A Star is Born (1976)

You may find this post controversial and I've made my peace with it.  Some view this film as a classic and some hold it proudly in their Barbra Streisand shrine.  However, I recently viewed this film and felt the need to post about it as there were just way too many elements that couldn't be ignored.

Fact: this is the THIRD remake of this story (a fourth is slowly rolling around in development. You can read about it here).

Fact: this is the first movie I've blogged about on this site that's both a Oscar and a Golden Globe winner for the song "Evergreen".

Fact: I have long since made fun of the lyrics to the song "Evergreen" without realizing it was a) from this movie and b) a Barbra Streisand song.  You can't sing a lyric that compares love to a easy chair and not expect me to mock it.

So we meet John Howard Norman, a big rock star who's late to everything, drinks a lot and has Gary Busey personally shove cocaine up his nose.

No one in this movie ever calls him just "John".  Its always "John Howard" or "John Howard Norman". This may have been because the filmmakers felt that no one would accept a hero named John, leading to theater attendees storming out of the theaters in protest.

Fact: John Howard Norman never sings a whole complete song. He starts songs, then always interrupts and we as an audience have no idea why people even bother going to his shows to begin with.

Here's what someone should have prepared me for. No one knows how to wear shirts in this movie.  Shirts are really more of a suggestion or an opinion.  So as a result, they're maybe buttoned or worn halfway or in this case, Kris Kristofferson just forwent the shirt entirely and skipped to the vest.  To each his own, I suppose.

After an evening of kind of singing parts of two songs, he leaves his own show and goes to a club where we're introduced to Barbra Streisand aka "Esther Hoffman".

She's in a singing group that call themselves "The Oreos."  The less said about this, the better.

So they're singing, and Barbra is being Barbra.  However, every romance movie needs a "meet cute" and we get with this moment...

"John Howard Norman" (I guess we'll follow the movie's instructions to always call him this) gets into a shouting match with some bar customers and Barbra gets ticked and confronts him about it. 

Now, lets put this situation in "real life" shall we?  In movie life, Barbra sings at a club and she hears a drunk guy shouting and getting drunker. She confronts him, he's charmed by it, chases her down and begs to date her.  She kind of plays coy and allows him to bring a pizza to her house at 7am the next day.

In "real life", Barbra would have finished her set, gone backstage, complained with the rest of The Oreos (sigh). Had "John Howard Norman" come slurring her way, a bouncer would have steered him to his car and he would have woken up ten hours later not remembering anything.  Roll credits!

But they have breakfast and are super cutesy about eating pizza and him guzzling down a whiskey and a few more beers for breakfast, so he invites her to come to his show.

Another show where he starts a song, mumbles through it, then goes and finds Barbra...

...sings from a vantage point where no one can see him...

...takes a fan's motorcycle (which begs the question, do people still bring a motorcycle inside arenas? Also, where can I get the "I'm Spoiled Rotten" shirt?)

...and this inevitably happens...

...where you know, everyone's going to have to file back out and spend three hours in their cars wondering what on earth they just saw.

Meanwhile, "John Howard Norman" gets put in an ambulance, everyone takes off, leaving Barbra stranded at a arena.

In "real life", Esther Hoffman would have been angry and annoyed, spent hundreds of dollars on an Uber getting back to her house and written an interesting op-ed piece to Rolling Stone on what a tool John Howard Norman is.

Instead, she finds it cute that he stalked her at a studio and follows him home to his house where they make sweet music together...

...and then sweet, sweet love.

So many beer cans in this scene.

Naturally, he brings her into the studio and she sings whole and complete songs, which blows everyone away. He realizes that she is a unicorn and they make glorious creative plans.

He does yet another show, where he starts to sing a song and people are into it, but he stops barely into the first chorus and goes, "Hey guys, you paid to see me, but you'll be fine letting my girlfriend of two days taking over, right?"

So Barbra comes out in an outfit that makes her look like she's about to do everyone's taxes and performs two whole songs.  Turns out the crowd loves it when you come out and do a song that has a beginning, middle and end. They go nuts and officially, "a star is born."

Roll credits.

In the frenzy of the show, Barbra proposes to "John Howard Norman". JHN gives her a very solid reason why this is a terrible decision. Namely that he's an awful person who's life is a total mess. Never mind, she knows what she wants and thats that.

The movie clearly has very little to do between now and JHN's inevitable death (spoiler alert) so it does that thing that only bad movies do...there's a montage. And it has everything that a '70s love montage needs...

 Picture perfect moments in the middle of nowhere. This is always followed by sex in the most uncomfortable setting imaginable.

Being silly in the middle of nowhere.  This movie was made by Warner Bros who also holds the rights to Superman which I guess makes this scene okay.

Wearing Indian blankets as if that counts as clothes.  (Fact: It does not)

Enjoying your '70s house with more rugs.

Maybe one of you fakes your death?

And at the end of a long day of holding each other and staring into each other's eyes, you recline on pillows that vaguely look like Swastikas.

At some point, you have to come back to reality.  After all, Esther is a big star now (sure, its been a week maybe) and JHN is dealing with the fact that his career is over. Now this movie gets it into gear.

People are really digging her. She's up for a Grammy! She shows up to her shows! She finishes songs! She wears shirts!

Speaking of which, she wins a Grammy for Best Female Vocal. She insists JHN go up with her, despite the fact that he almost didn't make it and that he's super trashed.  No, no, no, she drags him up there where he slurs something about art, all while Tony Orlando and Rita Coolidge seem horrified.

