La La Land | Now Playing | Record-Tieing 14 Oscar Noms and Record-Breaking 16 BOFFY Noms

[Jake Gittes]

3 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

I think that was the whole point, that the Arts staff at the New York Times were having a mixed reaction more similar to audiences than to the way Hollywood is reacting.

 

I doubt there are many people among the GA who, even if they didn't much like the movie, are going around saying they wish it starred some people from Broadway or the reanimated corpses of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. I don't wanna obsess over this too much or say that people shouldn't express their opinion about the movie at this point, but that second quote reads like it's still December and there hasn't been two months of backlash and arguments that already served as fodder for an SNL sketch for chrissake. 

[Joel M]

4 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

I think that was the whole point, that the Arts staff at the New York Times were having a mixed reaction more similar to audiences than to the way Hollywood is reacting.

 

 

La La Land is not having a mixed reaction from general audiences. 10 thinkpieces and some people yelling on twitter 24/7 about the great injustice of this movie winning BP do not equal mixed reaction. This movie wouldn't have flown over 300m WW with mixed or even average WOM. Of course some people don't like it, it happens with every movie but mixed reaction? lol

[TalismanRing]

15 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

I think that was the whole point, that the Arts staff at the New York Times were having a mixed reaction more similar to audiences than to the way Hollywood is reacting.

 

That is the point, there are alot of different people from the Arts section chiming in and giving differing and yes divided opinions.  You can also see that reflected in the 300+ commenst o the article.

 

Anyway, this made me laugh and he's so right - her reaction was ridiculously OTT as well as misplaced (and occurring in reaction tho by far the best music in the movie)

 

Quote

 

The scene that best captures all that irritates me about “La La Land” comes when Mia goes to see Sebastian, who has scored a gig in a pop-jazz band fronted by his old frenemy, played by John Legend. Seb plays a blistering synthesizer riff, and Mia recoils and flees in moral horror at his selling-out, as if he’d just carved up a baby onstage. If playing an awesome synth solo is wrong, “La La Land,” I don’t want to be right.

— James Poniewozik, television critic

 

 

[TalismanRing]

2 hours ago, Jake Gittes said:

 

I doubt there are many people among the GA who, even if they didn't much like the movie, are going around saying they wish it starred some people from Broadway or the reanimated corpses of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. I don't wanna obsess over this too much or say that people shouldn't express their opinion about the movie at this point, but that second quote reads like it's still December and there hasn't been two months of backlash and arguments that already served as fodder for an SNL sketch for chrissake. 

 

The piece isn't about the GA it's about their opinions - some positive, some mixed & some negative. The mixed or negative opinions have nothing to do with backlash.  Mine didn't when I saw it.  I also wish it starred people who could sing and dance and that there was better music and actual choreography.  I'm funny like that with musicals.  

 

 

 

 

Edited February 16, 2017 by TalismanRing

[Goffe]

2 hours ago, Joel M said:

 

 

La La Land is not having a mixed reaction from general audiences. 10 thinkpieces and some people yelling on twitter 24/7 about the great injustice of this movie winning BP do not equal mixed reaction. This movie wouldn't have flown over 300m WW with mixed or even average WOM. Of course some people don't like it, it happens with every movie but mixed reaction? lol

 

 

 

no movie with a mixed recpetion would drop only 35% on a normal weekend despite losing almost 1.2k theaters. 

 

but i guess it's only natural when a movie is so overwhelmingly well received to have such vocal detractors

Edited February 16, 2017 by Goffe

[Jason]

Yikes, I didn't mean to imply the GA reaction was "mixed" in the sense of good and bad like BvS or something like that - the comparison was to the Arts staff at the Times (which I guess I could have worded more clearly). They're not exactly dumping on it either, just some who are less than thrilled. And yes, obviously they're able to speak towards why they didn't like it in a way that is more informed than your average person, that's why it's useful to provide the perspective. Amazingly, there are average people who don't know who Fred Astaire or Ginger Rogers are, that can still recognize the difference between great singing and dancing and not-so-great.

