La La Land 4k Ultra-HD Blu Ray [Blu-ray] [2019]

Very good quality, easy to purchase and a great watch every time.

**Review: La La Land (2016)** *La La Land* is a romance horror film that seduces you with the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, only to slowly reveal the terrifying undercurrent of ambition and sacrifice. The film follows Mia (Emma Stone) and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) as they chase their dreams in Los Angeles, but their love story quickly becomes a haunting tale of obsession and the high price of success. Beneath its vibrant musical numbers and nostalgic nods to old Hollywood, the film explores the psychological torment of two people trapped by their own aspirations. The dazzling colors and dreamlike sequences take on an eerie quality, making the viewer feel as if they’re watching a nightmare unfold in broad daylight. The romance at the heart of the film is both beautiful and unsettling, as Mia and Sebastian’s connection becomes tainted by their relentless pursuit of their goals. Their final "what could have been" sequence serves as the ultimate horror—showing how close they came to a different, happier life, only to be torn apart by their own choices. *La La Land* is a chilling commentary on the dark side of the American Dream, where love is sacrificed at the altar of ambition, leaving the audience haunted by what might have been.

Just what i wanted good quality and value for money

Rock Hudson ended up being enshrined as an icon of the death bed confession at the Schwulles Museum in Berlin in a bizarre trope of ‘singular masculinity’ which leaves him not only as the man known for rumours that he had an affair with James Dean whilst filming ‘Giant;’ but that he was the most well known actor of the Golden Age of Hollywood to have to turn down parts because he was frightened of being exposed. Ryan Gosling is the one actor who could have made this film. And he did: absolutely make it. And it’s the fact that he didn’t win the Oscar for Best Actor™️ which ‘renders’ the film’s theme of almost dreamy eyed melancholy. He should have won it and it’s a disgrace that he didn’t. He is not the ‘Schwulles-Warden’ - had this film been released in 1957; Rock Hudson could not have given this film the blissful honesty which Gosling gave to it. In an often comedic turn with so many tangents it is the straight down the line honesty which he brings to the film. He makes sense of the nonsensical for you. And he makes the character laugh inside. After watching the film I woke out of a dream a few weeks later where I imagined that Ryan Gosling was actually gay and had his past deleted under Google’s ‘right to be forgotten’ and for me to find him married to Eva Mendes with two children. And it was a sad dream because it was true; probably without the conspiracy to delete his past. It still doesn’t matter who Gosling is. He’s brilliant. He’s an enigma. He can play a charlatan who you can only come to love. And he should become one of the greats. Perhaps, if I think for one moment; and this film hadn’t been canned in 1957-1958; perhaps Paramount Pictures (in those days) would have cast someone like James Garner. But I can’t imagine it. Gosling plays the straight man to Emma Stone’s ‘kind of ditzy on the verge of breakdown’ character beautifully. The man’s brain activated like a politician or any group of individuals who compartmentalise their friends; and where their cranium becomes a rumpus room to laugh at others. Gosling makes the character loveable despite all of that. It is true that Ryan Gosling is married to Eva Mendes and he does have two children. And my weird nightmare after watching this film that he was owned by Google who had deleted his previous gay life was obviously a nonsensical and bizarre dream of the proportions which raided the cellars of Morpheus several nights running. But it was a perfect dream to compliment La-La Land. It gave it that Dorothy awakes feeling at the end of the Wizard of Oz. Even though as a gay man myself I can’t for the life of me understand why the Wizard of Oz is a film of gay iconography. Surely, Judy Garland’s Dorothy is the young girl from Kansas who in fact many girls would dream to meet. The beauty of La-La Land is that it leaves each viewer’s dream open to them. And I hope that it isn’t the last great musical.

Was ok

Beautifully shot, very stylised, engaging performances by both leads but ultimately an unfulfilling movie that for me didn't live up to the hype. Don't get me wrong, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone have a palpable on-screen chemistry, with Ryan turning in a very accomplished performance as a jazz pianist and Emma all too believable as the aspiring actress. I'm not a great fan of film musicals but its not even that which bothers me as the tunes are good, well-performed and don't ruin the flow of the movie. I think my problem is that it's a case of style over substance, that the film lacks, for want of a better term, soul. It did not grip me or engage me and I found myself wondering when, and then if, it was going to stick it's claws into me and pull me into it's universe. Unfortunately I found this an unsatisfying exercise in Hollywood navel-gazing.

good dvd

Daughter said its excellent.

