Year: 2017
Director: Damien Chazelle
I can’t believe the Afterwrod doesn’t yet have a La La Land review, so here it is. Though you don’t need to be a full on musicals fan, you need to be open to a few basic ideas to enjoy this film. Characters can burst into song and dance in the middle of a scene – fine with me. Open to a bit of jazz? Quite a lot of jazz. Ok? Let’s go then. The story is one of the oldest in the movie business – two dreamers on the make in LA – actress Emma Stone and jazz pianist Ryan Gosling – fall in love with each other, and each other’s dreams. You know what? Success costs and as he hooks up with John Legend (yes) and the success starts coming the cracks in the relationship widen. It’s romantic, it’s a comedy – but most of all it’s a love letter to the MGM musical, to Hollywood and to LA. We go on a whistle stop tour of LA landmarks from the Griffiths Planetarium (Rebel Without a Cause) and gridlocked freeways to the studio backlots. Gosling and Stone twirl, tap dance and croon their way through a series of great set pieces – culminating in a breathtaking dream sequence at the end that sucks the whole film into a riot of colour and music. It’s a testament to the quality of the music that even Ryan Gosling’s tortured artist sessions at the piano are thrilling. Stone and Gosling have chemistry that had me grinning along – and if the set-up is pure cornball the script rings enough contemporary twists to keep the whole thing in the air. Ridiculously retro, ridiculously enjoyable. Though it can’t quite pull of a big number that you’re humming on the way out – Stone has a big ballad that doesn’t quite spark – it’s damn fine. There’s even time for some musings on whether purity versus crossover is the future of jazz and some Afterword friendly in jokes about A Flock of Seagulls and Kenny G.
Might appeal to people who enjoyed:
MGM Musicals and love letters to the moves and LA – thinking Hail Caesar, LA Story and so on
The opening sequence I should say is terrific – a traffic jam song and dance number that sets exactly the right tone.
Haven’t seen this yet – Mrs thep hates musicals and isn’t convinced by the argument that this is a musical for people who hate musicals, and it doesn’t seem like a film to see on your own.
My son’s complaint, however, was that the musicals bit was all over by 30 mins in. Is that right, or was he not paying attention?
Not exactly – I would say the whole film is about music – playing it, talking about it, even doing the cover photo shoot for the CD of it, but the opening track, a group girls night out number, and Stone and Gosling’s solo numbers (the latter, city of Angels, the nearest to a showstopper) all are packed into the opening half hour. So I know what he means. Stone’s big ballad is in classic musicals fashion the penultimate number, Legend’s song and the song and dance dream sequence are all in the second half. The second half is perhaps more dialogue heavy – especially a brilliant scene when the two fall out over dinner – but it’s musical though not sung through all the way through.
Aha – you saw a different film to me.
I liked it, didn’t love it. Thought the big song and dance numbers (particularly the opening) were deeply underwhelming, the leads couldn’t really sing or dance (though that aspect was not without its charm), the plot was like a TV movie, the songs were forgettable, and the characters were irritating. Also – blowing the long car horn; not adorable, but the mark of a world class asshole.
That said, there were some great scenes (particularly the final audition), it was nice to watch a movie that was trying to make people happy, Chizelle can definitely direct and the cheat ending was ace.
Interestingly, the wife actively disliked it, as did most of the other women I know who’ve seen it. The consensus is that it’s not the film it’s been advertised as (ie a big, old fashioned musical), it’s too melancholy and the dancing is bad.
It’ll win a lot of awards, because Hollywood loves movies about Hollywood, but it felt to me like a good idea, imperfectly executed.
It’s still a lot better than Live By Night, which I saw the next day and which was properly woeful.
Can’t sing? I just listened to the SongExploder episode for Stone’s big number and that woman can definitely, definitely sing.
She’s up and down, and can’t dance that well by musical standards. HE can’t sing.
By “big number”, do you mean the final audition song? Because she knocks that outta the park.
Not sure, the one about her aunt jumping in the river.
Yep, that’s the one. Best scene in the movie by far.
