telling it. Whatever the era, the director or the headliners, it relates the story of two lovers on dramatically differing paths: a famous man who’s furiously racing to the bottom (Bradley Cooper in this movie) and a woman (Lady Gaga) who’s soaring to the top. This latest and fourth version is a gorgeous heartbreaker (bring tissues). Like its finest antecedents, it wrings tears from its romance and thrills from a steadfast belief in old-fashioned, big-feeling cinema. That it’s also a perverse fantasy about men, women, love and sacrifice makes it all the better.

[Read our updates on the 2019 Golden Globes and see the surprises and snubs .]

Like the last iteration, the epically (empirically!) terrible 1976 remake with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson, the new one takes place in a contemporary music world that is by turns exciting, suffocating and crowded with dangers — ravenous fans, crushing performance demands, celebrity itself. This is the world that has helped create and come close to ruining Jackson Maine (Mr. Cooper), a country-rock musician who, when the movie opens, is performing obviously wasted, leaning and nearly falling into a boot-stomping song. He’s a beautiful ruin adrift on an ocean of booze, one he routinely spikes with pills.

A singer with a voice that can thunder, Ally Campana (Lady Gaga) becomes Jack’s safe harbor, taking on the roles of lover, partner, muse, ideal. That’s a heavy burden, but Ally is one of life’s chin-up survivors, with an errant mother and a loving, larger-than-life father, Lorenzo (a terrific Andrew Dice Clay), whose dreams cloud her own. Dad runs a limo business out of their Los Angeles home, where his male colleagues (Barry Shabaka Henley, among others) and their boisterous camaraderie fill the rooms, both warming and crowding them. Ally is accustomed to navigating around men larger than she is, elbowing past them to be seen and heard.

She and Jack first meet late one night in a Hollywood drag club where she sings after her waitress shift ends. Jack has just finished playing a concert and, after polishing off a bottle of booze, has stumbled into the club for more. There he watches Ally belt out the Edith Piaf standard “La Vie en Rose,” in a sheath and upsweep, her arched artificial brows adding quizzical punctuation to her face. In a swoon, he invites her out that night, and, as flirtation gives way to deeper feelings, they fall in love. He brings Ally onstage and then on tour, but she eventually goes solo, becoming a star whose ascent is shadowed by his decline.

[ Read about “A Star Is Born” and male sacrifice . ]

Mr. Cooper, who also directed, does a lot right in this take on “A Star Is Born,” beginning with the casting of Lady Gaga, whose disarming, naturalistic presence is crucial to the movie’s force. A post-Madonna pop artist known for her elaborate stagecraft and costumes, she has been stripped down here, her mask removed. You can see her skin, the flutter in her veins, which brings you close to her, and can make both the actress and her character feel touchingly vulnerable. This unmasking of Lady Gaga also makes Ally seem genuine, authentic, a quality that the movie champions and that serves as a kind of thematic first principle.

Soon after Jack and Ally meet, he peels off one of her fake brows — he’s flirting, but he’s also saying that he sees the real her and wants the world to as well. Playful yet unapologetically earnest, this scene inaugurates a seduction — of Ally, of us — that lasts the exhilarating first hour. Mr. Cooper understands the power of big-screen myths, including thunderstruck love and near-magical lucky breaks. He also understands his own star appeal (he gives himself plenty of heat-stoking close-ups), which dovetails with his role as director. When Ally and Jack look at each other, you’re watching two people fall in love, and it’s a contact high. You’re also watching a director guiding — creating — his star as life seeps into fiction.

Mr. Cooper’s smartest decision, other than casting Lady Gaga, is the absolute sincerity with which he’s taken on this material, in all its gorgeous, gaudy excess. He has refurbished the story some and added a bit too much psychological filler, but he has stayed true to its fundamental seriousness. Winking at this story would have been easy, but would have destroyed it. Instead, working from a script he wrote with Eric Roth and Will Fetters, Mr. Cooper has gone all in with big emotions and cascades of tears. (The movie owes a debt to, and nods at, the original 1937 film as well as the 1954 remake with a peerless Judy Garland.)

Part of what’s exciting about this “A Star Is Born” is that Mr. Cooper knows he’s telling one of the defining Hollywood stories and has given the movie the polish and scale it merits. He plays with intimacy and cinematic sweep, going in close when Ally and Jack are together so that the world falls away — a scene of them in a parking lot shows how conversation turns to courtship — only to then pull back so we can see the enormity of the world the lovers inhabit once Jack takes Ally on tour. And while the crowd seems little more than a surging blur the first time Jack plays, when Ally looks at the throng, she sees it and so do we.

[ Seen “A Star Is Born”? Read Kyle Buchanan’s take , with spoilers ]

The concert scenes of Jack and Ally performing are revved up but personal. (The production borrowed crowds from actual music festivals like Coachella, and their sheer size conveys the scope of Jack’s stardom.) Mr. Cooper sings pleasantly enough and throttles an electric guitar with persuasive fervor. He’s backed by the group Lukas Nelson & the Promise of the Real (Lukas’s dad is Willie Nelson). The music mixes standards with new songs, some written by Mr. Cooper, Lukas Nelson and Lady Gaga, whose supple, often electric singing can, at full throttle, express intensities of feeling far better than the dialogue.

Like many filmmakers, Mr. Cooper sometimes explains too much. It isn’t enough that Jack drinks; Mr. Cooper wants us to know why. So, he fleshes out Jack’s past, turning melodrama into therapy and robbing the character of mystery. One of the weakest scenes, a violent confrontation between Jack and his much-older brother, Bobby (Sam Elliott, whose deep drawl Mr. Cooper has borrowed), is an information dump. In one of the finest, Bobby just wordlessly drives away from Jack, and Mr. Elliott lets you see the ferocity of the brothers’ love — and their pain — in eyes that have begun to water and in a stone face that will shatter.

Mr. Cooper spends more time on the story’s male lead than previous iterations have, perhaps because he’s taken the role himself. The focus on Jack — he scrapes bottom, goes into recovery — somewhat weighs down the remainder of the movie, partly because too much of it is overly familiar. At times, Mr. Cooper seems to share Jack’s unease with Ally’s stardom, particularly after she connects with a manager (Rafi Gavron, oozing sleaze) and transforms from a soulful crooner into a writhing automaton with soulless beats and backup singers. Ally puts on the mask that Mr. Cooper has removed from Lady Gaga, suggesting that — unlike Jack’s — her art is less than pure.

Male self-aggrandizement is baked into the story’s foundation but not ruinously. Jack doesn’t just help turn Ally into a star, giving her the big break she needs. His trauma — she’s insecure, but he’s damaged — becomes a deep well that she draws from, allowing her to become a greater artist. In part, the story is as creaky as that of Pygmalion, the male sculptor who turns a beloved carving into a woman. Yet one of the pleasures of “A Star Is Born” in all its renditions is that it is also about a woman whose ambitions are equal to those of any man and who steadily rises as she weeps and sings toward fabulous self and sovereignty.

A Star Is Born Rated R for alcohol and drug abuse, and some physical violence. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes.

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A Star Is Born

2018, Romance/Drama, 2h 15m

What to know

Critics Consensus

With appealing leads, deft direction, and an affecting love story, A Star Is Born is a remake done right -- and a reminder that some stories can be just as effective in the retelling. Read critic reviews

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A star is born videos, a star is born   photos.

Seasoned musician Jackson Maine discovers -- and falls in love with -- struggling artist Ally. She has just about given up on her dream to make it big as a singer until Jackson coaxes her into the spotlight. But even as Ally's career takes off, the personal side of their relationship is breaking down, as Jackson fights an ongoing battle with his own internal demons.

Rating: R (Some Sexuality/Nudity|Language Throughout|Substance Abuse)

Genre: Romance, Drama, Music

Original Language: English

Director: Bradley Cooper

Producer: Bill Gerber , Jon Peters , Bradley Cooper , Todd Phillips , Lynette Howell Taylor

Writer: Eric Roth , Bradley Cooper , Will Fetters

Release Date (Theaters): Oct 5, 2018  wide

Release Date (Streaming): Jan 15, 2019

Box Office (Gross USA): $215.3M

Runtime: 2h 15m

Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures

Production Co: Jon Peters/Bill Gerber/Joint Effort Production

Sound Mix: DTS, SDDS, Dolby Atmos

Aspect Ratio: Scope (2.35:1)

Cast & Crew

Bradley Cooper

Sam Elliott

Andrew Dice Clay

Rafi Gavron

Anthony Ramos

Dave Chappelle

George "Noodles" Stone

Alec Baldwin

Marlon Williams

Brandi Carlile

Barry Shabaka Henley

Little Feet

Michael D. Roberts

Michael Harney

Rebecca Field

Derek Kevin Jones

Willam Belli

Dennis Tong

Joshua Wells

Greg Grunberg

Phil (Jack's Driver)

Screenwriter

Will Fetters

Executive Producer

Basil Iwanyk

Niija Kuykendall

Michael Rapino

Heather Parry

Bill Gerber

Todd Phillips

Lynette Howell Taylor

Matthew Libatique

Cinematographer

Jay Cassidy

Film Editing

Karen Murphy

Production Design

Erin Benach

Costume Design

Lindsay Graham

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Critic Reviews for A Star Is Born

Audience reviews for a star is born.

