Anticipate LA LA LAND, the musical starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone

Oh right I always forget that Disney stuff counts. The Disney Musical is really a genre unto itself though

this chazelle fellow seems to be shaping up as the hot new enemy of good film

It's early yet. I hated Whiplash way worse than this one.

ah ok! i detested whiplash so he'll have to go some to win me around

I hated Whiplash too, this is so much better than that misery of a movie

Which?

Velvet Goldmine

Everyone Says I Love You is p charming

Chicago was occasionally okay but mostly garbage

If you're including film adaps of Broadway, then i quite like Burton's Sweeney Todd. But that's not what LLL is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_musical_films_by_year#2000s

Slim pickings once animated movies are taken off the table.

Ever since the movie musical’s decline as a popular form

As erstwhile ilxor KJB could tell you, this happened a long time ago, beginning no later than the early '60s probably. Fosse's film version of Cabaret is certainly post-decline, a revisionist musical.

I need to find an article I read several years about the making of Star and Darling Lili

wait, this is by the Whiplash guy? he seriously needs to stop making jazz movies.

(i have not seen this jazz movie yet but it sounds cornball)

his first feature, which has been relegated to nonexistence because it had no famous actors in it, was also a musical.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJUzALdI--k

both recent Muppet films were great, with actual memorable songs, esp Muppets Most Wanted

I'm generally fine w recursive Hollywood musicals but this looks so fucking dire, the modern version of H'wood slapping itself on the back for its rich history or whatever (cf. The Artist) is just gross

la la land is strange to me because it takes Miles Teller's vices from Whiplash (ridiculous ideas of what pure art is, unwillingness to ever collaborate with anyone, streak of self-punishment) and portrays them as virtues

this is definitely better made than the artist fwiw, it has some interesting moments and i think gosling in particular is really good, particularly given what the material he has to sell. but it's pretty far from great imho

What I find weird about this movie (having not seen it) is that it's garnering all these accolades but no one seems to find the music noteworthy.

la la land is strange to me because it takes Miles Teller's vices from Whiplash (ridiculous ideas of what pure art is, unwillingness to ever collaborate with anyone, streak of self-punishment) and portrays them as virtues

― intheblanks

if the movie had goofed on his seriousness I would've had a better time.

or if the movie acknowledged that there are plenty of jazz musicians under the age of 45 that make up local scenes, including in the very city where the movie takes place!

aw cmon everyone knows there's no modern LA jazz scene!

Muppets Most Wanted might get my vote for the best musical of the last 10 years, truly.

i've learned on ILX this week that the ppl Hitchcock called "the Plausibles" now expect hardcore realism from James Bond movies and musicals.

well, we've got people whom Hillary called the Deplorables expecting steel jobs and black lungs from Donald Trump.

ha, morbius maybe otm. fwiw though i think it is worth noting how the film views pure artistic expression as a solely individualistic act--the way that emma stone's big thing is a one-woman show, the multiple times that everything goes dark except for a spotlight on one of the two main characters, the ways in which they continually refuse collaboration

in sharp contrast to say, 'the young girls of rochefort,' where people's artistic dreams and how they express them are in continuous interaction with their community

excellent points

for all the comparisons i'm seeing to the demy musicals, i think that chazelle's ideas limit him a lot more, and not necessarily in interesting ways

re: solely individualistic act, LLL is the ultimate h.s. theater geek fantasy

amazing quote from the wiki about Miles Teller being passed over for Gosling:

Teller was offered to play the leading role by Chazelle when the two were in the midst of filming Whiplash in 2013. He even passed up the chance to star in War Dogs because the film would have conflicted with La La Land (although he later went on to star in the film). But one day, Teller got a call from his agent saying that Chazelle had told Lionsgate that he no longer thought Teller was "creatively right for the project" and that the director was moving on without Teller's involvement. Teller responded by texting Chazelle "what the fuck, bro?"

Teller when Chazelle wins best director next February:

http://images.gawker.com/19hd1ile09il9gif/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636.gif

What I find weird about this movie (having not seen it) is that it's garnering all these accolades but no one seems to find the music noteworthy.

this is, as they say, a red flag

many xps I quite liked hedwig

I figured that the scene where Gosling takes Emma Stone to the jazz club and frenetically mansplains jazz to her was self-aware and as real a character as I could imagine. I laughed out loud in the theater.