I’ve not seen the actual movie, but I was surprised no-one posted this after the Golden Globes. La La Land might not be “feel good”, but seeing Barb again fair picked me up..
Is it as good as Singin’ in the Rain?
How could it be?
I haven’t seen this yet but I caught the Golden Globe award for musical composition and could not believe my ears. WTF?
I went to see it not expecting to like it, but because I’m involved in writing a musical at the moment it seemed a good idea to keep up to date.
1. I liked it, really liked it.
2. It never occurred to me that the leads “can’t sing”, I thought their singing was fine!
3. It never occurred to me to reference previous Hollywood musicals.
4. I thought the story was good, and believable
5. Almost most importantly, they got the music right! Ryan G’s piano miming is thoroughly convincing (and I play the piano for a living!) AND, the jazz references were well done. For example Emma Stone saying “I don’t really like jazz, we play it in the background at the cafe (where she works)” – such a common attitude to jazz
Mrs M didn’t like it, thought there wasn’t much of a story, and kept thinking Singing In The Rain was better.
But, but…. Ryan Gosling “learned to play the piano in six weeks” for this film. Miming – honestly.
I am going to see this tonight and am on the fence in anticipation. Ryan Gosling looks to have everything so naturally I am disposed to hate him but I have loved every movie I’ve seen of his.
Miming is a long tradition in Hollywood film musicals. You can fake the voice in a way you can’t fake the dancing obvs. Marni Nixon had a long shadow career as a playback singer – for Deborah Kerr in The King and I and Natalie Wood in West Wide Story and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady for example. Someone with more knowledge than me of musicals soundtracks should comment on the LP versions. Fascinatingly Bernstein had a contract to give her a % of his royalties in secret from WWS. All this was much much easier to keep quiet in the fifties and sixties.
Wikipedia also tells us Marni was the mother of “never let it slip away’ hitmaker Andrew Gold.
I know, I was suggesting that the hype around the film included that piece of information. I was sarcastically implying that the hype wasn’t true and that one can’t learn improvisational jazz piano in six weeks.
Clearly it was learning well enough to mime convincingly rather than play the notes we hear.
He plays all the notes in the close ups, and mimes the long shots. Basically, if you can see his hands on the keys and his face in the same shot then he’s actually playing.
What I found interesting about Gosling was that he didn’t appear to be a particularly strong singer or dancer, despite having been a Mousketeer.
BBC4 are repeating Secret Voices Of Hollywood tonight, a feature length doc about “ghost singers” of the golden age of Hollywood musicals, including Marni Nixon. Highly recommended.
Does keeping up to date involve realizing what a load of pish?
Well that’s what I was expecting. As I said, I was surprised that I liked it.
I think if I’d been 20 years younger, as a still angry 42 year old, I would have seen it differently.
I thought the opening number was very ordinary and it took me the next fifteen minutes to really get into what in the end is a damn fine movie.
I loved it but like two other women I know Mrs Wrongness was deeply unimpressed. We are going to watch it again this grey and wet Monday afternoon so she can change her mind (yeah, right)
Just went to see it this afternoon and that was more or less my comment to my wife on my way home – it takes time – a bit longer than 15 minutes for me, as it was the Planetarium number that hooked me in.
Another thumbs down here. I was underwhelmed by the much-touted opening and the feeling only grew. Mrs B was especially disappointed at the rug-pull ending; I’d long since stopped caring, feeling short-changed by a series of increasingly slight musical set-pieces.
It’s the kind of film I would have enjoyed had I come across it on DVD. But as acclaimed, award-hoovering beasts goes, all it did was prove to me how much Hollywood loves films about itself.
Though it is overhyped @Leicester-bangs I think it’s slender storyline would become much more evident on DVD, and it needs the big screen and sound to keep it in the air.
I hear you. Although I was talking more about the way it arrives on one’s radar than the actual medium. But yes, point taken.
The trouble is that quite apart from the critical acclaim I was pre-disposed to love La La Land. I really liked Crazy Stupid Love (see below), and the idea of that film, only with the supports boosted to the leads and loads of awesome Let It Go-style song-and-dance sequences, really, really appealed to me — and it didn’t deliver.
