|
|
This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
|
|
Author
|
Topic: La La Land (2016)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
|
posted 02-26-2017 05:32 PM
I came late to this catch this title--just saw it the other night -- and I have to ask, could there be different DCP versions of this title because I have to say, given what everyone has said about the poor image quality, I found just the opposite. I saw this at the Regal/UA cinema at Sheepshead Bay Brooklyn; they claimed a 4K Sony projector and I found the image was razor sharp, the colors were wonderfully rich, technicolor-ish actually, and the blacks that were deep. Perhaps someone can explain if there could be a technical reason for such a vast discrepancy. It has to either be due to failure in the projection systems where the image was poor, or there has to have been different DCPs with one authored badly? All I can tell you is the image I saw was superb and with none of the anomalies experienced by others here.
That said, the film itself was nothing to write home about. SINGING IN THE RAIN it aint!! And to put it in context of CinemaScope ratio musicals, MY FAIR LADY it CERTAINLY was not. The story line was not anything particularly intriguing that you haven't seen before or that at times couldn't even hold my interest; the male lead character had some depth while the female was weak to the point of being almost boring. It was uneven and at times I was thinking, where's the effin editor?
Vocally Stone's thin voice seemed to always be on the verge of going flat or perhaps it was just the Autotune doing the best it could. Gosling by far had the better voice, more full-bodied with an interesting vibrato, but that said, he never came off as being a standout singer; they both were just passable. And as has been pointed out, it was the dénouement that had a decent payoff with a good bit more depth than the body of the film. Without that well constructed finale, it would have been a big disappointment.
As for their dancing, excuse me, but these two are no Fred and Ginger as the director actually dared to say outloud in an interview. Their dancing look exactly like what it was, two actors who were taught how to dance in a few months of pre-production just enough to make it work in front of the camera. These are definitely NOT seasoned hoofers that have honed their craft for years.
Then there was the story the publicity machine cranked out praising Gosling for the fantastic job he pulled off "learning how to play the piano" with the inference being that he actually played the piano in those sequences; NOT. Sure, he learned how to finger the keys, but anyone who watched carefully could see the trickery -- on the VERY few closeups where the camera lingered on his hands, they were of music riffs that were relatively simple that even my nephew could learn them, but as soon as the music progressed quickly to intense, complicated jazz, then they cut to long shots, every craftily done I will admit, but in those shots, all that was necessary was for him to get approximate fingering over the right areas of the keyboard. The rest of the shots were fast cuts and moving shots were where you could see his hands but the camera movement made it very difficult to actually pinpoint what keys he was hitting. The trick is to just make sure you don't double hit, i.e., have fingers pressing two keys instead of one. It was all very cleverly done so as to give a very believable illusion that what you heard was actually him at the keyboard. Which of course is all the filmmaker needs to do; this silly need to make the public believe the actor was actually playing is just Hollywood stupid.
And BTW, this was done much more convincingly decades ago with Tyrone Power brilliantly "key-syncing" Carmen Cavallaro in the EDDY DUCHIN STORY where there are closeup, full shots of Power playing and the shots were held for extended long periods making it very easy to see his fingering and you would swear he is playing; it can be done. But back then they made no bones about the fact that Cavallaro was playing on the soundtrack. THE EDDY DUCHIN STORY is a schmaltzy film, but well done with some good tunes to listen to, not to mention it's also got Kim Novak good to look at well.
I second Ken on LA LA LAND...a big Meh!
| IP: Logged
|
|
Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
|
posted 02-26-2017 08:57 PM
We are playing this right now. Our screen is 2:1, so we normally run scope movies zoomed in slightly to fill the screen...but for this one, I went with the letterboxing even though I hate the way that looks, but it's a good thing I did because there were several scenes (including the title card) that would have had vital information cut off had we gone with the 2:1 presentation.
I will say that I liked it way better than I thought I would. I wasn't transported and captivated by it, the way a lot of the critics were. I enjoyed Emma Stone's performance the best but I'm a fan of hers, so that could explain that.
I thought the singing was just OK. I suppose it takes a lot of gumption for non-singer actors to take on singing roles, but back in the day, they'd replace a non-singer's voice with a real singer for the songs. This movie could have benefited from that, maybe. The songs themselves were great, especially the jazz-club numbers. I like that kind of stuff, especially when performed live.
I was more interested in the single-take musical numbers, especially the opening song which was flat amazing. How they managed to pull that off in one take is mind-bending, especially considering all the people and camera movement involved.
The lighting and color palette of the movie was great, I thought. They made L.A. look much more romantic and gorgeous than it is in real life. And the sound mix was terrific except for the first song -- to me at least, the words are so frantic and there were so many people singing that it made the lyrics hard to understand. I was wishing for subtitles on the screen during that song.
A few people have told me that they didn't like the ending, which I can understand - it doesn't have that feel-good Hollywood Musical type ending, but it's probably a more realistic ending given the real life trajectory of a lot of actor/musicians. I liked the surrealistic feel of it though.
Overall I would give it three stars.
Do I think it deserved 14 Oscar nominations? Well as a movie, I liked "Sully" better and it didn't even GET any nominations so I guess I'm not qualified to answer that question.
In my view, the most recent great movie musical was "The Blues Brothers."
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
All times are Central (GMT -6:00)
|
This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
|
Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM
6.3.1.2
The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion
and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.
|
Home
Printer-friendly view of this topic