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

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

The Artist comparisons are very apt I think. Like The Artist, watching this movie in theaters is probably a completely different experience than watching it at home (I saw The Artist at The Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor, an old school movie house built in 1928, so I imagine I remember the film more fondly than most people). I believe La La Land is better filmmaking, and probably stands on its own merits a bit better. The opening sequence was a spectacular piece of choreography and I was invested enough in Gosling and Stone's performances and their characters' relationship for the ending montage to hit me like a ton of bricks.

Somebody on twitter said something to the effect of "La La Land is as much about jazz as The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is about umbrellas"

It's winning a bunch of Golden Globes. Ugh

Hollywood loves musicals, except when it comes to making them any more. Critics love musicals, too, and rarely get the chance to love them nowadays. So they go overboard when a halfway decent musical gets made.

“Damien Chazelle and his La La Land star Ryan Gosling are officially set to reteam on Chazelle’s Neil Armstrong biopic First Man,” reports Variety‘s Justin Kroll.

http://variety.com/2016/film/news/damien-chazelle-ryan-gosling-neil-armstrong-biopic-first-man-1201949407/

weird as hell -- no wait, more guaranteed awards attention!

i mean, i knew as much about Neil Armstrong at age 7 as i could, and given his historic achievement i think the fact that his sparkling Ohio-guy military personality resulted in no biopic til 50 years later speaks volumes....

with J.K. Simmons as the crusty but benign NASA head

well yeah, he's too old for Buzz Aldrin alas

Hollywood loves musicals, except when it comes to making them any more. Critics love musicals, too, and rarely get the chance to love them nowadays. So they go overboard when a halfway decent musical gets made.

Muppets Most Wanted bombed at the box office and won a grand total of 0 awards

i mean, i knew as much about Neil Armstrong at age 7 as i could, and given his historic achievement i think the fact that his sparkling Ohio-guy military personality resulted in no biopic til 50 years later speaks volumes....

― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Monday, January 9, 2017 5:09 PM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah wait a minute wtf why are there no Armstrong biopics

generally speaking history is full of incredibly boring heroes you've heard so much about that an original, entertaining narrative about them is basically a fool's errand

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_depictions_of_George_Washington#Films

i'm not proud of it but for uninteresting personal reasons i wish ill on this filmmaker

so, v pleased to hear about the armstrong biopic

generally speaking history is full of incredibly boring heroes you've heard so much about that an original, entertaining narrative about them is basically a fool's errand

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_depictions_of_George_Washington#Films

― The beaver is not the bad guy (El Tomboto), Monday, January 9, 2017 11:30 PM (eighteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

morbs blew my mind and then u split it in two

this was disappointing. really clumsy story - so many things were so abrupt and unearned. Like what was the point of giving Mia's character a boyfriend that she dumps within 2 minutes of his first screen appearance. Why couldn't you have just made her single, avoided the really clumsy dinner scene (which lazily suggested "omg they're too posh and out of touch with real people unlike Sebastian"), and found another excuse for her to be late which would have achieved the same goal.

music wasn't very memorable either, outside the main theme. I did like the ensemble scenes, though. Seb's character was insufferable for a while though I almost applauded when John Legend's character put him in his place.

There's just weird incongruities in the character too, I mean Gosling's character doesn't mind taking shitty gigs playing 80s covers at parties to help pay the bills, but suddenly takes a moral stand about the purity of jazz when offered an actual gig that involves getting to play something closer to (if not exactly) what he likes and earn a comfy living. The overheard phone convo scene was so cliched (who really has convos like that within earshot of their significant others, seems like an 'only in movies' thing), and the conflict just kind of arrives out of nowhere. and Mia seems to be unaware of his long term commitment, like she thought he could go on tour one year and afford to buy a nightclub? It was just weird, the whole "I thought you were an ARTIST" stand that she takes when she's been auditioning for completely garbage television shows that the film itself is leering at, that she would have taken without hesitation.

Relies way too much on the novelty of being a movie musical, and it doesn't help that few people in the damn thing can actually sing.

I didn't hate it though - it did have some nice visuals, and I'm glad they didn't completely go retro with it, but I feel like if a musical like this opened on Broadway, nobody would give a shit about it. Style over substance isn't inherently bad (Broadway's "In the Heights" was an example of that but I loved it), but I didn't really connect with the characters so the final scene didn't really have the payoff it should have.

O well, I paid two bucks - thanks T-Mobile Tuesdays.

(I did love Whiplash though so *shrug*)

with J.K. Simmons as the crusty but benign NASA head

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, January 9, 2017 5:10 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"OK Armstrong, let's try this again. 3, 2, 1, blastoff."

[cuts off launch]

"Too high. Again, 3, 2, 1, blastoff."

[cuts off launch again]

"My altitude. Again, 3, 2, 1, blastoff."

[throws chair at Armstrong]

After watching Whiplash and reading about this I think I just find Chazelle's take on music & artistic pursuits pretty juvenile and distasteful.