And, this movie dares to wave its codependency flag again, when Esther goes to calm down in the bathroom and is followed by JHN.

He makes another really good case for why this marriage isn't going to work out, but she won't have it.

This movie is begging for the opening credits to Intervention to come on at any moment.  I would have fully welcomed it.

During a photo shoot, he tells her that she'll have to tour on her own.  She's horrified.

He doesn't show up for things when she needs him to, but instead of processing the links between addiction and unhealthy relationships, she puts on more drapey clothes and wonders why as she literally stares at empty glass vessels that used to hold alcohol.

While she's gone however, a sexy journalist breaks into their home and begs for an interview with Esther.  She'll do anything.

ANYTHING.

And he obliges.

Of course they're caught.  The journalist gets huffy and walks out, while Esther thinks things over and has this reaction to the whole situation...

Frankly, at this point, I won't blame his addiction, I'll just blame the '70s. Neither of them are clearly ever going to learn anything at this point.

So the universe takes over. He gets up early, drinks a lot of beer and has a fatal accident.

And Esther gives the performance of a lifetime where she cries and hopes he's looking down on her.  I'd cry too, but then I remembered he was a reckless and selfish alcoholic who possessed really bad judgement.  The good news is that she got a career out of it and the rest of The Oreos had to find another white lady to lead them.

PERFORMANCE OF A LIFETIME.

Should you care to delve deeper into this, you can watch this movie on Amazon, HBO GO or in physical disc form from Netflix.

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THE PIRATE MOVIE (1982)

Who else had the desire to see this today? Just me then?

Given the absolute magic that was Xanadu and The Apple its understandable the appeal to create fantastical '80s musicals meshing fashion and sound, cartoon humor with knowing winks to the audience. So some filmmakers in Australia decided to try their hand at something everyone in the 80s was begging for - a big splashy rendition of the Pirates of Penzance.

The obvious observation out of the gate is giving this film the award for laziest title ever.  We couldn't name it Pirates of Penzance?  How did that producers meeting go?

Producer 1: Its called Pirates of Penzance and its a musical. People like both of those things, right?

Producer 2: People won't know what they're getting! We need to give it a more hip, more contemporary title! We're calling it The Pirate Movie until we think of something else."

At this point in my blog I give a quick recap of the plot. To this one, I say, if you have to ask, then this movie just isn't for you.  You walk in blind and let it dress your brain up in ruffles.

How much sense does this movie make? Absolutely none. None at all.

I had to link the 80s-tastic opening credits. Somewhere Gilbert and Sullivan are shaking their heads and saying, "Don't put our names on this."

The film doesn't try for seriousness, in fact it tries for lightheartedness in the way that surgeons try to save patients lives after near fatal car accidents.   Basically, if you're not making a goofy face on frame, then you're not doing your job...

"Okay, we wanted this scene to show you've got muscles, but how will the audience know we're being funny?"

 

Maybe its just this movie was made in a different time, but there was some weirdly sexual scenes included that were played up for laughs.  The '80s synth music just made it more upsetting.

 The scenes start out innocently enough...

But what you're missing is the weird grunty sex noises Kristy McNichol makes while Pirate John Tesh flexes his muscles.

This scene also got the Ick Medal...

 

 

(shifts uncomfortably, looks down at phone....)

"We've got a big goofy song and dance number going on...but the audience might not understand its funny. Get me a silly face!"

This is our villain. He's hilarious. At least according to the director who kept making him do these faces. Espescially during song and dance numbers.

Maybe you're asking yourself, "So much dignity left at the door. How low could they go?"

Oh, they went low. Low, like the bottom of the sea.

Literally.

Kristy McNichol sings a song called "Pumpin' and Blowin..."

 ...while the guy from Blue Lagoon did a weird awkward dance with animated fish.

No one asked for this, but they gave it to us anyway.

(shifts uncomfortably in my chair, stares at phone)

"Chris, this scene is funny and all but you know what would take it to the next level? Make that funny face!"

I guess an important part of the plot is that our hero can't go out on his own and be independent from the Pirates of Penzance because he was born on a leap year and is therefore only 5 years old. I've filed this story twist away in THINGS TO NEVER USE IN A SCRIPT.

There's a lot of music that is used in this. Some of it is from the original opera, some of it from a songwriter based in LA that had a "lost weekend*" style writing session when coming up with these songs.

*This infers that there's a songwriter who did a lot of illegal substances in hopes of touching the mind of God while creating these songs. This is never the way to do it.

During this 90 minute music video, there was a music video that had this romantic montage...

 

...with scenes that couldn't have possibly happened, because there was no time in this film's timeline. Perhaps I am a stickler for the rules of space and time.

"Kristy, you clearly understand the hilarious undertones of hiding out in a knight costume are all dependent on your goofy face. You'll have to teach Chris..."

Have you discovered your movie is funny, but could be funnier? Gather together the largest group of Keystone Cops possible and watch things really take off.

This is not photoshop. During a swordfight, our hero picks up a lightsaber and waved it around. Clearly our movie was not expecting people to sit this far into it.

The big finale was a high school production of Pirates of Penzance set in one of the chaperone's yard.

People are playing along, but you can tell everyone who went to Julliard in this lineup is regretting everything espescially not going to that networking meeting where all those Broadway producers showed up.

But none of this matters. You know why?

Because it was all a dream.

OR WAS IT?

Happy endings all around.

And well done to the casting directors who picked the love interests to look like fraternal twins.
(uncomfortably shifts, stares at phone when realizes the implications of that reality).