Los Angeles performance locations, Jackson’s house, Cooper’s makeup and voice work, Gaga’s screen makeup, live singing, songwriting, sound, improvisation, and visual foreshadowing
“Always Remember Us This Way” is treated as Gaga’s last great musical moment before the pop-star turn.
The Grammys sequence becomes darkly comic on repeat viewing even though its humiliation remains difficult to watch. — Bill Simmons
The final Cooper and Elliott scene became a durable meme and emotional payoff. — Bill Simmons
The cop-bar conversation is praised as an unusually specific and believable flirting scene. — Sean Fennessey
The supermarket sequence sustains the early romance through mundane details and the leads’ chemistry. — Sean Fennessey
Dice and the drivers watching the viral video provide a charming family-comedy interlude. — Amanda Dobbins
The parking-lot scene is the preferred runner-up because Bradley Cooper recognizes Gaga writing a song in real time.
The opening concert introduces Jackson’s addiction, charisma, and physical mess without dialogue. — Sean Fennessey
Ally’s bathroom introduction establishes a separate crisis and character with equal economy. — Amanda Dobbins
The “Shallow” scene is praised for every checkpoint Lady Gaga crosses before stepping onto the stage. — Bill Simmons
Bradley Cooper’s supportive reactions communicate love, belief, and encouragement, making that support a major part of his performance. — Amanda Dobbins
Todd Phillips for one host: he is bigger than Apatow by box office though nobody thinks of him that way, his next film is a Joker movie, and he will probably be Oscar-nominated this year as a producer of A Star Is Born with partner Bradley Cooper; Cooper's Toronto premiere speech crediting Phillips's note of belief made Cooper Ali (as transcribed) and Phillips Jackson.
The Ringer ran a Mike Powell profile of Phillips at launch in summer 2016 with Cooper and others quoted going to bat for him; his real skill, learned from Ivan Reitman, is choosing people at the right time, as with Ferrell and writing for Vaughn; the vote is Todd Phillips.
Another host goes Vince Vaughn for variety, calling him incredible with every line quotable.
Tic-tac-toe, three different answers; sorry Luke Wilson; a joke about whether a note saying nobody believes in you like I believe in you should have been given in 2012 to the host then running the Triangle at Grantland.
Ferrell is really in two scenes, including the funeral, despite revisionist history calling it one; he is in the movie seven minutes and scores 22 points, so Bradley Cooper deserves special recognition but Ferrell is the technical winner, one of the all-time Waiters performances where every Chaz line is funny, catching him on a string of hits.
Dobkin lets scenes play out in real time, as when Owen Wilson shows up with nunchucks around his neck and Chaz lords over him for a second, like he just got a hit of smelling salts; the hang gliding imitation is one of the funniest things, and the hosts could almost rename the award the Chaz Award but love Deion Waiters too much.
Belatedly, Rebecca DeMornay and Dwight Yocum (as transcribed) are put in contention, with their scene among the most rewatchable; the hosts do not understand why DeMornay did not have an insane comedy career after this and wonder if it was a Kathleen Turner situation, noting John from Cincinnati went nowhere.
The painting; Coldplay's Sparks; Isla Fisher; Bradley Cooper as Sack Lodge; the Wilson and Vaughn banter; the soundtrack; the wealthy DC-area setting; Bradley Cooper shooting Vince Vaughn with birdshot months before Dick Cheney's hunting accident
The painting still really makes one host laugh, and Coldplay's Sparks might be the band's best song 15 years later and a perfect part of the movie; a host recalls hearing it in college and expecting a different kind of band, with Sparks here and Don't Panic in Garden State becoming part of those movies.
Isla Fisher has probably never been better; she did a karaoke version of this role in Tag this year, people thought she would be a huge movie star before she married Sasha Baron Cohen (as transcribed) and got sidetracked, and worst case she should have had a seven-year sitcom; the pronunciation of her first name is corrected.
Bradley Cooper as a preppy dick plays well against his later backstory: after Alias he worried about being typecast as a nice guy, and Sack Lodge is a Hall of Fame dick with no redeeming quality, talking about other women and sharing the private eye conversation with Trapster; if made in 2018 he would have a line about golfing with Don Jr.
It is hard to believe nobody knew Cooper would be a star; one host watched Alias religiously and found his best-friend role bland and one-note; he was only 30 here and graduated from Georgetown in 97, and unlike Vaughn and Wilson he took control of his career, from All About Steve, Valentine's Day and the A Team through Limitless, Place Beyond the Pines and Silver Linings, aiming to be Warren Beatty, Redford or Eastwood.
Limitless is when one host believed in Cooper, since a premise that stupid only works if you like the lead; he has withstood Aloha, Burnt, Joy and the barely released Serena, and a Burnt digression follows: one host's wife loves kitchen movies like Under the Tuscan Sun, Unfaithful and No Reservations, Cooper is good in Burnt even though the movie does not work, and Daniel Brühl is the maitre d'.
Cooper saved his career with voice acting: Rocket Raccoon in Guardians of the Galaxy without the green screen work Chris Pratt does, and the boyfriend's voice in 10 Cloverfield Lane; the Hangover sequels were his torn ACL, with Hangover 3 excruciating.
While researching A Star Is Born, a host read that Cooper talked to Clint Eastwood about directing while making Sniper and was told Clint did Play Misty for Me at 41; the hosts love the heat check of entering the Clint conversation, are all in on the directing career and the coming promo tour in a denim jacket, and note Clint is making The Mule.
Also aged well: the Wilson and Vaughn repartee; a pretty good soundtrack for a broad Hollywood comedy, with In the Summertime on the bicycles, Rod Stewart's Stay With Me and the Coldplay song as big set pieces; and the wealthy DC area in summertime, which was supposed to be Boston and Cape Cod around the Kennedy compound, though you cannot tell it was 130 degrees when they filmed.
A late addition: Bradley Cooper shooting Vince Vaughn in the backside with birdshot approximately eight months before Dick Cheney shot somebody in the face in a similar environment.