Surprisingly mediocre.

Seems like musicals don't go well with me. This one did reasonably well though. Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga were amazing.

This was sort of a weird movie for me. Here's the thing: this movie is manipulative as hell, don't try to deny it. It's tear porn, and it's explicit and deliberate in is manipulative intentions. However, I can't deny that the manipulation works and I was weirdly never bothered by the manipulation. It doesn't have the same sense of grotesque self-importance that something like This is Us on TV or any number of Oscar bait movies past have had in their tear-porn intentions. There's something about A Star is Born that feels much more genuine in its motivations. It feels, dare I say, grittier. I think a big part of that is Bradley Cooper's direction, he makes the whole thing feel real and grounded and keeps us with him. It's an over-the-top and melodramatic story, but somehow he directs it in a way that never feels that way, which is honestly a work of magic on his part. This really isn't the type of movie I'd normally be into, and honestly from the trailers I thought it looked like s***, but hey, when it works it work, and this works.

I regret not seeing it in the cinema as the cinematography and music are outstanding. In interviews, Gaga has said the authentic version of herself is the theatrical one we see in concerts and music videos. But, in this movie, we see her raw and that's the version that makes the biggest impact. The film sinks in the middle of the second act.

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Lady Gaga’s ‘A Star Is Born’ Hits All the Right Notes: Movie Review

'A Star is Born,' which opens Oct. 5, is a thrilling, and, ultimately, heartbreaking tale of music's power to heal and the music business's equally corrosive ability to destroy all but the strongest…

By Melinda Newman

Melinda Newman

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At their core, the four versions of A Star Is Born — the 1937 original drama and three musical iterations — mine the same territory: An aspiring actress or singer falls under the spell professionally and romantically of an older actor or singer and her career rises meteorically as his precipitously falls.

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However, the contours differ in each film, and in the latest version, Bradley Cooper, who plays world-weary singer-songwriter Jackson Maine, and Lady Gaga, as straight-shooting Ally, give us immensely sympathetic characters, whose considerable musical talents are overshadowed only by their vulnerabilities.

Likely to draw favorable comparisons to the most recent remake — 1976’s version starring Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson — A Star Is Born 4.0, which opens Oct. 5, is a thrilling and, ultimately, heartbreaking tale of music’s power to heal and the music business’s equally corrosive ability to destroy all but the strongest souls.

Cooper and Lady Gaga’s chemistry is off the charts. It’s a spark lit not only by their physical attraction, but by the crackling creative energy between their characters as songwriters and performers. After a ridiculously entertaining scene when Maine discovers Ally performing Edith Piaf’s “La Vie en Rose” in a noisy drag bar, his awe when Ally sings her own song a cappella for him alone in an empty parking lot is the stuff of movie gold.

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Lady gaga teases 'is that all right' from 'a star is born' soundtrack: stream it now.

In a spellbinding performance, Lady Gaga’s Ally, propelled by Maine’s belief in her, goes from beleaguered waitress initially reluctant to join him onstage for a gorgeous duet of the showstopper “Shallow” to then claiming her own spotlight during his headlining festival gig before tens of thousands. To her credit, Lady Gaga is always believable as a developing talent who loves Maine and is not using him to advance her career, but is surely going to grab the brass ring once it comes within reach.

In his confident directorial debut, Cooper is equally revelatory. Doing his own gruff singing and playing, he’s entirely credible as the slightly grizzled, charming booze- and drug-addicted troubadour whose decades of fame haven’t gone so far to his head that he doesn’t still ask his driver how his son is and listen to the answer.

In very short order, Ally goes from a singer-songwriter — complete with an album cover of Carole King’s Tapestry on her bedroom wall — to a glittery, dancing pop puppet, who sings insipid lines like “why’d you come around me with an ass like that” during her Saturday Night Live debut. The movie never makes it clear why Ally, who is otherwise resolute, doesn’t protest more vociferously the dumbing down of her music. Is it because she is so enamored with potential stardom that she is happy to dilute her sound, or is her manager (Rafi Gavron) forcing her to make the switch along with changing her hair color and fashion choices? Regardless, the film makes its not-so-subtle point that female pop artists often find themselves required to play up their sexuality in a way that male artists are seldom asked to exploit.

Unlike Kristofferson’s portrayal, Cooper’s Maine rarely seems resentful of Ally’s rise, as his substance-fueled downward spiral leads to playing soul-sucking corporate gigs and taking a cameo, instead of starring, in a Grammy tribute to Roy Orbison. The one blistering scene where he verbally attacks her both professionally and personally — and he knows exactly what to say to exact the most pain — seems more driven by real concern that she’s squandering her talent than bitterness over her success. To her credit, as her devastation from his lacerating words plays across her face, Ally gives as good as she gets. As compassionate as she is throughout the film — even when he publicly humiliates her for the last time — playing savior is not on her résumé.

Lady Gaga Dazzles at 'A Star Is Born' Los Angeles Premiere: See the Photos

Similarly differing from past versions, both Maine and Ally have their own support systems beyond the usual sycophants. Ally’s dad, played with a goofy sweetness by Andrew Dice Clay, and her best friend Ramon (Anthony Ramos) genuinely care about her well-being. For Maine, childhood friend Noodles (Dave Chappelle, in a short but pivotal scene) and older brother Bobby Maine (the always good Sam Elliott) provide solid, necessary grounding, even when the sibling rivalry and past childhood trauma between Jackson and Bobby momentarily tears them apart.

None of this would matter if the concert scenes weren’t so strong. A Star Is Born is bursting with musical goodness, chock-full of new songs written by Lady Gaga and Cooper, as well as a Murderer’s Row of contributors, including Jason Isbell, Mark Ronson, Lukas Nelson (whose group Promise of the Real serves as Maine’s backing band), Hillary Lindsey, Lori McKenna and Natalie Hemby. The ringing authenticity to their performances, filmed at Stagecoach, Coachella and Glastonbury, no doubt also comes from Lady Gaga’s insistence that she and Cooper sing live. Ally’s final stage triumph — shot at LA’s Shrine Auditorium, where Judy Garland also filmed a scene in the 1954 version — is as resonant as when Whitney Houston belted out “I Will Always Love You” at the conclusion of The Bodyguard, with an equally stunning ballad, “I’ll Never Love Again.”

If the end, which stays true to past versions, seems a little too pat, it certainly proves that the show must go on.

Though Oscar season is just beginning, it’s hard to imagine A Star Is Born not taking home some serious hardware, with possible nods for for best picture, director, actor, actress, cinematography and, of course, best original song.

(Interscope will release the A Star Is Born soundtrack on Oct. 5, the movie’s opening date.)

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• Lady Gaga Delivers a Knockout Performance in <i>A Star Is Born</i>

Lady Gaga Delivers a Knockout Performance in A Star Is Born

T here’s only one antidote for the weird world we live in, an age of political anxiety, Instagram envy, humorless personal essays that treat basic life experiences like major tragedies, and selfies: We need more melodramas, movies that show human beings making all sorts of wrong choices, falling in love with people from whom they should run a mile, and in the end recovering lost bits of themselves, all while looking fabulous. Exaggeration is key—a tasteful, sensible melodrama is no melodrama at all—and you need a star who can radiate the nobility of suffering with Kabuki-level grandeur. Someone like Lady Gaga .

Bradley Cooper’s A Star Is Born is just on the right side of tasteful, which is to say it’s slightly on the wrong side: It could stand to be more nutso in its expression of grand human emotions and dismal human failures. But it works anyway: You come away feeling something for these people, flawed individuals who are trying to hold their cracked pieces of self together—or to mend the cracks of those they love. Cooper plays charming but sozzled country star Jackson Maine, a guy who gets through each show—and every day—losing himself in booze. He’s losing his hearing, too, though he’s of course in denial about that, no matter how much his brother and ersatz caretaker, Bobby (Sam Elliott), tries to talk sense into him.