That whole scene, more or less

Gosling: Listen! Jazz. Jazz. Jazz. Jazz.
Stone: Kenny G?
Gosling: Listen!

Like all these criticisms that the movie wasn't woke enough are ridiculous. If he wasn't a white doofus stumbling through the "purity of jazz," it would be an entirely different movie.

fwiw, the music isn't that bad or even particularly unmemorable in this; it's got much bigger problems

i really liked "City of Stars," i had fun plunking out the melody when i got home from the theater.

xp whiney otm, i thought Rostam's (since when is he a one-name celebrity?) criticisms were absurd, the thing I kept thinking during the movie was "Make America Great Again," it's a nostalgia piece, and it wouldn't make any sense for either Stone or Gosling's characters to be anything but navel-gazing caricatures of old Hollywood icons.

how many Rostams are there who traded a band for solo oblivion?

yes I think (ex-vampire weekend) clarifies things in a way that whatever his first name is would not for virtually anybody

lol surname apparently

this is ok but only ok. emma stone is the best thing in it as usual with movies she is in. nice color palette. I don't necesarilly demand that all films address race and gender, but I did think "white people movie" 1000000x while watching it

that ending though :'(

I liked this movie. I suppose there are ways it could have been "better," but it would be a different movie. I've seen a few criticisms of, say, the choreography or singing or whatever, but I liked the amateurishness. I even liked the underpopulatedness of its Los Angeles, which helped give it some of its dreamy qualities.

la la land is strange to me because it takes Miles Teller's vices from Whiplash (ridiculous ideas of what pure art is, unwillingness to ever collaborate with anyone, streak of self-punishment) and portrays them as virtues

― intheblanks

Re collaboration, the 2 of them were at one point encouraging one another to achieve their solo artistic dreams (do the one person show, open a club-albeit with a band) but then he suddenly decides that they can't achieve these soloish artistic dreams together and simultaneously be in love at the same time. Ultimately their artistic successes (his club with house band, her acting as a movie star) do involve some collaboration but with others though. A flawed take on art and love imho.

Iirc overhears her discussion with her mom, who implies she is disappointed that he has no steady income. So he takes the big income sell out while she works on the low income pipe dream. By the end the roles have reversed, with her the famous movie star, and him the impoverished artist. There's a nice symmetry to it.

Nah

i liked the ending well enough. it was nice to see a romance that didn't end up with the principals together and it was still ok.

I dunno. Ryan Gosling wasn't nude enough for my taste imo

ty for warnings that this is not great, mainstream press had me potentially hyped

Muppets Most Wanted and the two eps I've seen of Crazy Ex-GF are delightful but that list is p horrifying

which version did you see though? http://www.indiewire.com/2013/06/at-long-last-the-definitive-version-of-at-long-last-love-131623/

the New Beverly did a double bill!

http://thenewbev.com/program/february-11-la-la-land-at-long-last-love/

the Bluray obv went out of print -- it's $180 on Amazon

A bunch of good, a bunch of bad, and I'm surprised at how much this wasn't for me.

For how much parts of it is a Demy ripoff (or homage or whatever) he fucks up the point of Demy. In Cherbourg the couple is condemned to mediocre lifes because of the Algerian war. Here, their ambition gets in the way, but they still both end up incredibly succesful. There's way too little darkness - even when Demy was at his lightest, in Demoiselle, there was an axe-murderer lurking at the periphery. Oh, and Seb is an asshole the first time they meet, the second time they meet, when they break up, and kinda when they temporarily reconcile. He just seemed like an asshole, so I was almost disappointed when he got his dream night club at the end. Also, the best musical moment is when John Legend turns on the EDM beats, that felt dangerous and fun, where most of the music - while catchy - became way too similar after a while. And for a film that keeps talking about 'crowds' and how the town and world is constantly moving on without them, everyone but them sure seems pointless. Her roommates, her parents, even her husband gets no personality at all. And John Legend just disappears as well all of a sudden, even if it's presumably through playing with him that Seb can afford his new club? Oh, and his sister has only one speaking scene, and then the rest of her story is told through montage, right?

The cinematography is good, though. Old fashioned, but good.

