Cinema Toast: ‘Star’ shines, ‘Venom’ bites

A Star Is Born (R)

Starring: Lady Gaga, Bradley Cooper, Andrew Dice Clay, Dave Chappelle, Sam Elliot, Bonnie Somerville, Anthony Ramos, Alec Baldwin

Directed By: Bradley Cooper

A self-destructive musician meets a talented newcomer and vows to make her a star in this often told tale (four movies to date). Cooper sings, acts and directs well, and clever editing makes Lady Gaga’s non-singing nervousness acceptable. Onstage, she shines, making the inevitable “things go bad with him” sequences more of a downer. Can’t any musician go onstage without a belt of booze and a fist full of pills? One thing to savor is the appearance of Sam Elliot as a character who is as unforgettable as when he intoned “the Dude abides” in “The Big Lebowski.”

3-and-1/2 pieces of ‘well-made remake’ toast 

Venom (PG) 

Starring: Tom Harvey, Michelle Williams, Riz Ahmed, Jenny Slate, Scott Haze, Reid Scott

Directed by: Ruben Fleischer

Tom Harvey plays Venom, the most anarchic character in Marvel’s Universe, in this overly complicated and often too-dark-to-see mess. It seems that several “life forms” from outer space have been brought to a research lab in San Francisco for study. The CEO has sanctioned using random homeless people as disposable guinea pigs in symbiotic experiments. An investigative journalist discovers the nefarious plot, and one of the symbiotes oozes into his body. The rest of the film becomes standard “make as much destruction as you can” Marvel fare, except that this time nothing seems to make sense as slimy, oily, icky black tentacles envelope everything in sight - even the suspiciously sticky arms of your theater seat.

2 pieces of ‘Probably will become a cult classic for a certain demographic’ toast

Colette (R) 

Starring: Keira Knightley, Dominic West, Fiona Shaw, Robert Pugh, Eleanor Tomlinson

Directed by: Wash Westmoreland

After marrying an older, semi-successful Parisian publisher, a creative and talented provincial woman named Colette is convinced to move to the big city and ghost-write novels for her spouse under his name (because “female writers don’t sell”). When her books become successful, Colette begins to chafe at her husband’s patriarchal assumptions and decides to “wear the pants in her family.” Colette is best known for her novella “Gigi” - which spawned the stage play and movie about a young girl being trained to be a courtesan to wealthy older men - and the Claudine quartet, telling the tale of a naive French country girl’s experiences in a boarding school run by seductive female teachers. Keira Knightly is great as the sensual, proto-feminist, sexually fluid writer who turns literary and social conventions on their head, and the film joyously breaks the Masterpiece Theater conventions for turn-of-the century storylines.

4 pieces of ‘You’ll love Knightly as Colette’ toast 

(To view trailers of the above film, locate the A&E section of Petaluma360.com, and find ‘Cinema Toast.’ Comments? E-mail gilmansergh@comcast.net)