La La Land (2016)
Chosen by me because I go to the cinema a lot for Musical theme week (might be a bit vague as going by memory, having seen it in january)
I used to hate musicals. Just did not get them.
Now I see them as pure cinema. If a film has a song and dance number in it normally goes up in my estimation.
I don't dance or sing at all. I am the world's most boring person. But I love seeing people dance.
I especially love singing and dancing about/within mundane things. Across the Universe has a scene set in a high school field where it uses the Football players exercises as the dance choreography.
La La Land opens with a scene set in a traffic jam. The song itself sets up some of the themes perhaps but is otherwise fairly pointless beyond just being fun. And that is more than enough. It's a catchy number too.
There's many beautiful moments in the film, where the sexiest thing is two people holding hands in a cinema.
It perhaps loses a little steam as it goes on, and almost forgets it's a musical. The relationship drama over taking the hollywood fantasy.
Also for a movie all about jazz, it's not so good on the actual jazz. And could barely be more white (having Gosling telling everyone how jazz should be is maybe a little galling).
Still, an absolute delight.