I love this film. When I first saw the trailer for La La Land, I thought it was set in the 50's or the 60's. Then, when I finally watched it, I realized, it's suppose to feel that way. It's an ode to old cinema. The performances are great and the songs are (for the most part) catchy and get stuck in your head; I'm looking at you City of Stars. The direction is fantastic. The opening number alone should make you really appreciate movies, especially the old feeling of classic musicals and the like. The "one-shot" technique that brings us from the amazing "Cinemascope" logo to the arresting number, to Ryan and Emma in their vehicles in this jam. It's just fantastic. So much of this film is packed with so much love you can tell this from just watching. The 4K and HDR? Well, I haven't seen the Bluray version of the film, however, the HDR was vastly superior to when I first saw the film. The colors pop and burst from every number and visually arresting image that passes your set. I watched it with my mother and she, who "can't see a difference" between her mid 2010 low end 1080p DYNEX and my Sony X930D quality, said "the colours are so bright and bold." Yes mum, they are. Super glad this sweeped at the Oscars, and even more so that Moonlight won. Alas, they got the recognition they both deserve.

Un dvd che tutti gli amanti del cinema devono avere! Film stupendo. Per chi ha dei pregiudizi visto che si tratta di un musical il consiglio è di superare tali limiti mentali. In realtà non è il classico musical cantato da persone gioiose che cantano e ballano per tutto il tempo ma semplicemente ogni tanto c'è qualche canzone, per il resto è recitato. Inoltre le canzoni sono bellissime e non potrete non innamorarvene, anzi vi resteranno impresse a distanza di mesi. La trama del film è molto interessante, il film è egregiamente interpretato, vedrete una bellissima fotografia per tutto il film e bellissimi costumi. Consiglio di comprare quest'edizione del DVD perchè ne vale molto la pena avere anche il CD con le colonne sonore.

ブルーレイの読みこみに5分くらいかかりますが無事再生できました♪ 日本盤には英語の字幕がなさそうだったのでこちらを購入しました。 映画のシーンの曲の部分だけを集めた特典もとても嬉しいです。

