'Blu-ray or Bust' - LA LA LAND

'Blu-ray or Bust'

LA LA LAND (2016, PG-13, 128 minutes, BLACK LABEL MEDIA/LIONSGATE)

I like musicals. Wait, wait, allow me to elaborate: I enjoy a good musical. I don’t like ALL musicals, because some of them are just… crap.

“Cats”, for instance; until Rum Tum Tigger or whatever his name is had his musical number, I was bored. Wait, wait, allow me to elaborate: I was BOOOOOOORRRRED. “Rent”, on the other hand, was great. Theatrically, pulling off a good musical can be a tricky business. Selling an audience on something that they are not seeing live and on stage, while making the product accessible to all ages and gender types, is an occasional art. Not many directors try it, as musical film had its heyday a few decades ago, and, frankly, MAMA MIA! sucked marsupial nuts.

Leave it to Damien Chazelle, the director of the amazing WHIPLASH (which is, essentially, a musical itself, albeit of a different type), to pull off one helluva movie. Starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, LA LA tells the story of two kids trying to make it in Hollywood. Sebastian is a jazz pianist with dreams of opening his own club, and Mia is an aspiring actress moonlighting as a barista. The chemistry between the two leads is obvious, and the acting is wonderful (it is no surprise the Stone won Best Actress at the Oscars for her honest and knockout performance here). There are a couple of hitches along the way, but as far as the storytelling goes, Chazelle nails the necessary elements, even if he over-reaches a time or two.

The opening sequence alone is worth the price of admission; the beautifully filmed song-and-dance-on-a-freeway bit is amazing to watch. One long, continuous shot, with precise choreography and amusing moments of reality—it is the type of moment that catches your immediate attention, and demands you pay attention. A musical is a difficult, technical beast to shoot, and the fact that no one got knocked off of the two-lane overpass by the camera amazes me.

Of course the film works best when Gosling and Stone share screen time. Their first number together reminds of the Astair and Rogers days, and damned if the humor doesn’t cement the song “A Lovely Night” into your brain. There are several moments which capture you totally, daring you to not smile or care or respond to the way in which Chazelle tells his story. And then there is the Planetarium.

Don’t get me started on the Planetarium.

But then you get a scene with Mia and Sebastian in his apartment—he at the piano, she in the kitchen. He begins to play and sing softly, she joins in, and from that point it simply looks like two people sharing a magical, unedited, un-dubbed moment together. It’s almost enough to overcome the obvious and unnecessary whimsy which is the Planetarium. (Told you not to get me started…)

The special features are must see’s: from how they all pulled off that opening number, to how many times it took to get the “camera goes in the swimming pool” bit just right, the featurettes are basically a workshop on how to make a musical picture. It is also reassuring to know that Gosling really was playing the piano—makes you appreciate the job of an actor a bit more, knowing that he learned to play specifically for this film.

There is a damn good reason Hollywood no longer churns out musical after musical, and this film is a wonderful example of why: if you are going to do it, you better do it right, and you better hire the right people to do it. Make it different, don’t give it that typical cookie cutter Tinsletown ending, and care about what you are doing. Appreciate what Chazelle and Company have given us, kids; their hard work is a wonderful thing to behold (except for the stupid Planetarium bit).

Film Grade: A-

Special Features: A

Blu-ray Necessary: Most Definitely

- T.S. Kummelman