♥
Hey Zengarmy,
"Here's to the fools who dream."
I CANNOT BELIEVE I'M ONLY WATCHING LA LA LAND NOW. LIKE WTF.
When I first saw the trailer back in 2016, I was PRAYING it will be shown
in the cinema as soon as possible, but my prayer was not answered, hahah.
It only premiered in Malaysia in 5 January 2017, and I was literally strangled
by the fact that I had to wait until today to watch it. (you'll know why if you've
read my previous blog post) Speaking of the fear of missing out thooooooooo!!
But anyways.
I've just finished watching La La Land this afternoon & all I can think
about since then is to rush home & write a movie review for this film.
I'm shook, you guys. Like, I'm REALLY REALLY HEAD OVER THE HEELS
for this movie right now. I usually have a clear direction on how I want
to write movie reviews but I seriously CANNOT with this movie because
my emotions are so fucked up after watching this movie arghhhhhhhh.
Okay. Now it feels like I'm the one who's over-exaggerating here. But I'm NOT.
I can swear on my life, even though my life is not all that worthy, hahahah!
I think I had even wrote a phrase in one of my previous blog posts that goes
somewhere along the lines of "I've spent almost half of my life trying to cut
off emotional attachments with things & people I've attached to", and this
movie is definitely one of those examples. I'm currently having a massive
#LaLaLandHungover & replaying the soundtrack of this movie fanatically.
"La La Land makes me miss a lover
that I've never even had in my life."
This is the first comment that popped up in my brain, right after the
movie credits came in and pushed me off of my tangent of thoughts.
I think this comment says A LOT itself. Isn't this the GOAL that movies
are supposed to achieve? — to tell a story that is so captivating that
it makes us involuntarily want to be part of the story! I hadn't been
able to feel this way in a long time but this movie seemed to make me
fall into trap at total ease. And now I'm wanting to go & watch it again!
I'm holding back all my temptations to NOT
re-watch this movie again, but WHO KNOWS?
La La Land can take all my money if they want.
I'll sell my soul to go to all of the screeningsss!
When it comes to movies with "musical" elements (aka 演戏演到一半突然跳舞),
a lot of people (whom I know) remained skeptical of the flow of the storyline
— including me! But that's BEFORE I've watched this movie, I'm now converted!
I wasn't that much of a musical lover (I've never watched High School Musical),
but this movie has something more than just a revamped contemporary hybrid
of musicals-movie with golden cast (shoutout to Emma Stone & Ryan Gosling!)
in it. La La Land has a really extraordinary filming aesthetic & fascinating plot.
The flow of the storyline is fast-paced yet smooth, with bits of melancholy
scattered throughout the movie, and finally accumulated into the massive
flashback in the final scene of the movie. There are not really THAT MANY
musical scenes in this movie (at least in my opinion) but when they appear
they are really captivating. Best part? Emma and Ryan actually sound like
they sang live (I don't know whether they really did) in the movie scenes!
(edit : after doing some researching, they REALLY DID SING LIVE in some scenes!)
The movie starts off with a holly-jolly-dancey vibe, where the story flows in extremely
fast with lots of musical actions, which — not gonna lie — I wasn't quite sure if it's my
exact cup of tea. But when the emotional scenes and all that jazz set in, I was SOLD.
I WAS ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY SOLD!!! I've listened to the song "City Of Stars" before
the movie for a bajillion times, and when the music scenes came in, I did the most
ANNOYING thing and started singing the song in the cinema hahahahah (but SOFTLY,
I'm not THAT ANNOYING YET) because it's just SO PICTURESQUE I can't help myself!
"City Of Stars" & "The Fools Who Dream" are definitely two of my most favorite
soundtrack of the movie! You can listen to the ENTIRE ALBUM on Spotify where
the songs are all full-length versions and aren't going to cut off suddenly hahah!
So, after watching this movie and having a full-on star-struck spam on my Snapchat,
I got a lot of questions asking me what is this movie exactly about. Now, I'm not going
to give away major spoilers here, so all I can say is, La La Land is a movie about dreams.
