The film is a down-in-the-muck advert for an ultimately dewy-eyed vision of the silver screen.
The film’s satisfyingly tactile action set pieces serve to hammer home just how perilous the space race really was.
If the cutoff music begins to play, we hope La La Land director Damien Chazelle hauls off and just starts scatting.
The film is bound up in a referentiality that precludes the outpourings of emotion we come to musicals for.
Damien Chazelle movie-musical pastiche is eager to please those who might vote it into the AMPAS pantheon.
The legacy of Syd Field’s screenwriting manual hangs over the film, which never even accidentally casts a whiff of subtext or authorial personality.
We could make this one easy on ourselves and buy the narrative that every film nominated for best picture will win at least one Oscar next Sunday.
The thrill of watching Fletcher and Neyman’s fray unfold is intensified by Damien Chazelle’s attention to the craft and challenge of musicianship.
Eugenio Mira thrills in watching Tom attempt to worm his way out of a most unusual hostage situation, synching his indulgences of style to the pianist’s wily physical maneuvering.
Scenes of solemn importance drag on to the point of self-parody in an attempt at establishing mood, while dialogue reeks of connect-the-dots spoonfeeding.
If Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench’s storytelling were up to its filmmaking, it might have been the masterpiece it often seems capable of becoming.