Archive for the ‘Damien Chazelle’ Category

Babylon

Director: Damien Chazelle

Cast: Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Jean Smart, Diego Calva, Jovan Adepo, Lukas Haas, Tobey Maguire, Samara Weaving, Katherine Waterston, Eric Roberts, Max Minghella, Li Jun Li

Running Time: 3 hours and 9 minutes

Film Rating: 8 out of 10

Warning: This film is extremely explicit featuring graphic violence, nudity, drug use and scenes that will upset sensitive viewers.

Set between 1926 and 1932, as Hollywood was transitioning between the silent film era into talkies or films with sound, Whiplash and La La Land director Damien Chazelle makes his boldest, bravest film yet: Babylon.

The lavish Babylon is a Feliniesque epic set in Hollywood in the early days during this fascinating transition whereby Chazelle chooses to shock his audience with the absolutely debauched and decadent party scene in the opening sequence, introducing his three main characters, silent screen stars Jack Conrad, Nellie LaRoy and producer Manny Torres played respectively by Oscar winner Brad Pitt (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), Oscar nominee Margot Robbie (I, Tonya, Bombshell) and the impressive newcomer Mexican actor Diego Calva amidst a drunken orgy featuring elephants, dead starlets and absolute chaos.

The eye-catching opening of Babylon is followed by some amazing set pieces of directors and actors trying to make silent films including an expansive medieval battle sequence which goes horribly wrong. Massive crowd sequences are cleverly orchestrated to the brilliant jazzy musical score of Oscar winner and frequent collaborator Justin Hurwitz (La La Land) who should win again for his inventive score.

Behind the lavish parties and the crazy antics involving rattlesnakes in the desert is Damien Chazelle’s love and hate relationship with Hollywood in which he does not hold back in showing the extremely dark and violent underbelly of the City of Angels in a very bizarre scene featuring Tobey Maguire involving a dungeon, an alligator and some SM dwarves.

Despite all the debauchery, there are some superb scenes particularly between the frenetic, tough as nails Nellie LaRoy and the passionate Manny Torres and between the suave Jack Conrad and Hollywood gossip columnist Elinor St John played by Jean Smart.

There are repeated scenes of the main characters buying movie tickets and going into a packed cinema which is an allegory of how scriptwriter and director Chazelle feels about the next seismic shift in film entertainment, streaming which is threatening the viability of cinemas as a palace of enjoyment, as a collective experience of an audience watching their favourite stars onscreen.

Damien Chazelle wants the cinema ritual to continue even though he repels and delights his audience simultaneously in this shocking and brave allegorical epic about the changes in the entertainment industry brought about recently by streaming services.

Set almost 100 years ago, Babylon is a cinephile’s film, a tribute to cinema goers and film enthusiasts but unlike Steven Spielberg’s glossy The Fabelmans, Babylon is a Ken Russell inspired orgy of a film featuring brilliant performances by Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt and Diego Calva. There are lots of cinematic gems in this film, which you can look for in between the chaos, the predators and the debauchery.

The production and costume design is stunning and Babylon despite its length should get acknowledged for this effort.

This epic 1920’s film is a sensuous simulacrum of Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street, Fellini’s Satyricon (1969) and Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby. Love it or loathe it, Babylon is an exceptionally daring homage to cinema and gets a film rating of 8 out of 10. See it for the visual spectacle.

First Man

Director: Damien Chazelle

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Jason Clarke, Corey Stoll, Ciaran Hinds, Kyle Chandler, Patrick Fugit, Christopher Abbott, Olivia Hamilton, Pablo Schreiber, Shea Whigham, Lukas Haas, Corey Michael Smith

Thanks to a preview screening organized by United International Pictures at Suncoast Cinecentre, Durban, I was fortunate enough to see director Damien Chazelle’s highly anticipated Neil Armstrong biopic First Man starring an excellent Ryan Gosling and Golden Globe winner Claire Foy as his wife Janet Armstrong.

