LA LA LAND (2016)

Rated: PG-13

STARS: Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, John Legend
DIRECTOR:Damien Chazelle
GENRE: Musical/Romantic Drama

Not since Fred and Ginger have I seen a couple trip the light fantastic as if they are dancing on air--in fact Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone literally do rise into the air and dance among the stars in one of their numbers in the feelgood movie of the year, La La Land.

Who knew what they were capable of?

The tone is set in the opening scene. A line of cars stuck in a traffic jam on an L.A. freeway. Then, one by one, the peeps get out and begin frolicking about--on top of their cars, everywhere--in an energetic and acrobatic number requiring part accomplished dancer and part stunt person to pull it off--to the tune of Justin Hurwitz's  bright and bouncy "Another Day Of Sun." 

Take the infectious energy and the sheer kinetic joy of the final scene in Slumdog Millionaire and ladle it liberally throughout an entire film and you have La La Land; set in present day Los Angeles and Las Vegas, yet unabashedly paying homage to the big screen musicals of the past. 

In many of those musicals that we recall, the plot could seem like little more than a vehicle to get you from one song and dance number to the next, but here we have a developed romantic set up that would stand on its own minus all the great music--with echoes of Streisand and Redford in The Way We Were.

Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) is an accomplished jazz pianist (and he is really playing--no body double) who dreams of one day opening his own club. Mia (Emma Stone) is an aspiring actress who drags herself from audition to audition, frustrated by her lack of landing a significant part. From their initial "meeting" (she flips him off from her car window after enduring his incessant honking) they appear to be an unlikely couple, but the traditional rom-com formula--opposites attract--is in play here, as they keep running into each other, and eventually discover they are each pursuing a dream, and maybe they'd be better off chasing rainbows together than separately.  

And while La La Land soars into the stratosphere musically, kudos go to writer-director Damien Chazelle for keeping the plot grounded in down-to-earth reality. Couples meet...they fall for each other...all looks rosy at the start...time passes...they have their differences... the relationship is tested. Sometimes it all hinges on careless words uttered during an argument. 

After the screening, I ducked into the restroom and encountered a guy who was standing at the urinal, whistling and humming the haunting refrain from the main theme in the film, which goes: da da DA da da de da...da da DA da da da de...and doing it in a very accomplished manner! (Don't know if anyone has ever been discovered and put on America's Got Talent under such circumstances.) Obviously, he was taken with the movie. As was I. 

La La Land is likely up for a slew of Oscar nominations. It's a milestone of a film, coming along at the time it did, in the respect that we may not see anything quite as breezy or gleefully life-affirming in tone from Hollywood any time again soon (considering where the world could possibly be headed), for like, the next four years. 

Grade:  A

JILL'S TAKE

I give Tim's review a lot higher grade than La La Land. But readers of our jointly-written opinions tell me they much prefer when we don't see eye to eye. (Or, in this case, toe to toe-tapping!) My lack of enthusiasm may be due to a serious lack of sleep the night before I saw it.  Still, I felt La La Land was trying too hard to be original. (A poor man's version of the 2012 Oscar winning The Artist – which I thought was brilliant.)  Like The Artist, La La Land takes us back in time to the glory days of Busby Berkeley. Huge production numbers, each one more lush and dazzling than the one that came before it. 

For me, the real star of La La Land is Mandy Moore. (No, not the actress in NBC's new hit series This Is Us. I'm talking about the choreographer who has honed her skills creating the production numbers on Dancing With The Stars and So You Think You Can Dance.) To quote Miss Moore, she admits that choreographing the numbers inLa La Land has been "the Super Bowl of my career." And she definitely deserves Super Bowl applause!

The fact that movie actors are now required to sing in roles that require it (i.e. Les Miz, Ray, Walk The Line, etc. ) is proof that today's crop of superstars deserve their mega salaries. Gone are the days of lip-synching and cringing while watching Clint Eastwood as Pardner in Paint Your Wagon.... (Amen!)

For all the hoopla surrounding this film's seven Golden Globe nominations, I still say it doesn't hold a candle to The Artist. I also felt some of the musical numbers were way too long. It will be interesting to see if La La Landwins the same amount of awards at Oscar time. (If it does, I've promised Tim I'll kill him!)

Grade: C

KNIGHT OF CUPS (2016)

Rated: R

STARS: Christian Bale, Brian Dehnehy, Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman, Freida Pinto, Teresa Palmer, Isabel Lucas
DIRECTOR: Terrence Malick
GENRE: Drama/Romance


To frame it in language that my uncle Lemuel back in Nebraska would find user friendly: Terence Malick makes weird movies that some consider to be absolutely brilliant, while others just shake their heads and say:  Shit...I'll never get  those two hours back!

Case in point: Tree Of Life.  It was lauded as a masterpiece by many and was nominated for three Academy Awards. I found it to be disjointed and tedious. However, if I were to view it a second time, I might get a better grasp on what Mr. Malick was trying to convey. The same can probably be said for his latest offering, Knight Of Cups.

The "plot" is as follows. Rick (Christian Bale) is a Hollywood writer who drifts in and out of reverie with six pivotal women in his life--played by Imogeen Poots, Cate Blanchett, Freida Pinto, Natalie Portman, Teresa Palmer, Isabel Lucas, and Brian Dennehy. WHOOPS...Dennehy plays his father...heh heh...with whom Rick has flashback encounters designed to give us an inkling of past tragedies.