 

GA metrics are tricky, since there's no one doing a proper sampling, but 85% approval on Rotten Tomatoes (so 15% of ratings being below 3.5) is pretty good, but not quite great. It suggests there's a meaningful number of people who ended up either not liking it or only sort-of liked it. (The upper limit for RT audience approval for wide-releases is around 94%.)

 

The critic for the Toronto Star gave La La Land a 4/4 rating, and he actually recently wrote an article defending that rating:

 

Quote

Many people, including friends, family, co-workers and Star readers, have told me they think my four-star review of La La Land was too generous. They either don’t like the film or they’re just “meh” on it.

 

A lot of people really don’t seem to like this movie, and it’s apparently an act of bravery to admit it — a recent Saturday Night Live sketch riffed on abusing a La La Land naysayer.

 

Point I'm making here is that enough people didn't love LLL to justify the NY Times or Toronto Star or any other newspaper writing a piece saying "let's acknowledge not everyone loves this".

Edited February 16, 2017 by Jason
commas, they're helpful

[Goffe]

2 hours ago, TalismanRing said:

Anyway, this made me laugh and he's so right - her reaction was ridiculously OTT as well as misplaced (and occurring in reaction tho by far the best music in the movie)

Quote

The scene that best captures all that irritates me about “La La Land” comes when Mia goes to see Sebastian, who has scored a gig in a pop-jazz band fronted by his old frenemy, played by John Legend. Seb plays a blistering synthesizer riff, and Mia recoils and flees in moral horror at his selling-out, as if he’d just carved up a baby onstage. If playing an awesome synth solo is wrong, “La La Land,” I don’t want to be right.

— James Poniewozik, television critic

1

 

2

I'm sorry, but I have to ask, did you even see the movie? because if you did, you would know that Mia wasn't "how dare you to sell out", but instead more "I'm worried about you, are you okay" because she knew Sebastian's stance on "selling out". She is very explicit about that in the big fight.

Edited February 16, 2017 by Goffe

[TalismanRing]

6 minutes ago, Goffe said:

I'm sorry, but I have to ask, did you even see the movie? because if you did, you would know that Mia wasn't "how dare you to sell out", but instead more "I'm worried about you, are you okay" because she knew Sebastian's stance on "selling out". She is very explicit about that in the big fight.

 

 

One, that's a quote and two yes I saw the movie.  

 

I think her entire reaction was ridiculous at the concert and about the fight.  Sebastian's stance on "selling out" was more than a bit juvenile and self sabotaging to begin and his taking the gig was growing up a bit and not being up his own ass as much.  Her horror and OTT facial contortions that he was betraying himself was foolish.  Yes, it was expounded on during the dinner fight which I also thought was foolish on her part with an inability to grasp the concept of compromise and growth.  Which I guess feeds into her inability to actually go to Paris for a few months and not forget Sebastian completely as she finds another guy.   She's all or nothing.  But then this is the girl who walked out on her boyfriend at a restaurant with his brother there without even giving an explanation, let alone just waiting until it was over to break up with the guy, because she's an over dramatic  self absorbed jerk.

 

 

[Goffe]

40 minutes ago, TalismanRing said:

 

 

One, that's a quote and two yes I saw the movie.  

 

I think her entire reaction was ridiculous at the concert and about the fight.  Sebastian's stance on "selling out" was more than a bit juvenile and self sabotaging to begin and his taking the gig was growing up a bit and not being up his own ass as much.  Her horror and OTT facial contortions that he was betraying himself was foolish.  Yes, it was expounded on during the dinner fight which I also thought was foolish on her part with an inability to grasp the concept of compromise and growth.  Which I guess feeds into her inability to actually go to Paris for a few months and not forget Sebastian completely as she finds another guy.   She's all or nothing.  But then this is the girl who walked out on her boyfriend at a restaurant with his brother there without even giving an explanation, let alone just waiting until it was over to break up with the guy, because she's an over dramatic  self absorbed jerk.

