LA LA LAND
The city of Los Angeles is home to a million stories, all of them different, many of them sad. They don’t always start out that way. Most arrive in the City of Stars as eager young dreamers with their heads … Continue reading LA LA LAND
Tag: Ryan Gosling
The 39th Denver Film Festival — Day One
The 39th Denver Film Festival gets underway tonight with the opening night film La La Land, a modern-day musical set in the City of Angels where some dreams are realized while others are crushed underfoot. The movie stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, and Stone, along with writer/director Damien Chazelle, are set to attend the opening night festivities with a post-screening Q&A with Denver Post film critic emeritus, Lisa Kennedy. La La Land is currently under embargo, so I’ll leave it at this: La La Land is heart-wrenching, acidic, and poignant. Easily one of the best of the year, and co-lead Ryan Gosling is magnificent. But La La Land isn’t even the best movie at … Continue reading The 39th Denver Film Festival — Day One
THE NICE GUYS
What does it take to make a good movie these days? Money? Star power? A dedicated auteur? A pastiche of ideas that resemble a movie? On the surface, The Nice Guys looks like a movie. It’s got Warner Brothers’ money. It’s got … Continue reading THE NICE GUYS
THE BIG SHORT
I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore. Howard Beale, Network Well, maybe not. The Big Short is director and co-writer Adam McKay’s run at an All the President’s Men or Network, and though it comes up short *cough cough* … Continue reading THE BIG SHORT
Born On This Day — May 6, 1961
We’re the ones who talked about AIDS when it was just being whispered. And we talked about civil rights when it wasn’t really popular. This academy—this group of people—gave Hattie McDaniel an Oscar in 1939 when blacks were still sitting … Continue reading Born On This Day — May 6, 1961
Born On This Day — January 23, 1974
Born On This Day — September 29
I don’t know anything about the way a film is born, nothing about the manner of it, the lying-in, the ‘big bang’, the first three minutes. Whether the images in those first three minutes are born out of their author’s … Continue reading Born On This Day — September 29
ONLY GOD FORGIVES
Only God Forgives is a very delicate, fragile movie. You might not think that, considering the level of graphic violence, but it is. My first viewing of this fever-dream was at the LA Film Festival in June, where a member of … Continue reading ONLY GOD FORGIVES
Michael J. Cinema 