Skip to main content

LA LA Land Reveiw

What I liked: What impressed me first about this movie was the really long shots. The camera zoomed around between rooms, up and over cars, and all over taking really long shots. That gave it a good feeling of being an on stage musical where your eye follows the movement of the action across the stage. The film's commitment to being a musical sky rocketed when it included a tap dance number. Followed by a random existential dance sequence. Most of the costuming at the beginning was clearly very musically too: bright colors, flippy skirts, bloomers. The story itself was fairly good and I thought they did a good job of capturing the decisions around making compromises and incremental progress toward one's dreams. The last song, the reprise of the piano solo that has been woven through the whole film, was really good and captured the feeling of what it if. I also really liked seeing the LA scenery I got to enjoy on my recent trip. 

What I didn't: The commitment to full on musical was impressive. I would have expected with that focus they would have cast people who could sing. Both the leads had the contemporary style of very breathy quiet blah. I guess the film makers figured out this was a problem because we are bopping along in a musical and then bam. Full stop. Gear shift. Now it's a Rom Com. Ok... adjusting.You probably shouldn't dump your boyfriend like that. Wait. This is shifting... bam... surprise! It's an artsy drama! All of the bits were done well but if you are making a musical you should probably commit to it being a musical and not get side tracked into it being 1/3 musical 1/3 rom com and 1/3 drama. It just leaves the audience a bit ... disoriented. You should probably also decide which decade you are shooting. Some of it was clearly modern, some of it felt like it was from other decades. Also I really think at some point they would have gotten arrested for trespassing. 

Who should watch this? I'm not sure. It would be easier to make a recommendation if I knew what kind of movie it was.

Would I watch it again? I got my ticket for free as a promotion. It was fun to see. I am still very very confused.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ready Player One Review

What I liked: I bet all of the developers loved making this film, I saw so many video game and movie references in the background of scenes. I bet all the developers just inserted their favorites like the ninja turtles, a whole platoon of halo soldiers, and orcs. That it was a video game made it possible and exciting to have all kinds of absolutely random physics and logic defying things happen. Obviously, I loved the T. Rex and who would not enjoy seeing Mechagodzilla or a cyborg orc driving a monster truck? Early in the movie they made good use of the video game architecture in a way that reminded me a bit of secret rooms in super mario. The characters visit the world of the Shining, which was amazing and hilarious. I loved the variety of characters, vehicles and weapons that we get to see and it is more fun (at least for me) that they draw from more than strictly the 1980's. I also really liked the music, for the most part the selections were great for the scenes. The book was...
3 comments
Read more

Jurassic Park II Review

What I liked: I went in with low expectations, for some reason I was thinking this was direct to DVD grade. It far exceeded my expectations. There were dinosaurs. The mathematician was back and he is funny. I liked the bearded paleontologist. From my brief stint in paleontology this seemed fairly accurate. The music was not as magical as the music from the first film but it did a good job playing with the melodies and themes from that sound track. Those are probably the two best parts: dinosaurs and funny dialogue but it made for a fun evening. What I didn't: As you can imagine everything about this movie is a bad plan. The mathematician sums it up the best with "worst idea in the long, sad history of bad ideas." Everything goes about as well as you expect it would if you were to airdrop a bunch of insane scientists on to an island inhabited with man eating dinosaurs and equipped with no fences. Especially if you were imagining this group running around and stealing bab...
Post a Comment
Read more

Godzilla vs Kong

What I liked: There were monsters. The monsters smashed things. Lots of things. The smash building things, and boat things, and airplane things, and tunnel things so we have all areas of the planet covered. The monsters smashed each other. There were bright colorful lights and music. There was no singing to summon a giant moth. So pretty much this is everything you have ever wanted in a monster movie.  What I didn't: I feel that when developing a giant mechanical monster there are a few things to consider. First, lab placement. I would recommend that R&D for the giant mechanical monster not be located in major cities with large populations like, for example, Hong Kong. This is important for several reasons 1) available realestate. You will need a very large hanger to build a robot the size of, say Godzilla, and your budget will cover much more if you choose somewhere in the middle of nowhere where land prices are much lower. 2) If, each time you test your giant robot monster, y...
Post a Comment
Read more