 

 

6

But she did get it, she understood why he was doing that, why he was playing with his frenemy and why he was compromising. That shouldn't have stopped her from being concerned about her boyfriend, especially after him being so emphatic about protecting traditional jazz. She knew what it meant to him.

Edited February 16, 2017 by Goffe

[filmlover]

 

[TalismanRing]

1 hour ago, Goffe said:

But she did get it, she understood why he was doing that, why he was playing with his frenemy and why he was compromising. That shouldn't have stopped her from being concerned about her boyfriend, especially after him being so emphatic about protecting traditional jazz.

 

She didn't get that sometimes compromise is a good thing, that growing up and not being so didactic and myopic is healthy.  If she'd opened her eyes a bit (not literally - they were already bugging out of her head) she'd have also noticed that it looked like he was having some fun during the performance.  If he looked miserable her concern would have felt more genuine than OTT silly and childishly dramatic. 

We're supposed to see her as right because he does end up with his club of "pure" jazz.  Of course he ends up alone too but that's also part of the ham fisted wedged in stance that one has to sell out their personal life for professional "success".   The ending is a bit cynical but not cynical enough to be truthful.  If you're going to be cynical then really go with it by having him give up his big chance with the very successful touring group only to wind up back playing piano in that restaurant and still being dumped for Paris and her career and then her movies bombs and she's hustling for jobs again.  But no, he has them very professionally successful in just the way they dreamed but sacrificing their love and relationship for that success as if it makes the film deep instead of the characters sadly shallow.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 16, 2017 by TalismanRing

[Kalo]

4 hours ago, filmlover said:

 

 

So I am pretty much those interrogators I actually don't understand how anyone could give that movie anything other than an A++++++++ it is literally the best film I have seen Since The Lord of the Rings.

Edited February 17, 2017 by Kalo

[Arlborn]

Oh look another backlash on a highly successful movie, how novel.

[Jason]

Does any criticism of La La Land have to be dismissed as backlash now? I get that apparently there are people complaining about how many awards this is getting, but I'm not one of them, neither is @TalismanRing, and two out of fourteen comments in the aforementioned NY Times article mentioned the awards, and not in a way that was unfairly critical in my view.

 

Like, if you loved La La Land so much you feel the need to defend it, great. All the power to you. Address the criticisms made in the article. Address the criticism TalismanRing made. Address the main point I made, instead of a single word where the context should have made it clear that I was using it in its more general English meaning.

 

"Backlash" is the type of comment that preaches only to the converted.

 

P.S. For the record, I'm happy most people loved it. I wanted to as well. In my case, I actually agree the singing or dancing didn't have to be perfect. It had more to do with the characters. I'm not sure why some of us are interpreting them so differently, or reacting so differently to a similar interpretation. I'd love that bit of insight. But it's hard to have that discussion when the first reaction is "backlash!". Which unfortunately happened way, way earlier in this thread than this most recent discussion, before I even saw LLL.

Edited February 17, 2017 by Jason

[Joel M]

 

19 hours ago, Jason said:

Yikes, I didn't mean to imply the GA reaction was "mixed" in the sense of good and bad like BvS or something like that - the comparison was to the Arts staff at the Times (which I guess I could have worded more clearly). They're not exactly dumping on it either, just some who are less than thrilled. And yes, obviously they're able to speak towards why they didn't like it in a way that is more informed than your average person, that's why it's useful to provide the perspective. Amazingly, there are average people who don't know who Fred Astaire or Ginger Rogers are, that can still recognize the difference between great singing and dancing and not-so-great.

 

GA metrics are tricky, since there's no one doing a proper sampling, but 85% approval on Rotten Tomatoes (so 15% of ratings being below 3.5) is pretty good, but not quite great. It suggests there's a meaningful number of people who ended up either not liking it or only sort-of liked it. (The upper limit for RT audience approval for wide-releases is around 94%.)

