Yeah I think it is. I liked it a lot and rate it an A- some really cool stuff and a spectacular ending which is an homage and ode to An American in Paris. It's also a very flawed film with some poor pacing, cringe moments, and horrible staging of musical numbers. It's also heartfelt and a love letter to the Golden Age of Hollywood and people following their dreams. Moviewise on youtube does a great job an analyzing the film.
That all sounds right to me except that what you describe sounds more like a B- and that graded on the scale of contemporary musicals. I liked LaLa Land... some? But more when - or because - it was reminding me of the better movies it was referencing (like Jacques Demy's films) and I liked the ending. But I guess we'll get to that, and it sounds like maybe much later, even last.
Yep. Count me in that crowd. Biopics can be great if done right - Mank, Ed Wood, Lawrence of Arabia, Amadeus and so on. But most biopics are just meh formulaic Oscar Bait stuff that's passable but ultimately empty... stuff like Walk the Line and Ray.
My memory of the original West Side Story is somewhat tepid (maybe unfairly). In the, "I guess I wouldn't oppose watching it if someone else was hosting a movie night and really wanted to show it," level. I'm not a fan of Spielberg outside a few early movies. Unsurprisingly, I have not seen the remake.
I've not seen Begin Again. I meant to watch more John Carney movies for this countdown, but I fell into a movie watching drought the last 6 months (maybe even longer). I didn't even get to Sing Street, which has been on the, "Oh yeah, I should probably check that out," since it came out for me.
90. West Side Story (2021) - Yep, I've seen this and it's a mix of having the benefits of being made today against being another retread of something that will always be best the first time around. I enjoyed it though. Spielberg brings a big budget and terrific production values in his wake, which suit a musical like West Side Story. Not on my list though. Not this version anyway.
89. Begin Again (2013) - I've seen this, but the memory has definitely faded - even though I have it on DVD. I had no idea that this had popularity enough to make it onto one of these countdowns.
Seen 7/12
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While we wait, here is my favorite musical moment from West Side Story. As much as I don't like the film storywise, in terms of direction and choreography, it doesn't get much better than this...
Gold Diggers of 1933 was #49 on the MoFo Top 100 of the 1930s.
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BTW, Gold Diggers of 1933 becomes the first countdown entry to have a perfect 100% RT score. Take from that what you may, but it's universally liked by all critics on the site. It is followed by On the Town, which has a 94% RT score.
Gold Diggers of 1933 also has the third highest IMDb score of the countdown so far at 7.7, tied with Cinderella (1965). The highest two so far belong to Amadeus at 8.4, and then Walk the Line at 7.8.
Anastasia is one of my wife's favorite movies. It didn't make my ballot, but I really enjoyed it, especially the songs "A Rumor in St. Petersburg" and "Journey to the Past."
Dimitri was her and apparently a lot of other teenage girls' first crushes. That made me feel a lot better about having crushes on cartoon characters!
Great cast; Meg Ryan, John Cusack, Christopher Lloyd, Angela Lansbury and Frasier. Beautiful songs, score and soundtrack. Journey To The Past. Anastasia was #25 on my ballot.
Usually I'd say 'Yahoo!'...But not only is that way too low but sadly I see only one other person voted for it. Recency and nostalgia bias will rule here, that's not really a complaint just a lament. Oh well, just the way it is...I'm still enjoying the countdown
As far as quality goes, Anastasia was my number 15. But as far as personal stuff goes, Anastasia is desert island. IMO it's Bluth's best. Also I have an OK Bartok impersonation.
That all sounds right to me except that what you describe sounds more like a B- and that graded on the scale of contemporary musicals. I liked LaLa Land... some? But more when - or because - it was reminding me of the better movies it was referencing (like Jacques Deyi's films) and I liked the ending. But I guess we'll get to that, and it sounds like maybe much later, even last.