Basically I’m saying that in my world it was like The Phantom Menace of rom-coms.
And also, he said, warming to his subject. La La Land is a film that wouldn’t have happened without Crazy Stupid Love, in which a smug douche played by Ryan Gosling meets the super-endearing Emma Stone, falls in love as you would and learns to be less douchey as a result.
It just shows that film is essentially the process of catching lightning in a bottle, because Gosling and Stone had genuine chemistry in that film. They fair sizzled. La La Land may be the most successful attempt to replicate that chemistry (they tried it before in Gangster Squad) but it’s still nothing like as good as that first outing.
Agreed on Crazy Stupid Love. The younger brother / babysitter sub-plot should have been strangled at the first read through though *shudder*. I know it’s meant to show the awkwardness of first love etc, but jeez.
(I am using “but jeez” as often as I can at the moment.)
What sort of jazz is it and who plays on the soundtrack ?
Its hype and success (released Dec 9 in the US) have surely much to do with the hell-in-a-handbasket vibe of the actual world around us. Who wouldn’t want to escape from the real world for two hours of song and dance with two insanely attractive people. Possibly the least convincing line in the whole movie is Emma Stone bemoaning her lot at casting calls where there are always ‘someone prettier’ in the lobby. Musicals have always offered escapism – and LLL’s timing is perfect. The Wizard of Oz was released in August 1939.
Were you okay with the ending? A friend thought it was really clever, whereas Mrs B was pretty cross about it.
Personally I’m agnostic, but It does strike me that if you’re going to stage something as wish-fulfilling as a Tinseltown musical then you might as well go the whole hog.
I’m now feeling like I’ve been too mean about it above.
I did enjoy watching it, and I’ve thought about it a bit afterwards, which is always a good sign. I thought it went up and down a lot – for every good scene (the last scene outside the Griffith observatory being another example) there was a bad one (the fight over dinner). The whole thing was crazily uneven.
You can definitely pick it apart if you’re inclined to do so, but it’s probably best to just manage down your expectations (Singin In The Rain this ain’t), switch your brain off and let it carry you along with it.
For those who do want to pick it apart, the excellent Walter Chaw delivers a damning but well observed assessment here: http://www.filmfreakcentral.net/ffc/2016/09/telluride-16-la-la-land.html
No hype…..I loved it from start to finish.
I came out thinking its the best film I’ve seen in years. I read somewhere that it is the sort of film to give a euphoric reaction, so I’m not sure I can trust myself on this, but I haven’t found my opinion weakening.
I don’t get the ‘Singin’ In The Rain’ comparisons – SITR (which I love) is a completely different film in tone, execution, production and particularly in the music. I think LLL is original. There are bits that feel like Umberllas Of Cherbourg – the tone of the singing in the first number in particular but by & large I think it stands on its own. Indeed, there aren’t that many songs…
The music is wistful and catchy – and has caught the ear of my otherwise emo-loving daughter who has been doing nothing else on the piano this week but try to master it. It swells just where it should.
I could go on….
I did think it dragged a bit in the middle – something commented on here (http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/2017/01/watch-la-la-land/) and maybe it helped that I went in knowing nothing other than its reputation but other than that it was flawless for me. I had goosebumps in the audition scene…
Can’t wait to see it again
I loved this movie, as did Mrs S.
I though the leads were perfectly cast, I’m a fan of Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone is very talented.
I liked the ending, as it contrasted with the rest of the film.
The scene at the start with the traffic jam was gloriously OTT.
Note: I generally don’t like musicals, but I loved this. It had a good balance, and wasn’t breaking into song every 5mins.
I loved it and so did Mrs MCE. Some laugh out loud moments and some very clever bits too, such as when they talk about jazz and are talking over the jazz on the soundtrack – the very thing he complains about. Putting on the tap shoes in the middle of a number and so on.
Naturally the impact of some of the set pieces – especially the amazingly staged freeway opener – will be somewhat dimished on TV but I will certainly watch this again when the Blu-ray comes out. I think I’ll have to get the soundtrack too.
