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That's for sure. I wonder if that was a choice to really highlight his alcoholism cause boy howdy can you tell this man has issues.

But Norman drunkenly slurs it to Ester after driving her home the first time they meet!

Understandable, and I will say it definitely packs a bigger punch when he bookmarks it at the end.

The first dude says it after their first night together tho too. This isn't something the remakes invented lol.

Man I could not feel more opposite y'all!! I am legit Team Bradley & Gaga Must Have Fucked IRL because I felt that chemistry from one end to the other. But when I watched the two in the 37 version I literally felt nothing until the very end of the movie. That first "date" scene with him driving her home just read way more like a drunk dude trying to get laid with his classic line and yeah I could see on Ester's face that she ate that shit up, but then when they decide to get married I didn't believe it at all! I had no sense that they were truly in love with each other until Ester and Oliver are talking about how she's going to quit acting to stay with him. That was the one moment on both those lead's faces that I genuinely believed they were in love.

I'm trying to think of a real counterpart for him because I've definitely seen acts like him at festivals (which is what I'm assuming that first concert we see him play at is, just based on the flags and shit that you see in the crowd) and the only thing I could really come up with is Father John Misty which has a huge ass following in the folk/rock/country genre, but obvs I think we're supposed to assume that like Norman he's more of a nostalgia piece by this point than at his peak. He doesn't seem pure country so it doesn't make as much sense that his crowds would be as large as they are at that point (it truly seems like country fans will be ride or die with people they love), but that could be part of it for sure. I really loved that first song he sang solo, but I think after that we never hear anything from him that he doesn't then sing with Aly, maybe possibly echoing how Norman never acts again without Ester by his side? And truly, without Gaga I don't think the 2018 version would hold nearly the same weight as it does currently.

I believe that at the point where we meet Aly she had just been beaten by insecurities, because she makes a comment that she keeps getting told that she'll make it big if it weren't for how ugly she was. So I don't think she ever really gives it up because she's still performing, but I don't think she's been told "No," the same way that Ester has. In the 37 version we just see that Ester gets told no because there are 100,000 other girls going out for the same jobs, but Aly gets told no because of her nose.

It literally reeks of a giant cop-out. They had NO idea any of those men were headlining (literally no one had even heard of Chris Hemsworth or Tom Hiddleston in America before Thor premiered), and while RDJ was a known name he still had so much tied to him from his past that this was a huge gamble to start an entire franchise on his back. One wrong move and they would've lost everything. At least with Scarlett she already had a reputable name and many many great movies under her belt by that time and was maybe the only one out of any of those in the original six you could've banked at the time to lead her own movie of that scale. Plus after we've seen that DC can literally just throw Wonder Woman into a handful of scenes in a terrible movie like BvS and then knock it out of the park with her own solo movie then there's literally noooo argument that Marvel can throw out that holds any weight.

We'll have to blame Amazon's subtitles for that one then because it said "IN ENGLISH ACCENT" and I was like this is the worst thing I've heard what the hell LOL

I will admit that I do feel like they were relying on "HEY LOOK A WOMAN!!!" to get them through a lot which is why I can't give them a perfect score for this at all, especially when Marvel is literally only doing this because of Wonder Woman's success and not for any of their own merit. I mean we're just now getting a Black Widow movie when we all would've been better served with one in 2011 after her introduction in 2010 with Iron Man 2.

She never says that they were created by humans though, and that goes back to a lot of questions I have about it, because it sounds like humans and their tethers were created by "something" else as an experiment that didn't pan out. I do agree though that the more he started to explain things the more questions I had which definitely took me out of the story a bit because I kept questioning things they had just said, and this is why I couldn't give it a full 5 stars.

I think you're chalking a lot of feelings up to one very broad sentiment, and if some people have found connection with her (no matter what the reasoning may be) then has the movie not succeeded? If you don't feel the same, then it really points out that the movie isn't for you, and that's fine, but it's not like you're raining on anyone's parade... And that kinda makes me think like there's really one way to feel about this movie and if anyone feels differently it's automatically because she's a woman... And that's messed up, man.

