By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Damien Chazelle
Starring: Emma Stone | J.K. Simmons | John Legend | Rosemarie DeWitt | Ryan Gosling | Tom Everett Scott
Country: united_states
Year: 2016
Running time: 127
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3783958/?ref_=nv_sr_1
Thom says: “LA LA LAND is a pleasant film that will probably be ever remembered as the movie that won a Best Film Oscar only to be announced seconds later that it hadn’t received the prize statuette, but rather the far superior MOONLIGHT was the actual winner. And, lo & behold! MOONLIGHT had also garnered the Chlotrudis Film-of-the-Year as well. But back to LA LA LAND: director Chazelle who had brought such energy to WHIPLASH does his best to bring a lot of hoopla to an old Hollywood-romance
musical and succeeds with some aplomb, but there were many problems. While the dancing had a lot of pizzazz the music was ordinary, almost forgettable. While Emma Stone was charming & sweet her performance did not have the superlative qualities of an award winner. While the Stone & Ryan Gosling characters meet cute in L.A. (he’s a jazz musician, she’s a script writer), instantly dislike each other but the slowly fall in love. Thus all the set up for a grand entertainment. But wait a minute, circumstances drive them apart and they only end-up as faded memories!!!!!! That’s not the way for a musical to end; a rather
ordinary story is built up to be swamped with treacly sentiment. A puzzler why it was readily accepted.”