Dunno who complained about the singing and dancing but speaking as a trained software professional I wish I could do either as well as them. She’s a better singer but he’s a better dancer so it’s a score-draw.
Get the original soundtrack and listen to that instead – from beginning to end it is excellent. The film, not so much. The soundtrack is the best of the film distilled down to forty minutes.
The soundtrack allows you to concentrate on the melodies which is surprisingly hard to do with all that’s going on in the film – all that (frankly) not very inspiring “hoofing”. It also allows you to enjoy the music without being distracted by the dialogue, which is (quite frankly) awful:
Unfeasibly long car horn blast
MIA: Why did you come here?
SEB: Because I have good news.
MIA: What?
SEB: Amy Brandt, the casting director – she was at your play, and she loved it. And she loved it so much that she wants you to come in tomorrow and audition for this (slams hand on car) huge movie that she’s got.
MIA: I’m not going to that. I’m not going to that. That one’s going to be…
SEB: What?
MIA: No, no…that one’s going to be…
SEB: I’m sorry?
MIA: That will kill me.
SEB (roars) WHAT?
MIA: What? What? Shh…stop!
SEB (roars) NO!
MIA: Shh, shh, you have to be quiet.
SEB: If you want me…you have to make sense.
MIA: They’re gonna call the police. They’re gonna call the police.
SEB: If you want me to be quiet you have to make some goddamn sense. You tell me why you’re not going.
MIA: Because…because…I’ve been to a million auditions and the same thing happens every time, where I get interrupted because someone wants to get a sandwich, or, I’m crying and they start laughing, or, there’s people sitting in the waiting room and they’re, and they’re like me, but prettier, and better at the…because maybe I’m not good enough.
SEB: Yes you are.
MIA: No I’m…no maybe I’m not.
SEB: Yes you are.
MIA: Maybe I’m not.
SEB: You are.
MIA: Maybe I’m not.
SEB: You are.
MIA: Maybe I’m one of those people that has always wanted to do it but it’s like a pipe dream for me, you know, and then you…you said it…you, you change your dreams and then you grow up. Maybe I’m one of those people, and I’m not supposed to. And I can go back to school, and I can find something else that I’m supposed to do. Cos I left to do that, and it’s been six years, and I don’t want to do it any more.
SEB: Why?
MIA: Why what?
SEB: Why don’t you want to do it any more?
MIA: Cos I think it hurts a little bit too much.
SEB: You’re a baby.
MIA: I’m not a baby,
SEB: You are.
MIA: I’m trying to grow up.
SEB: You’re crying like a baby.
MIA: Oh my god…
SEB: And you have an audition tomorrow at five-thirty. I’ll be out front at 8 am. You’ll be out front or not, I don’t know.
Some of the worst dialogue since:
JACK: Rose!
ROSE: Jack!
JACK: Rose!
ROSE: Jack!
JACK: Rose!
ROSE: Jack!
I wanted to love this film, but I came out feeling quite unsatisfied: The relationship was unconvincing, the conflict contrived, the end result a little bit shallow, and, ack, who cares.
But the soundtrack is well worth a listen. Not a bad track on it. Ryan’s singing is quite endearing, and no sign of him being a prize a-hole. Yup, get that instead.
I think it’s perfectly acceptable dialogue. OK it’s not the West Wing “let’s make every speech what you wish you’d said later” clever – and it’s not that aiming for that, it’s aiming for feelgood, holding hands cornball romance – but as spoken by between two average folk characters, it works.
Whole thing reminded me of telly programme ‘Glee’. Which is not such a bad thing if you liked the telly programme ‘Glee’. But I didn’t like the telly programme ‘Glee’.
Gary seems to be joining Bargepole in Bargepole’s war against pronouns.
Saw this last night and Arrival tonight. Thought both of them were just awful. Boring and stupid. La La Land had echoes of the brilliant The Way We Were, but with horrible singing and dancing instead of a good script. Arrival was just a joke. From the moment Forest Whitaker expected Amy Adams to translate a recording of some squelchy fart noises into English it just got sillier and sillier. Damn.
