La La Land--the return of the musical

It's out in the UK.

 

You need to move somewhere important









I kid.

 

Yeah I know. But it's beautiful though

 

I never liked the old fashion musicals from the past
Would I like this film?

 

Maybe. I love old musicals from the past and couldn't stand it.

 

I was going to say probably not, but I prefer your answer.

 

You might, actually. I'm not a big fan of musicals and enjoyed it quite a bit.

 

Doh: 14 Oscar nominations for La La Land...

Best Picture
Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Director
Best Original Music Score
Best Original Song (two noms!)
Best Screenplay
Best Cinematography
Best Editing
Best Sound Editing
Best Sound Mixing
Best Costume Design
Best Production Design

'La La Land' hits high note with 14 Oscar nominations - CNN.com »

 

The academy sure loves a movie about about Hollywood.

 

It was a bold courageous choice for sure!

 

I sure did! But then, I also liked The Artist, which was nominated for 10 Oscars and won five, including Best Picture. Also another film with impeccably cinematography.

 

The Artist was amazing.
A film that has to be seen in a theater. Silent films require being larger than life.

 

What amazed me with The Artist was that they managed to recreate the look of B&W nitrate film, which has an unusual highlight "glow" to it. They clearly watched a lot of real silent films and made sure they went in the same direction, though with 35mm color film (Kodak 5219 negative, my favorite stock).

In the case of La La Land, it's very much a modern film with a modern style, but still very clean and bright and sharp. It's nice to see a film that has straight-up normal color and not anything weird and crushed and strange, which you see far too often these days.

 

I thought this was pretty good! A neat blend of old fashioned Hollywood musical and contemporary melancholy romance.

My only complaint: I thought the singing was generally too low in the mix. I couldn't discern the lyrics in most of the bigger group numbers. Bummer.

 

I hated the Artist I enjoy some silent film it was just boring and overrated..
There no more newly made silent films after. soo .. La La is oscar bait..

 

I think Jackie deserves this award.

 

We saw it over the weekend on a yuuuuuge and excellent screen here. I sat pretty close and reveled in all that beautiful film grain. It is easily one of the most beautiful modern movies I've seen in some time. Gorgeous.

The opening number was almost too good for the rest of the movie to live up to, but the entire thing was pure joy for me. My wife, a big fan of old-school musicals, loved it probably even more.

One of our friends did the "I just can't get into movies about Hollywood" thing. I've never had a problem with it as long as it's good. This one is friggin' good.

BTW, his turntable is an AR exactly like one I had for years. I told my wife "My old 'table!" and she actually reacted with surprise rather than an eye roll.

dan c

 

Here's a great behind-the-scenes video on how some of the shots were done:



It's amazing how much of it was not done with VFX or any camera tricks. In truth, there were a lot of shots "stitched together" digitally just to take three :30 second shots and make it look like a single 90-second shot, but beyond that, a lot of it was pretty old fashioned. And it was all shot on film.

 

I bet the movie will win most of those awards.

 

I sure hope it doesn't pick up the actor/actress ones. As charming as both leads were, there were so many more tremendous performances this year. These two would be way at the bottom of my list of best actor/actress this year (compared to the other noms).

 

I would be surprised if it doesn't.

 

Saw it twice, second time tonight. Downloaded my two favorites, "Here's to the ones (Audition)" sung by my gal, Emma Stone and "Mia and Sebastian's Theme" by this guy Justin Hurwitz (who did I think all of the original songs for this.(Though it's his "City of Stars", which got itself nominated.) (But I love all the songs there..)

I enjoyed Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone in their two previous ones, as well: "Gangster Squad" and before that "Crazy Stupid Love".

 

Totally agreed,

 

Interesting. Thanks!
That was too cool, in a "man behind the curtainish" kind of way.

 

I really enjoyed Crazy Stupid Love, but was not aware of Gangster Squad. I'll have to check it out. Thanks for the heads up!