A Star Is Born (2018)

A country rock star (Bradley Cooper) has a drinking problem which he manages to hide from his public. One night, he wanders into a gay bar and discovers a young singer (Lady Gaga) and his belief in her talent will give her the strength to follow her dream. But their personal relationship will suffer because of his demons and drug and alcohol abuse. Directed by Bradley Cooper, this is the fourth remake (1937, 1954, 1976) of A STAR IS BORN. The fifth if you count WHAT PRICE HOLLYWOOD? (1932) which many consider its source. Do we really need a fourth remake of A STAR IS BORN? Of course not! But it's surprising how very good this version is (especially compared to the heinous 1976 Streisand version). To those of us who've seen Lady Gaga's performance in AMERICAN HORROR STORY: HOTEL, that she can act is no surprise. She brings a wonderful naturalness as well as heartbreak to her performance. I'm no Bradley Cooper fan but he gives a career best performance here and their chemistry is on fire. It's not the definitive STAR IS BORN (that's still the 1954 version) but I'd easily rank it as second out of the four. The songs are actually pretty good too. With Sam Elliott, Dave Chappelle (just wonderful), Andrew Dice Clay and Anthony Ramos.