Not those kind of dreams at night but the dreams in life. The movie is essentially a really
artistic portrayal of how two struggling musician and actress fought for their dreams,
defeated by their dreams, and then got back on their feet again. It's not the MOST
original or out-of-this-world story on Earth, but it IS a beautiful depiction of the life
of a dreamer. A "picturesque film" is what I'll use to describe this movie in a nutshell.
[ 9 out of 10 for La La Land! ]
For the people who questioned whether La La Land is an over-hyped / overrated film,
I guess my honest answer will be a "10% YES and 90% NO". As I mentioned earlier, the
plot is not something overly ground-breaking, BUT, the execution of this movie is
pretty much perfect for me. No one could have done it better than this team.
The last scene in this movie when Sebastian's (played by Ryan Gosling) and Mia's
(played by Emma Stone) eyes met, it was painfully beautiful. I don't think I'll
love this movie as much if it wasn't for Emma and Ryan, to be honest, hahahah.
WARNING : Minor movie spoilers ahead!
Do not go any further if you hate movie
spoilers! (even though it's ONLY minor)
I wanted to squeeze out this tiny bit of space in this blog post
to talk about a few scenes that made my heart wrenched and
why they did. So, ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you:
3 heart-wrenching scenes in La La Land that made me cried.
# Scene 1 : The Fight
When Mia and Sebastian had their first fight, it was such a wake-up call to me that
most of the time in our lives, we all had to choose between staying true to our own
dreams or giving up our own dreams. This is the point where Mia & Sebastian started
drifting apart and OH MY PLEASE BLESS MY POOR LITTLE TINY HEART. My heart aches!
# Scene 2 : The Audition
The moment when Mia sang the first line of lyrics of "The Fools Who Dream",
I knew I was going to ball my eyes out for this scene, and I was oh-so-right.
The lyrics are so, SO close to my heart. You can listen to the full track on
YouTube HERE if you want, but take note that the lyrics in this video are
90% incorrect hahahaha. You can scroll down to the comment section to
look for the correct lyrics. For me this song is the anthem for dreamers!
# Scene 3 : The What-If
The BEST scene in this movie, if you ask me?
This final flashback-montage scene is E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G-!
I was chatting with one of my friend who is also as obsessed
as I am with La La Land about this scene, and we both agree
that as much as this scene is a heart-breaking reality slap in
the face, it is crucial to make La La Land an outstanding film.
Life is ALWAYS FULL OF REGRETS. That's what this scene taught us,
and it's the realest lesson of all. What if Sebastian kissed Mia the
first time they met instead of knocking her shoulder & storming off?
What if everything just goes as perfectly as we imagined? The thing is,
what-ifs do not exist in real life. You either continue wallowing in regrets
or you can get back on your feet & keep on running forward for your dreams.
The final scene is such a precious moment that I think I stopped breathing
for a good 20 seconds just so that I won't miss all the emotions going on
in the scene. I think I started tearing up when I saw the "Seb's" bar sign.
The bar sign was a start of a dream shared by Mia & Sebastian, and a
perfect closure between Mia & Sebastian as well. It was breathtaking.
I was particularly touched by the final glance between
Mia and Sebastian. It was as if the final acknowledgement
between Mia and Sebastian, that they've made it through.
They started off as naive dreamers, then defeated by the
harsh reality, then almost gave up, then finally, achieved
their dreams. There was this particular scene, where Mia
went back to the small coffee shop that she used to work at,
and saw a girl standing in the exact same position as herself
5 years ago — desperate for money but never stopped dreaming
— somehow this scene touches my heart. Started out as a small and
unimportant figure, she made it when she thought she lost everything.
My Final Verdict :
All in all, if you're a soft-hearted dreamer who've struggled a lot with life and also
happened to be a music lover (not neccessarily musicals), THIS MOVIE WILL BE YOUR
EXACT CUP OF TEA. If anything else, you're probably going to find this movie quite
mediocre (just like how some people think Me Before You is a boring-ass movie).
But hey, everyone has their own opinions so let's not pick up a pointless fight here.
In all honesty, I've watched this movie, I teared up & cried at 3 scenes, and I would
recommend it to all my followers. I adore this movie as much as the Golden Globe
Awards' committee adore it hahahah, so do grab your tickets now & have a blast!
♥
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