The characters in Knight Of Cups speak solely through their own interior monologue--in other words, they are talking to themselves. The action moves from one dreamlike sequence to another, through the kaleidoscopic cityscapes and the "beautiful people" of L.A. and Las Vegas--to the beach, to the bedroom, to the boredom (my own).Through all of this cinematically pretty navel-gazing, Christian Bale, as Rick, is trying to figure out who he is...or what his life is all about...or maybe what he is doing in this film in the first place.

It's a lot of weirdness, Uncle Lemuel (which I'm not averse to), but after awhile it gets to be too much of the SAME KIND of weirdness--like watching Freddy Krueger come back to life every damn time they kill him, or listening to Marco Rubio up on the debate stage!

Maybe Malick is making a statement about the dreamlike nature of life. That I can grasp. You sit in your living room gazing at a chair where somebody sat weeks, or months, or years ago and you wonder...were they ever really there?

I didn't love Knight Of Cups. I didn't exactly hate it (it's smattered with " T " and "A"). But it's true. I'll never get those two hours back.

Grade: C


JILL'S TAKE

I suppose after seeing Remember, a movie I felt was one of the best I'd ever seen, it's only fitting that the next one should be – bar none -- worst movie I've ever seen! I have very little patience with stories that have no discernible story. Obviously the producers of this turkey knew what they were dealing with and decided (after seeing the final cut and tearing their hair out) to make the trailer look as if it was a triangle love story between Bale, Blanchett and Portman. That's what I thought I was going to see!

Instead I was subjected to long silences, Tarot card headings, self-indulgent soliloquies and a film that seemed to go on forever. The only people I think might get something out of this meandering mishmosh are the 420 crowd. Warning: Take a BIG toke before entering the theater...

Grade: D ----

THE HANGOVER PART III (2013)

Rated: R

Stars: Zach Galifianakis, Ken Jeong, Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, John Goodman, Melissa McCarthy, Justin Bartha

Director: Todd Phillips

Genre:  Gross-out Comedy


It's hard to catch lightning in a bottle. Todd Phillips and company did it with the original film, which was an instant classic, but you know, milking that cash cow is so hard to resist,(ask Sylvester Stallone) so now we have two sequels that pale in comparison to The Hangover. 

The Hangover Part III is uneven and inexplicably mean-spirited in tone (I've never understood the mindset that thinks animal cruelty is funny). The film's saving grace, I suppose, is that it's frat-boy humor--and that's what this is from start to finish--slaughters all  sacred cows, so no one should complain that they've been singled out. Yes, there are laughs here and there, but it's the scattershot approach to humor--as in throwing a bunch of crap up against the wall--some of it's going to stick, and some of it is going to plop flat.

In a departure from the formula for the first two films, The Hangover Part III is targeting the action/adventure crowd, as it follows The Wolfpack (Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms, and Justin Bartha) from Mexico to Las Vegas, with bang 'em up car chases  and dudes getting shot, as the manhunt is on for the maniacal Mr.Chow (Ken Jeong). Chow has ripped-off mega millions in gold bullion from crime boss Marshall,(John Goodman)who has commissioned our boys to bring him back, or else. 

Chow is an over-the-top caricature of an out of control sociopath who has no regard for any kind of life--human or animal--and merely does what is is callously expedient to serve his own single-minded purpose.  He is so far from plausible as any kind of real person that the writers apparently figured anything  and everything  he does will get a guffaw out of some sick puppy in the audience, and even if there are only varied and scattered  pockets of laughter, everyone should come away with at least one or two bits they felt were really bitchin.'

I dunno, I get the impression Bradly Cooper was slumming in this project, as was Ed Helms, who is a considerable comic presence in his own right--as he has shown in the TV hit The Office , and his starring gig in Cedar Rapids--but there wasn't enough room for him to shine with Zach Galifianakis' and Ken Jeong's antics dominating.

While Mr. Chow is the despicable anti-hero, Alan, (Galifianakis) who is equally amoral in his own way, (opening the movie transporting  a CGI  giraffe down the freeway, its neck too long to clear one of the underpasses, and...)is a more endearing presence as the clueless man-child.

The Hangover III is like the third hangover you get when you start drinking as a teenager. The first two you can rack up to innocence and inexperience, but the third one, there's no real excuse for it. And puzzling--to say the least--why, in a film aimed primarily at younger guys, there's no T & A worth mentioning (and I'm wording it that way to forewarn you of a sight gag at the end that flops.) 

There is one great line here, though, and that is as the Wolfpack are cruising into Las Vegas, and someone says  offhandedly, "Somebody should burn this place to the ground."

That really made me smile.

Grade: C--

JILL'S TAKE

Oh dear. I hate to ruin that clever visual of me and Tim as boxing 'roos, never quite agreeing on anything. But I'm definitely in his corner when it comes to HANGOVER, PART III. Okay. Every once in a while, like all the other sick puppies in the audience, I'd laugh. I'm a sucker for sight gags. But this film has so little to recommend it that I actually felt guilty for laughing.

What's good about it?

If you've never visited Vegas, you'll feel like you have after watching the long, lingering shots of Caesar's Palace, the water fountains outside The Bellagio, The Strip....

I'm a big fan of Zach Galifianakis so I was looking forward to more of his endearing antics. I'd seen his comedy special on HBO and the guy is truly brilliant. But not in this piece of cinematic claptrap.

Another brilliant comedienne whose talents are underused in HANGOVER, PART III is Oscar nominee Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids, 2011), who plays Cassie, a less-than-feminine clerk working behind the counter of video games arcade. (Or was it a casino?) Doesn't matter, really, as she was given less on-camera time than the giraffe! As for People Magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive!" (2011), I'll bet Bradley Cooper is a lot prouder of that achievement than appearing in this over-hyped, super hapless sequel.

Grade: D