Great point. Without La La Land being referential to other films, it certainly does lose a lot of its charm or ability to stand on its own, whereas something like The Artist is truly great AND makes reference to great cinema before it. For example the sequence where Bernard Herrmann's theme hits toward the end of The Artist would have been spectacular on its own, but with the ode to previous films it becomes something even more. Not so much with La La Land.
For how I see it, Damien Chazelle (writer and director) had some great ideas on a macro level with La La Land, and I do love the premise, but in terms of capturing the small moments or nuances of unpredicted and "catch your by surprise" moments in life, the film just can't cut it and Chazelle isn't a good enough writer to make those magic moments happen the way a Paul Thomas Anderson or even Tarantino can. Again I do love the references in La La Land to films like An American in Paris and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and honestly the conflict and timeless storyline of a young woman choosing between her career/art vs family/relationship ala The Red Shoes, but so much in La La Land seems like it never transcends what it references.
And again, some of the writing is just meh. The sequence toward the end where it forwards ahead and now Emma Stone is the "busy career woman rushing around on the phone, etc, etc" is just so incredibly cringe. And the breakup scene just prior to it is sooo heavy handed and a direct violation of the "show don't tell rule." The characters seem like they're going through the motions or checkpoints with no emotional weight or toll to it. And this scene ending with the line "I've never been here during the day." OK. And... it just is incomplete writing and it feels like the scene got edited and chopped up. This is a movie, that as a person with a huge love of classic Hollywood and Hollywood musicals of the Golden Era, I just wanted it to be better than what is actually on screen. Also Ryan Gosling is misused and miscast in this because, try as they might, Gosling is not a romantic leading man or suited to roles that require a lot of emoting or external "loud" mannerism or characters. Gosling is horrible at Alpha and Beta big personality characters. He's not suited to the roles like in La La Land that could have gone to a Gene Kelly, Humphrey Bogart, or William Holden of years ago. He belongs more in the category of the quiet, introspective, and brooding type of sigma personality characters like a Brando, Charles Bronson, or Alain Delon. It's why his best films are stuff that is far more subtle like in Blue Valentine, Blade Runner 2049, and Drive which are all great roles for him. He's completely miscast... everybit as much as Brando was in Guys and Dolls in a role like La La Land. Yeah the more I think about it, it's maybe even a B+ film.
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While we wait, here is my favorite musical moment from West Side Story. As much as I don't like the film storywise, in terms of direction and choreography, it doesn't get much better than this...
Uh. Yeah. It was better. It looks like they watered down the lyrics from the original and also the dancing is more restrained than the original and the rhetoric back-and-forth isn't built up as well nor is there the chemistry and true piss and vinegar in the "to America, or not to America?" question of the original between George Chakiris and Rita Moreno.
Also by staging it during the day and in the streets with all the bystanders watching on like it was a flash mob, lends the remake to more of an artificial performative "hey look at us sing and dance" as opposed to the original where it's a high stakes genuine meet up to discuss whether or not we should stay in America or abandon America if no one wants us here. The fact that in the original it was staged at night on a rooftop away from the crowds of the people on the streets, really heightens the sense that... yes, these are a people who don't feel welcome and can't openly have discourse. All that seems undermined in the remake. Of course, again, I haven't seen the remake, just the clip posted, but have zero interest as West Side Story is a classic and canon among musical films and a part of Americana.
*EDIT* Yeah. Going from the lyrics: "Puerto Rico, my hearts devotion... let it sink back in the ocean! Always the hurricanes blowing... always the population growing!" to the neutered "Puerto Rico, you lovely island... island of tropical breezes. Always the pineapples growing... always the coffee blossoms blowing!"
@iluv2viddyfilms I thought Gosling was solid in La La Land but now I'm curious; who would you cast in his place?
I don't think he was bad... just not a role that plays into this strengths. In 2016 for that role, I'd maybe cast Henry Cavill, Bradly Cooper, or Oscar Isaac.
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