Thought it was brilliant, loved every minute; even liked it more than my 30s/40s Hollywood-obsessed (she’d walk “Mastermind” on the subject) wife. Going to see it again next week.
I think the trick is to totally live in your own bubble, and emerge at the cinema not having too much of a clue what the film you’re going to see is about. Two weeks ago, I’d never heard of “La La Land.”
Rest assured: If anything worthwhile appears in 2017, all the joy will be sucked out of it weeks before its release if you look at the internet first.
Oh I hadn’t read a single review. Like you i hadn’t heard of it two weeks ago.
I enjoyed it. At times I enjoyed it a lot. I really like Emma Stone but I can’t get on with the Gooseling. There’s something infuriating about his face and hair, and no it’s not that he’s too reallyreallyridiculouslygoodlooking (I’m not even sure he is THAT hot, is he?) He’s just got a faintly annoying everything.
It looks fab and is even pretty moving (screech of brakes, ok not moving but at least affecting) but I wanted MORE. I wanted the glory hinted at by the fantastic opening. The end was great too. The middle? It needed bigger and better songs, a breakout hit. The final audition number is very good but it doesn’t *pop*, it’s not going to be a classic, despite Stone’s great delivery of it. (By the way, she sang that live on set, it’s not dubbed.)
It’s like a B+. Maybe an A-. 14 Oscar nods? Hmmm.
Saw it this afternoon.
Have to say I’m in the ‘liked it, not loved it’ camp but glad
to have seen it. I was favourably predisposed towards it but kept waiting for it to really kick in & a grin to involuntarily appear on my face, but although it took off it didn’t soar.
I rekuctantly concluded that the leads just aren’t talented enough in this genre to really nail it, & I was making allowances rather than being swept along.
I like Jazz ( a lot) & technicolor and a mushy romance – Gosling’s character essentially wants to be in The Dan’s ‘ Deacon Blue’ – ‘ my back to the wall a victim of laughing chance’ but I think I’ve become hard to please or maybe good, not great is fair.
Sounds like I’m down on it, but I just wanted more , I guess.
Don’t let my take put you off if you’re considering going to the flicks, you certainly won’t won’t see another movie that looks or sounds like it this year.
This sums up my feelings too.
Mine also. MINOR PLOT POINTS BUT PROBABLY NOT SPOILERS FOLLOW BELOW THE LINE.
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Seb’s whole “old good, modern bad” shtick was just annoying. Sure, pop jazz is always going to be shite and John Legend is literally the most inaptly named artist ever but I just didn’t dig Gosling’s character’s whole retro obsession. And also I didn’t like the “she likes jazz now because he’s educated her” thing – perpetuating the irritating bullshit idea that real music appreciation is a guy thing and girls only get it when they’ve got the right boyfriend. Actually the more I think about that the more irritating it is.
Seb holds out a cassette.
“This is Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Stockholm, 1963… two masters of freedom, playing at a time before their art was corrupted by a zillion cocktail lounge performers who destroyed the legacy of the only American art form… Jazz.
“I put some Mingus on there too.”
You had me at Stockholm, 1963…
“Do we look like we stock I JUST CALLED TO SAY I LOVE YOU?”
Seb is exactly the kind of narcissistic, faux-authentic millennial asshat you dread dating your daughter. One long rasp on that car horn and I’d be outside beating him to death with his own vintage bar stool.
“I DON’T CARE THAT ACKER BILK SAT ON IT, FUCK OFF.”
Ha ha ha, brilliant, love it!
Slightly OT, but I was irritated by Chazelle’s previous film, Whiplash, for precisely the same reason. I was waiting for the drummer kid to give his too cool for school, always in black, late middle-aged, sad male teacher the finger and walk out for his nice, normal, friendly girlfriend.
I know! Saying that, I did REALLY enjoy Whiplash.
I was ejected from the cinema for yelling “Do Toad!!”
Did he make Whiplash? I thought that looked appalling and every musician I know who saw it said it was shit. But the same people will say that about LLL…
The kid in Whiplash has a poster in his practice room of a quote from Buddy Rich: ”If you don’t have ability you end up playing in a rock band. ” Cheek!
