La La Land: Movie Review (No Spoilers)
By Michael Momper It is an arduous task to focus upon just one aspect of Damien Chazelle’s masterpiece La La Land … it is not only a near-perfect feat of cinema, but also an unstoppably alluring piece of art. It not only portrays the stunning natural beauty of its setting, but also the achingly gorgeous reach of the human spirit. And it not only moves you with its dreamy and pure-hearted score, but also manages to elegantly portray the inner nature of love and human relationships in only two hours. It is a feat, to be sure- and had I simply latched on to its slightly-misleading moniker of “musical”, I most likely would not have seen it. It dawned on me recently that perhaps the reason this movie (and all my favorite movies, for that matter) moved me and so many others is because of the soul and genuine depth of its characters. Too often, authentic characters are eschewed for pencil-thin sketches of humanity or even over-acted, bloviating characters that ar...