A Star is Born (1976).

Review #1454: A Star is Born.

Cast: 
Barbra Streisand (Esther Hoffman Howard), Kris Kristofferson (John Norman Howard), Gary Busey (Bobbie Ritchie), Paul Mazursky (Brian Wexler), Joanne Linville (Freddie Lowenstein), Oliver Clark (Gary Danziger), Venetta Fields (One), Clydie King (Two), Sally Kirkland (Photographer), and Marta Heflin (Quentin) Directed by Frank Pierson.

Review: 
"Filming with Barbra Streisand is an experience which may have cured me of the movies."

"For us, the picture cost $6 million and a year of our lives. For the audience it's $3.50 and an evening out. If it's a bum evening, it doesn't make me any better or worse as a person. But if you think the film is you, if it is your effort to transform your lover into a producer worthy of a superstar, if you think it is a home movie about your love and your hope and your deepest feelings, if it's your life that you laid out for the folks and they don't smile back, that's death."
I think I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting myself into when it came time to do this film. It isn't exactly the first time I've seen this kind of story done of a film before. We've moved from romantic drama to musical to musical romantic drama when it comes to A Star is Born, and the easiest thing that can be said is that it certainly is the worst of the bunch in making a consistent romance and tragedy. It seems completely perplexed at times what to do when the camera isn't incessantly focusing on Streisand (who also served as executive producer for the film) as the whole thing threatens to collapse as an ego experience. It is only the curiosity of seeing the limits of where Streisand can go in this "pop and roll" style combined with the enjoyment of seeing Kristofferson stagger with charisma and self-destruction that make things not self-destruct into oblivion for a baffling 142 minutes. This is ridiculous junk, but I'll be darned if I didn't get some sort of cackling enjoyment from seeing how far one can really go in making such a murky 70s film that seems like the ideal sellout and embarrassment for all involved. My particularly favorite memory with the film is not so much a particular scene but actually an article that director Pierson wrote for New West magazine a month before the film's release with "My Battles With Barbra and Jon", which detailed some of the conflicts that Pierson had with producer (and star) Streisand and producer Jon Peters (a hairdresser-turned-producer and Streisand's boyfriend at the tine). There are some interesting little moments involving clashes of ego, but one of my favorite baffling moments is Pierson's meeting with the two in which at one point Peters actually asked if the lead male star had to commit suicide at the end as opposed to having it be an accident instead, since it sounded like such a turnoff. By the time Pierson was approached by Warner Brothers to do the film, numerous writer and directors had been brought in and brought out of doing the film, which had originally been written by Joan Didion and John Dunne as a rock musical with a couple like James Taylor and Carly Simon in parallel careers. Oh but the troubles did not stop with just Streisand (as amusing as it might seem to lay all of the squabbles and jokes on one star/producer). Kristofferson chafed when it came to filming, since he felt that they were making a "Barbra Streisand lollipop extravaganza" rather than some sort of statement about rock music (at least he has the excuse of drinking to act for a drunk lead). Sure, one could debate the ethics of doing an article so close to a film's release, but I heartily enjoy details like this, and even without the article the film is amusing to pick and poke at for its ambitions that crash like a motorcycle on stage.

It is entirely possible that there is a movie here worth really looking into the jagged turns that fame can do to a rock star that the other two films had done for actors. Of course the main problem with that theory is that perhaps Streisand just can't entirely pull off a nervous unknown given a push into stardom. It all seems too manufactured to really stick, too absorbed in showing off without letting you really breathe an actual romance, since the two leads seem entirely focused on literally anything but the other person in front of them. To say the film is all sizzle and no steak is an understatement: the steak got so caught up in re-writes that it turned into a small nut to disintegrate on the grill. On the other hand, I did rather enjoy Kristofferson (a native of Brownsville, Texas that took upon acting to go with his singing-songwriting) and his distant demeanor in his weary entertaining performance. He may be playing a jerk, but man does it invite more conviction and more of a look than what comes out on screen. Busey, an eccentric playing an eccentric peddler of producer (and other certain things) is amusing to see in the few scenes that he is in. Mazursky, who started work as an actor (debuting in Fear and Desire in 1953) before taking on writing and eventually directing (with films such as Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice in 1969), does a careful job here in balancing out the line between producer and man trying to keep someone off the deepest end. The others are here and there, just people to fill in the background before yet another wild or silly antic between our strange stars. To put it mildly, this film stinks, but it sure is a funny one to think about. It is a testament to how overproduced and micromanaged a film can be in hands that believe they are truly making something that can match up to what was old (and classic) while serving the masses with no problem then and now, a hubris unmatched in mediocrity. I know one can see better films with Streisand or Kristofferson, but none could probably be as ridiculous to view play out like this one.


Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

The Way We Were.

Review #1444: The Way We Were.

