La La Land (2016)

There were many scenes in this movie that were gorgeous.  Just stunning.  The way they were lit were great.  This movie made Los Angeles look like a magical city.

However, I wasn't overly impressed.  The story line involved Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), a struggling jazz musician, and Mia (Emma Stone), a struggling actress, following their dreams of stardom.  When they first meet, she flips him the bird during a traffic jam.  They keep running into each other after that, and a relationship begins.  Cue the music.  Gosling and Stone have great chemistry together, and they have passable singing voices.  But I didn't leave the movie theater humming any of the tunes.

A few days before I saw this movie, I overheard a guy telling everyone nearby how happy the movie had made him.  The guy looked younger than I, so I figured he didn't grow up during a time when movie musicals were made on a regular basis.  I grew up during the tail end of Hollywood producing movie musicals.  I could only guess that the guy was impressed by this movie because the concept of movie musicals is very new to his generation.  Interesting film, but I wasn't overly impressed with it.

J.K. Simmons and John Legend do fine in their small roles.

The Ides of March (2011)

Stephen (Ryan Gosling) is a smart, ambitious staffer who works on the presidential campaign of Governor Mike Morris (George Clooney).  Morris is an Obama-like candidate; a campaign poster bearing his image is similar to ones the real life president used early on in his run for office.  Morris is good-looking, articulate, and says all the things the masses want to hear.  Paul (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) is the head campaign runner, and he and the staff work hard to put Morris ahead in the polls and drum up support.

There's the usual dose of political strategies and deals done.  Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti), the guy who's running the campaign of Morris' competition, convinces Stephen to meet with him.  This is a political no-no, but Stephen meets Tom in secret.  Tom claims that Morris has no chance.  He admires Stephen's work, and he wants him to come work for him.  Stephen turns it down, but somehow, the news of the clandestine meeting is leaked.  Ida (Marisa Tomei), a political reporter, wants Stephen to spill the details or else she's going to run with what she knows.  But this becomes the least of Stephen's problems when he learns of a scandal that could bring Morris' campaign crashing down.

I went to this movie with a friend who told me as the credits rolled, "I could never be in politics with all that going on."  I agreed.  As the daughter of a precinct captain, I was privy to how underhanded the political world could be, and still is.  My late father tried to get both my younger sister and I involved in that world, but the "one hand washes the other" mentality turned us off.  Clooney directed this film, co-wrote the screenplay, and helped produce it.  He did a good job of showing the fast paced, backroom dirty deals and compromises that politicians and their supporters do to win an office.  The Stephen character comes off as being a bit idealistic at first, but a cynical, dark side comes slowly comes out when he has to make some hard decisions throughout the story.  I also liked the Senator Thompson character, played by Jeffrey Wright, who operated purely from a "what's in it for me?" standpoint.

George Clooney appeared on series TV ("The Facts of Life" and "ER", both on NBC) before transitioning to the movies.  He has an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor 2005 (Syriana).  Ryan Gosling was in Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011) and The Notebook (2004).  Phillip Seymour Hoffman was in Capote (2005).  Paul Giamatti appeared in Cinderella Man (2005).  Marisa Tomei is a Supporting Actress Oscar winner for My Cousin Vinny (1992).  Jeffrey Wright was in two James Bond movies -- Quantum of Solace (2008) and Casino Royale (2006).