I was honored to go to dinner and the movies with my husband, my son and my son’s radio show co-host a couple of weeks ago. It was especially meaningful that said co-host actually requested to see the movie with me. Being that I am a theatre nerd I think he wanted to see my reaction to and hear my thoughts about LA LA LAND.
I had been sick for most of the week, so when the movie was over and they asked my opinion we were standing in the cold night air. All I could do was say that yes I liked most of it. I just could not be out for one more second. Jon’s co-host said that he hoped to read my comments in a blog post soon. (It always shocks and delights me when anyone suggests that they actually read my blog!)
We will all be together tomorrow night to see the national championship game and eat bar-b-que, so I think I need to get out my opinion on the movie!
As usual my reviews really aren’t reviews at all- they are more my impression of what I’ve experienced. A movie or play means more to me if I am still trying to figure out how I feel about it days later. LA LA LAND has definitely done that to me.
I will say that I had built it up so much in my mind that I was a little disappointed in the first part of the movie. Yes, it was a delightful musical, but I grew up on the best of that genre, so while I thoroughly enjoyed it, it didn’t take my breath away or anything.
Also, I am not a huge Ryan Gosling fan. I kind of wish for a musical that they had gotten someone with a better singing voice.
But about half of the way through the movie I began to change my mind. Emma Stone (whom I do love, think she is darling and is a really good actor in my opinion) had done some good acting up to this point, but in her final audition of the movie she finally gives me the scene I have been waiting for. She also finally sings the way I know she can.
One of my voice teachers used to tell me she didn’t care for singers who tried to act, but loved actors who could sing. When I was a kid I was told it was better to sell a song than sing it. Emma Stone is an actor who can sing AND sell a song. In “The Fools Who Dream” she tells a story that leaves me uplifted and heartbroken all at once. Stone is Oscar worthy with that one song.
Later on in the movie there is what I call the “what if” scene. It is the whole lesson of the movie. It brings up so many questions. What is more important- love or your dreams? Do you have to choose? Would you ruin your chances if you tried to have it all? Can you change your life with one decision? Can you change someone else’s? If you get your dream, your destiny, does it matter if you lose something or someone in the process?
When I called it the “what if” scene on the way home, my husband said he hates doing “what if.” I do it too much I know. But I think it is the curse of the creative mind to do the “what if” thing too much. That is how I come up with ideas to write about. I hear something and think “what if.” I see a possibility and say “what if?” I think about the past and wonder “what if?” It helps me to become a character on stage when I think “what if?”
I write and act and think the “what ifs” all of the time, so this scene looked like a peek into my brain in a way. And although I am sure that inside my brain is often a scary place, how could I not relate to that scene.
The scenes of rejection and disrespect during auditions also brought up some bad memories. The scenes were very real and accurate, but I wonder how well a non actor in the audience could relate to those scenes.
And I have to say that the amazement I’ve heard about the singing and dancing is something I have to say, “support your local theaters if you truly loved that!!” However, I am glad to see a refreshing, lovely movie with no fighting, killing, and hatefulness, only singing, dancing, dreaming and romance.
Overall, I did love the movie. It did not rise to the very top of my list for the past year, but it is close. The experience of seeing a movie with 3 handsome and interesting guys DID however go to the top of my list of experiences in 2016.
