Is there a better way to do a comeback than with a review on the movie who won this year’s Academy Award for Best Picture. Oh wait, what? It didn’t? Oops, my bad. Haha, I agree with Jimmy on this. Steve Harvey must at least be in on this, there’s no other explanation. Anyway in case you’re just as confused as Warren Beatty or the audience – don’t you just love Meryl Streep? – : today’s critique is about ‘La La Land’
But first I’ll shine a little light on my absence. Oh (wo)man ;), how have I missed clicking this ‘New draft’-button.. No, I wasn’t tired of writing reviews, I certainly wasn’t done watching movies and I didn’t unexpectingly die. – Even though at some points in this break I might as well have been a walking dead. – I don’t feel the need to explain all the details. Let’s just say ‘Life is like a box of chocolates, you’ll never know what you’re gonna get’. I guess I was handed one of those disgusting chocolates filled with liquor. But I’m better now and more than ready to go on with this challenge I set for myself – only a little less intensive. I need to change the rules a little bit for my own good and lower the quota of reviews to a couple a week for now and hope I can get back to the full challenge as soon as possible.
Anyway, back to today’s victim. Besides a casualty of my bad humor, if you ask me, ‘La La Land’ has also fallen victim to the power of overestimating. On the other hand, it’s also suffering from overdepreciation – My spelling correction tells me this is not a word, but I don’t know the existing word for this. 🙂 – by those who think it’s overvalued. Are you still with me? :p Briefly, what I’m trying to say is that indeed, it was highly overrated by some critiques, but being overrated doesn’t make it a bad movie. It’s still good, I just don’t find it great. Now, let’s find out why.
First of all and most importantly: the plot is the weak link in the whole production. And when the plot is not great, it doesn’t matter if your cinematography or editing is the best you’ve ever done. In my opinion a film will never reach that absolute and complete ‘wow’-factor without a solid story. Throughout the feature and especially the first half it almost feels like the director focused so much on having these perfect shots and references to the older pics, he kind of forgot about how he himself was also making a movie with an actual storyline. I mean, sometimes you can compare films with a Dieselwagon, when they start-up slowly. But honestly I don’t know what else to compare this with than a snail becoming a tortoise and about halfway finally getting in its Diesel and take of.
Another aspect bothering me a little bit is the cast. I know this is a female blog and it’s almost blasphemy to say anything bad about Ryan Gosling. – I also love him to bits in almost all his performances. – But I feel like they didn’t pick the right cast. I didn’t feel chemistry at all between him and Emma Stone. Maybe replacing one of them would’ve been better or I feel like casting lesser or even unknown actors might have done it. Then again, who am I to say so, while Stone even got Awarded for Best Actress. It’s just my humble opinion.
I know up until now I’ve been quite negative, so then why did I still enjoy the movie? Purely for its technicalities. The cinematography is just outstanding. It seemed as if there was a solid meaning for every single shot and I loved it. There’s nothing more to say really, except for ‘wow’.
So yes, it’s worth watching ‘La, la, land’ if you haven’t already, even if it’s only to know what all the fuzz was about. Would I look at it again anytime soon? Probably not. The story is a little too boring for me.
Rating: 7,5/10
IMDB: 8,3/10
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Women And Movies 