Breakfast and Jazz @ The Movies: La La Land
After a trip to the cinema, we were inspired to create a new segment on the blog! Breakfast and Jazz @ The Movies! We love going to the movies and we're here to tell you what caught our eye. Our inaugural post relates very well with our blog! We went to see La La Land, the story of two aspiring artists in the big city of Los Angeles. Sebastian, a jazz pianist who is down on his luck, happens to meet Mia, a coffee barista who dreams of acting. We're going to break the movie into a few chunks that we felt were worth talking about! We're mostly going to offer our opinions and just so you know, there may be some spoilers ahead.
(A little River Song all you Dr. Who fans out there :D)
We're just going to come out and say it. We both felt that the storyline for this movie was a little lackluster. Don't let that dishearten you, because overall we are happy we went to see it. The movie started with a bang but didn't necessarily make sense... we were impressed by the fact that they actually shut down an entire highway ramp in LA but the scene had barely anything to do with the actual plot.
What really bogged it down for us was the a slow developing plot. We take to much time observing unimportant aspects of both of the characters lives. Although the plot was slow at these points, there were many musical things that we enjoyed (that we'll talk about in a second). Once we began to know the characters, the movie seemed to pick up, but there was still something missing. The relationship of Sebastian and Mia seemed artificial and somewhat forced in some moments. They went from strangers passing in a bar to flirty without much detail in between. After spending time together and working on their careers, the storyline takes another turn and they are placed at odds. We'll leave the rest for you find out, but we would rate the story at a weak 6 out of 10.
Where this movie really came alive for us, was the score. It was our favorite part of the movie and not just because we are both music nerds. The instrumentals were well orchestrated and the vocals were surprisingly well done from Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. Sure there were things that trained musicians could have done better but for two actors relatively unknown for their vocals, they excelled. Emma specifically enjoyed that Ryan Gosling learned the piano and the score to make the visual as authentic as possible. Our favorite songs on the album would have to be "City of Stars", "The Fools Who Dream", and "Planetarium". These can all be found on Spotify! Check them out! We would give the soundtrack to La La Land a strong 9 out of 10.
(By the way, start the video below at about 2:10 and listen, if you don't get chills you may not have a pulse.)
http://youtu.be/8BHNa4i4CUU
Overall, we can both see why La La Land was up for so many awards this season. We have heard many differing opinions about the movie and I know that our friend Bobby is going to have a heart attack when he sees how much we've praised it in this post! We certainly recommend the movie to watch and let us know what you think of it!
