La La Demy Land

Now that La La Land is in wide release word of mouth from regular moviegoers (rather than critics) keeps expanding. As expected with Best Picture frontrunners, not all of it is kind. This unique and ravishing film has begun to suffer from the inevitable backlash.  Some of my musical theater friends are balking that neither star is a great singer, the songs aren’t sophisticated, and it doesn’t honor Hollywood musicals in the way they’d expected.

To harp on these issues misses the point of what director Damien Chazelle has created.  It's true that neither Emma Stone nor Ryan Gosling have Broadway-caliber singing voices, and it’s also true that future composers of musical theater are likelier to study Sondheim than Justin Hurwitz.  But Chazelle isn’t making a Broadway show, he’s crafting a wholly-original tone for a film, stealing bits and pieces from a wide variety of sources, and doesn’t seem interested in making a purely traditional Hollywood musical.

Chazelle has spoken in interviews about how the single greatest influence on La La Land were the two musical films of French director Jacques Demy:  The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and The Young Girls of Rochefort...

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"This wig weighs a ton"

Editor's Note: We're celebrating Marie Antoinette at the movies each afternoon for a week

Gee this wig weighs a ton.

Singin' in the Rain is, of course, a beloved movie about our beloved movies. There's lots of broad goofing on Hollywood history for movie buff amusement. But sometimes the gentle ribbing is actually pointed jabs. When Lina Lamont enters the shot above to shoot The Dueling Cavaliers the joke is bigger than her constant whining...

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Doc Corner: 'Cameraperson' is Simply Extraordinary

Glenn here. Each Tuesday bringing you reviews of documentaries from theatres, festivals and on demand.

Cameraperson is the most extraordinary of documentaries. A compelling first-person visual memoir that intricately weaves some 15 years of filmmaking into a remarkably watchable cinematic patchwork quilt. A truly wondrous mix-tape that finds documentary cinematographer Kirsten Johnson taking directorial duties upon herself in the creation of a film about the creation of films. She utilizes b-roll footage, outtakes, and home movies to build, as if like free-form lego, a powerful portrait of not just herself, but the world we live in. Cameraperson is without a doubt the best documentary of 2016, and just maybe the best film of the year, period.

You have surely seen some of the films that Johnson has used footage from. Popular titles like Fahrenheit 9/11 and Citizenfour from Johnson's frequent collaborator Laura Poitras, the latter of which makes a wonderfully obscure and unexplained appearance yet which only proves how impressively that doc was filmed. We’ve even reviewed some of them right here at The Film Experience like Dawn Porter’s Trapped, which was the very first title we reviewed in the Doc Corner.

No matter how many of the 24 titles Johnson draws from that you have seen, you haven’t seen them like this. And any that you haven't will no doubt rocket to the top of your must watch pile...

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The Furniture: Merrily We Dance in Hail Caesar!

"The Furniture" is our weekly series on Production Design. Here's Daniel Walber...

Hobie Doyle is out of his element. Tossed from the great outdoors into the drawing room by the head of the studio, Alden Ehrenreich’s cowboy careens into words with hilarious indelicacy. It might be the single funniest scene in the Coen Brothers’ Hail Caesar!, now available on DVD and Blu-Ray, or at least a close second place to the hysterical clerical debate. It also has one of the most interesting sets, if not the flashiest.

The production in question is "Merrily We Dance," a genteel comedy by the director Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes). A hodge-podge of George Cukor and Noel Coward, he stands in for the not-quite-closeted geniuses of the era. The film, which seems to fall somewhere between Private Lives and Dinner at Eight, sends a jilted lover to an upscale party from which the hostess has absconded to Lake Onondaga...

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15 Oscar Documentary Finalists... A Tight Race

Could Marlon Brando return to the Oscars posthumously? The documentary Listen to Me Marlon made the finals for the Best Documentary Oscar even though documentaries about Hollywood stars and movies aren't typically so favorited. Note that Ingrid Bergman's documentary --also famously "in her own words" -- and the enjoyable Tab Hunter: Confidential and the Sundance sensation The Wolfpack about living through the movies weren't as lucky and did not make the finals. 

The 15 Finalists

• Amy (PGA nominee, IDA nominee, NBR winner)
• Best of Enemies (NBR top 5, Spirit nominee)
• Cartel Land (Gotham nominee)
• Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief
• He Named Me Malala
• Heart of a Dog (Gotham nominee, Spirit nominee)
• The Hunting Ground (PGA nominee)
• Listen to Me Marlon (IDA nominee, NBR top 5, Gotham nominee)
  
• The Look of Silence (PGA nominee, IDA nominee, NBR top 5, Gotham winner, Spirit nominee)
• Meru (PGA nominee, Spirit nominee)
• 3 1/2 Minutes, Ten Bullets
  
• We Come as Friends
• What Happened, Miss Simone? (IDA nominee)
• Where to Invade Next
• Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom

Snubbed Again
Frederick Wiseman can't catch a break with the Academy though he's a legend and his latest In Jackson Heights met with the typical rapturous response among critics.

New Prediction Chart
I didn't have to adjust it too much. Why? Well I'm...

Psychic!
Of the 15 I Predicted for the Finalist, 9 of them made it so I did pretty well (of the films I predicted for nominations 4 of them are still standing). Bye Sherpa! Glenn is even better than me at Documentary predictions. Check out this prediction he tweeted back in October and all the films are still in the running:

As of right now I'd be predicting... 1. What Happened, Miss Simone? 2. Cartel Land 3. Winter on Fire 4. Look of Silence 5. Best of Enemies

— Glenn Dunks (@glenndunks) October 11, 2015

Noteable High Profile Omissions
Though these films made a name for themselves at the box office or with honors from various organizations none of them made it to the finals:  The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, Dark Horse, Deli Man, Dior and I, Iris, Janis: Little Girl Blue, Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, Meet the Patels, Only the Dead See the End of War, Stray Dog, Sunshine Superman, The Russian Woodpecker, and The Wolfpack