Cam Bert

I must also admit as somebody that does like jazz and owns albums by Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, etc. I much prefer Seb's kind of jazz to John Legend's. While I appreciate his efforts to modernize it and make it more acceptable and relatable to the modern audience I'd still rather go to Seb's and listen to his music.

At the risk of repeating myself I love 80% of this movie. I love the music, the visuals, and as much as I ragged on the characters I do admire Seb's passion for jazz.

Well apparently that was really him playing! He took three months and did his best to learn how to play in addition to learning to sing and dance. So I think I can cut him a break on the singing and dancing a little.

I vote to keep the opening number for similar reasons to tom and Fister. I think similarly to tom that is kinda of serves as the "there are countless stories and this is just one of them" type nature. I think it also works well to bookend the film with these variations of a theme. While the ending number is more emotional and melancholy it is another fantasy type number. The opening number is this fantasy of a bunch of people just happy to be out there "living the dream" and trying to make it, while the finale number is a dream about making it. Opening is full of hope as the future is bright and ahead of us, and the other more reflective of where that journey has taken us. In addition the closing number is "there are countless roads the story could have taken and this is just one of them" which is a slight variation on the opening "countless story" idea.

I'm 100% thinking embittered actress. Like she started working at the place just like Mia, but everybody else that worked there were nailing their auditions and left and therefore she became the most experienced worker and forced into management. This is why she's so hard on Mia. She sees her long string of failed auditions and wants to keep her from going to more so she just gives up and soon will have enough experience to promote and with a promotion her own secret exit back to the world of acting!

So as I said I have so many conflicted feelings about this movie that while rewatching it still stressed me out. Time to combine two unpopular opinions, I think of La La Land a lot like I do a Christopher Nolan movie. Visually fantastic. A masterpiece of direction and execution. And all of that is kinda ruined by the characters talking and having a story that you can't really think about. I think a lot of this comes from the fact that I love love love Whiplash so much. Whiplash is a damn near perfect movie. It may not have been flashy visually but its strengths are the lead characters, the writing, and how invested I was in them and how fully realized they were. However, in La La Land I find the characters so lacking and uncompelling. Mia and Seb are both so stubborn and single focused on their careers that it amazes me they even felt anything for each to begin with. It is two people who choose career paths that are extremely difficult to succeed in and hate doing the grunt work to get there. I hate auditioning and being rejected, then don't be an actress. I hate playing popular music, then have fun being artsy at small venues. The seemingly don't understand the industry in which they want to work. I should point out that I get there is an element of fantasy or fairy tale to the story. This isn't suppose to be 100% realistic and there are greater themes about art and truth. That's fine, and I realize that but a lot of the same themes are in Whiplash as well which also has a main character who fails at love and chooses his music and future in it over it. I won't spoil the ending in case somebody hasn't seen it, but the ending while not the happiest feels right. That's where La La Land loses me mostly. I mean the ending of this perfect life they could have had together is very effective and beautiful but my heart is only really half into it because I didn't buy there romance fully to begin with. Seb when explaining his love of jazz to Mia he says it is great because it is about conflict and compromise, yet these are characters that are seemingly unhappy to compromise. They fall apart as quickly as they get together which makes me question how "in love" they were really. In the end these two people get exactly what they want but just not with each other which should come to no surprise as they spent a lot of their relationship trying to help each other's careers more so than putting time into making the love and romance work. Rather than try and make it work they decide to focus and give it all to their craft. Their relationship, for better or worse, put both of them exactly where they wanted to be yet it is suppose to be tragic that they didn't have this great love. This of course echoes the end of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg but that was more tragic because from the get go you had two people in love that the universe cruelly kept apart. They went on to have good lives, but you wonder what could have been. In La La Land, you have two people that have a couple month fling and get to where they always wanted to be. Yes they aren't with each other, but because I never bought that it was true love between them to begin with, there is a slight "so" to it all. However, as much as I complain here I enjoy 80% of the movie and it delights me to no end. It is absolutely stunning to look at and its whole look and style engrosses you completely and washes over you. I would highly recommend it to anyone. Yet in those moments when the visual flair dies down and we are left with just the two characters I start to realize that I don't really care about as much as the movie hopes I do or thinks I should. Which leaves me conflicted when the movie is over and the spectacle gone.

Bill Irwin is always delightful and amazingly talented. He gives clowning a good name.

Simpsons aside my favourite parody of Wizard of Oz is Fistful of Yen in Kentucky Fried Movie. It is a parody of extraordinary magnitude forged in the traditions of our ancestors. It has my gratitude.

In regards to this being an a typical Joseph Campbell "hero's journey" type story they are right that it does tick all the boxes. Yet I wonder if the reason that is it not considered up there like Luke Skywalker is less to do with Dorthy being a woman and more to do with the ending. I'm sure that in reality that does play a part but I think the fact the this is the one of the iconic "it was all a dream" type endings robs it a bit of it as well. A large part of the hero's journey is the return home at the end but with the new found power, knowledge, and growth achieved along the way. Yet, at the end of Wizard of Oz the question of was she really on a journey is brought into question. If it was all just a dream, does that count as a journey? Did she actually gain anything or change as a person? I think this all muddies the water and as a result and that could possibly be why it isn't thought of in the same way.

