Though I had heard about the movie La La Land early on, it was only when I read this article about how Tom Hanks praised it during his own Q&A at the Telluride Film Festival that made me really want to watch the musical. “Who does that?”, I thought. (This was back in September.)
Hanks had a chance to watch La La Land at the festival and just sold it to me.
Said Hanks, “I like to think we approach movies the same way we approach being members of the audience in that you just want to see something you have never seen before. It’s funny. Who saw La La Land yesterday?” (Many answered in the affirmative by their applause.)
“When you see something that is brand new, that you can’t imagine, and you think ‘well thank God this landed’, because I think a movie like La La Land would be anethema to studios. Number one, it is a musical and no one knows the songs.”
Hanks continued: “This is not a movie that falls into some sort of trend. I think it is going to be a test of the broader national audience, because it has none of the things that major studios want. Pre-Awareness is a big thing they want, which is why a lot of remakes are going on. (La La) is not a sequel, nobody knows who the characters are…But if the audience doesn’t go and embrace something as wonderful as this then we are all doomed.”
Sam and I finally got a chance to watch it yesterday night and we both absolutely loved it. Sure, there was a lot of hype surrounding it, it did break the all time record for most Golden Globes won for a movie (it took home seven). This included one each for the two leads, Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling. The story was sweet, the dancing and singing were mesmerizing, and the the surreal scenes were absolutely breathtaking. Today I had to make sure that Ryan Gosling did actually play the piano during all of his scenes (he did!) and that Emma Stone did actually sing (she did!!). Of course, this made the movie all the more amazing.
Writer and director Damien Chazelle, who’s only 32, deserves tons of praise for creating a movie this enchanting. I particularly loved the way it was shot, the way they used different color lighting and how they showcased all these distinct scenes of Los Angeles.
This is definitely one of, if not the best, movie of the year!
0 comments