Tag Archives: Damien Chazelle
Cuarón, Jenkins, and Chazelle
Oscars luck this year didn’t hold out for everyone. Cuarón dominates and Jenkins got another screenplay nom, but Chazelle’s biopic of Neil Armstrong ran out of fuel. Awards excitement makes it easy to overlook interesting work, especially when we elevate a movie’s chances of winning over conversations against its originality. These are not your typical Oscar bait movies; each is a beautiful, highly personal movie worth watching.
LA LA LAND
A loving homage to Old Hollywood musicals, Damien Chazelle’s La La Land is like a crisp sip of Champagne, a charming throwback that’s neither revolutionary nor fully developed. But I still enjoyed it. It’s a contemporary twist on an old-fashioned: the two main characters carry out a screen romance pieced together from countless classic films. Chazelle has […]
Oscars Week: BIRDMAN + WHIPLASH
Masculinity dominates this year’s Best Picture race. From the pool of eight nominees, there are historical leaders of speech and thought, from Martin Luther King, Jr. to Stephen Hawking. War heroes of different shades in Chris Kyle and Alan Turing. Richard Linklater’s vision of a boy entering adulthood. Then we have the artist: the self-absorbed, self-punishing […]