I was a little bothered by the film's occasional insinuations that the Golden Age (*mimes jerk-off motion*) perfected things and we've since "lost our purity" re: the arts

Why? The movie is proof positive.

i'm not proud of it but for uninteresting personal reasons i wish ill on this filmmaker

― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, 10 January 2017 04:35 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

be proud. the guy's obviously an artless menace

is this in it? a Green Velvet musical would be beautiful actually

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-NX3OFlKAE

for all the slightly dumb 'white people movie' stuff ive seen people say ('its not like real LA!', 'its trying to resurrect old white hollywood!'), i was surprised by how many non white people fill its scenes, one after the other.

the stupidest/funniest part of it might be john legends character sitting with gosling one minute, and giving him a slightly annoyed 'this is how it is' talk about modernising JAZZ, then the next thing we see, how this 'modern jazz' band has become, a bruno mars type group. the jump is almost too obvious. the jazz purist/kenny g convo was funny but almost TOO archetypal in terms of conversations most ppl have about jazz, but i give chazelle some credit for making two popular films in a row where jazz plays a key presence.

chazelle is a pretty rough around the edges director when it comes to narrative/character, hes not someone with a delicate touch, so i liked the balance in this between old hollywood musical unreality, and the rougher sort of alt-musical stuff weve seen in the last decade, though it didnt go quite far enough.

but i give chazelle some credit for making two popular films in a row where jazz plays a key presence.

Meanwhile, Don Cheadle had to partially crowdfund his Miles Davis biopic, and even then the studio wouldn't put up a cent unless a white character was written into it (the crux/cause of the awfulness of the story). And after all that, the studio didn't do shit to promote it.

It's understandable, though; Miles is no Buddy Rich.

i mean, obviously, that was dire (and casting ewan mcgregor, of all people), but still, i give ANYONE credit for making two popular films in 2016 where jazz is a key theme (and yes, even if the main character/jazz musician has to be a white dude... though why this surprises anyone, i dont know. in chazelle's favour however, the male lead in his first indie feature was a black actor, whether as a pre-emptive atonement for what he assumed he would have to do later, i dont know, but hey, it is there), even if don cheadle cant get his miles biopic made the way he deserves to get it made.

in 2036, i fully expect there to be a new version of la la land with the gosling character a white hip hop backpack nerd.

im going to see LLL again, though do wish it didnt have the obvious 'look! homage!' moments, glorious though they might be. i wish they just repurposed it all, and made it of the moment. but oh well, hopefully there will be other musicals to follow.

I do love that Mia's family literally surfaces only long enough to be cheap plot devices

I'm surprised more people aren't talking about how good the music is, tbh! How it skips over the last thirty years of megamusical history and instead successfully attempts to revive the classic style, how there are a scant six songs and they're all great.. beyond that I thought the movie was trash but I def was impressed with the composer

video: what does it owe to Scorsese's NYNY?

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/tale-two-musicals

xp I agree the music (except probably the first song) is surprisingly excellent, and it's a pity the staging isn't remotely in the same league

thus was cute the music was shit the jazz stuff was a joke but it was a love story and i loved them and it was funny

all in all actors in a musical arent as good as singers/dancers in a musical but the acting is better thats that

i think the music fuckin blows

two memorable songs, the rest rote

City of Stars is good

thus was cute the music was shit the jazz stuff was a joke but it was a love story and i loved them and it was funny

all in all actors in a musical arent as good as singers/dancers in a musical but the acting is better thats that

otm

i do not like city of stars its plodding and rg's voice sounds like a fat baby

yea his vocals are shit but it's a nice melody

I haven't seen this but Gosling's vocals on "City of Stars" sound like the dying HAL 9000 singing "Daisy."

Does ‘La La Land’ Get Jazz, or Exploit It?
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/arts/music/la-la-land-damien-chazelle-jazz.html?_r=0

i dont think this article quite justifies the hate for la la land based on the premise that it tackles its biggish jazz question poorly. is JL's keith really that much of a 'threat'? i get that gosling doesnt like him, but yknow, wynton marsalis didnt care that much for what miles davis was doing half the time either. my main issue is that JL's band in the movie a) have a terrible song b) the terrible song isnt really jazz, not even by fusion standards, which renders the what-is-jazz tension in the movie more or less totally moot, and makes the frisson not so much frisson, as a gigantic gulf, making it far too easy for non jazz savvy ppl watching it to leave the cinema even less informed than those who partake in the usual 'isnt jazz kenny g? whats so bad about kenny g jazz?' conversations.

but i still dont find it 'offensive' per se. white purists like gosling are there in every black music genre. the films main flaw might not be making this phenom of the white black music purist explicit, but then, la la doesnt make much of any of the 'issues' that are in there.

Yeah, I really am getting tired of this criticism tbh considering jazz exists in La La Land as the fantasyland of a solipsistic obsessive. It's like asking if High Fidelity gets Brian Eno right

And also, it's not really that hard to imagine that some depressive, starving Thelonious Monk stan might just stay in his weird little lane instead of constantly running into Kamasi Washington and Thundercat at Amoeba like when the Red Hot Chili Peppers walked into Moe's Tavern

we want chilly willy!

whiney otm omg

ppl acting like this movie is called the history of jazz ffs

yeah. the movie was mediocre for other reasons

Enh, the music is amazing, you guys are insane. I'm not just talking about the songs, I mean the whole score, especially the ending fantasy sequence.. and I even liked-loved the songs, at least three of them I could still hum today after one viewing, and Emma Stone's audition song was REALLY good, idk

Me I'm allergic to all musicals since, like, West Side Story-- occasional Disney and Sondheim aside-- and this was the first time I thought "oh wow somebody is treating The American Musical as this anachronistic form that peaked some 70 years ago, instead of this grab-bag of opera/rock/Hair-Chorus Line-Chicago-Elton-Webber-Schönberg post-modernity that is insulting to everything and everyone". After years of hearing "oh you MUST see Billy Elliott/The Producers/Book Of Mormon/Hairspray/Kinky Boots/Wicked/Hamilton" and feeling nihilist and angry afterward and basically swearing off the genre entirely, I was really into this thing. But I'm like.. comparing it to other musicals. I'm comparing it to Les Miz and Cats and whatever