{"id":6300,"date":"2017-01-04T07:57:25","date_gmt":"2017-01-04T12:57:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6300"},"modified":"2017-01-19T07:42:39","modified_gmt":"2017-01-19T12:42:39","slug":"la-la-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6300","title":{"rendered":"La-La Land"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"La

Emma Stone & Ryan Gosling dancing in La-La Land<\/p><\/div>\n

Opening scene: stalled traffic. A Los Angeles freeway at the dreaded standstill. Every car blasting a different aural vibe. What next? Road rage? Coughing fits? Valium-popping? Instead, you get the voice of one driver, smooth as honey, singing loud and clear. She climbs out of her car and starts to dance. Soon everyone is out of their cars\u2014singing, dancing, skateboarding on the Jersey barrier. In other words, once traffic starts again, you\u2019re in for a different kind of movie ride!<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a joyful suspension of disbelief moment there, true to the conventions of the movie musical. West Side Story<\/em> is the only movie I\u2019ve ever seen multiple times in the theater<\/em>, each time wishing, hoping, praying that when Chino appears at the end with his gun, he\u2019d bring along some different outcome. I recall a youthful knucklehead dismissing the film as unrealistic. Yeah, right. You either go with it you don\u2019t. In the case of La-La Land<\/em>, I did and hope you will.<\/p>\n

Writer-director Damien Chazelle has put together a film (trailer<\/a>), in which each musical number grows organically from the action on-screen. The music is more than just pleasant, with some memorable tunes.<\/p>\n

Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are excellent in the leads roles and effective songsters for the style of their numbers. The dancing seems mostly theirs too. And they really sell it. Two strivers want to make it in tinseltown\u2014he as a jazz pianist, she as an actress. Will they reach their dreams? Will their relationship survive the journey?<\/p>\n

It may be a ride you\u2019ve taken before, but it\u2019s a smooth one. And, according to Variety<\/em>\u2019s Owen Gleiberman<\/a>, it\u2019s \u201ca filmmaking trifecta\u2014it hooks the heart, the eye, and the mind\u201d that he says is even better when viewed the second time around.<\/p>\n

Rotten Tomatoes<\/a> critics rating: 93%; audiences, 89%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Opening scene: stalled traffic. A Los Angeles freeway at the dreaded standstill. Every car blasting a different aural vibe. What next? Road rage? Coughing fits? Valium-popping? Instead, you get the voice of one driver, smooth as honey, singing loud and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"La-La Land - favorite credit: piano teacher to Ryan Gosling (how do I get that job?)","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[57,207,394,104],"tags":[759,761,762,307,760],"class_list":["post-6300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movies","category-music","category-romance","category-the-morgue","tag-damien-chazelle","tag-emma-stone","tag-la-la-land-film","tag-los-angeles","tag-ryan-gosling"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1DC","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6300"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6302,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6300\/revisions\/6302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}