2016: The Year in Film: "La La Land" Review

Writer/Director Damien Chazelle (he was born in 1985. I LOATHE him) made his Hollywood debut with a bang back in 2014 with one of my favorite films of the last few years, Whiplash. I LOVE that film. So needless to say, despite my jealous loathing, I will be seeing every Chazelle film for the rest of forever. (Unless he starts making animated movies based on video games but I digress)

Enter: La La Land, a musical starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone! Are there more likable A-listers? Honest question because I'm not sure that there are in 2017. Gosling's Sebastian is a struggling jazz pianist with an eye towards the past and Stone's Mia is an aspiring actress who doesn't quite fit in with the typical Hollywood scene.

The Good: I WANT to not like Ryan Gosling, I really do. Especially in this movie. A white dude self-appointed as the guardian of all things jazz? Uhhh, what? He's smug and often seems insincere... but damn it if the guy isn't charming as hell, CONSTANTLY.  He won me over within 10 minutes of this film starting. Emma Stone is pretty much constantly and disarmingly sweet and funny and charming as well. She's come a long way since she was Jonah Hill's (what??) love interest in Superbad, guys. This film wasn't what I was expecting, and I mean that in the best possible way. I was expecting it to be an homage-filled throwback to the musicals of classic Hollywood, and while there are parts of that, it's ultimately a creation all its own. Part dissertation on the nature of creativity, part love story, part musical, it's at once heavy and melancholy and whimsical and saccharine. I'm convinced that in the hands of a lesser director this whole endeavor would have collapsed under the weight of its own pretension and ambition, but Chazelle makes it something memorable and all his own. This is the sort of film that Hollywood (and the Academy) absolutely LOVES, as it romanticizes L.A., the arts, movies and their value, but there's plenty here for anyone to love. I like both the fact that the plot is simple enough to sum up in a paragraph but that there's room to defy convention and that Chazelle borrowed from musicals without making his film a slave to the traditional musical structure. The use of flashbacks, dream sequences and musical numbers really lends the film a whimsy and an absurdist, even romantic angle that gives the whole thing a playful feel.



The Bad: ultimately, the film just isn't as smart or as meaningful as it would like you to think it is. There are some absolutely cringeworthy scenes involving a certain band and a certain John Legend that nearly collapse into self-parody. While these issues aren't enough to derail the film, they do ultimately detract from what is otherwise a smartly constructed love letter to the arts.

In the end, this film is absolutely well worth watching, and absolutely one of the year's best. It's a fun, well-crafted, well-acted ride. Gosling and Stone are simply impossible to dislike (well... apart from that one time Cameron Crowe tried to make Emma Stone Asian but that's not entirely her fault...) and their easy chemistry and comfort level with one another makes this film a sweet and often times innocent story of dreams and love and creativity and compromise. It's not the best film of the year (Moonlight or Arrival deserve Best Picture), but it's just the right combination of creative, sweet, smart, fun, whimsical and melancholy to place it firmly among the year's best.

8.5/10

2011: The Year in Film: "Ides of March" Review

The Ides of March So, since the last time we spoke, I went ahead and turned 28.. and I'm strangely comfortable with that. Here's why: when you're 28 you're unquestionably an adult.. hopefully with your shit together. But on the other hand, you're still young enough that you can do things like... sleep on a friend's couch all weekend and get black-out drunk without bringing too much of society's ire down on you. You're still a young person... but you have money. Unless you did dumb things like "buy a house", "make babies" or the like, that is.

Based on a play, this movie was all over the local Cincinnati news in early 2011.. any conversation with a female resulted in a story of seeing Gosling or Clooney at some bar or hotel. From what I could tell, they shot approx. 80% of it in the greater Cincinnati area.. so, go Cinci. Oh, and Miami U gets to be featured in the first 5 minutes.. so that's legit. As I mentioned earlier, this one is based on a play, and you can definitely tell.. there are plenty of monologues and intimate settings with two or three people in a small room. Clooney wrote, directed, and stars in this one, and brought together an absolutely stacked cast... one could say it absolutely pays to be as well-liked and connected as Clooney is. Ryan Gosling, Paul Giamatti, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Jeffrey Wright and Marisa Tomei join Clooney in this drama about an ambitious and idealistic governor who seeks to gain the Democratic Presidential nomination.

The American political process is often referred to as a "sausage factory".. i.e., something that you don't really want to know how it's made because it's complicated, disgusting, and it's generally better to just enjoy and marvel at the final product rather than delve into the backroom promises, handshakes, compromises and devil's bargains that go into the finished product. Let's just say that there's a reason all of these bills are thousands of pages long: you do not want to know what's in there.. because it's mostly ridiculous items thrown into unrelated bills in order to pander to some congressman from Wyoming or Montana or god knows where. Most of you know this, or I hope you do. Well, actually getting elected to national office is no different. By the time a candidate makes it through a year of Primary battles and a general election, there have been so many compromises, backroom deals and promises that what once was the candidate's message has been utterly gutted by the realities of what it actually takes to get elected. The Primary cycle is especially messy.. with each state having differing rules and delegates and what not.

So in the week or so leading up to the Ohio Democratic Primary (which is on March 15, hence the title) in a world where Barack Obama evidently doesn't exist, Pennsylvania Governor Mike Morris, a charming, idealistic politician with some radical ideas on how to move the nation forward finds himself locked in a tough and increasingly dirty Primary battle. Idealistic young media man Stephen Meyers (Gosling), a rising star in the political scene, works on Morris' campaign, where duplicitous tactics and a campaign that's becoming more and more complex really reveal how on the campaign trail idealism takes a back seat to realism as the realities of what it takes to get elected sets in. Scandal, backstabbing and compromise take place behind closed doors as Political staffers and opportunistic politicians seek to gain a seat at the table. Power corrupts is a cliche.. but there's a lot of truth to it.. and around a Presidential hopeful, there's a lot of power to go around. People are lobbying for Cabinet spots, campaign workers are lobbying for what they hope will be high-profile and lucrative jobs in the future administration, and the Candidate himself is hearing a lot of different things from a lot of different people. In short, it's virtually impossible for someone to emerge from the long, messy process without some bruising and scuffing. This is a cynical, bleak film that says a lot about what the American Political Process is actually about. The business of winning has very little to do with the business of governing, and those best equipped to win are almost never those most equipped to rule.



All of that being said, this is a wonderfully done film. It looks great, and all of the actors involved bring their "A" game. Clooney is magnetic on screen, as he almost always is, and the film's weakest stretch comes during the 30 minutes or so that he's largely absent from the scene. Giamatti and Hoffman, are, as always, great. These are two of the top 5 character actors in all of Hollywood and they are both utterly believable and wonderfully bleak as opposing campaign managers, trying to stay ahead of their competition. Gosling, as the young, wide-eyed up and comer, makes a transformation throughout the film from idealist to cynic when the sausage maker is revealed to him in all its glory.. and he does a great job with a role that's written for the stage.. so there are lots of solitary moments and the role requires an emotional complexity that most young actors are incapable of. Marissa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood are strong as an NYT reporter and young intern, respectfully. Across the board, the acting is the strength of this film.. and you'd expect nothing less from an accomplished actor behind the camera.

All in all, while the performances are strong and the film really strives to reveal what happens behind the scenes at a major campaign (and Clooney would know), the plot at a point takes a leap for the somewhat ridiculous. I understand that scandals absolutely happen and the truth is likely shocking... but the places that this film goes seem needlessly over the top. That being said, as a parable of sorts and commentary on the realities of the American Political process.. absolutely worthwhile. Great, great performances by some of the strongest actors working today.

7.5/10.