"Ya like jazz?"- Barry B Benson.
If you're an avid jazz listener and musical lover and you haven't see La La Land yet, you need to step up your game. I remember seeing previews over the summer for this movie and literally thinking "I bet this movie is going to get nominated for an Oscar" and sure enough it got nominated for fourteen. FOURTEEN! Going into the movie, I had an expectation and an idea of what it was going to be about, and both of those were wrong. This movie was one of the best movies (for many reasons) I've seen in a long time, and let me tell you why. The cinematography was amazing.
The scenes were perfect for what they were going for, and they made LA look like this majestic place that everyone should live in. The plot was real. Both of the main characters were struggling in LA, Sebastian was a struggling jazz pianist, and Mia was trying to make it as an actress. Both Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone nailed their parts perfectly. And the dancing, while I, as a dancer, felt like it could have been more complex, it still fit the songs and turned them into a real performance. Which brings us to the music. The opening number was unexpected, at least for me, and it really got my attention in the beginning and made me for interested in the movie as a whole. The two songs tied for my favorite are "A Lovely Night" and "Fools Who Dream". "A lovely Night" was a duet between Sebastian and Mia with witty lyrics and it was incredibly playful, but "Fools Who Dream" was quite the opposite. During this song Mia performs it for an audition and in that moment you could feel how much Mia wanted that part in the movie and it was incredibly inspiring and moving. The next thing needed to be addressed is the costuming.
As a fashion design major, fashion and costumes in movies are severely underrated, and that is once again true about La La Land. The majority of the costumes were bright solid colors that contrasted with the scenery, and really got your attention. They were simple and elegant, but very fitting since the scenery and performances were extravagant. Also I need to address the tailoring for Ryan Goslings suits and pants because it was flawless. Without giving anything away, that ending, while heartbreaking, was extremely sweet and emotional. My only problem with the movie was that scene in the planetarium where they're floating, because that was a little too much for me. I get that this movie was whitewashed, and needed more POC representation besides John Legend, but so does everything in Hollywood, and while it's a major problem for this film, and many others, this movie was still gorgeous cinematically and artistically.
