Astounding. The title says it all.

Rating: 9/10 (27 January 2017)

I've come to realize that current award season paranoia is more detrimental to the film industry than beneficial. Whether lobby riddled or tailor made, the very release calendar is designed to make the biggest splash for award recognition, rather than allowing every film, every topic and every discussion to have room to exist and grow. Or not.
La La Land is one such example of a film that gathered momentum from its early premiere and rapturous reviews in Venice until a disproportionate attention worldwide - not undeserving (it is every bit justified) but because the attention was given for all the wrong reasons. Musicals are not an easy sell by definition; progressivists may consider it is way past its sell-by date and purists may consider the latest outings as travesties or lacking the charm of the classics.
News flash: La La Land proves exactly the opposite. It is an unambitious, unpretentious, anachronistic love letter to old musicals, jazz, Los Angeles and love stories. It is a hard sell and specially not a product for everyone. Just because marketing momentum rubs a film in your face, it doesn't mean it is for you. An essential characteristic of being a film lover is understanding that every film finds its audience and not the other way around; and while some films appeal to a wider audience it doesn't mean that every film that sweeps individual award recognition amounting to a considerable number has to appeal to all.
La La Land is a film that haters love to hate; not and for years to come. For those who don't deliberately walk into it with either cynical or preconceived disposition to destroy it, you'll find a heartwarming ode to a dying art (musicals or jazz alike), never mind thinly plotted, or with a sparsely uneven pace, that will pull you to a carefree make belief alternate world. Isn't it the point of the genre anyway?