Cast: 
Barbra Streisand (Katie Morosky), Robert Redford (Hubbell Gardiner), Bradford Dillman (J.J.), Lois Chiles (Carol Ann), Patrick O'Neal (George Bissinger), Viveca Lindfors (Paula Reisner), Allyn Ann McLerie (Rhea Edwards), Murray Hamilton (Brooks Carpenter), Herb Edelman (Bill Verso), and Diana Ewing (Vicki Bissinger) Directed by Sydney Pollack (#084 - Tootsie and #1441 - Jeremiah Johnson)

Review: 
“As a young woman, I wanted nothing more than to see my name in lights.”
Barbra Streisand dreamed of being an actress from childhood, and it is easy to say that she has followed through with considerable talent for six decades. The daughter of a teacher and a singer-turned-bookkeeper, she practiced singing from a young age while eventually spending additional time studying acting (such as stage actress biographies and acting theories). She made her way from nightclubs in 1960 to Broadway in 1962, with her first album being released the following year. Her appearance in the 1964 Broadway production of Funny Girl furthered her success, and when the musical was adapted into a film in 1968, she would make her film debut and reprise her role and win an Academy Award for Best Actress. By the time she was in line to do this film (her seventh), she had starred in a variety of genres such as musicals, comedies, and dramas.

Some movies are just schmaltzy, and this one nearly drowns because of it. Actually, one little barometer you can use to try and set the mood for if you may enjoy this film is how one reacts to the title song of the picture, sung by Streisand and written by Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman, and Marvin Hamlisch. It supposedly is a tearjerker kind of song, so if one really is swayed by melodramatic phrases like "Memories light the corners of my mind / Misty watercolor memories of the way we were", then by all means go for it. If I ever had a blindspot when it comes to music, sad love songs rank up there. Inspiration for the film came from the experiences of writer Arthur Laurents during his time at Cornell University, where he knew a student just as reactionary about events of the time as the main character present here, with an eventual turn to creating a love story (of sorts) with a talented writer without the strength to really apply themselves with writing. Laurents was a noted playwright who had directed Streisand in I Can Get It for You Wholesale back in 1962. The film may seem a bit jumbled with its plot, and the fact that there were numerous re-writes done to the script (from writers such as Dalton Trumbo) doesn't help, and Laurents had left (and returned) the production due to taking issue with Pollack with his handling of the main characters, since he felt that he needed to make Redford's character more equal to Streisand's character (since Pollack had promised Redford to make the character less of a strawman in order to get Redford to sign on). Laurents was obviously not too pleased with the resulting film, once stating that "To make a mantra of 'It's only a movie was as useless and foolish as feeling pain. No matter what I felt or thought, no matter what I tried to accomplish or how, Sydney Pollack would ultimately have his way. That was what I had to face and accept. They didn't cry 'Author! Author! in the movies, they never had. Now they cried 'Auteur! Auteur! -- even if the auteur fucked up the picture."

As a film about the evolving times into the Hollywood blacklist interlaced with a tragic romance, it isn't exactly a strongly put-together film, particularly when it comes to settling in the tragic parts of its climax, which seem too abrupt for a film that somehow seems too long and not long enough at the same time of 118 minutes. Your mileage may vary on what seems most interesting to you when it comes to the story, but I just couldn't get myself into all that this film wants to juggle, a snoozer in the political aspects (when not trying to preach to the choir). Everything one could praise for a film like this can soon be followed by the word however, as if this was a film of contradicted principles. Streisand and Redford seem to do well with each other, beaming as stars with distinct craftsmanship that can make for interesting magic when not arguing with each other. You know the type: the idealist with resilience and fire like a phoenix and the golden boy with his own sense of preservation (you can tell pretty quickly which one you might like better when it gets to the college speech scene, where she talks about her beliefs with Marxism before getting mocked with a "Any Peace But Katie's Piece" sign - which leads to her getting mad and calling them fascists, which is just as amusing as trying to take Marxism super seriously). In a sense it is like watching passionate waves crash onto a calming beach, which can work pretty well. On the other hand, the supporting characters seem to be a victim of the editing (particularly with a wasted Hamilton), where one only sees fleeting moments with folks like O'Neal that only serve to try to not drag things out to the inevitable pasture.  If one goes along with these characters, then all power to you - to me I couldn't help but think of them more as belonging to camp than true tragedy. For its failures to really set up a cohesive finish before its final manipulations with the climax, I can't find myself to give a positive shake for this film - its machinations to get to its tragic point are frenzied and not consistent enough to stick its landing, regardless of how much star power is present here. I do not care for tearjerker films like this because I know that it really isn't going to shake me the way it thinks it will, since this one nearly inspires laughter at its subject rather than pity. Maybe it is a reflection on what fits my tastes more than anything, since one knows Streisand and Redford have done far better films than this. This is an irritating mediocre movie, because you know that this annoying tearslop could do so much better, and yet here we are with a shaky principled mess that only serves as a late night rental for those who just want to see Streisand and Redford together once without having the highest of expectations. 

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.