Not to rewrite the film, but I think a lot of criticism could have been avoided if Legends character had been at the club in the final scene. He loves jazz, he is Sebs friend, if he'd been there smiling and bobbing along it would seem as if they'd managed to navigate a tricky world together, instead of him just being a sellout and Seb being a hero.

not sure if she really deserves an oscar for this, but emma stone IS really good here. i would give her an award for most likeable/charming hollywood actress if that was an award.

wonder what miles teller is thinking at the moment...

Probably thinking about how he voted for Moonlight.

Miles Teller‏ @Miles_Teller

Congrats to Moonlight!!
5:28 am · 27 Feb 2017

Zizek!

http://thephilosophicalsalon.com/la-la-land-a-leninist-reading/

zizek?

L_ L_ land

what's the point of the ending? why after a film of hollywood fantasy now draw the line between the imagined happily ever after and their compromised relationship? just skip the new husband and have the dream sequence be the "true" ending the movie is too long already.

Well, if you didn't have the imagined ending, the film wouldn't be so Singing in the Rain. And if you didn't have the true ending, the film wouldn't be so Umbrellas of Cherbourg. You can't just stop the film when you still have films to rip off.

the point of the ending is that it's Sad, mordy

"the point of" ffs mordy

What's the point of a Hollywood comedy musical romance

U asked that

What's the point of a part of the plot of one

Ffs man

Have you seen the film, darragh?

the ending undermines the Hollywood comedy musical romance-ness of the film so it makes sense to ask to what end was it deployed against the more obvious happy ending. is it just bc at the last moment the filmmakers had a failure of nerves and thought audiences wouldn't buy something without a downer ending? i.e. too saccharine sweet if they end up together? very superficially they develop once or twice the theme of their work superseding their relationship (when he misses her play for the photo shoot, when he is going to have to tour and be away from her, and maybe something she did too tho even tho i saw the film last night i can't remember) but hardly enough to necessitate that ending or give it any resonance. honestly it seems a bit like they didn't have much to say beyond the look and the music and so put it in for some unearned gravitas the tragedy of love lost.

their work superseding their relationship ... hardly enough to necessitate that ending or give it any resonance

it was this, it was enough to give it resonance (for me) ymmv. it was a good ending imo

SPOILEr, but there's kinda the same ending in Chazelle's first film. He likes that whole theme of what artists has to sacrifice. This time it seemed as something only Hollywood would find tragic: They get everything, fame, money, jazz bars, spouses, kids, they just don't get each other. Boo hoo. The really stupid thing is that it's modeled on Umbrellas of Cherbourg, where the melancholy comes from the Algerian War interfering. Not exactly the same.

Have you seen the film, darragh?

― Frederik B, Sunday, 16 April 2017 00:08 (forty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yep

It was good.

Thought the ending worked

Other endings would also have worked.

Not sure it can bear too much weight tho tbph

ya Mordy + Fred both overthinking it. it came as a surprise, but was emotionally v effective

Liked this so much I had to pause it and make popcorn.

I felt the ending was saying something like you can't have cake and eat it but you can always love the idea of cake and feast on the memory whenever you experience hollywood magic (or jazz?).

The opening number is so stupendous that I wish they'd somehow managed to end the film there. But I suppose a smile passing each other on the freeway would have been a bit impersonal.

Finally, the lighting was like an exact cross between Wong Kar-wai and the original Star Trek series.

I checked the DVD out of the public library and my wife and I watched it last night. I see most ilxors were pretty tepid about this one and I agree. Gosling and Stone were barely able to dance or sing at an acceptable level, let alone rise to the sort of magnetism of Astaire and Rogers. Other than Gosling being handsome, there was zero reason why Stone would have been attracted to him in the first place; he was an asshole. The tired theme of "fulfilling your dreams" was so exhausted in this as to be moribund.

otoh, it gave employment to a lot of dancers in the big production numbers. The candy-colored costumes, set design and cinematography were sort of fun, in a Disney kind of way. But its use of music was blandly safe and colorless, and no human motions were harmed in the making of this movie, because they were touched so lightly one never even noticed them.

Gosling and Stone did what they could with weak material. The script was at the heart of all the problems and Damien Chazelle's superficiality was all over the script.

er, human eee-motions