La La Land

So I think in comparison, this might have been the best thing to juxtapose my weekend of A Series of Unfortunate Events. While the show is not nearly as dire as it's marketed to be, you couldn't ask for a more tonal shift after watching La La Land and I think it's exactly what I needed.

It's about that time where movies start being nominated for the Oscars. Lots of buzz goes around a number of films and you would think that I would be reviewing them prior to the Oscars actually happening so I can get an actual idea of what should win in my opinion... In reality, I usually wait till the show comes and goes, Winners are announced, then I eventually get to those films later in the year when my opinion really doesn't matter at all.

But La La Land was a little bit different. I had heard about La La Land when it first came out and while I figured, due to the time it came out, it was probably going to be in the conversation for the Oscars. What I didn't know is that it was going to explode so big in the early conversations. And then I saw the opening to the Golden Globes and I enjoyed it a helluva lot. I thought, at the very least, I should check it out just for the sake that the music has been an ear worm for the past week.

La La Land is set in present day Los Angeles and follows the story of all the young people that go to the City of Angels in order to follow their dreams of being a movie star, a musician, or a performer. The opening is probably my favorite song in the show and it doesn't even center on the main characters. It's just all the people moving out West to follow their dreams of being on the big screen.

But the movie centers on two young people who have been in Los Angeles for a while now. You've got Mia (played by Emma Stone) a struggling actress who serves coffee on the Warner Bros lot in between auditions. Then you've got Sebastian (played by Ryan Gosling) a struggling Jazz musician who wants to eventually open up his own Jazz club.

The two have been in Los Angeles for a while and you can see from the start that the wonder and the gungho attitude that everyone singing in the first opening number has kind of worn off on them. The only thing holding them there is their dreams of being an actress and opening a Jazz club respectively.

The two eventually meet and while their first encounter is not the friendliest, they eventually fall in love and start a relationship.

And yeah... this is a really great relationship. From the very beginning you know that these two are going to end up together but the movie gives you just enough slack that you enjoy the eventuality of it.

Maybe it helps that these two have been romantically connected in movies before (I think this is their third or fourth time being romantic leads) but they really do have romantic chemistry that works for them throughout the film. They become interested in the other one's interests and they're supportive of one another.

The entire story is balancing the love these two have for one another and the dream of making it in Hollywood and how sometimes those two things don't really blend as well as you want it to.

All of this is supplemented by a very upbeat, jazz infused musical with plenty of allusions and lifts

from the classical movie musicals. You've got Singing in the Rain allusions, Fred Estaire dance numbers, and a lot of references to movie musicals I have not seen but have now become interested in checking out.

This movie has so much to say, about Hollywood, about love, about classic movie musicals, and about Jazz, and it's all said very beautifully and shot in just the most spectacular way. Even if you're not familiar with a lot of movie musicals from the classic era, like me, you still might catch onto some popular references, and even if you don't, it's still a beautifully shot film and the classic moments are some that you can still appreciate.

I'm finding it more and more difficult to claim ignorance when it comes to cinematography because the more movies I watch, it's just become something that I notice and I start to recognize shots and methods. There are a lot of really cool continuous shots in this movie that are done spectacularly and that on top of the choreography that clearly was meticulously rehearsed, it's just a film that is very easy on the eyes.

Like I said, the music is a bit of an earworm and you're definitely going to be whistling it on your way out. And the part that I loved about the film was the clear love for Jazz throughout it. There's a great scene where Sebastian is explaining jazz to Mia and while I've heard an explanation like that before, that just made it even more potent. The movie even acknowledges that Jazz is a bit of a dying breed and I hope that people seeing this can have a renewed love for Jazz because the music in this is so good!

Now the one issue I have with the music is that there are songs that are supposed to have specific meanings to these characters so when they show up later in the film, they're supposed to have a bigger impact and be a call back to an earlier scene. I had a little bit of difficulty recalling which song I was supposed to be having an emotional connection to and I got them a little bit mixed up. It's not a huge issue, the songs are still good, but I think the last scene, the one that had at least one person in the audience sniffling, lost a little bit of the emotional impact because I had forgotten the song I was supposed to be connecting to and what scene it was calling back to. Because of this the emotional impact of the scene, while still there, might have been a little lost on me.

There was only one other issue I had with the film. It's not a huge issue and it didn't take away from the performances or the emotional impact of the story, but it was something that was kind of in the back of my mind for a lot of it.

The problems these two have, while legitimate, are pretty privileged issues. Like apart of the conflict you find in this film is the difference between performing what you want to perform and performing to make a living, and they don't always mix. I have friends who have gone out to Hollywood to try and make it and they understand that part of it is just taking whatever you can get and hopefully getting to the point where you're doing what you love. The alternative to that is just going off and performing whatever is in your heart and to hell with what other people think.

It's a poignant message but it's a dilemma that not everyone has the luxury of choosing between. These two never really have the issue of running out of money or sacrificing their art for the basic necessities and in a way that might take away from the impact of the entire scenario.

For example, they have support systems to fall back on, they can always go back home or find support with others and that's not always the case.

Does it ruin the film? Absolutely not.

The film is called La La Land not only because it's a colloquial name for Los Angeles, but because this is set in a world that's not exactly supposed to be reality. I mean they not only break out into song, but they break out into choreographed dance numbers which if you aren't totally engrossed in the film, you might be wondering if the entire world just dropped what they were doing to perform in a dance number, or if there are normal people wondering if these two are just insane.

But the point of the musical is to live in a sort of La La Land and if you're able to take your mind to that reality, the movie really pays off. Gosling and Stone give a really great performance and the entire movie is basically centered around them so they have to be bringing it, and they do.

La La Land is just a good time. I find it hard to find anybody who is not going to come out of the theater with a smile on their face. I don't know what the Oscar contest is going to look like and I'm not sure if this film is really good enough to be a Best Picture winner, but having only seen this film, I wouldn't mind it. I had a fun time with La La Land and it's a well made movie.

But what do you think? Did you like La La Land? How do you think it's going to compete with other films that have come out this year? Could it win an Oscar? Let me know your thoughts, Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. I would be remiss if I didn't give you the link to the Cracked After Hours commentary on musicals but just to give you a taste of the kind of music that is in this movie, here's the first song, probably my favorite. Enjoy!