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

and if anyone wants to make a white saviour argument for a new oscar hyped movie, lion is a far easier, and much, much, more deserving target.

It's better than Birdman but it's longer.

having trouble with LLL:

http://girishshambu.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-disenchantments-of-la-la-land.html

Better than "Birdman" (aka "Acting: The Movie") for sure (and don't forget, that film's score was just a long jazz drum solo). Lotsa "LLL" complaints revolve around its depiction of Los Angeles, and not what is pretty clearly a mythical, fictional "Los Angeles." So, like, on that front, who the fuck cares? It's La La Land.

it's a lazily written love story that relies too much on its novelty and whose characters' motivations aren't well illustrated.

definitely not a terrible movie, just kind of "meh" and unworthy of its hype among movie musical stans

I already forgot about this movie. I've seen most of the nominees by this point (still haven't seen Fences) and Moonlight is the best by a massive margin

Saw this on a plane today, checked out about 5-6 times (should've been 30 mins shorter) but was fair if not corny.

In the end, I think a mashup of Mulholland Drive & Ghost World (replacing blues with jazz) would be an interesting endeavor. Discus.

challop from Peter Labuza on "LLL-related" oldies

@labuzamovies Feb 12
AT LONG LAST LOVE (Bogdanovich, 75) If you can't sing and dance, take from a great repertory and make sure and be silly about it. Delovely.

At Long Last Love is also a huge stinker. One of the most difficult things I've ever sat through.

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