That's a very interesting take on it, because I think they are viewed as monstrous to those above ground, but to them this are just how they are, and they are literally pushed to murder. In my opinion, that's the way the pilgrims and "New World" settlers viewed the indigenous population of the Americas. They were viewed as savages who were considered dangerous. Just because the tethered do murder doesn't mean they are monsters automatically. I really do find them terrifying but that's because of the movements and smiles and it's totally tied to other terrifying imagery (mainly you can totally see Jordan's inspiration from Japanese horror) that I've seen previously, but they are the victims of their story. No matter how those of us above ground may view them, this is more like a rebellion than anything else.

Yes, I do. But I also don't think it gets hurt by that reveal, albeit because of what was mentioned above about someone climbing the ladder and being terrified of falling back down, or because she herself is owing reparations for what she did to Adelaide #1. She caused pain and torture to her double by switching them and so Adelaide #2 could be the stand in for those that directly harm someone they view as lesser than. I don't think it necessarily has as much to do with race as some think (I've legit seen people being like wow look at this statement on race, when it's never actually mentioned the way it is in Get Out), but I do think that underlying it also covers the issues with slavery and the descendants of slaves deserving their reparations as well. I personally think it has a lot more to do with the well ignored class system in this country. So much poverty right under our noses that gets swept up under the rug and truly ignored. In my own city alone there is one of the WORST cases of poverty in our country, and it literally never gets acknowledged by the city. I remember once my cousin asking me what was the worst poverty I had seen and my first reaction was San Francisco because of the amount of homeless population they have, and he had responded with the population surrounding the Appalachian mountains when he went on a mission trip in high school, but neither one of us even thought about the literal just a couple miles away from where we literally were standing, and I regret that conversation so much because of it. Anyway, that's what I think Jordan was commenting on if I'm being honest.

You're right. I had really forgotten the exact lines for sure, but I could have sworn that he had said himself at one point too so that must have been the Frankie whoever part and I thought that had shed a huge light on how he was effected by the industry before Aly was born and why she was so afraid to do anything about her dreams. (My mom and I saw it together and saw the name "Andrew Dice Clay" and both at the same time went, "WHO WAS HE???" and I had to pull my phone out during the credits to look it up. It was a huge surprise.)

I think the problem with what you've laid out is that they probably thought "well that's all been done before." So they wanted to do something new. The non-linear story telling bothered me a bit at first, because I also wanted to see more, but I felt the "get back up" montage at the ending was a really nice cherry on top for all those moments, because as she is gaining back her own memories we are also gaining parts of who she is. It may not have been totally in tune with the way story telling is typically done, especially in these superhero movies, but I really felt I was learning who Carol was at the same time she was, and that connected with me personally. Honestly, I think this comes down to personal tastes. I connected emotionally with Carol hardcore, but I know others didn't, but I think it's a shame that those who didn't pretty much paint a broad brush about it. Just the other day I finally listened to Comedy Film Nerds' review of it and Chris Mancini said he thought it was the worst Marvel Movie ever (he then corrected himself and said that probably Incredible Hulk still beats it as worst) and it was all because of that lack of emotional connection for him. Neither Graham Elwood nor Jackie Kashian agreed with him, but it was still a bit jarring to hear.

I think the problem a lot of people have is that when this movie starts she's not the Carol the fans all know and love because she's being held back and continuously told how to act and be. The parts of her that are HER are when she's cracking jokes and I think when she's fighting she's truly herself, because that's the only way she knows how to let go, which is why Jude Law tells her so many times to control her emotions. But at the end the quippy girl that doesn't hold anything back IS Carol from the comics and I think many feel like that didn't come soon enough.

