This of course is a recent movie, but I wanted to write a review of it. Being a musician myself, and an actor in my point of origin, and a professional extra in this life, I felt very close to the characters, having my best friend die of alcoholism, in a way committing suicide, but not hanging himself literally. I feel a kindred spirit to Lady Gaga because she is from an Italian family in real life and her character was from an Italian family, so I identified very much with the character and the real Lady Gaga—an Italian girl from Brooklyn. I identified with the characters, from the transgenders (who I at one time had many experiences with in nightclubs in Pittsburgh) to her Italian father and of course her circle of friends, who supported her talent, and the fact that despite her tremendous talent she had to work as a waitress before she was spotted by Jack (Bradley Cooper), who catapulted her to stardom. But she was already a star, and Jack knew it. I cried in the movie, because I have a very talented wayward daughter who doesn't realize how talented she is and has no one in her life to really push her forward. Jack gave Ally confidence in herself, and she got through the barrier of being just a good neighborhood singer to a world-class singer who knew who she was. The terrible effects of alcoholism on Jack is common to all alcoholics, so much so that a wimpy smaller-minded man (like the President of Interscope Records) could intimidate Jack, only because Jack was an alcoholic and was emotionally damaged. In real life, I'd like to believe that Lady Gaga has found her true self again in playing a girl from Brooklyn and begin to write the kind of songs and act in the kind of movies, like A Star Is Born, that she will be proud of and not compromise with Hollywood, which is what Jack was trying to tell her in the movie. Interesting that when Bradley Cooper was shooting a movie in Nogales, Arizona, being a vegetarian he called our Avalon Gardens for food, and we brought organic vegetarian meals to his trailer.
~Van of Urantia*MPAA = Motion Picture Association of America
