La La Land, the upcoming Hollywood musical that appears to have given every movie critic in the world multiple full-body orgasms during its festival run this year, finally has a full trailer, and it gives the public our best look yet at the film’s plot (LA boy meets LA girl, boy and girl fall in love all over LA) and many show-stopping musical set-pieces (one of which appears to takes place in an LA traffic jam).
The movie—billed as one “they don’t make anymore,” despite the fact that it was, in fact, made—is the early favorite to win next year’s Oscar for Best Picture, and Stone is of the frontrunners for Best Actress (alongside Natalie Portman for her stunning performance in Jackie, which I adored).
Will I see it? Oh, absolutely. Is there a good chance I’ll groan all the way through? You betcha. I like a good musical, and I love a good romcom, but a love story between two young dreamers in Los Angeles is one of the least enticing movie plotlines imaginable—especially because, time and again, we’ve been shown how bleak the real La La Land actually is for the one-time dreamers who inhabit it. And the fact that this movie will be celebrated by the Academy for being a movie that’s a celebration of movies is Hollywood at its most obnoxiously masturbatory. No thanks!