La La Land (2016)

La La Long

When do I finally realize that I'm not enjoying a particular movie? This realization usually comes when a scene in the film reminds me of some other movie and I find myself longing to watch that film instead of the one I am desperately trying to enjoy.

In the case of "La La Land", this didn't take too long.

During the duo dance scenes between Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, I found myself longing to watch Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell.

During the jazz music scenes, I found myself longing to put on some music from Miles Davis or Dave Brubeck.

Damien Chazelle's soufflé-light screenplay made me long for some sort of story with substance. Let's face it; even your longest allowable tweet would carry as much storytelling weight as this script.

When considering Chazelle's direction, I found myself longing for a musical directed by Vincent Minnelli.

And while all this longing was going on, I was longing for a shorter film. La La Land is not a long production when compared with "West Side Story" (1961) (9/10) or "The Music Man" (10/10) (and let's not make any further comparisons with those great films) but, it sure as heck seemed like a long, long movie.

Dictionary.com defines the phrase "la la land" as "a state of being out of touch with reality." I won't disagree with that definition. About halfway into this flick, I was beginning to drift off into Dictionary.com's interpretation.

Luckily, I had some severe arthritis pain in my right big toe that kept me alert long enough to long for some relief; algesic or cinematic, and to keep me awake long enough so that I could make a valid critique of this picture.

Finally, I long for the day when someone will make a musical that's even half as watchable as the last good Hollywood musical — "Hairspray" (7/10) (which really wasn't all that long ago, was it?)

Rating:  5/10