La La Land

[Shalamar]

My daughter saw this one first and loved it. I was definitely interested - I've always had a soft spot for musicals. Then it got all those nominations, so off to the theatre my husband and I went.

HOLY CRAP. I adored it. I've been humming the songs ever since. How awesome is Emma Stone?

[Deleted]

I think the audition song is where she won all the awards she's gotten so far, that performance was amazing.

[Deleted]

I watched this on Friday and loved it. Honestly, it took me away for two hours and I was super grateful for that. Loved all the songs, Another Day of Sun has been my jam since then. My neighbors must hate me ;-)
I'm a big fan of the Stone/Gosling pairing and I hope they'll do many more movies together.

[Shalamar]

Funnily enough, my favourite "audition" scene isn't the one with the song. It's the first one (that she was rehearsing in the car). Her performance is astounding - the camera never leaves her face as it slowly crumples and her eyes fill with tears from the bad news that she supposedly got over the phone. And the people in the audition couldn't possibly have cared less. Boo to you, audition people!

[mrpeanut]

This was an utter delight.

[nemmie]

Add me to the "loved it" club. I saw it alone after a very long, stressful day; I blew my husband an air-kiss and abandoned my darling (spazzy) children and went to the theater all alone AND I got myself an Old Fashioned to sip while I watched. Bliss. So I think finally having some alone time after a long, stressful day was also part of the joy of seeing something so sweet and endearing and bittersweet-ly uplifting. Well, and also: all the jazz. Kind of a jazz junkie (also featured in Chazelle's Whiplash, which I loved even though it's a wildly different sort of film.)

That opening scene is bonkers, I was hooked from the beginning. One long-shot take of a musical number on the LA freeway?? Ballsy.

I listen to some film theory podcasts and they were all very complimentary. Because of them I watched Singing in the Rain and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg before going in. I am not a musical type of person so that helped me to appreciate the genre and parallels.

The thing that kinda makes me sad is the inevitable backlash that is happening. Don't get me wrong, I would definitely give Moonlight the Best Picture/Directing awards, but come on. Such a lovely, sweet little movie La La Land is. Let it be!

[save lilo!]

I watched this tonight knowing that I would not be as impressed post-Oscar noms than if I had seen it without all the buzz.

I couldn't stop laughing on the inside when I watched that scene with the pier couple due to the Aziz SNL sketch.

I like both actors separately and enjoyed them together in previous movies but somehow, their chemistry didn't seem believable here.

[Mugsy]

I saw it last night and while I enjoyed it, and was impressed by some of it, I can't say I'm all rah-rah best picture for it.

The opening scene on the highway was something, though. Did they close off that portion and have traffic just continue all around in the background? What would those commuters think when they see all those stopped cars with people dancing on them? I guess that's not so strange in LA.

[sjankis630]

I liked the movie OK and while I generally like both actors I really thought Ryan Gosling was my favorite part of the movie. To me he was the character who most grounded this and made me pull for his character.
I will admit that while enjoyable I really didn't think that the movie garners so much hype. I feel that it will easily grab the most Oscars, but will maybe not be remembered as fondly. Of course that is entirely all my opinion.....

[smitten]

I am strongly rooting for La La Land for all the awards. One of the complaints I've seen is that it's not that unusual for musicals to win awards, regardless of what they've tried to say about that to garner attention.

BUT, every musical that's been nominated or won anything in the modern era has been a stage musical that's been converted to a movie. The exception is Moulin Rouge, which had minimal original music.

This movie was written and created from scratch. I haven't seen anything like it in my lifetime. The colors, the choreography, yes the cheesiness, the honest singing with no auto-tune...This is the kind of creativity that needs to be nurtured and encouraged, not frowned upon.