Well....

Rating: 6/10 (5 February 2017)

,,,it's not a horrible movie but I don't understand the growing hype either. I went to see this no expectations except some decent musical entertainment and...I don't know. What's good? Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling are charming (to me) as the leads, the aspiring actress/playwright and the true-to-old-school Jazz musician. The songs are okay. Nothing tremendously memorable but I did like the "City Of Stars" tune that Gosling sings on the pier (and later duets on again with Stone). The other stuff? The dancing was cute but not fantastic. The actors did the best they could and God knows they did better than I ever could but they looked a little uncomfortable doing it, like they were counting out the steps in their heads. What wasn't so great? The premise was fine but it's nothing new and the film had a LOT of slow areas where I kind of felt bored. Like the writers added what they thought was clever dialogue but actually came across as "filler" to make up some time in the movie. While some people didn't like the planetarium/fantasy dance scene, I thought that was one of the better, old Hollywood type scenes in this film. Nice little twist as the film draws toward it's conclusion and it wasn't dumbed down with a ton of explanations, as if the audience were clueless, that made up for the dry spots earlier on. So, it's not a bad film or anything but again, I don't understand the Oscar build up on this because there seem to be other films with more to offer out there. To each their own, I guess.