Season 4, Ep. 01

La La Grande. 

(See what I did there?)

It's awards season, yay. Some of you may not care, but this is where my nerdiness has always lied. Every year, whether it's the Golden Globes or the Oscars, I clear my day, I sit on that couch and watch E! live from the red carpet until it's time to switch to Vibe (NZ channel), to watch the actual ceremony. What beauty, what class and what spirit of unison, love and support. It is simply, in my opinion, a beautiful season of celebrating the Motion Pictures, the creators of our form of entertainment, and the talent standing in front of the cameras whom we find ourselves attaching or relating to for a long time. It's the arts. And they make our wold go around. Celebrate it. 

I am a little behind watching all the amazing movies that have been released pre-award season, just in time to earn a nomination, I am dying to watch Moonlight and Lion. But first, I had to start with the SO TALKED about, La La Land. It's been on my list to watch for three reasons: a) it is an original modern musical, b) I've always liked Emma Stone,  c) I rank 'Whiplash' as one of my favourite movies. Creator of Whiplash, Damien Chazelle is the brains behind La La Land.

I had been so desperate to watch a fresh, new musical. Here we are, thinking good musicals don't get produced anymore, it's just an accumulation of the old ones, or remake after remake, but good ol' Damien proves us wrong. Considering he worked on this story in 2010 but was struggling to get the movie picked up by a company, he has done a-okay since then. 

The movie is about an aspiring, struggling actress and a musician who meet under funny circumstances and fall in love in Los Angeles. We get to see their chemistry bloom into the ultimate romance and in the meantime, how they are both dealing with their attempts to rise to success. 

There are incredibly relatable moments in the film. How 'Mia', Emma Stone's character, deals with rejection, which is a situation Emma Stone herself relates to, as for a good three years before she booked her first film, she lived Mia's life. Chazelle reveals a little part of himself in the film when Mia gets encouraged to write her own play, her own story, a one-woman show. This was pretty much his move into showbiz, when he wrote Whiplash. Footnote, Damien Chazelle was a drummer. Emma's performance was simply and purely outstanding. She portrays the disappointment, the embarrassment and the struggle in such a realistic way, anyone can relate to. Especially those who are trying to make their way up into this industry. Her best moment, was when she tells Seb (Ryan Gosling's character), that she doesn't want to keep pursuing this any more and why. And the reasons behind it, are reasons for which many artists who dropped out of the industry, that wasn't making them happy anymore, can relate to, including myself. 

Sebastian's character deals with the struggle of bringing fresh life into a bygone genre of music. He is so passionate about jazz, he has his own dreams but at the same time, gets influenced even by Mia herself that this is a dead genre and he needs to find a way to revolutionise it. Therefore he gets sucked in a job that he doesn't particularly love because 'this is what the people want'. Seb lets his insecurities cause him to make decisions when his heart is not entirely in it, because it makes more sense to the public, or to society. A wonderful lesson to be learnt. We all know people around us who make the same decisions because that's what makes sense to society, but their hearts are not in it. When Mia says to him "people love watching people who do things they're passionate about", in order to encourage him to follow his true dream of opening his own Jazz club, this is a clear message Chazelle wants to convey to us. 
Chazelle himself struggled with success, he dealt with the rejection and the disappointment but found a fresh way to write about his passions. It has been a long journey for Chazelle, just like it is for 90% of today's successful people, but here we are today watching, paying for and awarding this man for writing about his own passions. Hashtag, lesson learnt.

Beautiful music, costumes, performances and an amazing marriage of the old, dapper Hollywood essence with today's modern and technology based era. Overall, totally worth the praise, the awards and the buzz over this awards' season. Go. Watch. 

Toodles,
                                                                           Katerina