Oh boy! This movie looks stupid so there should be lots to talk about let me just look it up on Google. Okay, now to see what is called here... okay, now to see the Japanese release date... no currents plans to release it in Japan announced... Whelp, have fun you guys!

Another week means another Monday and that means it is time for CakeBug to step up to the plate and give us his third selection for Musical Monday! What will it be? What will he pick?

I want to expand of something Cameron mentioned earlier. This movie touts the "World of Tomorrow" but are they actually living in the world of tomorrow? I mean we do see some fantastical things like birdy planes, Iron Giants, Sub-planes, androids, dinosaurs, mini animals, etc. but most of these are the works of a mad scientist and most of it secret until the events of the movie. The other bits are used by this mercenary group and their British equivalent. We see none of this "world of tomorrow" in the actual everyday world. They're still using period type writers, they are still using period accurate cameras, they still have blimps, etc. The only real benefit of the everyday person living in the "world of tomorrow" seems to be they were able to make Wizard of Oz about half a year faster but everything else about it is the exact same. Don't you think somebody would have heard about Sky Captain and his exploits and asked "Gee, why is they have heat ray guns and yet it still takes me hours to cook my food!" For that matter Polly is Sky Captain's true love and yet he never got Dex to whip her up a better camera or something?

Not to mention the tremendous amount of pressure being put on the cockpit and the plane. I mean have you seen that sub that James Cameron uses? There is no way a plane could be built to be light enough for aerial combat and sturdy enough to sustain the extreme pressure of the the depths of the ocean.

"Jesus, praise be on to you for curing my leprosy but can you do anything about this missing leg?" "Sorry, one miracle per person."

There was a moment in Ben-Hur that made me laugh and I don't know if it was intentional or not or if I'm just a weird person. At the end when they are talking to the blind beggar Judah gives him a coin and then after hearing that he was with lepers he dumps the coin out. I get way he did it, it just struck me as kinda funny. It then also reminded me "Alms for an ex-leper"

It is a tough call. There are merit to both sides but I think in her mind one she was honoring his mother's wish and two if he thought they were dead maybe he would slow down his quest for revenge and keep him safe. If he knew they were alive he would rush after them and put himself at risk like he does later in the film. Also like Cameron pointed out when it comes clear that it was his family's wishes I think it becomes easier to forgive. I mean if you also think about it from the flip side it must be an incredibly hard choice for his mother and sister as well. They think he's long dead or slaving away in the galley of a ship and will never return home and here he comes home healthy and with new found status. Of course you must be over joyed but at the same time know you can't be with him again because of your condition.

I have such a mixed bag of conflicted feelings about this movie and will finally be able to get them off my chest.

I know exactly what you're talking about and let me add there is also a generic police scanner sound too. It use to start the credits to COPS ages ago but it is used everywhere. It is another one of those, once you are aware of you it hear it everywhere sounds.

The 15th works best for me.

Well if you want to get technical the newspapers we see at the beginning of the film are dated. The start of this film takes places in March of 1939. The earliest dated newspaper is the Japanese one at March 9th and the last paper we see is dated March 20 something 1939. Which makes this all doubly odd seeing as Wizard of Oz didn't debut until August of that year.

I was just looking at his list too and would be curious to hear the reasons behind some of them. You could argue that a lot of the AFI movies even if you haven't seen are movies you've heard of but some of his picks are completely new to me. Hallelujah I'm A Bum? Track of the Cat? Never heard of them. Also I find it sort of interesting to think about the AFI list the median year is 1965 while on his list the median year is 1953.

First of all, Dances With Wolves? Really? Granted I haven't seen it in ages but, really? Personally I would pick Fargo because it is so unique in it's tone and mood. All the actors are on top of their game creating very real characters. It's a weird blending of genres and setting in a part of the country rarely seen in film makes it feel different and unique. All those wonderful Roger Deakins shots. There are a lot of reason why this could go back on. My backup would be The Third Man.

I really want to know if the captain in Sky Captain is a rank or a title. Given Captain American, Captain Britain, Captain Marvel, etc. we know that "captain" is just attached to superhero types. Heck you don't have to have a military background to be named captain just look at Captain Planet and Captain Caveman. The name "Sky Captain" sounds very superhero-y and invokes classic characters and serials so it is safe to assume it just a title. However, when Sky Captain returns to base we see him go into his office and on the door is written "Captain H. Joseph Sullivan" which would seemingly imply that he is also ranked captain as well. Sky Captain is in charge of the whole operation seemingly thus them being called "Sky Captain and his army for hire" but captain is not the highest rank there is in the air force, army or police. You have major, lieutenant colonel, colonel, and general all above it. Not the mentioned the starred tier ranking of generals after that. It's a classic chicken and egg problem, was he a captain first or was he sky captain first? Did he call himself Sky Captain and then applied the rank of captain to himself, or did he achieve the rank of captain then start his own mercenary business and call himself Sky Captain based on his highest earned rank?

I'm also very glad that they brought up the homosexual undertones of that first scene between Ben-Hur and Messala. When I was watching it felt so clear that these were two men who were in love that couldn't be together or had been separated. It is a shame that this aspect of it was so quickly abandoned. He just seemed so indifferent to him in other scenes rather than conflicted. It is odd to me that they allowed it to play that way in the first scene but then not in the others.