La La Land (Damien Chazelle, December 2nd 2016) Movie • Page 9

I typically do when I'm going by myself but my girlfriend flip flops all the time on which movie and if she even wants to go at all.

 

Ah, makes sense.

 

Do I need to see this? I am leaning toward no but I really want popcorn.

 

Worth a watch I suppose. You won't like it

 

Surely there's a cheaper way to get popcorn.

 

Spare yourself.

 

After thinking about it for a few days, I loved this movie but I downright hated the scene where Sebastian explains jazz to Mia.

1. It's a dumb strawman argument. People who say "I don't like jazz" generally have the common sense to know Kenny G and Muzak are bastardizations of the form.

2. By having Mia be the mouthpiece for this dumb argument and by having the rest of the scene be Sebastian telling her why she's wrong, it feels very mansplain-y.

3. A white guy going to bat for the preservation of jazz feels just a little bit gross.

4. Probably the main reason I didn't like it is because it felt like Damien Chazelle temporarily possessed Ryan Gosling to lecture me about jazz and it took me right out of the movie.

and

5. I just really really really hate jazz.

 

Having spent my life around music I don't think most people know a single genre or what fits in it. But then I lived through that "emo" wave.

 

I'm finding a lot of these criticisms that Sebsastian can't love/want to preserve Jazz because he's white really odd. It's something that obviously spoke to him and he found beauty and passion in, just as Mia did acting. The film isn't about the history of Jazz or film, it's about the passion and love for the arts and the dreams that history inspires, and it's weird to say inspiration has to fall in line with race.

 

Race is integral to jazz's history and identity. It's black. No one's saying he can't love/want to preserve jazz, just that a movie presenting a white man as a savior/spokesman for jazz can land poorly for some. I don't think it's a flaw in the movie, the story is about a white guy who loves jazz, fine. But I get why it rubs some people the wrong way.

 

I definitely felt shamed as someone who prefers cheesy 80s music and John Legend to jazz like Mia

 

People got *way* different things from characters than me watching this movie.

 

Saw it again tonight and loved it even more this time. The ending had a lot more emotional pop after knowing what's coming and feeling more connected to the characters. Also "A Lovely Night" is my favorite scene in film this year.

 

saw this for a second time today. really had a tough time holding back the tears.

the last 10 minutes of this movie is some of the best you'll ever see

 

Cleaning up at the GGs.

 

pretty much all but seals that it will be best picture next month, unless maybe Manchester By The Sea wins Best Drama

 

Should be Moonlight

 

Hope some how moonlight can pull out the win.

 

Boyhood vs Birdman round two. Yay. I sure do love when two movies I like end up getting pitted against each other in some weird online fight where which one I want to "win" really says something about me as a person.

 

No one here is saying that what you want to win speaks to who you are as a person. But movies get pitted against each other because that's what award shows do.

 

The Golden Globes have zero bearing on the Oscars, so this is still anybody's game (except it isn't because we're witnessing The Artist 2.0 with La La Land, even though La La Land is much, much better than The Artist).

 

If you don't think people/bloggers/etc. are going to make sure identity gets attached to movie choice (again) then I question how much time you spend on Twitter. Heh. It's inevitable. It'll happen. Both movies are great, I am glad they both are getting recognition ... I will be the outlier that is happy no matter what through posts of "should have been ____" ... yay!

 

It'll easily become political/personal, it already has. This was a fine film, I'm irked with the narrative of it being so brave to make a musical or that it's somehow an underdog, but it was fine. I don't think it's anywhere close to the storytelling/acting found in Manchester, and neither of them are really that close to touching what Moonlight is on any front.

 

That's why I specified here. I don't doubt it's happening on social media. Given the nature of Moonlight and how much it speaks to a specific racial and sexual identity, I get people rooting for it through that lens. That doesn't make La La Land worse. I've softened on my critiques on it because of how much I've come to really, really adore Mia's arc, the culmination of everything she goes through in "Audition" is just so magnificent and staggeringly beautiful to me.

That said, Moonlight and Manchester by the Sea are a good deal better than anything else that will likely be nominated for an Oscar, but I'd put La La Land alone in the second tier above everything else that will likely get nominated, with possible exceptions for the couple films I still need to see (20th Century Women and Silence probably the most notable ones). But that's just me.

 

I want to hear Bethany sing Audition now