With the demise of the Hollywood Factory System and Louis B. Mayer, Hollywood musicals with the likes of Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire had become impossible to make, now the blockbuster Hollywood musical is back in our cinemas. This is an emotion-driven, and hugely entertaining musical with heart and soul, all about surviving everyday life in Hollywood, written and directed by Academy Award nominee Damien Chazelle.
CRITIC’S CHOICE AWARD WINNER, 7 Golden Globes nominee LA LA LAND, with immaculate quality Cinemascope cinematography by Linus Sandgren, is set in a wonderfully romanticised version of modern day Los Angeles, complete with violet/indigo coloured Southern California sunsets, and has a completely original book music lyrics and score. Original Music by Justin Hurwitz.
With the huge entire cast delivering incredible dance performances, LA LA LAND is the ultimate re-invention of the MGM Hollywood classic musical for a new century, completely splashy and grandiose, however and it has been well worth the very long wait for this successful creation, of an amazing non-Broadway-based musical treat.
LA LA LAND is a musical filmed in and around Los Angeles, but particularly inside the Warner Bros. Studios, inside Griffith Observatory, at the top of Angel’s Flight, and at the Rialto Theatre in South Pasadena. “Crazy, Stupid, Love” (2011) and “Gangster Squad” (2013) are the two previous movies co-starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. Filmmaker Damien Chazelle, already famous for “WHIPLASH” (2014), delivers scenes in LA LA LAND that immediately provide nostalgic reminders of “SINGIN IN THE RAIN” (1952) together with the essence of the plot of “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg” (1964).
Costume designer Mary Zophres, has created magnificent costume eye candy for all to enjoy, with its huge colour cornucopia presenting a precisely chosen colour palette of bright vivid costumes, to easily make Natalie Kalmus proud. Strong bright primary colours, accurate skin colours, all done without resorting to the awful colour grading required to create that brown-coloured wash, that is so often seen in Hollywood product during the last two decades.
A fresh and easily believed storyline concerning the career-driven ambitions and ultimate goals, of two forever creative forces, with all the drama that is part of their dreams and paying the high price of making it big in L.A. Emma Stone is the aspiring movie actress, who is using her constant failure at every audition, to re-create herself as the playwright of her own one-woman show.
Ryan Gosling is the dedicated jazz musician, who lives and breathes the lively jazz rhythms and melodies of constant musical syncopation and improvisation, completely willing to adapt jazz for the modern world of L.A. by opening his own jazz club called SEB’S. Even though he refuses to date any woman who hates jazz music, and yes she hates jazz, they fall in love.
Risking everything they have when together, they chase their dreams apart. Equally enchanting daring and moving, from their discovering both the joy and the heartbreak of following individual passions, and to achieve success, both make life-altering decisions requiring them to live their lives apart from each other.
“LA LA LAND” was already the title of several television series including “La La Land” (2012) starring Marina Sirtis; and “La La Land” (2010) starring Ruta Lee; and “LaLaLand” (2013) staring Jayda Berkmen. Indeed very strange that the producers, would choose the already often used “LA LA LAND” as the movie title.
Stylish crowd-pleasing fantasy, complete with show-tunes, showstoppers, solos, and spectacular dance routines, and you will be humming the show-tune “City of Stars” for the longest time after the movie finishes.
The on-screen romantic chemistry of Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, together they do have that often elusive alacrity that is a necessary part of classic Hollywood magic, that has helped to make LA LA LAND into an exhilarating, jazz music-filled song and dance romance, now a huge and well deserved cinema hit. Recommended.
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