 

The critic for the Toronto Star gave La La Land a 4/4 rating, and he actually recently wrote an article defending that rating:

 

 

Point I'm making here is that enough people didn't love LLL to justify the NY Times or Toronto Star or any other newspaper writing a piece saying "let's acknowledge not everyone loves this".

 

I think the reason most people jumped on you was because your first post seemed to imply that the mixed reception of the Times staff somehow mirrors the reaction of general audiences, critics and anyone who isn't the academy that just likes to hear stories about themselves. Which is the exact same bullshit that the backlash people are pushing. But since you said yourself later that you weren't implying this, all is well. 

 

And yes not everyone loves this, but that's true for every movie. Maybe in 5 years general perception will have turn on it, or even worse it will be completely forgotten. But right now the response by critics, audiences and the industry itself is overwhelmingly positive.

[AniNate]

I haven't been following this that closely but a defensive general labeling like "backlash" of an opposing opinion usually starts with someone's character or intelligence being attacked. It's too easy for me to imagine someone saying something like "only yuppies and sheep love La La Land"

Edited February 17, 2017 by tribefan695

[Arlborn]

4 minutes ago, tribefan695 said:

I haven't been following this that closely but the defensive labeling of an opposing opinion as a "backlash" usually starts with someone's character or intelligence being attacked. It's too easy for me to imagine someone saying something like "only yuppies and sheep love La La Land"

Just change "yuppies and sheep" to "millennials" and you're good to go.

[Jason]

2 hours ago, tribefan695 said:

I haven't been following this that closely but a defensive general labeling like "backlash" of an opposing opinion usually starts with someone's character or intelligence being attacked. It's too easy for me to imagine someone saying something like "only yuppies and sheep love La La Land"

 

I don't want to re-hash something that happened earlier, or call people out personally, because it's really besides the point. The term has been used repeatedly, and not in response to character or intelligence attacks. And the first use of "backlash" that I saw was not because of an attack on anyone's character or intelligence. It was a comment on the movie only.

 

2 hours ago, Arlborn said:

Just change "yuppies and sheep" to "millennials" and you're good to go.

 

The term "millenial entitlement" was introduced by someone describing other opinions as backlash. Not by the preceding comments describing the movie itself.

 

Edited February 17, 2017 by Jason

[Mockingjay Raphael]

"La La Land is receiving mixed reception from audiences"

 

This is a joke, right? First of all, Flixster is not the only thing to consider when we talk about the opinion of the public, there's also that small place called IMDB, where LLL currently holds a stellar 8.5 score, after receiving more than 170k votes, just for comparison Moonlight and Manchester by the Sea, two movies that were supposedly, well received by audiences, and, to some persons, even deserves that BP more than LLL, currently has a 8.0 and a 8.1 respectively, so, I guess that both movies also had mixed recepction, right? The soundtrack already sold 162k in USA, and 410k WW, on par with Moana and Trolls, two big blockbuster, and, it may end selling more, considering that it is above both OST right now. The sountrack already has 169M streamings on Spotify, a massive number considering that it didn't produce any hit, unlike other OST.

 

And I'm not even gonna talk about Box Office, where the movie is heading to become the biggest BP winner since ROTK, an Original Musical making $350m WW, and with a shot at $400m, facing bad ER, is nothing but impressive, and considering that it is a Lionsgate movie, I think I can say that is making huge numbers based on WOM alone.

 

It's obvious that it has some haters, it always happens when you're at top, but don't think that these persons are an expression of the recepction of GA.  

[shayhiri]

Haters just shut the fuck up, OK??

 

This is the only movie in a while (maybe since Return of the King!!) to make the Shay sob uncontrollably - when the Epilogue sequence kicks in - and for additional couple of minutes!

 

Moreover, it was on the biggest fucking screen, and the whole theatre was jam-packed with people, like I've never seen in my country!! So I had to try in vain hiding my sobbing and shaking and tears - from the elderly women who sat all around me. I was a mess... the shame...

 

But I will go see it a third time! This is the most powerful emotion a movie can give you. You should treasure it.