Enter Lady Gaga—the superstar who was born Stefani Germanotta, though the movie doesn’t credit her as such—as Ally, a restaurant worker who also sings and writes songs. After lurching through one of his own shows, Jackson sees her performing in a drag bar—the queens all love her, so they’re happy to have her onstage. In her tiny slip dress, with hyper theatrical eyebrows, like slender black parentheses, stuck over her own, she’s like an alien from Planet Song, shimmering her way through “La Vie en Rose.” If you’re looking for comparisons to Janet Gaynor, Judy Garland or Barbara Streisand, the other Star Is Born stars (this is the third or fourth remake, depending on whether or not you count George Cukor’s 1932 What Price Hollywood? ), Gaga isn’t much like any of them: She’s more like Liza Minnelli, who channeled some of her mother’s fragility but tempered it with pluckiness. When Gaga’s Ally sings, she’s less a creature from over the rainbow than a sprite from another world who has quickly learned the ropes of our own fire and earth.

MORE: What to Know About the Original A Star Is Born —and the Other Versions, Too

No wonder Jackson falls for her. Her persuades her to have a late-night, post-show drink with him, and she gets into a fist fight defending him from a boor waving a phone camera in his face: This is the beginning of a pattern, that of the woman trying to save the man, but her boldness is striking. Jackson drives her to a convenience store and applies a bag of frozen veggies to her hand; he’s the caretaker for now. Then, as they sit in the nighttime parking lot, he removes her rings, lest they get stuck, by closing his lips gently around her swelling fingers. She returns the favor by singing, at his request, a scrap of a song she’s written. It’s a lovely scene, a brush-stroke vignette of two people finding enchantment in one another.

If you’ve seen any of the previous Star Is Born iterations—the 1937 with Gaynor and Frederic March, the 1954 with Garland and James Mason, or the 1976 with Streisand and Kris Kristofferson—you know just how wrong this story can go. And if you’re new to this particular formula, welcome. Cooper’s version proves there’s always a way to freshen up old material. The finest scenes are the early ones, in which Jackson, with true generosity, gives Ally’s career a boost, first by inviting her onstage for a song, and then turning her into a true partner.

The big question that’s been hovering in the air for months is, Can Lady Gaga act? It’s a ridiculous question. Singers often make fabulous actors. They’re primed for it: All singing is acting. But what’s surprising about Gaga is how charismatic she is without her usual extreme stage makeup, outlandish wigs and inventive costumes. It’s such a pleasure to look at her face, unadorned, with that extraordinary, face-defining nose—it’s like discovering a new country. Later in the story, as Ally’s career takes off while Jackson’s fizzles, Gaga is less entrancing though no less likable: Ally connects with a manager who reshapes her image (Rafi Gavron), turning her from a fresh-faced singer-songwriter to a pop siren with hyper-red hair and increasingly theatrical clothes. This is where the movie loses a few puffs of steam. It’s hard not to miss Ally’s unadorned face and unflashy brown hair: You might find yourself wanting more Germanotta and less Gaga, Even so, Ally the superstar is still nowhere near as mythically outsized as Gaga herself is. In fact, as pop creations go, she’s rather average, though she certainly knows her way around a power ballad.

And she’s still the star of this whole show. As her co-star and director, Cooper shows an artistic generosity that’s almost courtly. The basic Star is Born story is geared so you pity the man almost more than you admire the woman. In every version, the man threatens to steal the show with his own degradation; the woman’s protective fortitude is far less interesting. But as an actor, Cooper fades into the corner at just the right moments, allowing Gaga to shine. He recognizes that as a performer, she’s larger than life; he’s just about life-sized, and there’s no shame in that. He also creates a suitable showcase for small but terrific performances from the likes of Dave Chappelle (as one of Jackson’s more sensible friends from the music world) and Andrew Dice Clay (as Ally’s limo-driving dad, Lorenzo).

Cooper makes some smart plot choices, too. (The screenplay is by Eric Roth, Cooper and Will Fetters.) Jackson’s demise is sensitively handled—nothing like Kris Kristofferson crashing his car just so Streisand can rush to the scene and cradle his lifeless head with sorrowful gusto. (Who thought that was a good idea?) And he keeps the filmmaking straightforward and unvarnished. It’s wonderful to see a first-time filmmaker who’s more interested in effective storytelling than in impressing us; telling a story effectively is hard enough. Best of all, Cooper has succeeded in making a terrific melodrama for the modern age. This is a story of big personalities and even bigger human mistakes. These days we’re always ready for our own close-ups. What a relief to turn the stage over to someone else for a change.

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• Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper shine in the newest version of A Star Is Born

The music business is the backdrop for a moving love story.

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The concept behind A Star Is Born is the stuff of scientific mythology: For one star to be born, another must flame out. The world has a ceiling on its potential star count.

Whether or not that’s true, Hollywood — located, after all, in the City of Stars — finds the metaphor alluring. The latest version of A Star Is Born , directed by and starring Bradley Cooper alongside Stefani Germanotta (a.k.a. Lady Gaga), is now the fourth movie to bear both the title and a plot arc about one star rising while another dims .

The first one came out in 1937, focusing on an aspiring starlet (played by Janet Gaynor) and an established actor (Fredric March) whose alcoholism is causing his own career to plummet. The film was remade in 1954 with Judy Garland and James Mason, and then again in 1976, this time set in the world of music and starring Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson.

Differing cinematic sensibilities due to the era aside, the concept remains the same: A man who’s seen it all in show business and who’s been driven to addiction by its hollowness encounters a talented, refreshingly authentic woman (younger, to varying degrees) and falls in love with her almost on sight, then introduces her to the business he’s already conquered.

They marry just as the industry is beginning to take note of her. Though they mutually support one another, his love for her can’t overcome his own depression. The celebrity on which he’s coasted won’t save him forever. And meanwhile, he’s dragging down the woman he loves.

Some people have said that every generation makes its own A Star Is Born (though I’m personally glad we skipped whatever “sell-out” fable the ’90s would have served up). And this one contains homages aplenty to the earlier films, particularly the 1976 version. By now, you can’t just watch A Star Is Born ; any new iteration of the story begs to be seen through the lens of not just its predecessors, but also the world into which its particular star will be born.

Bradley Cooper — for whom the 2018 film, his directorial debut, is a passion project in every sense — seems to understand that intuitively. His Star Is Born follows the same contours as earlier versions, but feels anchored in 2018, particularly because the extra-cinematic work of his leading lady — unapologetic pop provocateur Lady Gaga — lends extra meaning to the film.

And it’s also the first of its breed to focus predominately on the love story between the rising and falling stars, equal partners in the relationship who nonetheless find their deep connection altered and shaped by the ways that success in creative work can keep shifting the landscape under two lovers’ feet. The movie works best, above all, as a melodrama about the limits and possibilities of love, and how love can make us into the best and worst versions of ourselves in the very same moment.

Laced with instantly memorable songs and — clichés be damned — stellar performances, 2018’s A Star Is Born is the kind of movie that tries to harness all of its cinematic possibility to make your heart burst. And it more or less succeeds.

A Star Is Born puts a present-day spin on a familiar story

Like its predecessors, A Star Is Born introduces both its stars in media res. The star on the decline — his alcoholism and addiction have long since exceeded the “high functioning” stage — is Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper), the character called “Norman” Maine in earlier versions. Here he’s a blues-rock megastar, a wounded man with a soft heart whom Cooper plays with credibly bruised gruffness.

Following a gig that he drunkenly pulls off just fine — we’re meant to know this is a nightly occurrence — he asks his driver to stop at a random bar, which turns out to be hosting its weekly drag night. He sticks around.

And, as luck (or fate) would have it, Ally (Gaga) is performing. A waitress at a much fancier joint by day, she’s a singer by night, and because she used to work at the bar, its proprietors let her have an act in the drag show. She sings La Vie en Rose and brings the house down. In the time it takes to sing that one well-worn song, she wins Jack’s artistic respect and, it is clear, his heart.

From there, the story is familiar, though with some 2018 twists. Ally writes her own music, but doesn’t usually sing it in public; Jack convinces her she ought to, and then drags her out onstage to do so. (The song they perform, “Shallow,” which Ally is meant to have written, is almost certainly a shoo-in for Best Original Song at the 2019 Oscars.) They work in different genres — his sound is blues-rock with a hint of country; hers is pop — but they complement one another perfectly.

Jack warns Ally not to lose her authenticity; she has something to say, he tells her, and she should use the platform she’s given in order to say it. (That perspective could cast the movie as anti-pop, until you consider who’s playing Ally.) Meanwhile, he’s not old, but his soul, his music, and his act are, and the film not-so-subtly suggests that what he represents — and the lifestyle that goes with it — may need to step aside and make room for others. (“Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die,” one of Jack’s most frequently performed songs begins.)

This is Ally’s story as much as Jack’s — she’s the star in the title, after all. He lights the spark beneath her, but she already contains everything needed to burst into flame, including a healthy skepticism about losing control of her own image in an image-based business. Though she suffers a few growing pains in the form of lousy pop songs, she is more than capable of finding her way.