Like we’re gonna take life-coaching from the guy who invented the paradiddle!
I sniggered through Whiplash at the way movies — and certain types of TV shows, like Iron Chef – take essentially frivolous things INCREDIBLY SERIOUSLY in a desperately macho attempt to persuade anybody watching that this is definitely not arsing about. Sir no Sir!
Nothing could possibly be more inconsequential than drumming. Jazz drumming at that – who bloody listens to jazz these days? Get some perspective and calm the f*** down, you wazzocks!
“Get some perspective and calm the f*** down, you wazzocks!”
Afterword t-shirt.
I have to disagree Moose – with the right shades on, nothing is MORE significant than drumming – personally I subscribe to whole ‘ In the beginning, there was rhythm’ ethos, including the ‘ Silence is a rhythm too’ notion & therefore the beat, the groove, the drum go right to the core of what makes us tick & how we connect to the universe – without it, we are nothing ( I know, I know, spliff addled Pseuds Corner bollocks except it happens to be true)
That said, I find it hard to think of anyone whose philosphy on anything I care less about than Buddy Rich.
And NOW I’m off to get hammered.
Excelsior!
Front-loading, I see.
Arf!
I love “drummer jokes”, but seriously it’s all dependent on the drummer.
He’s in control of time.
I heard somewhere that Chazelle wrote Whiplash while trying to get La La Land made – which suggests that this year’s smash hit wasn’t initially seen as much of a prospect
an expensive musical based on the technicolor golden age from an untried director wouldn’t be something you’d bet on sight unseen would it? I’m glad it’s doing well but I’m not surprised it’s a surprise hit if you know what I mean
I thought it was sweet how they made John Legend’s band so popular. In this alternate universe The Brand New Heavies can fill Wembley.
Haha!
Here’s a thing. When I saw the film, I thought the title was a clever, original pun on Los Angeles (Took a while for the penny to drop, mind you.)
However, it turns out that La La Land was already an established term for Los Angeles, and is even in the OED. i.e. “la-la land n. can refer either to Los Angeles (in which case its etymology is influenced by the common initialism for that city), or to a state of being out of touch with reality—and sometimes to both simultaneously.”
I thought it referred to the birthplace of one of the Teletubbies – not the one from Krakow obvs
I had assumed it was set in Liverpool.
That’s the charming modern musical that follows the travails of a talented Scouse songwriter whose fatal flaw (in a homage to Andy in Parks & Rec) is being unable to settle on a name for his band for long enough for anyone to work out who they are…. Wah Wah Land.
The massive success of “Wah Wah Land” was a huge relief following the catastrophic failure of the musical about Liverpool’s independent music scene Les Merseylabels. The non-performance of this expensive flop is usually attributed to the decision to re-record all the songs using Ricky Tomlinson playing a banjo..
It is tribute to Beatles group Hey Jude
We’ve just got back from seeing it, having walked out after an hour (which felt like three).
Jesus Christ, but it was 10 kinds of shite. We both found it utterly flat-footed, empty, lacklustre, drab, amateurish. God’s sake, how on Earth does one manage to make a musical that has no sense of JOY? Surely, that’s the whole point of musicals – a transport of delight, a slug of 90%-proof escapism, an irresistible invitation to suspend your disbelief??
And no choons neeva!!! I came out humming the frocks.
The cinema was full but you’d never have known it from the audience reaction: utterly silent. No laffs, neither an old-school and genuine ‘Ha ha ha!’ nor a wry and knowing po-mo ‘Hah!’.
We extracted no enjoyment from it whatsoever, despite the assistance of large reclining seats with flip-up footrests AND a large bag of Revels.
Perhaps we just weren’t clever enough to ‘get’ it.
did everyone know about this:
not wild about the song, but I like the video – Emma Stone in a big dance number.
Thanks BAD. That was fun. I Thought she was excellent in LLL ( the camera really loved her) so was more than happy to have a second helping.
I do hope she does not get typecast into doing musicals after this mega success.