The new Blade Runner sequel is one of those rare birds, like Aliens or The Empire Strikes Back, a sequel that takes a glorious, but ostensibly smaller-scale original movie and expands the universe with more: more characters, machines, locations, action, depth, emotion, consequences.
I was thrilled and mesmerized by Blade Runner 2049 and can only do it justice with a selection of images to entice you to see it, or see it again if you've already dutifully seen it this weekend.
Finally the full-length trailer is here. Exciting, isn't it? I'm cautiously optimistic about this film. A sequel released 35 years after the original is quite a monumental film moment. Even Tron: Legacy didn't have that long a build up.
I like the gritty, dour films of director Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners, Enemy, Sicario) and when the "bright, optimistic spot" is the slightly less dour alien film Arrival, I shouldn't have to worry too much about 2049 being a bright sunny action comedy like Guardians of the Galaxy. Harrison Ford seems suitably dour in his return as Deckard. I'm hoping that he's more of a supporting player, an extended cameo in 2049 and less a co-lead with Ryan Gosling. Or is he not too old for shoot'em up action scenes?
And is there a better actor to carry on the mantle of dour, mute glowering looks than Mr. Gosling? He's perfected it by now.
We have Jared Leto, looking icy cool and hopefully acting it as well. I'm assuming he's the new Tyrell-ish villain? Robin Wright could be good...bad...neutral?
We have dust storms, fallen monuments, flying cars, neon, holograms, rainy cityscapes, empty minimalist chambers of sci-fi desolation; is that last one utter destruction or just the peak of high-end living?
We're less than a week away from the annual Oscars award show and La La Land is poised to nab many awards, presumably the highlight of the night, 'Best Picture.' The film has tied Titanic for the title of most nominated film in Oscar's 89-year history, with 14 nominations. Quite impressive numbers, but I wasn't quite impressed with the film.
Watching the much talked about traffic jam/flash mob-style musical opening number, I was doubtful of this film immediately. It didn't seem like West Side Story but more like that terrible Coke commercial I see every time in the multiplex theater before the trailers start. I was worried. No, I don't want your passed-around, bird flu-infected popcorn and soda.
Director Damien Chazelle's film is an ode to old Hollywood Technicolor musicals of the mid-20th century (An American in Paris, Singin' in the Rain, to name a few) with a dash of '60s French Jacques Demy musicals like The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, in all of its candy-colored glory.
And that was one of the main problems I had with LaLa Land. Its "odes" and "valentines" were a bit too homage-y, too assemblage-y to hold any emotional weight for me or be wowed by its lack of originality. The big, lushly backdropped dance sequences between the two lovers Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone (in the Griffith Park Observatory, for example) were quite beautiful and technically well shot but they were gem moments adrift in a lackluster romance.
The film lack's the bite and grit of his previous feature Whiplash (about a teenage drumming prodigy) that could have made this film even richer. My main disappointment with LaLa Land was that it didn't push the extremes of each situation enough. The hum-drum lives of Gosling and Stone as they pursue their dreams, didn't seem tough and dreary enough to make the fantasy sequences of breaking into song pop. The stakes didn't seem high enough.
She works as a barista but owns a brand-new Prius (huh?) and he works some nights playing piano in a middle-brow restaurant but has his own large apartment in L.A.? It seems nitpicky but I wanted their "suffering" to have a bit more reality to make their dreams and romance a bit more epic. In a movie about movies, it should have been elevated.
I kept thinking of two possible directorial choices that could have upped the epic feel of this Oscar-contender.
What if all of the non-musical moments were shot in black and white (or at least very sun-bleached, desaturated color)? Wouldn't that make the grand peaks of the Gosling/Stone song and dance sequences shine even more? That Wizard of Oz trick of escaping the humdrum would have made their fanciful wishes really sing. Instead we get a CW network meet-cute that we could have seen on TV.
And the moderate, but not memorable, singing and dancing of the two leads? What if Chazelle would have upped the idea of these two wanna-be stars in L.A. trying to "make it" by actually casting two unknown, up-and-comers in the roles? Two whiz-bang singers and dancers that would run circles around Gosling/Stone and beat them at their own game, instead of "falling for" two established, big-name stars.
Wouldn't it be more effective, more exciting to root for these John and Jane Does who haven't made it yet actually "make it"? Watching winners win isn't very exciting. Where's the fire inside?