A Star Is Born ’s songs were written and produced by a stable of talented artists all over the genre map: Jason Isbell , Lukas Nelson , Mark Ronson , Diane Warren , Anthony Rossomando , and others, as well as Cooper himself and, of course, Lady Gaga, who brought in a number of her frequent collaborators to write Ally’s songs.

And while it’s not a perfect film — though the first hour just may be — A Star Is Born boasts more than enough passion to make up for some of its narrative hiccups. It swings from intimate drama to concert film and back again with a limpid pace and fluidity. And when it deviates from its predecessors on certain plot points, those choices feel both modern and perfectly natural. It’s hard to imagine watching the film and not being moved.

A Star Is Born is more interested in its love story than in the industry around it

A Star Is Born has only a moderate interest in the actual music business, however — a fact that will doubtless raise the hackles of some viewers positioned closer to the industry. Whereas some of the earlier versions of A Star Is Born have dwelt on how stars are actually created, and what makes them fade, this one is more interested in what happens between the stars themselves.

So this is a musical melodrama, one shot through with heat and light. Cooper, acting his heart out while directing at the same time — it turns out he’s great at both — plays Jack with a low growl, a tribute to the older brother (played by the wonderful Sam Elliott) whom he idolizes.

As Ally, Gaga is luminous, funny, and brilliant. She’s hard to look away from, playing Ally as a fully-developed star in her own right who just needs a couple of nudges to be set aflame. And together, their chemistry is, at times, goosebump-inducing. (Earlier films often emphasized an age gap between the characters, but it’s shrunk over time, and though Ally is certainly a little younger than Jack here, they seem equally matched.)

The electricity of their connection — and the fact that their relationship develops into something that can bear the weight of both hardship and success for so long — is, the movie suggests, due at least as much to their mutual respect for one another’s gifts as creators and performers. It would be wrong to say there’s no hint of jealousy. But where envy creeps in, it never becomes about tearing the other person down; theirs is a loving, passionate, complicated link that lets them both create some of their best work, and become their better selves, too.

Love can’t conquer everything. Scars run deep. But love is what ultimately allows the jealousy to fade. A Star Is Born is undoubtedly a swirling, highly produced, Hollywood-style melodrama, but it has something to say about the world it’s set in, about what it takes to remain a human in the midst of a celebrity-making machine that would rather package people to conform to its own standards. The message the film sends is that it’s not really about “being authentic”; we stay real because other people see us, and they love us for what they see.

A Star Is Born premiered at the Venice Film Festival, made its North American debut at the Toronto International Film Festival, and will open in theaters on October 5.

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A Star is Born Review

We go gaga over it..

A Star Is Born Images

A Star Is Born is a refreshing take of this classic showbiz rise and fall tale, with updated character work, fantastic performances by Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga, and a soundtrack that will be stuck in your head for days.

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A Star Is Born review – a double act to leave you star-struck

E ach generation has its own version of A Star Is Born , a timeless tale (prefigured by George Cukor’s What Price Hollywood? ) of intersecting career trajectories. In the 1930s, William Wellman directed Janet Gaynor as the young actress on the way up who falls for alcoholic fading idol Fredric March. Judy Garland and James Mason reprised the roles in Cukor’s 1954 classic, setting a musical template mirrored in subsequent versions. Barbra Streisand famously wanted Elvis to star opposite her in Frank Pierson’s 70s remake, and it still breaks my heart that Presley never got to play what would surely have been his defining screen role (Kris Kristofferson landed the part of a rock star in decline.)

Now, taking the tale to a 21st-century audience, we have Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper: the former in her first big-screen starring role, the latter making his startlingly assured directorial debut (he also produced, co-wrote the script and contributed to song composition). Capturing the slow grind of touring and the speedy ups and downs of pop stardom can be a notoriously tricky business. But from its uncannily realistic performance footage to pinpoint observations about modern in-ear monitors (“it’s just in my head; I need to be here ”), this new incarnation of an old story paints a painfully precise portrait of life seen from the other side of the stage.

Cooper plays Jackson Maine, a grizzled, axe-wielding country-rocker who stumbles out of a gig and into a late-night drag bar in search of booze (“They got alcohol? Then it’s my kinda place”). Here he sees Ally (Lady Gaga, brilliant) singing La Vie en Rose. It’s a show-stopping turn, striking a chord with the tinnitus-tormented Maine, who thinks he’s found an artist with “something to say and a way to say it”. But Ally, who hides her own songwriting light under a bushel, thinks the music industry is full of men who say: “You sound great, but you don’t look so great.” So Maine, in an act of both sacrifice and salvation, foists Ally on stage in front of his adoring crowd, with spectacular results.

For one enchanted moment, their chemistry is perfect, with each firing the other’s dreams (“It’s been a long time since he played like that,” says Jackson’s long-suffering brother, Bobby). But these star paths are crossed rather than entwined. He’s dependent on a self-destructive cocktail of steroid injections, booze and boot-crushed pills. As for her, fame brings its own baggage, as pop-savvy manager Rez (Rafi Gavron) moulds her image with new dancers and hairdos and publicity photos that “don’t even look like me”.

Beyond the jokes about her unmarketable nose, there’s more than a touch of Streisand’s Funny Girl persona in Lady Gaga’s thrillingly spiky performance. We know from her pop pedigree that she can cut it as an onstage sensation, but it’s her more down-at-heel scenes (taking out the trash in a soul-crushing job) that really impress. Never once did I doubt that the rock’n’roll high life (popping corks on Jack’s private plane) was a new and astonishing experience for this real-life megastar. Significantly, Ally has the cover of Carole King’s Tapestry framed on her bedroom wall and there’s a hint of the King-inspired 1996 film Grace of My Heart in her progress from songwriter to recording star, particularly in a lovely scene in which Maine suggests using a piano keyboard to unlock her natural studio voice.

Yet for all his support, Maine is unsettled by Ally’s success, and the independence it brings her (“why can’t I be enough?”). A poignant shot of him watching as the increasingly Gaga-esque Ally rehearses an angular routine casts him as a wounded old bear lost in a futuristic neon world, his reddened face counterposed with the cold blue light of an alien environment. It’s as if he’s wandered out of his own movie and into hers. Elsewhere, the narrative’s infamous awards ceremony outrage is revisited in excruciating hues that will have you hiding you face in your hands.

Strong supporting turns include Sam Elliott as Bobby, the brother from whom Maine apparently “stole” his voice, Andrew Dice Clay as Ally’s protective yet clumsily undermining father and Dave Chappelle as an old musician friend of Jackson’s who found a way out of all the craziness. Expect to see A Star Is Born nominated in numerous categories in the forthcoming awards season, not least for acting, direction and songwriting. Its Oscar-bait earworm tune may be entitled Shallow , but the film itself is as deep and resonant as Bradley Cooper’s drawl, and as bright as Lady Gaga’s screen future.

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A Star Is Born First Reviews: A Fresh Take on An Old-Fashioned Love Song

The first critics to weigh in on bradley cooper's directorial debut are raving about lady gaga, a stellar supporting cast, and cooper's own deft hand behind the camera..

Indeed, a star is born in pop music icon Lady Gaga, while co-lead Bradley Cooper proves to be a natural behind the camera in his directorial debut. Together, they’re a winning team, at least according to critics. While no one is making awards predictions just yet (obvious Best Original Song contenders aside), initial reviews for the latest incarnation of  A Star is Born  (currently Fresh at 90% with 21 reviews counted) are calling the movie a worthy remake after its premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

Check out what the first round of critics are saying:

The big question: How good is Lady Gaga?

Lady Gaga delivers a knockout performance. – Stephanie Zacharek, Time

[It] deserves to be called a breakout performance. – Glenn Kenny, RogerEbert.com

She deserves praise for her restrained, human-scale performance. – Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly

Lady Gaga is nothing short of extraordinary. – Leonardo Goi, The Film Stage

[She is] sensationally good. – Peter Bradshaw, Guardian

How about her co-star ?

Cooper, whose screen persona can so often be bland and unchallenging, makes precisely this conservative tendency work for him in the role. He is so sad you want to hug him. –  Peter Bradshaw, Guardian

It’s testament to Cooper’s performance that he remains throughout a sympathetic and tragic character. –  John Bleasdale, CineVue

How is Cooper as a filmmaker?

The star that is truly born here is Cooper as a director. – Jessica Kiang, The Playlist

It’s wonderful to see a first-time filmmaker who’s more interested in effective storytelling than in impressing us. –  Stephanie Zacharek, Time

The opening scenes show him displaying a penchant for Kubrickian one-point-perspective shots, but he’s at his best, as so many directors who came up though acting tend to be, when the camera gets close to his performers and captures their intimate interplay. –  Glenn Kenny, RogerEbert.com

(Photo by Warner Bros.)

How is the chemistry between Gooper and Gaga?

