What the La La?

Rating: 5/10 (19 January 2017)

I've joined the hype train and I got really burned. This film was mostly bad. How in the world it won so many awards?
First of all, E S and R G can't sing to save their lives. E S got only one song which she really sang using her chest voice and I don't really think it was her voice because of the discrepancy of what she sang previously up to that point. This film has no plot. It's like a musical version of Fifty Shades of Grey without the "action", distilled for kids, reaching really cringe-worthy moments. The love story is a Hollywood cliché, sterile and devoid of any real meaning or connection to reality.
I'm really confused about the music, since this is what I've been doing for the past twenty years to make a living. Most of the songs are somewhat immature in the composition manner while their arrangements are quite beautiful. They are not close to how a true pedigree musical should sound like. They feel like the cheap version for a true musical, especially considering that the film goes to great lengths to substitute the ineptitude of the lead actors / singers with many many instrumental parts that most of the time feel inadequate, even though the orchestration and the mixing, in theory, is flawless. The whole movie revolves around just one melodic motif which gets overused really fast. Most of the arrangements are well executed, yet simplistic in manner with mostly appearance over essence. It's like reading a children's book. For me, that illustrates overreaching, without the necessary experience or profoundness to fully grasp the important concepts one is trying to say. The elements that constitute the movie just don't synergize good enough with each other to make it work. However there are several jazz arrangements that stand out of the crowd, and there's even a pop song which is pretty dope. I think it was the high point of the movie.
The film digs deep into its technicality to recreate the look and feel of the golden age of American cinematography. It uses almost all the tricks in the book: they dress the extras in very earthy colors and the leads in bright and vivid colors so they can really stand out, the use of silhouettes, a lot of floodlight reminiscent of carbon arc lightning, classic red green blue primaries color palette which is a true beauty to behold in several scenes. They used old anamorphic lenses, they color graded the footage as to be reminiscent of the glorious Technicolor age and its 3 strip process. The sets are beautiful. All this requires tremendous work and it really shines throughout the film. The team that was in charge of the technical aspects is top notch first class hands down no question. And here lies the true sadness: what it is and what it could have been.
La La Land has many nods to different classic films. It clearly pays respects to Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. And here lies another big problem. Those guys were Gods with shoes on. Compared to them, R G is a world class grade A dilettante. He's a good actor, whatever, but his dancing skills reminds me of that show Dancing With the Stars at most, which I always zapped away from. The film pays respects and nods at many old classics, while itself achieving nothing except basking in a pool of mediocrity, and worse, it's getting big time rewarded for it. No! That's just wrong. It's a disturbing trend and a symptom of a much greater and complex problem our society suffers from. It's like anti-vaxers for art.
The ending is the lowest point for this film. I'm obviously not spoiling it, but it will leave you wanting your money back. For me it was the killing blow. If there's a word to describe this whole experience, it's kitsch. For a comedy, it's barely funny and apart from the technical aspects which are really good, there is very little of movie metamaterial that could hold up under close scrutiny when compared to the great classics, or even other modern musicals for that matter. I'm sorry.