La-La Land the Movie - anyone?

Cafe Society
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Saw it with family. I liked it. It’s not really a “musical” per se - there’s an intro number and a few bits of singing and kinda-choreographed dance moves, but not a full-on break into song with big production numbers throughout kinda old-school musical.

Having said that, it certainly seeks to be a “stylized take” on the world - there’s enough things that happen that clearly aren’t real-world and aren’t meant to be, so you always know you’re in a “heightened reality” - that’s what it really has in common with musicals.

Ryan Gosling acts well - can’t sing, but given what I said above it’s not really an issue. Emma Stone can sing, but not amazingly well, but certainly enough to serve the movie. But her beyond-expressive face with those eyes are put to great use. Easy to see an Oscar nod and possibly a win.

I won’t divulge plot, but it is not meet cute, encounter trouble, overcome it and everyone lives happily ever after. It has more nuance and layers and is better for it. It was fun to see JK Simmons play a small cameo role since he is buds with the director after getting the Oscar in the directors last movie, Whiplash.

Anyone else see it?

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FYI, there is some discussion of the movie in this thread. I saw it and liked it quite a bit.

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Ah cool - thanks.

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And as I said in the other thread, the writer/director has only three previous credits as director (although he has a couple of more as a screenwriter). I thought this was a remarkable achievement for someone so new to the business.

I really would not be surprised to see this win the Best Picture Oscar (although partly that’s because of the Hollywood setting and we know that the Academy voters love movies about the movie business).