I assumed it was actually him that he was considering was better than Sinatra. I didn't remember him saying it was a buddy so to me it was like he was a jazz singer and he had talent but he didn't get famous and now he holds a major grudge about it for the rest of his life. But it still doesn't hold much weight if you hold his age that much for sure. Dice was born in 57 and totally by that point Sinatra was already on the scene and famous AF. Which, I didn't recognize it to be Dice at all so maybe we are supposed to imagine that he's 20 years older than he actually is or whatever. ETA: Also maybe the Sinatra thing is a major NY Italian thing??? I didn't bat my eye at it at first simply because I grew up with my grandfather loving that music since he was a contemporary of that time, but it seemed in line for that character specifically. Like I bet he was super into Jazz and probably totally skipped over the Rock era because he couldn't let go of his own dream of being Sinatra.

I thought the only one that was really well done was the Mae West impression, maybe because it was the only I got like that dude did lol, but the German accent and the British accent were so bad I was like lord no honey pls what is you doin'. Oh I didn't say that it bothered me that he never saw her. It actually played really true to how I bet a lot of this goes in Hollywood, although I will admit that Jackson getting to hear Aly and see her writing a song before he makes that decision made a lot more sense for me personally.

That's why I said besides that part. I didn't see that part as genuine acting as much as we may have been supposed to. It was way too cringe worthy for me knowing how much of a no-no that is to take any of it seriously. Also, Norman never saw her act in that scene whatsoever. He arrived after the fact and just is entranced by her to the point where he just "knows" (I did love how his studio boss was like "uh huh sure just like all the others" to point out that this was not the first time he had boosted some random girl's career because of lust).

Aly doesn't change her name either but definitely just goes by "Aly" which is a major pop star move. I think it's very accurate to the times that in 37 and 54 they would totally change their names, but by the 70s they wouldn't, and by 2018 they would just drop her last name or adopt a stage persona (a la Lady Gaga, Lizzo, Halsey, Beyonce, etc.)

I could say this about the 37 version as well though. I think we see a lot of how Norman Maine deals with the loss of his career and how Ester is gaining more track than him, but we don't see anything about how she is actually beloved by everyone now. They just seem to jump in time to her premiere to winning an Oscar in a flash. A thing I also thought was extremely interesting was besides her poor attempt at acting while she was a waitress and then that one tiny scene from their movie premiere, we never actually get to see her act. I compared it a lot to All About Eve and how we never actually got to see any of those actresses act, and I wonder if it's either just a product of it's time in that's not really a conscious decision they made, or if it was and they wanted to hide how well everyone thought she was doing so that we would fill in those gaps.

In the 2018 one I didn't get that you were supposed to feel as bad for Jackson as you were for Aly. To me it was like the way any of us feel bad for someone that can't pull themselves out of their addiction. You feel empathy for them, because you know it's a disease, but you don't necessarily feel like he's the victim of the story.

But that was before the switch. And I meant to comment on your post about this earlier but totally spaced on it. I think that's a very classic line a lot of parents use after their child goes through any kind of change. I feel like I hear it a lot in terms of a kid becoming that rebellious teenager going through puberty lol. But of course once we know then it's a big glaring oh shit this isn't the same little girl and that's why she's like saying that, however, I still don't believe she ever actually knew. Cause you can hear her and the dad fighting and he is saying "it was just 15 minutes," and she yells, "And now she's not talking so what happened in that 15 minutes," or something like that (I can't remember her exact quote now). So I think she ALWAYS knew something happened down there but probably her mind went to molestation unfortunately.

I saw a few of you have realized you're just not "A Star is Born" people on Letterboxd, and that's fine... you're all wrong, but that's fine I really enjoyed this version a lot more than I anticipated and while I didn't get to see the Judy nor the Babs version over the weekend, I can totally see what Bradley Cooper was so inspired by and what he took from this original version, and it made me appreciate the one from last year a hell of a lot more.