yawn-2

Aside from being one of the most genuinely enjoyable movies I've seen in years, La La Land is a very interesting film without any direct peers (although I suppose, in a way, it is "Whiplash After Anger Management"; it will be interesting to see if Damien Chazelle has another story in him). As others have pointed out, it's more like Jacques Demy's musicals than anything else, but it's really not much like those either and nobody under around 50 (aside from dedicated musical freaks and faithful attendees at repertory movie houses) has seen Demy anyway.

You can't compare La La Land to any previous American musical romance, not directly (the few people I've talked to who say they didn't enjoy the film insist on doing exactly that). What Chazelle has done is tweak just about every element of the classic formula for the modern audience, then integrate those elements into a very modern, very emotional storytelling form. In doing this, he's actually created something entirely new. It doesn't matter at all that his leads aren't particularly great singers or dancers and it doesn't matter at all that the score is a little thin; it's the total package that has made this movie such a stunning success with audiences. It's modern cinematic alchemy which draws on the past glories of the American musical without actually copying them. As a film it completely avoids nostalgia, even as its lead characters drown in it at times. That's quite a trick to pull off, just as it's a real achievement to employ magical elements like "dancing in the stars" with a modern audience and not get laughs where you don't want them.

By current standards, virtually all classic American movie musicals are defined by their episodic structure. About a month before I saw La La Land, I saw the TCM revival of Singin' in the Rain, which is probably the consensus choice as the most enjoyable musical of the classic era. It's also one of the very best written, but it's still a collection of outstanding production numbers linked by a plot that is almost incidental. That's perfectly fine and it's what we expect from the classic musicals; it's part of what makes them so much fun.

La La Land is a different kind of fun. It's all about its own structure; it has a story-driven flow to it and is far more dependent on strong acting than the old musicals ever were. It's not just a matter of removing mid-century corn from the script; it's built around a very modern form of storytelling that was just starting to emerge around the time musicals went out of fashion. It is much more emotional than it is technical (in its music and dance as much as in its words) and it wouldn't work at all without top-flight acting, something you definitely can't say about even the greatest classic musicals.

Since it's unlikely we are on the cusp of a glorious new age of musicals, La La Land will likely stand as a singular achievement: maybe the most emotionally realistic musical ever, while still a total escapist fantasy. I find that very often the best films are the ones that had the least chance of getting made; it's a perfect example of one.

Grand Prix is ALWAYS slammed for what John Frankenheimer once called his choice to make a "Grand Hotel" picture rather than a "Test Pilot" picture, but that's got it all wrong. Except for length, this is one of the great date movies of all time: insane machines on the edge of disaster, men who makes the insane choice to go there with them, oodles of sexual politics and romance under great pressure, gorgeous...I mean GORGEOUS imagery of spectacularly beautiful places and a remarkable score to match, one of Jarre's most hummable in a long career of hummable orchestral scores. It is the most emotional movie about racing anyone is likely to make and it has been a source of sheer wonder to me why most critics dismiss it as "soap opera with gasoline" and the like. Maybe I should do a two-hour date movie cut...like almost all of the Cinerama roadshow pictures, it IS too long and that's it's one major failing. I first saw it over two nights on NBC about a million years ago; it's probably better that way. Play to the intermission, pick it up again the next night.

Except for Yves Montand, who seems to have been incapable of giving anything less than an intriguing performance, this is not an actor's showcase by any means, but everyone's OK or better and the movie is really about extreme and exotic situations involving people, rather than about the people themselves. It's a snapshot of a particular moment in European racing history that has far more dramatic potential than today's Formula 1: obscenely dangerous cars and circuits, a pre-sponsorship economic model that meant few drivers made any real money (certainly nothing close to what the risks they took were worth) and a certain c'est la vie attitude about the safety of both drivers and spectators. Only the truly obsessed played this incredibly deadly game.

Shot on 65 mm, it's probably always looked great, but on current Bluray/upscale/4K gear, it's just stunning. It quite literally looks like it was shot on top-tier digital last week. Because sports are a kind of news event, seeing the largely deceased male cast (and a great number of real drivers who later perished in crashes; the first recognizable face in the film is Lorenzo Bandini, who was killed at Monaco the following year) with this kind of visual immediacy is actually a bit disturbing. It's not like watching Citizen Kane; gorgeous as the current Bluray is, you never find yourself thinking "What's Joe Cotton doing alive?" You may very well have that thought about Jim Garner or Brian Bedford, as they look almost as if they are in a live feed from Monaco.

"Le Mans" is (probably) the best racing film ever made for racing fans. Grand Prix is the best racing film ever made for everyone.

Trust me, there is one reason and one reason only that these incredibly lame cartoons hung around TV in syndication for decades: THEY WERE CHEAP.

The ONLY good and memorable thing about this abysmal single-season hack job is the theme music and title sequence, which are really very good and which promise infinitely more fun that you will ever actually get watching these dull, amateurish cartoons. Compared with the truly classic and apparently immortal "Mr. McGoo's Christmas Carol," this is just sheer garbage to be avoided at all costs. Proof that even superior performing talent can never, ever overcome bad writing and and cheapjack production budgets.