Skip Star Wars : Rogue One and go see La La Land instead

[bump]

@Shawn1767

I liked both movies a lot. I don’t see why you have to pick one or the other. I liken it to enjoying a nice Chinese food dish and also liking an Italian dish. Why can’t you just like both? Or neither or whatever?

But for “La La Land” in particular, it fulfilled the one thing that I ask of ALL movies: it entertained me. I enjoyed it. Sure, it may have been fluffy, but one can enjoy a nice meringue pie once in a while and not have to live off organically-grown kale salad. (what’s with all my food metaphors?)

It didn’t have to be deep, it didn’t have to be mind-blowing. It just had to be an enjoyable couple of hours. And it fulfilled that for me greatly. I liked the songs and the dance routines. I thought it was a fun movie. It was pure escapist fare. And it did it well.

I agree about the point of a movie, but I was much more entertained by “Rogue One”. “La La Land” verged on boring me to tears in some scenes, and the trajectory seemed pretty predictable until the last 15 minutes or so, at which point the movie (to its credit) diverged pretty hard from the traditional rom-com formula. But a whole lot of the middle was way too preciously dramatic without actually being entertaining.

[Sam_Lowry]

@Shawn1767

It didn’t have to be deep, it didn’t have to be mind-blowing. It just had to be an enjoyable couple of hours. And it fulfilled that for me greatly. I liked the songs and the dance routines. I thought it was a fun movie. It was pure escapist fare. And it did it well.

I think it’s fine escapist fare, not a waste of time to watch if you like this sort of movie. It’s just strange to me and others when a decent movie is treated like one of the greats and gotten so many nominations and will likely get the Oscar instead of other, better movies.

[gigi]

@Sam_Lowry

I think it’s fine escapist fare, not a waste of time to watch if you like this sort of movie. It’s just strange to me and others when a decent movie is treated like one of the greats and gotten so many nominations and will likely get the Oscar instead of other, better movies.

That’s my issue. I am the target audience for this kind of movie – romance, singing and dancing! And it still didn’t do it for me. It was kind of a mess. I resent it being a shoo-in for Best Picture.

[erysichthon]

@Aeschines

Also, re Ryan’s supposed playing of the piano… As a mediocre piano player myself, my impression was that he was doing the fingerings in the movie but not playing the actual notes. Nor, would I guess that the recordings on the soundtrack were of his playing. Unless he became genuinely first-class player for the movie, for that’s professional playing we hear. That said, I’m still impressed he could imitate the playing on screen as well as he could.

I loved La La Land, but I have to agree with this. I do not believe for a moment that Gosling was actually producing the notes heard in the film. There have been some isolated exceptions when he was playing some relatively simple passages, but I’m confident that most of what we saw was a very commendable job of miming on a dummy keyboard while a prerecorded track was played on the set. This is a relatively standard procedure in Hollywood films, and is very convincing when done well. The Competition (1980) contains excellent examples of the same approach. It’s not easy to do; I can believe that Gosling spent months learning it. But unless your name is Mozart you’re not going to go “from scratch” to playing at a professional level in three months.

I realize that the director claims that Gosling actually “played” in these scenes. That doesn’t mean that we’re actually hearing him play. The soundtrack credits Randy Kerber on piano, so that’s probably who we’re really hearing.

[ftg]

In one extended scene of Gosling playing, it mostly looks like he is somewhat playing the song. But not exactly. Near the end there’s a big flourish and his hands are nowhere close to what you hear.

[Paxx]

Here’s the scene: Ryan Gosling playing piano (movie clip) || Lala Land (2016) - YouTube

The lighting is dim and his fingers are partly in the shadow. At 1:36, the camera zooms out, and at 1:39 he turns his back to us. His left forearm is almost parallel with the keyboard and we can barely see his hands but it’s clear that his movements don’t correspond with that we’re hearing.

BTW, here’s a clip from almost 5 years ago with Ryan Gosling playing the piano: Ryan Gosling sings and plays the piano - YouTube