It’s a thrill to watch Gaga and Cooper craft musical magic together. –  Mara Reinstein, US Weekly

Cooper and Lady Gaga are dynamite together. –  Alonso Duralde, The Wrap

Cooper and Gaga are such a well-matched screen couple: they have serious yowch-my-fingers chemistry. –  Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph

[They’re] a miracle of stage chemistry. –  Leonardo Goi, The Film Stage

There’s real warmth and a sexy spark in [Cooper’s] onscreen chemistry with Gaga. –  David Rooney, Holllywood Reporter

The film itself feels like a kind of duet, and suffers when the two aren’t sharing the screen. –  Michael Nordine, IndieWire

Did we really need another version of  A Star Is Born ?

An unnecessary remake. Cooper and his team simply aren’t able to reinvigorate material that has been pored over so many times before by other filmmakers. – Geoffrey Macnab, The Independent

It’s an extraordinary surprise that this new version packs such a wallop…[it’s] for people who never saw a previous version, for people who love any of the previous versions, and even for those who think the property is moth-eaten and old-fashioned. – Alonso Duralde, The Wrap

The story of A Star Is Born may be as old as show-business, but it is also electrifyingly fresh – a well-known melody given vivid, searching new force. – Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph

Cooper’s fresh take finds plenty of mileage left in the well-trod showbiz saga. – David Rooney, Holllywood Reporter

How does it compare to other recent musicals?

[Not] likely to appeal to fans of Gaga’s outré performance-art persona… Enthusiastic performances apart, the songs themselves are unmemorably generic. –  Jonathan Romney, Screen International

Unlike many similar semi-musical films, in which the tracks grind the storytelling to a halt, here the music… does a fair bit of narrative heavy lifting from the beginning… 2019 Best Song winner, for my money: “Always Remember Us This Way.” –  Jessica Kiang, The Playlist

Best Original Song Oscar nods are in the bag. –  Mara Reinstein, US Weekly

This is a musical for lovers and loathers of the genre alike: deluxe studio entertainment like they used to make. –  Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph

In an age where Mamma Mia and The Greatest Showman pass as hit musicals, it’s an exciting reminder of what the genre can be. –  Alonso Duralde, The Wrap

Are there any supporting standouts?

The movie also has some great unexpected supporting turns, including Dave Chappelle as an old friend of Jackson’s and Andrew Dice Clay as Ally’s Rat Pack-dreamer dad. –  Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly

[It’s] a suitable showcase for small but terrific performances from the likes of Dave Chappelle and Andrew Dice Clay. –  Stephanie Zacharek, Time

Sam Elliot, whose bluff, bittersweet performance as Jackson’s manager and (much) older brother ranks among the 74-year-old’s very finest work. –  Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph

[Features] standout support from Dave Chappelle, Sam Elliott and Andrew Dice Clay. –  Adam Woodward, Little White Lies

How big is this movie going to be?

It’s going to be a phenomenon. –  Jessica Kiang, The Playlist

A Star Is Born  premiered on Friday at the Venice Film Festival, and it opens in limited release on Friday, October 5. Read all the reviews for it here .

A Star Is Born (2018) 90%

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Review: Lady Gaga, Bradley Cooper are electrifying in extraordinary 'A Star Is Born'

With their phenomenal “A Star Is Born,” Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper upend expectations and spectacularly freshen up a stock Hollywood story.

Simultaneously an immersive concert film, enchanting romance and tear-jerking rock fantasy, “A Star Is Born” (★★★★ out of four; rated R; in theaters nationwide Friday) is a dynamic multifaceted showcase for Gaga and Cooper, who makes his directing debut a thing of melodic, masterful beauty. Together, they form an electrifying duo in one of the best movies of 2018 and the finest musical since 2002’s “Chicago.”

Cooper isn't the first one to go down the film's familiar road: This is the fourth “A Star Is Born,” which tosses in references and story points from earlier iterations – notably, the 1954 film with Judy Garland and James Mason, as well as the 1976 version starring Kris Kristofferson and Barbra Streisand. But the way Cooper lays bare the characters' hang-ups, flaws and vices takes the well-trodden melodramatic concept – young starlet on the rise, aging icon heading the other way – and creates something extraordinary.

More: Good luck getting Lady Gaga, Bradley Cooper's 'Shallow' out of your head

Related: Gaga serves Elizabethan glamour at 'A Star Is Born' U.K. premiere

Like an edgy, amped-up cross between Roy Orbison and Garth Brooks, countrified roots rocker Jackson Maine (Cooper) lives hard and drinks harder. One night after a sold-out show, he winds up at a local drag bar and falls in love – sonically and otherwise – with Ally (Gaga) as she sings “La Vie en Rose.” A hotel waitress who hates her job, men and the music industry (not necessarily in that order), Ally is secretly a heck of a songwriter but shy about it, though Jack tells her she has "something to say and a way to say it so people listen to it."

He invites Ally to a show, then pulls her on the stage to sing the ultracatchy “Shallow,"  which she wrote partly with Jack in mind. What's a potentially corny sequence is instead a truly exhilarating, goosebump-inducing knockout moment.

The first hour of a “A Star Is Born” is especially satisfying, with Ally becoming a viral hit and each acting as the other's muse. But the downward spiral strikes like a dissonant chord: Jack struggles with alcoholism and hearing loss from tinnitus, while Ally quickly finds A-list fame as a mainstream pop star (she pretty much becomes Lady Gaga), disappointing musical purist Jack and driving a wedge between them.

More: Lady Gaga cries over 'A Star is Born' – and Metallica inspired part of the movie

Preview: 10 movies you must see this fall, from 'Halloween' to 'A Star Is Born'

Soundtrack nerds will love all of it. Gaga and Cooper collaborated with others on the outstanding original numbers, including the down-and-dirty jam “Black Eyes” and weepy ballad “I’ll Never Love Again.”

Just as key as the top-notch songs is a first-rate supporting cast, including Sam Elliott as Jack’s conflicted brother and tour manager, Dave Chappelle as Jack’s oldest confidant and Andrew Dice Clay as Ally’s caring father.

“A Star Is Born,” a no-brainer for a best picture nomination with strong Oscar contenders for best actor and actress, is most noteworthy for its two stars reborn. Stripped down and vulnerable, Gaga proves she’s as much an acting powerhouse as she is a musical standout. Meanwhile, Cooper turns in his best performance ever as a growling, flawed superstar who’s the beating heart of the film. (Plus, while Gaga is obviously a great singer, Cooper’s brawny vocals are a revelation.) 

Perhaps most impressive is Cooper’s splendid directing and storytelling choices. He intriguingly emphasizes the artists' point of view rather than the audience’s in the musical scenes, shows a knack for making everything count (from background visuals to song lyrics) and has something to say about music, love, celebrity and the transporting triumph of making a joyful noise.

‘A Star Is Born’ Review: Bradley Cooper’s Directorial Debut Burns Brightly

Cooper has made a remarkably self-assured feature debut anchored by an outstanding lead performance from Lady Gaga.

Note: This is a re-post of our A Star Is Born review from the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival. The film is now playing in wide release.

Over the past weekend, I made a point to familiarize myself with the other remakes of 1937’s A Star Is Born —1954’s version starring Judy Garland and James Mason , and 1976’s version starring Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson . With his directorial debut, co-writer/actor/co-producer/co-songwriter/director Bradley Cooper has surpassed those efforts by seizing on their best elements and retuning them for 2018. Although the beats will be familiar to anyone who has seen a previous version of A Star Is Born , Cooper manages to make the story his own by crafting a two-hander resting on his tragic character and a stunning performance from co-star Lady Gaga . Even when the movie occasionally goes off key or becomes a little too familiar, Cooper and Gaga always manage to bring it back to an electrifying note.

Jackson Maine (Cooper) is a rock star on the decline. He can still play well and put on a show, but alcoholism, pill popping, and his growing tinnitus are taking their toll. One night after a show and needing a drink, he wanders into a drag bar where he sees Ally (Gaga)—who’s so good at singing that the drag queens let her take the stage even though she’s a woman—performing. He’s immediately taken with her and wants to encourage her talent as a singer and songwriter. As their relationship deepens, Ally’s star begins to rise as Jackson’s fades, bringing new complications to their romance.

Cooper’s A Star Is Born has a myriad of advantages over its predecessors by making plenty of smart changes along the way. For example, in the other remakes, the Maine character is already in decline, and the audience never really gets a sense of his talent. Here, he can still play, and it lets us feel the tragedy of what’s being lost to the character’s alcoholism and depression. Other changes are less surprising, like making Ally (who goes by Esther/Vicki in previous versions) more independent and combative. It’s an expected change, but also one that’s trickier due to the inherent complications of the story, namely how to make Ally her own woman while still having her success partially due to Maine’s benevolence.

