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LA LA LAND
Damian Chazelle, the creative force behind Whiplash has provided musical lovers with the ultimate valentine to their passion, an exquisitely mounted valentine to the genre called La La Land, which breaks all the rules of contemporary filmmaking but strictly adheres to the rules of making movie musicals. And to be perfectly fair, if you're not a fan of movie musicals, you should stop reading right here.
As with most musicals, the story is pretty simple: A cocktail lounge pianist named Sebastian whose real passion is jazz and someday owning his own club meets Mia, an aspiring actress who, while waiting for her break, works as a barista at a coffee shop on the lot of Warner Brothers Studios. Sebastian and Mia's instant attraction to each other is thrown off course when the pursuit of their individual passions come between them. Ready to give up on an acting career, Mia takes Sebastian's suggestion and writes a one woman show for herself to perform. Meanwhile, after losing his job at the cocktail lounge, Sebastian gets an offer to join a successful jazz band headed by a rival musician with whom he has a volatile past, where he finds commercial success but his dream of owning his own club seems to go up in smoke.
I must confess to having issues with Chazelle's Whiplash, but this ridiculously talented writer and director made up for anything wrong with that film here. Chazelle has clearly done his homework here and somewhere along the way, has had more than a passing acquaintance with movies like Singin in the Rain, The Band Wagon, and An American in Paris in his mounting of this stylish musical fantasy that revels in its celebration of everything musical comedy, displaying endless inspiration from the golden days of MGM and never apologizing for it.
This musical takes the classic route of the leads meeting cute and initially displaying nothing but disdain for each other, but find their common footing in a song or a dance step that appear completely unmotivated on the surface, but that's what musical comedy is all about. If you're looking for something steeped in reality, you're looking at the wrong movie, but if you're accessible to the magic of movie musicals, you might have a stupid smile on your face throughout this movie the way I did.
The tuneful song score by Justin Hurwitz and Ben Pasek includes "A Lovely Night", "Another Day of Sun", "Audition (The Fools Who Dream)', "Someone in the Crowd", "Start a Fire" and the Oscar-nominated "City of Stars", all performed with sincerity and energy by the stars, not great singers, but Chazelle has taught them how to sell a song and Mandy Moore's sharp choreography serves the score without overpowering it...the staging of the opening number "Another Day of Sun" on a crowded California highway is on the money.
Chazelle struck gold with the casting of Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone as Sebastian and Mia, who create an Astaire/Rogers chemistry that is hard to resist. John Legend also impressed as Keith, Sebastian's pal who hires him for his band, who makes the most of an underwritten role, my only problem with the screenplay...I would have liked to have had a little insight into Sebastian and Keith's troubled past, but I was able to look past it. I would also like to thank the director for not staging any scenes on the Hollywood Sign. The film won seven Golden Globes and has been nominated for 14 Academy Awards and though I'm not completely sure it's worthy of all that award love, there are definite rewards for the few of us genuine musical lovers left on the planet. This movie was a journey of champagne and chocolate truffles gliding to a lovely and bittersweet conclusion.
Damian Chazelle, the creative force behind Whiplash has provided musical lovers with the ultimate valentine to their passion, an exquisitely mounted valentine to the genre called La La Land, which breaks all the rules of contemporary filmmaking but strictly adheres to the rules of making movie musicals. And to be perfectly fair, if you're not a fan of movie musicals, you should stop reading right here.
As with most musicals, the story is pretty simple: A cocktail lounge pianist named Sebastian whose real passion is jazz and someday owning his own club meets Mia, an aspiring actress who, while waiting for her break, works as a barista at a coffee shop on the lot of Warner Brothers Studios. Sebastian and Mia's instant attraction to each other is thrown off course when the pursuit of their individual passions come between them. Ready to give up on an acting career, Mia takes Sebastian's suggestion and writes a one woman show for herself to perform. Meanwhile, after losing his job at the cocktail lounge, Sebastian gets an offer to join a successful jazz band headed by a rival musician with whom he has a volatile past, where he finds commercial success but his dream of owning his own club seems to go up in smoke.
I must confess to having issues with Chazelle's Whiplash, but this ridiculously talented writer and director made up for anything wrong with that film here. Chazelle has clearly done his homework here and somewhere along the way, has had more than a passing acquaintance with movies like Singin in the Rain, The Band Wagon, and An American in Paris in his mounting of this stylish musical fantasy that revels in its celebration of everything musical comedy, displaying endless inspiration from the golden days of MGM and never apologizing for it.
This musical takes the classic route of the leads meeting cute and initially displaying nothing but disdain for each other, but find their common footing in a song or a dance step that appear completely unmotivated on the surface, but that's what musical comedy is all about. If you're looking for something steeped in reality, you're looking at the wrong movie, but if you're accessible to the magic of movie musicals, you might have a stupid smile on your face throughout this movie the way I did.
The tuneful song score by Justin Hurwitz and Ben Pasek includes "A Lovely Night", "Another Day of Sun", "Audition (The Fools Who Dream)', "Someone in the Crowd", "Start a Fire" and the Oscar-nominated "City of Stars", all performed with sincerity and energy by the stars, not great singers, but Chazelle has taught them how to sell a song and Mandy Moore's sharp choreography serves the score without overpowering it...the staging of the opening number "Another Day of Sun" on a crowded California highway is on the money.
Chazelle struck gold with the casting of Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone as Sebastian and Mia, who create an Astaire/Rogers chemistry that is hard to resist. John Legend also impressed as Keith, Sebastian's pal who hires him for his band, who makes the most of an underwritten role, my only problem with the screenplay...I would have liked to have had a little insight into Sebastian and Keith's troubled past, but I was able to look past it. I would also like to thank the director for not staging any scenes on the Hollywood Sign. The film won seven Golden Globes and has been nominated for 14 Academy Awards and though I'm not completely sure it's worthy of all that award love, there are definite rewards for the few of us genuine musical lovers left on the planet. This movie was a journey of champagne and chocolate truffles gliding to a lovely and bittersweet conclusion.