La La Land: An Annoying, full of clichés, and Cheesy Torture

Rating: 1/10 (23 January 2017)

I don't usually write negative reviews. But since this movie is stealing all the awards so far, and some people are calling that dull & cheesy film "a masterpiece" I felt forced to write something. LLL is a movie made from plastic. It is full of clichés and a it has a fake aroma of nostalgia.
The beginning does have neither weight nor meaning. The director only wants to tell us here, in case we don't notice afterwards, that this movie is a musical. Good for him, because who could have guessed that with all the bad singing and the bad dancing!
The love story is completely predictable and fake for the first hour or so, until the first fight.
Somebody has said that this film is a super-white film about 2 "baby-dreamers", and I completely agree. Where is the Art? Where is the real struggle? There are today millions of people dying from hunger, wars, violence, and incurable diseases, and to sink because a play didn't turn out how you expected or you cannot be the jazz pianist number one is really childish.
Good things: the cinematography and the flashbacks are very good. The end is the best. That turn is actually original but does not make any sense any way. Let's not forget that the girl and the boy are where they are because she was depressed for her career failure. So, the turn does not actually make any sense. The jazz is good too (I mean, the REAL jazz musicians). And Ryan Gosling (who is OK in the film but not amazing) is actually playing the piano, which, in a Hollywood movie is already a lot.
Annoying things: the worst is, in my opinion, Emma Stone. I never understood her "talent". She is just a "pretty" face with a skinny (anorexic?) body who seems to think she is too good to prepare for her roles. Her singing & dancing are awful. Let's remember that in Irrational Man (I love Woody Allen!) she didn't even bother taking a piano lesson for her role of "pianist". Her hairdo is very annoying (she always seems to have just come out from the hairdresser) and I never understood why she cannot appear in even one frame without make up. How this mediocre actress won the Golden Globe for BP by an Actress in a MP - Musical or Comedy in stead of the amazing Meryl Streep or the amazing Annette Bening shows how Hollywood is losing it. And the fact that she won the SAG Award (Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role) in stead of Meryl Streep or Natalie Portman shows how this movie has blinded Hollywood. The most hilarious thing would be that she wins the Oscar (and, sadly, she probably will), being in the same category as Ruth Negga (who made an stunning performance in Loving), Meryl Streep (always amazing and always great), Natalie Portman and Isabelle Huppert (one of the best European actresses of today). But, hey, if Sandra Bullock got and Oscar in 2010, Stone could definitely get one too!
Gosling can play the piano but he definitely cannot sing: his voice does not have any power and it sounds like olive oil. His dancing is, as his partner's, mediocre. How come he ended wining the Golden Globe for BP by an Actor in a MP - Musical or Comedy in stead of Hugh Grant (who gave his best performance ever in FFJ) is a real mystery. Luckily, and for the sake of Art, he didn't get the SAG Award (who went to the amazing Denzel). The clichés of LLL are endless: girl meets boy and at first they hate each other but after they like each other. The detail with the famous actress who enters in the Café is also predictable. And how rude (not cool) is to refuse an invitation! There are lots of holes in the movie. Boy and girl keep bumping into each other in a city as huge as LA, and many more, but I am not going to tell them because I don't want to reveal the plot and turns of the movie.
14 Oscar nominations? Give me a break! As somebody said, it's the endless story about Hollywood in love with itself. Pity, I will definitely not watch the Oscars this year. There were lots of really great movies this year and they did not get 14 Oscar nominations: Collateral Beauty, Loving, Hidden Figures, Lion, Moonlight, Elle, Florence Foster Jenkins, Smrt u Sarajevu, Fences... LLL should have got 1 Oscar nomination only (cinematography, Sandgren).
The whole movie, even if it features some great black jazz musicians, has a white-ish taste that is unbearable. I don't care AT ALL if the actors are white, black, yellow, orange or green. But this cheesy movie with 2 black actors definitely wouldn't have got 14 Oscars nominations. Why? Because from the 6,000 Academy members, 73% are men, 27% women; 89% are white, and only 11% are people of color. The age average is 60 years old (that can explain the love for this mediocre musical (I would not call it a musical, because in the musicals the actors actually know to sing and know to dance). The world is, sadly, still very racist. That's why many people are calling this film White White Land for a reason.
That LLL is stealing all the awards and probably will also steal many Oscars shows the decadency of cinema today in the US. Either that or people are really bored and need an empty and cheesy love story to be entertained. I think that Hollywood should learn from that reality that European cinema knows to depict, away from clichés and empty love stories, away from pretty actors with fake hairdos and plastic bodies. If LLL has achieved something is that: a new line of decadence, clichés, and cheesiness in American cinema.