Cooper and co-writers Eric Roth and Will Fetters wisely seize upon the work process as a way of making Ally’s success more than just being lucky enough to meet Jackson, and by showing the two as collaborators, their relationship has depth and texture (it also doesn’t hurt that Cooper and Gaga have wonderful chemistry together). You can see that they’re both passionate about the work, and that while fame can be a wedge, the love for making music together and creating art, even if it’s stuff for a Top 40 station, is a real passion. The music industry is a necessary evil of sorts, but Jackson and Ally keep trying to make the best of it.

Like the 1954 version (and not so much the 1976 version), 2018’s A Star Is Born cares deeply about both leads rather than giving into the temptation to follow one to stardom and the other to despair. The first act could stand as a glorious short film on its own with how much Cooper is able to wring out of this relationship and where these two characters are headed. The confidence of his direction is astounding, especially in how he doesn’t try to steal the film and make it about Jackson or simply hide and give it over to Ally. The movie really is two intertwined stories, and Cooper makes them work together seamlessly.

However, credit must be given to Gaga for her phenomenal performance. It’s not easy to follow in the footsteps of luminaries like Garland and Streisand, and yet Ally feels like her own character from the very beginning. She’s not a lump of clay for Jackson to mold, and her insecurities feel like they’re coming from someplace real rather than something contrived so that Jackson can find a diamond in the rough. Gaga, a pop superstar herself, is no stranger to Ally’s journey, but it doesn’t feel like an autobiographical riff or running to what’s personally familiar. She’s at turns strong, determined, vulnerable, brave, and humble, and it’s a joy watching her play this character and perform the terrific songs.

Some may find A Star Is Born a bit derivative, which isn’t necessarily unfair. After all, it’s the third remake of a movie that first came out back in 1937. And yet to dismiss it as such would be to miss all the terrific little touches that Cooper brings to his movie. He’s got better songs. He’s got a tighter script. He knows how to service both lead characters. He’s even got a fantastic ensemble with some really touching supporting performances from Sam Elliott , Dave Chappelle , and Andrew Dice Clay . But the beating heart is the romance between Jackson and Ally that feels like it’s using music as something real and not just an entertainment arena where the characters dwell. Even when the film starts to meander a bit in its third act, or when you get an awkward scene like Jackson explaining why his voice sounds like Sam Elliott, the film always returns to its beautiful melody, and it’s one you’ll be humming long after the credits roll.

A Star Is Born is now playing.

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'A Star Is Born' Review: Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga Deliver One of 2018's Best Movies

There’s an interesting quandary at the center of “ A Star Is Born, ” or at least in the latest interpretation of this classic Hollywood yarn: Who do we relate to, identify with, in this story of star-crossed career paths -- the impressionable young ingenue, or the seasoned veteran?

Bradley Cooper ’s directorial debut makes a convincing case for both, thanks not only to music that bolsters the credibility of both rugged singer-songwriter Jackson Maine (Cooper) and aspiring pop star Ally ( Lady Gaga ), but motivations that seem to exist both within the actors performing them, and the careers those performers have developed for themselves outside the actual narrative. Either way, Cooper’s film is a remarkable, addictive piece of Hollywood myth-making that deserves to be seen on the biggest screen and in the loudest theater possible.

Cooper (“American Sniper”) plays Jackson, a grizzled musician with as many poetic insights about art as he does addictions. One night after a gig, he wanders into a drag bar for a cocktail where he stumbles across Ally (Gaga), a waitress who’s all but given up on the possibility of stardom outside of singing “La Vie En Rose” for the local queens. He takes an immediate shine to her -- and her talent -- and the two quickly slide into a tender courtship, him pulling her onstage to sing duets in front of thousands of fans, and her pulling him into bed, and later, the studio to collaborate. Despite Ally’s insistence she won’t enable his addictions, his self-destructive behavior continues to guide his life and derail his career, even as she finds a manager (Rafi Gavron, “Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist”) and acquiesces to the demands of pop stardom --to enormous success, but at the expense of a few of the qualities Jackson first fell in love with.

But as their personal and professional relationships fall into relief with one another, they’re forced to reflect on the time they have shared, and make some difficult decisions about what sort of future each wants -- both as musicians and as lovers.

It sounds like a criticism to say that there aren’t many surprises in “A Star Is Born,” but the familiarity of this particular kind of love story -- with or without that title -- practically demands a boilerplate approach, and there’s something wonderfully reassuring about the way its rhythms unfold. At the same time, the successful execution of that formula requires great performances, and this film delivers like gangbusters with Cooper and Gaga bringing the characters’ talent and chemistry to vibrant life.

Gaga has some truly spectacular instincts as an actress -- her early scenes, when Ally is the most “ordinary,” are just riveting to watch, and she perfectly plays against Cooper’s confounded joy as Jackson, discovering a creative (and romantic) inspiration he’d long thought extinguished. The music further communicates their respective personalities and bolsters the legitimacy of his established -- and her ascendant -- success, conveying their artistic compatibility but also the stark differences between what they want and what they have to offer (not to mention their ages and levels of experience).

There is a sort of curious footnote to the movie, however, where Gaga is the greater authority than Cooper: She knows and has intimately experienced the rise, and the obstacles to modern pop stardom, and she comes from a generation where “selling out,” so to speak, is no longer a crime against art, and, in fact, is seemingly something to aspire to. (Certainly, she has not compromised herself in her own career, but she has a more immediate relationship with those pitfalls and perhaps a more comfortable relationship with the prospect of going big, broad, and commercial.)

It makes her performance more sympathetic to some of the less desirable, or maybe respectable, tasks that Ally eventually must take on, or chooses to take on; Ally is a born songwriter and singer, but the music she ends up making barely resembles what first creatively drives her, which isn’t “bad” (well, some of it is) but it creates this very interesting meta-commentary on the paths of these two artists and the kinds of art they create. Does a musician need to bear the emotional weight of their life experiences with every song they write? In an age where everything is sold, is it really a compromise for her to perform a song about how good her man looks in his jeans, if she got to write it herself? The movie doesn’t answer, but it’s an ongoing dialogue the movie has as these characters shift their power positions in the relationship, and in their careers.

As a director, Cooper maintains a remarkably equitable balance between the theatricality of this story and what might approximate a sense of “realism." More than anything else, however, Cooper creates a feeling in his characters and their journeys that feels absolutely right (for the story) and emotionally believable. In examining Jackson’s alcoholism, he treats the subject (forgive the pun) soberly, showcasing the character’s self-awareness and his shame in destroying beautiful moments and opportunities for the people he loves. In following Ally’s transformation, he does not judge the changes that she makes -- even when they seem to violate the core of who she is -- and why she felt like she couldn’t succeed before she met Jackson.

Ultimately just a magical, musical experience -- romantic and tragic and irresistibly propulsive -- “A Star Is Born” is certainly the kind of movie that seems likely to win awards as the end of the year approaches, but it carries the increasingly rare distinction of being one that feels like it actually and honestly earns the accolades it receives.

A Star Is Born

Seasoned musician Jackson Maine discovers — and falls in love with — struggling artist Ally. She has just about given up on her dream to make it big as a singer... Read the Plot

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A Star Is Born Review

Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga turn to Hollywood's favorite creation myth in order to permanently recreate how we see them.

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Several times throughout A Star is Born , Bradley Cooper purrs the lyrics, “Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die.” We think he doth protest too much, particularly in a film that so lovingly updates not only a few old ways of moviemaking, but also a very specific, older Hollywood myth. Indeed, Cooper’s pensive directorial debut, which likewise stands as a remarkable introduction for Lady Gaga in the role of movie star, is the fourth version of this tale (not counting the many knockoffs) in which a fading star gives birth in his last gasp of fame to a new pop culture sun. Like the misbegotten 1976 version with Barbara Streisand and Kris Kristofferson, 2018’s A Star is Born moves the showbiz fable from movie studios to the music industry. But unlike that vanity project, Cooper uses American entertainment’s favorite creation myth to recreate how audiences will forever perceive him and Gaga.

Drawing from a well-worn yarn about the price of fame and the anguish of losing it, it is via an unexpected intimacy that Cooper is able to craft something refreshing and unique. Like an acoustic cover of a brassy old standard, he strips away the glitz and bombast to make a passion play that feels raw and unplugged. Garbling his way through a slurring Western drawl, his protagonist Jackson Maine already seems to have one foot in the darkness off-stage right when he accidentally stumbles into a bar after midnight. Despite being technically a drag queen event on this given night, Gaga’s Ally remains the local diva of the haunt due to her undeniable talent—talent that even while in a drunken stupor Jackson takes an immediate shine toward.

Having almost entirely given up her dreams of ever making it in the music industry—a disappointment that her father constantly echoes in her ear (played by an unrecognizable Andrew Dice Clay)—Ally is initially very reluctant to believe Jackson’s effusive praise that she is a great songwriter, a great singer… and even a great beauty. In fact, it’s been her nose that she reveals has kept her from ever being taken seriously as a talent by anyone remotely adjacent to the music industry, but that nose suits Jackson just fine, especially when he can kiss beneath it or look up toward it when she’s dragging him off the floor. Soon enough, he is bringing her onstage and, like the title says, a star is born.