I admittedly came into this film with low expectaions, prepared to suspend the vivid memories of musicals that have moved me; or the great exponents of the American popular song (Sarah, Ella, Billie, Sinatra); or the most soulful improvisers in jazz (Coltrane, Louis, Mobley, Bill Evans, Wyn Kelly). It was a tall order, trying to forget about Chaplin ("City Lights," "Modern Times"), Fred and Ginger ("Swing Time"),; Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron or Debbie Reynolds). "American in Paris" is my personal all-time fav, though I concede that "Singin' in the Rain" reigns as the greatest of all screen musicals. Compared with any of the foregoing examples, I expected "La La Land" to be bright and gauzy, purely escapist "fluff"--and in one sense, it is. Anyone who believes that a struggling, mediocre jazz pianist (it takes one--i.e., this writer--to know one) would end up with his own jazz club ("Seb's Place"), which is unbelievably large and filled--is living in a dream world which this movie, in its best moments, "evokes" but does not lie about. Outdoor jazz festivals have long since replaced jazz clubs as the only lucrative venues for jazz artists--though the public's notion that there are still musicians who can "make a living" by playing jazz remains, in the 2nd decade of the 21st century, a myth of gigantic, even dangerous, proportions. (Successful jazz musicians secure MacArthur grants, guest professorships, UNESCO projects, conservatory teaching gigs, etc.--from which they can pick and choose when and where they play "out.") The opportunities for actors let alone "song and dance" performers are almost as remote, especially when proportionality is factored in (there are only so many musicals for a seemingly infinite number of contestants). But despite its improbabilites, this movie won me over, for some of the following key reasons: 1. The two photographs in Seb's (Ryan Gosling's) pad are of John Coltrane and Bill Evans (I wonder what percentage of viewers recognized them). These two figures, I always felt, are the two most important, seminal musicians in the second half of jazz history. (The essential figures in the first half are more numerous: Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington,Count Basie, Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.) But those two photographs--in combination with Seb's dismissal of the music of Kenny G (not jazz) and his learning from records (LP's, which is how my college friends and I learned how to play the music)--that was enough "realism" to bring a degree of seriousness to the story of Seb and Mia (Emma Stone). Additionally, there are numerous references to jazz as a dying art and as an old story that belongs in the previous century. In the face of such sad but undeniably true testimony, Seb's refusal to write the music's obituary ("Not on my watch!" he says) strikes us as believable. (I know quite a few musicians who believe as Seb.) 2. When Mia (Emma Stone) fails to show on time for Seb's offer of a date at the movies, she becomes distraught and runs to the movie theater (where Seb is conveniently seated, alone, closest to the screen). Emma walks unto the stage and, in effect, becomes part of the movie that Seb is watching. It's one of those magic moments in which the viewer suspends disbelief, a captive to Orson Welle's definition of the movies as "a ribbon of dreams." We realize we're watching a movie about movies--which is exactly the privileged position that "Singin' in the Rain" ( a movie about the evolution and essence of the movies) affords the viewer (admittedly, with greater, more enduring satisfaction). 3. The critical dance number in which we're allowed to see the connection between the two dreamers even before they themselves realize it is definitely not wasted in "La La Land." It occurs outside, above a parking lot overlooking Los Angeles' lights at night. True, it's not Astaire or Kelly (though it would be hard to fault either Gosling or Stone as singers--since their celebrated forebears were not especially notable for their singing voices). The scene manages to be at once spell-binding and compelling, thanks to the lighting, the mis en scene and, above all. a cooperative camera that refuses to relinquish its job to some editor. In a shot that is breath-taking in its duration (not a single cut!), the space is preserved between the pair, thanks to the third member of the dance team, which is necessarily the cooperative camera. 4. Seb's "submission" to John Legend's offer to play in his "futuristic" band (an electrified fusion-disco ensemble), was totally believable and familiar to this viewer. Watching Gosling standing up while holding down, with a single hand, the keys of a small electric piano (Keith Jarrett long ago dismissed all electrics as "toys"), I could only imagine how I looked as a week-end "keyboard player" doing the same (I went through four Fender Rhodes keyboards--one stolen from the band van--and that was before the Yamaha DX7 and digital keyboards replaced most analog keyboards). So there's some believability about a musical that's set AFTER the age of jazz and the American musical (the source of most of the "jazz standards" comprising the "Great American Songbook"). Moreover, the aforementioned moments of realism come after the awakening number on the crowded Los Angeles freeway--four lanes of congested traffic all headed in the same direction! But instead of honking their horns during a major snarl-up, the occupants of each car escape from their mobile prison boxes and, like a rapidly spreading wildfire, burst out in song and dance! What a way to open a musical! Perhaps not in its most "classic" form but at least close enough to "Saturday Night Fever" and "Grease" to arrest and hold our attention. The love story is as simple as they come--with one difference. Boy and girl don't end up with each other (except in their imaginations). Here the movie has an opportunity to score points about the invidious threat of the "American Dream Factory," which attracts, then chews up and spits out 99% of the aspirants who allow themselves to become bewitched in the gauzy fantasy of "La La Land." Instead it allows us to fantasize that Seb and Mia are forced, merely, to settle on a consolation prize. They don't end up with each other, but each makes a choice that's close enough to their original dreams. As a result, they're finally left with some semblance of the over-taught and over-read Robert Frost poem, "The Road Not Taken" (Oh, how things might have been different. Oh, if only life didn't offer us such choices. Maybe we should seek citizenship in N. Korea.) Give the director points for using, in place of digital cameras, genuine film. (It works in subconscious ways to make the viewer a privileged member of a 1950s audience.) And Emma Stone for her compelling performance (those eyes! that mature voice!). The talent of her character is absolutely convincing because we hear it and see it in each of her scenes. The talent of Ryan Gosling (who is said to have taken a year or two of piano lessons prior to filming) is less apparent. Although he's insistent about his purist dedication to creative, acoustic jazz, we hear no more than a minute or two of authentic jazz throughout the entire course of the movie--and it's not from his plano playing. (The anemic "love theme" that he reprises in the movie's final scene is the playing of an amateur--and, so for that matter, are the other songs in the film. I know few musicians who would not believe that, given the assignment, they could do the same.) Maybe that's the point--to enable today's viewer to "relate"--even to instrumental music. Hearing Art Tatum or Oscar Peterson would drive people away. The playing of Ryan Gosling and the songs in the score have the opposite effect. Maybe each of us should write a musical and seek the 30 million dolars to film it. (All the same, there's a song sung by Sarah Vaughan--"Words Can't Describe"--that offers a sublime melody with a perfectly fitted set of lyrics. Moreover, it's included on an album--"Swingin' Easy"--that lists the song as "Public Domain." That alone could be inspiration for a musical with at least one show-stopping, unforgettable song (along with a big savings in time and money spent on permissions and royalties). I had no trouble whatsoever when Warren Beatty announced "La La Land" as the best picture of 2016. But when, moments later, the announcement was voided and "Moonlight" was declared the rightful winner, I was equally good with the Academy's pick.

My favourite movie of the 2016. I always worry when seeing a movie I loved again on Blu-ray whether I'll be disappointed, but not to worry, I loved it at least as much again. Beautiful colours, enjoyable song and dance numbers, but the movie is carried by the chemistry of Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling. I love the concept as utilized by Jacques Demy in Umbrellas of Cherbourg of using non-professional dancers and singers, but good actors, and it really helps the weight of the story. Often the overly slick Broadway style / diva style of singing and dancing leaves me cold - sure they are technically awesome, but often the heart is missing. And there's plenty of heart, but it is not really that sappy thanks in part to the melancholy infused throughout. The final what-could-have-been-montage is great, the opening dance number on the freeway is great. Emma Stone's Audition is absolutely beautiful, and before this movie I was never really an Emma Stone fan. The transfer is stunningly beautiful, the extras provided, including each dance number shown separately are excellent.