I have a thing about A Star is Born. Not the 1937 Janet Gaynor original or George Cukor’s 1954 musical remake starring Judy Garland, though I’ve seen both. It’s the worst of the bunch, the misconceived 1976 lovechild of Barbra Streisand and Jon Peters, that I love unabashedly, even though it’s a top-to-bottom disaster. (Was there anything about its conceptualization of Esther that wasn’t completely deranged?)
The excesses and eccentricities of that iteration of A Star is Born were at the forefront of my mind in 2018, as the October release of Bradley Cooper’s remake drew near. I almost revived this website, long-dormant at the time, to discuss it. Part of what drove me crazy was that my wife was unfamiliar with every telling of the story and couldn’t pretend to understand my excitement.
Her job provides enough gritty realism that she prefers escapism in her free time — think brainless comedies and, worst of all, Tolkien adaptations and anything else with dragons. (On our first movie date we saw The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. At no point did I have any clue what was happening.) When she suggested adding a theatrical showing of A Star is Born to our one-year wedding anniversary outing in 2018, I thought she was pulling my leg. It was a tearjerker, I explained. Still, she wanted to see it.
For the next few weeks I waited for a last-minute change of itinerary, remembering thwarted plans to see Blade Runner 2049 on our honeymoon the previous year. (“Honeymoon” is a bit of a misnomer: Crankenstein wanted to sleep under the Northern Lights and instead we got three days off work and slept under our ceiling fan.) To my surprise, nothing happened.
At the theater, I kept stealing sidelong glances at her — she was voluntarily seeing a sad movie! My eyes were slightly damp when the film ended, as were those of every middle-aged woman who’d dragged a husband along. One such spouse rose from his seat, visibly dazed, and murmured “That was depressing,” as I turned to face my wife.
“What did you think?” I asked.
“It was good,” she replied slowly. “But does it always end that way?”
And with that, happy anniversary to Crankenstein. It isn’t always easy, but we’ve managed to make it another year without ending up on Dateline. Please spare a thought for her, if you’re so inclined, because I’ve again been told I can select this year’s viewing, and she’s about to find out it’s Yentl.
Cranky Lesbian is a disgruntled homosexual with too much time on her hands. Click for film reviews or to follow on Instagram.
Lisa
HAHAHAHAH. Happy Crankaversary! That was great. My wife is all about the hobbits, freakin’ Dobby from Harry Potter, and probably the Keebler Elves as well.
I made her mad after we saw one of the last Harry Potter installments because as we were driving home, I kept saying, “Dobby is hungry. Dobby needs dinner.”
She would glare at me, and that would prompt: “Dobby is sorry. Dobby is a smartass.”
Cranky Lesbian
Thanks, Lisa! My wife would’ve stood in solidarity with yours about the Dobby business. She’s a Potter nerd who calls our dog Dobby when her ears are down, and she looks at me like she’s pondering divorce when her Potter jokes fly over my head.