It could be easy to dismiss Cooper’s aging rocker “discovering” Lady Gaga when, in fact, Gaga has very obviously made it in the music industry for almost a decade now. Yet the film offers an honest commentary about the price of fame today, and the concessions the likes of Gaga or her character Ally must make. The real Gaga, Stefani Germanotta, struggled for years as a singer-songwriter until she embraced the pop star aesthetic in the extreme, so much so that many often forget the talent beneath all the performance art. A Star is Born removes the artifice to re-introduce the frequently overlooked skills of Germanotta, who also co-wrote most of the original songs in the movie, before building her back up into another pop star version of Gaga.

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It is that trajectory which makes this arguably the most creative remake of A Star is Born , for unlike the other versions, this is less a reconfiguration of the Svengali archetype as it is a man on the verge of breaking—he’s even a rock star going deaf—simply letting a young woman make herself. Ally breaks into the music industry without the pop aesthetic and without Jackson doing more than giving her a microphone, which makes their subsequent marriage and its bittersweet trajectory more emotionally poignant rather than manipulative or saccharine.

There is an undeniable grace with how Cooper builds his film, in which he plays a convincingly greasy, crooning cowboy who has more to do with the indie scene of Austin than modern Top 40 radio. And by casting Sam Elliot as Jackson’s older brother—their father had Cooper’s character late in life—he also allows himself to borrow Elliot’s gravelly roar to accompany the popping blood vessels in his red face whenever he gets on stage. This complemented by Gaga—the astonishing singer—creates a harmony that can never last. Yet its elegiac refrain for most of the film’s first two acts gives the film a soulful chorus that is sure to worm its way into many audiences’ memory. As does a wistful cameo by Dave Chappelle.

The film is again a major coup for Gaga. Having already appeared in front of the camera to lesser effect on multiple seasons of American Horror Story , she has never seemed more natural or at ease as an actor than in A Star is Born . Intentionally recreating her heroine as the opposite of the ingénue archetype, Gaga does well with the material and crackles against Cooper, even as the film wisely uses careful scripting and editing to play to Gaga’s acting strengths. Appearing to have a set range, Gaga seems less comfortable with moments of extreme duress, yet can dominate the entire frame when a mic is in her hand or when warily exposing Ally’s (and maybe even her own) vulnerabilities to Jackson.

In truth, A Star is Born is a multi-pronged star vehicle. It offers a showcase for Gaga’s many talents, as well as a marker for Cooper’s arrival as a major directorial one. With confidence and an adept eye for gliding cameras and Steadicam shots, Cooper displays a swagger every bit as broad as his own onscreen cowpoke, whose ever-darkening gloom is the real centerpiece performance of the movie. One that will likely be in constant discussion all the way until Oscar’s telecast.

Yet despite returning to one of Hollywood’s favorite bedtime stories as his opening salvo, Cooper offers audiences a mature and remarkably adult melodrama at a time when such stories seem almost forgotten by the increasingly juvenile industry. The third act veers into the maudlin destinies of the original film, but for the first time since 1937, we have A Star is Born  that is as comfortable in the dark as in the light, which makes it all the brighter.

A Star is Born premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and opens nationwide on Oct. 5.

further reading: The Must See Movies of 2018

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David Crow is the Film Section Editor at Den of Geek. He’s also a member of the Online Film Critics Society. Read more of his work here . You can follow him on Twitter @DCrowsNest .

David Crow | @DCrowsNest

David Crow is the movies editor at Den of Geek. He has long been proud of his geek credentials. Raised on cinema classics that ranged from…

A Star Is Born (2018)

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‘A Star Is Born’ Review: Lady Gaga Shines in Bradley Cooper’s Cover of the Enduring Musical — Venice

Michael nordine.

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To hear Bradley Cooper ’s crooner in “ A Star Is Born ” tell it, music is the same story being told over and over again — just 12 notes between each octave, all of them eventually repeating. The magic lies in how they’re expressed. That’s a fitting note to hit in the fourth iteration of a story that’s proven more enduring than most songs written when the first “Star” was born 81 years ago, and it’s key to appreciating Cooper’s arrangement as more than just a cover.

You don’t see “A Star Is Born” to actually watch a star being born, at least not anymore. Maybe you did in 1937, when William Wellman first brought the story to screen; or 17 years later, when Judy Garland led the best (and best-known) version of this enduring Hollywood fable; or even in 1976, when Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson tried to prove the third time’s the charm. But not now, when both Cooper and Lady Gaga have been shining bright for a full decade.

So why watch “A Star Is Born” in 2018, when Cooper’s directorial debut is premiering in Venice as part of a world tour that’s clearly meant to crescendo on a certain stage in Hollywood next year? The answer, it turns out, is Gaga. Already a Golden Globe winner for her work on “American Horror Story,” the pop star is resplendent as a diamond-in-the-rough singer whose booming voice and subtle expressions would make her predecessors proud. Credit to Cooper for delivering his best, most soulful performance while pulling double duty behind the camera, but it’s his co-star whose magnetism most draws you into their world — and keeps you there even when the film hits the occasional wrong note.

In part that’s because she instantly makes you believe in her Ally as a no-name talent despite already being one of the most successful singers on the planet. Unassuming but obviously special, she speaks at length about how showbiz power brokers like her voice but not her looks; given the extravagance of the pop star’s usual costumes, it’s almost like you’re seeing her for the first time. Even with everything Gaga’s already done, “A Star Is Born” feels like a coming-out party for her. Cooper is a co-lead but, in much the same way that his Jackson Maine takes Ally on tour and facilitates her burgeoning superstardom, it often feels like his onscreen goal is to play second fiddle and help us see that, as both an actress and a singer, his co-star is a singular talent.

At times this is the most immersive concert film this side of the late, great Jonathan Demme, the camera just feet from Jackson as he downs a handful of pills with a swig of vodka before picking up his guitar and launching into his set. His own star has begun to fade somewhat — though Jackson’s twangy, country-inflected rock ballads still draw crowds — but he isn’t the only one in this constellation. Their duets are even better, feeling far less staged than filmed performances tend to, with Cooper’s raw approach offering what feels like a behind-the-scenes look at two actual musicians falling in love onstage.

A fall-down drunk who manages to stay standing on his better nights, Jackson self-medicates not only for the typical sad-musician reasons but also to distract from the ringing in his ears that’s never going away and will only get worse as time goes on. The meet-cute comes when he stumbles into a bar for a post-concert drink and sees Ally deliver a stirring rendition of “La Vie en rose” that would make even Marion Cotillard blush, and it isn’t just the booze talking when he tells her she’s beautiful — the man is clearly smitten, and it’s nearly impossible not to share his admiration. Their immediate, highly sensual chemistry proves to be the film’s most compelling element, as well as its most combustible; you don’t have to sing Édith Piaf songs to know there’s nothing like amour fou .

Cooper, whose “American Sniper” became the most financially successful film of 2014 on the back of quote-unquote Real America, manages to appeal to that same set while also setting a key scene in a bar celebrating drag night. More than just a cover artist, he brings a sense of experiential urgency to the proceedings that makes them feel new again (even if it’s difficult to overlook the irony of Jackson’s most popular tune beiginning with the line “Maybe it’s time the let the old ways die…” in this, the fourth version of a very old story).

But these better tendencies give way to a more familiar tale of alcoholism, recovery, and the perils of overnight stardom. It’s here that Cooper is hobbled by the source material, as though he feels obligated to hit the same narrative beats (and, in broad strokes, he’s largely telling the same story) as his predecessors and isn’t as adept at riffing on them. The film itself feels like a kind of duet, and suffers when the two aren’t sharing the screen. “Star” is less compelling as it expands its focus beyond their central relationship and toward its overarching ideas, some of which can’t help but feel like the plot contrivances they are — not least because most aren’t given the time they need to fully breathe, even with a runtime of two hours and 15 minutes.

Of those, the first 40 are by far the most immersive. Covering a whirlwind 24 hours during which the two lovers meet, fall in love, and perform onstage together for the first time, they make for a soaring, borderline transcendent first act that will stay stuck in your head after the credits roll.

“A Star Is Born” world premiered at the Venice Film Festival. Warner Bros. will release it in theaters on October 5.

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Revisiting Lady Gaga’s Jaw-Dropping Style, In Honor of Her Birthday

By Hannah Jackson

Happy birthday, Lady Gaga ! The singer has racked up a host of accolades in her 38 years: Grammy winner, Oscar nominee, and Vogue cover star—of course!

