The latest remake of “A Star is Born” directed by actor Bradley Cooper is one of the rare film experiences where there is no evident acting. Every actor in this movie comes across as real, as if whatever they are saying was never written down. This is a tribute to the great screenwriter Eric Roth who wrote the screenplay. As far a movie remakes one would be hard pressed to find any other movie that has been remade 5 times like this one has. The reason for this is the great story and the music – but 5 times is a rather hard to understand total.

The music and especially the lyrics during the musical segments in this film are all outstanding. There is no doubt that Lady Gaga can sing, but she is also a great songwriter as well and is perfect for this role, almost as if it was created just for her. I was also impressed with Bradley Cooper not only for this acting but also for directing his first movie – the last time I remember this happening was in 1980 when Robert Redford directed the great movie Ordinary People, that won for best picture and best director with Timothy Hutton winning for best supporting actor. Most of the other actors cast for this movie were a surprise including Andrew Dice Clay, Sam Elliott and even Dave Chappelle who has a small role in this movie. All of them were outstanding in their roles. I expect there will be several Oscar nominations for this film, including best director, best picture and best actress for Lady Gaga.

This is one of the only movies I can remember seeing that shows both the highs and lows of success in show business and specifically the music industry. The constant travel, the two hours of high during a performance and the many days of lonely traveling, hotels and as shown in this story drugs and alcohol that far too many turn to to escape this very difficult life. One need only think of Whitney Houston and the recent documentary “Whitney”, also reviewed in this blog as one of the best examples of how difficult a life in the spotlight can be.

The ratings for A Star is Born are a very high 91% on Rotten Tomatoes and an 8.5 on IMDB and I agree with both of these ratings. A Star is Born gets my very strong recommendation.

When it comes to stand-up comedy, Kevin Hart is one of the best comedians to come around in many years. His story telling, facial expressions and natural ability to make people laugh are all about as good as it gets. This is why his stand-up movie specials are some of the best ever produced. Unfortunately, his excellent stand-up talent has yet to translate into a comedy movie that has been memorable – and this includes his latest movie also starring Tiffany Hadish, “Night School”. Writing and producing a great comedy movie is probably the most difficult to create and you cannot just put in some slap-stick scenes and think that the movie is going to be funny because of physical comedy. The problem with Night School is that there is too much physical slap-stick comedy with Kevin Hart and Tiffany Hadish – including some ridiculous wrestling scenes that were never funny. The other actors in this movie including Rob Riggle, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Taran Killam, Romany Malco and Ben Schwartz all seemed like they were sleep walking through their roles, hoping that the months of shooting will be over soon. The problem with this comedy movie is as always the obvious problem – its just not funny enough.

I thought that the message of this story was a good one, never give up and Dyslexia is an abnormality of the brain that can be treated and you are not stupid if you have this problem. Perhaps this is another flaw with this story, because Kevin Hart’s learning disabled character has a life affliction that can never be funny.

I remember thinking that this story has some parallels to Kevin Hart in real life because I read his book I Can’t Make This Up: Life Lessons. As I have said in the past within this blog, would any of us be able to go through all that Kevin Hart had to go through to become successful in a field as remote and challenging as stand-up comedy? Kevin Hart in the end was hugely successful after being a shoe salesman and almost a high school drop-out, but how few of us would be able to endure all the years of hardship and disappointment that he had to go through to get where he is today? Kevin Hart was raised by a hard working single mother, his father was a drug addict who was frequently in prison. He struggled for many years making almost no money trying to break into stand-comedy. In 2016 Hart made 87.5 million dollars, making him by far the highest paid stand-up comedian, but the dues he paid to get there are almost unbelievable and what he should be admired the most for.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for Night School are a very low 30% and for IMDB, the rating is only 5.4. I agree with these ratings and if you are a fan of Kevin Hart, you would be better off renting one of his stand-up comedy movies – and miss this latest unfunny film.

There are several things I found shocking and unique about the new movie “Life Itself”. The first is the extremely low ratings of only 13% on Rotten Tomatoes for a film that does not deserve anywhere near ratings this low. The second is that the screenplay is in four acts where the first two acts are closely related and the last two initially seem to be not related and then the end connect to the first two acts – something I have never seen before. I appreciated the hard work it must have taken to write a story like this for the screenwriter and creator of TV show “This is Us”, Dan Fogelman and I also can relate to how bad he must feel now that the critics are trashing his film. The problem here is that this movie is “too much” of a tearjerker. There is too much death, too much loss and depression and downside. There are some very shocking scenes making this movie not an experience for any child under the age of 15. Aside from all of this – this movie is well acted and the story told well enough to appreciate the thought and hard work it told to create it and should have a rating more in the 60% range – not good enough, but definitely not a bad movie.

Life Itself also has several big named stars, including Annette Benning, Antonio Banderas, Oscar Isaac and Olivia Wilde and all are very good in their roles, although I did not like the smoking Annette Benning does at the start of this film or the insane narration done by Samuel L. Jackson, which seemed extremely out of place.

As far as the TV show This is Us, starting its 3rd season on September 25, 2018, Fogelman’s timeline idea is one of the most original and best concepts for a Television show of all time. Unfortunately, as always happens when a great new original idea is created, there are clones of the original idea – too many of them, that rip off the original. One of them, “Me, Myself and I”, starring SNL actor Bobby Moynihan has already failed and the new ABC Series “A Million Little things” debuts on ABC this fall – is also stealing the timeline idea. In my experience, TV shows that steal from another great idea always fail, not that this has ever prevented this phenomenon on TV from happening way too often.

The movie Life Itself is not for the faint of heart or for anyone who is depressed because it is almost overwhelming in some parts at how depressing it is. Despite all of this and the too low ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, I do recommend this film, but prepare yourself for way too many depressing scenes.