But just as much as she is a musical icon, Gaga’s inimitable fashion sense has become inextricable from her persona. We can never forget the avant garde looks that put her on the map, which gave way to more refined red carpet moments. In spite of what she was wearing—be it a meat dress or an Elizabethan gown—her commitment made her a muse for everyone from Alexander McQueen and Donatella Versace to Alessandro Michele and Sarah Burton. Even more, she isn’t just interested in wearing household names—Gaga has time and time again championed emerging designers, including Christopher John Rogers, Area, and Jack Irving.

Gaga’s longstanding love of fashion came full circle in 2019 when she cohosted the “Notes on Camp” Met Gala, turning the carpet into a stage, and outfit changes into performance art. She even took her penchant for style to the extreme in 2021’s House of Gucci, playing a woman who would—literally—kill for fashion.

From her early days of jaw-dropping Fame Monster outfits to her A Star Is Born press tour, Lady Gaga has always been a force. In honor of her birthday, take a look back at some of our favorite Gaga looks.

At the 2019 Met Gala.

The Venice Film Festival, 2018

Lady Gaga 'Working As Fast As I Can' On New Album

Lady Gaga is hard at work on her new album, but for many fans, it couldn't get here fast enough . The Born This Way singer knows her Little Monsters well, however, and has shared an update on how LG7 is coming along.

In a livestream chat with beauty influencer NikkieTutorials celebrating the launch of Gaga's makeup brand Haus Labs in Europe, the A Star Is Born actress addressed fans' desire for her upcoming album, dubbed LG7 online, revealing that she has been feeling very inspired and excited to share new music with the world.

"I'm working as fast as I can," she said. "I will say that I'm feeling deeply inspired right now and I'm so excited for everything that I have to show all the fans. I'm deeply grateful for everybody's excitement in my creativity..."

The "Rain On Me" singer sent fans into a frenzy in January when she shared photos of her back in the studio seemingly working on what many hoped was a follow-up album to 2020's dance album Chromatica .

Of course, Gaga hasn't only been working on new music; she has also been busy filming for Joker: Folie à Deux , where she will star as Harley Quinn opposite Joaquin Phoenix as the titular character in the sequel to 2019's Joker .

Joker: Folie à Deux is set to hit theaters October 4.

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Lady Gaga Celebrated 38th Birthday at Prix-Fixe Dinner with Friends, Boyfriend: 'He Let Her Shine' (Exclusive)

“She was smiling and laughing all night,” an insider tells PEOPLE of the intimate gathering to celebrate the singer

The Hollywood Curtain/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images

Lady Gaga was surrounded by loved ones on her special day!

Earlier this week, the star celebrated her 38th birthday at Giorgio Baldi in Santa Monica, California. The dinner was a low-key celebration with a posse of pals, as well as her longtime beau, Michael Polansky , who “let her shine,” a source tells PEOPLE. 

According to the insider, Gaga arrived with Polansky and she “seemed great.”

The singer sported an edgy, biker-chic ensemble , while Polansky was “dressed very casually,” the source notes.

“They looked happy together,” they add. “He let her shine and made sure she had everything she needed.”

Gaga, Polanksy and “a small group of friends” celebrated the singer in a private room at Giorgio Baldi, where they enjoyed a prix fixe menu of the celebrity-favorite Italian spot’s specialities, including antipasti, pasta and steak, per the source.

“She was smiling and laughing all night,” the insider tells PEOPLE of the intimate gathering, adding, “It was a fun celebration.”

Gaga and Polansky have been linked since early 2020, when they were photographed kissing at a New Year's Eve party in Las Vegas. Shortly after, the couple went Instagram-official after spending a PDA-packed weekend together in Miami for the Super Bowl LIV.

" They weren't shy about showing off PDA ," an insider told PEOPLE of the trip at the time. "They seemed very happy together."

In November 2021, a source told PEOPLE that despite how crazy she is about Polansky, Gaga is in no rush to get engaged to the businessman , noting that the pair “almost act like a married couple already.”

"When they are together, it's obvious that Gaga is crazy about him," the insider added at the time. "She always giggles and touches him. They are very affectionate and have the best chemistry."

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

In addition to celebrating with Polansky and her pals, Gaga also marked her special day with a message on Instagram, which she shared alongside a stripped down selfie — presumably snapped before she donned her birthday glam .

“Today has been so special—I can’t remember a time I was so happy on my bday,” the A Star Is Born actress wrote in the caption. “I am in love with my best friend, my family and friends are loving and kind and healthy. I feel like my heart is bursting with gratitude for my own health and MUSIC.”

The star went on to share that she is “writing some of my best music in as long as I can remember” and reminded fans that her film, Joker: Folie à Deux , will be hitting theaters soon.

“AND seeing messages from all over the world from little monsters—artists—publications that love my work it means so much to me,” she continued. “Thank you thank you thank you for loving me the way you do and for having such a real love for my songs—I’ve been writing ❤️pop songs since I was a little girl I can’t believe I still get to do what I love. This year will be an important and meaningful year for us I know.”

“Music changes people lives im so honored I get to be a part of that in this life,” Gaga concluded.

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The Joker and Harley Quinn are set to serenade audiences in “ Joker: Folie à Deux ,” but if, and how many original songs will be included in the film, is a mystery.

Jukebox musicals, known for featuring popular songs, often achieve box office success. Examples include “Mamma Mia!” and “Moulin Rouge!,” the latter receiving eight Oscar nominations. “Joker 2” is expected to break the mold of traditional musicals.

Specific details about the plot of “Folie à Deux” have not been officially confirmed, but the film is described as a drama with elements taking place in and around Arkham Asylum. Alongside Phoenix and Gaga, the cast includes Emmy nominee Zazie Beetz (“Atlanta”), as well as Oscar nominees Catherine Keener (“Being John Malkovich”) and Brendan Gleeson (“The Banshees of Inisherin”). Phillips collaborated on the screenplay with Scott Silver.

Variety reported that the budget for the sequel has neared $200 million , a significant jump from the $60 million tag of the original film. The sequel is among Warner Bros’ most anticipated releases this year , following the success of “Dune: Part Two” from director Denis Villenueve. The studio’s slate also includes George Miller’s “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” (which will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival), Tim Burton’s “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” and the animated “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim.”

Phoenix clinched the best actor award for his portrayal of Arthur Fleck, a mentally ill party clown who makes his transformation into the famed DC villain. Gaga, a 13-time Grammy winner, has made a successful transition to Hollywood, evident in her Oscar win for co-writing the original song “Shallow” (alongside Mark Ronson, Andrew Wyatt and Anthony Rossomando) for Bradley Cooper’s critically acclaimed “A Star is Born” remake in 2018. Gaga was also nominated for best actress that year, making her one of only four individuals in history to receive acting and songwriting nominations simultaneously.

“Joker: Folie à Deux” is scheduled to hit theaters on Oct. 4.

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Casey Benjamin, Ace Sideman for Robert Glasper, A Tribe Called Quest, More, Dead at 45

• By Jon Blistein

Jon Blistein

Casey Benjamin, the talented saxophone player and sideman who worked closely with Robert Gasper and on records by Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar, Lady Gaga, Nas, John Legend, and many more, has died. He was 45.

Benjamin’s management confirmed his death to The Huffington Post . No immediate cause of death was given.

Though best known for his work on the alto and soprano saxophone, Benjamin was a versatile multi-instrumentalist and daring experimentalist. He wasn’t afraid to layer effects on his saxophones and frequently jumped between synths and keys (as well as keytar), often pairing the latter with a vocoder.  

In a 2010 video tied to his work with the Robert Glasper Experiment, Benjamin offered some insight into his musical approach, saying, “I tend to like to play in places in the music where you would never expect it. And also to put effects on it. I always like contrast — contrast, to me, is beauty. So, you always think outside of the box.” 

Many of the artists Benjamin worked with over the years shared tributes, like Lupe Fiasco, who wrote , “I can’t even begin to express the deep gratitude and respect.” 

And Derrick Hodge, who played with Benjamin in the Robert Glasper Experiment, called the musician “a true brother and friend,” adding, “Thank you for inspiring me, for being a light in my life, and for your unbelievable influence on the music world. I will carry your smile with me, brother. And we will collectively honor and carry your legacy with us.”

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Born in 1978, Benjamin grew up in South Jamaica, Queens, in New York City, and started playing sax when he was eight. He studied at the prestigious Harlem School of Arts and Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art before attending the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, where he met Glasper. 

Along with the Robert Glasper Experiment, Benjamin had his own project, Heavy , alongside the vocalist Nicky Guiland. The duo released several albums, including JAzzmonEY$$ and First Sessions in 2007 and 2009, before returning in 2021 with the four-track project Hand in Hand . 

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In a 2019 interview with All About Jazz , Benjamin spoke about drawing from his own life and experiences to imbue his music with a distinct emotional tenor. 

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