First Man was based on an intelligently written screenplay by Josh Singer based upon the James R. Hansen book First Man: The Life of Neil Armstrong.

In the space race between America and the Soviets in the 1960’s, there was a desperate bid to successfully land a man on the moon, a pledge that iconic President John F. Kennedy made to the American public which in turn put pressure on NASA to not only train astronauts but successfully prepare them physically, psychologically and emotionally for a lunar trip.

What the Oscar winning director of La La Land Damien Chazelle does so beautifully is contrast the massive effort and technical implications of sending men to the moon with a complex family drama about Neil and Janet Armstrong as they desperate recover from the death of their young daughter Karen from a Brain Tumour.

Not only does this tragedy pull on the fabric of their marriage, but its Neil Armstrong’s absolute determination that he is going to be the first man on the moon and be the best astronaut America has ever seen. Oscar nominee Ryan Gosling (La La Land, Half Nelson) gives a nuanced performance as Neil Armstrong, a father continually haunted by the death of his young daughter while the moon taunts him every evening, as if to say when are you actually coming to visit me?

Janet Armstrong superbly played by Claire Foy who deserves an Oscar nomination for her performance grows increasingly frantic at the prospect that while she has to be a mother to two young boys, there is a real danger that her husband might not return from a dangerous mission to the moon because of the infinite dangers involved.

In contrast to the familial tension at home, the actual attempts to get to the moon are impressively captured onscreen with mesmerizing sound effects suitably accompanied by an incredible musical score by Oscar winner Justin Hurwitz (La La Land) which truly makes First Man a remarkable and utterly impressionable film – This is truly great cinema held together by cerebral images and perfect on point portrayals of Neil and Janet Armstrong by  Ryan Gosling and Claire Foy, who both brilliantly hold the film together emotionally and psychologically.

Audiences should watch out for a superb cameo by Corey Stoll as the outspoken Buzz Aldrin who feels nothing about remarking about an astronaut’s failure at his own funeral or how he was not a good pilot.

First Man is a complex, intelligently directed portrayals of one of the defining moments of the 20^th century – Neil Armstrong’s historic walk on the Moon and the build up which preceded this significant event.

Highly recommended viewing, First Man receives a film rating of 9.5 out of 10 and is truly a cinematic achievement that will take audiences literally to the moon and back. Utterly superb.

The 89th Academy Awards / The Oscars

Sunday 26th February 2017

OSCAR WINNERS AT THE 89TH ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARDS

Best Picture: Moonlight

Best Director: Damien Chazelle – La La Land

Best Actor: Casey Affleck – Manchester by the Sea

Best Actress: Emma Stone – La La Land

Best Supporting Actor: Mahershala Ali – Moonlight

Best Supporting Actress: Viola Davis – Fences

Best Original Screenplay: Kenneth Lonergan – Manchester by the Sea

Best Adapted Screenplay: Barry Jenkins & Tarell Alvin McCraney – Moonlight

Best Cinematography: Linus Sandgren  – La La Land

Best Costume Design: Colleen Atwood – Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Best Make up & Hairstyling: Alessandro Bertolazzi, Giorgio Gregorini, and Christopher Nelson – Suicide Squad

Best Visual Effects: Robert Legato, Adam Valdez, Andrew R. Jones, and Dan Lemmon – The Jungle Book

Best Sound Editing: Sylvain Bellemare –Arrival

Best Sound Mixing: Kevin O’Connell, Andy Wright, Robert Mackenzie, and Peter Grace – Hacksaw Ridge

Best Film Editing: John Gilbert – Hacksaw Ridge

Best Production Design:  David Wasco and Sandy Reynolds-Wasco – La La Land

Best Documentary Feature:  O. J. Made in America directed by Ezra Edelman and Caroline Waterlow

Best Foreign Language Film: The Salesman directed by Asghar Farhadi (Iran)

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/89th_Academy_Awards

THE  70th BAFTA AWARDS /

THE BRITISH ACADEMY FILM AWARDS

Took place on Sunday 12th February 2017 in London at the Royal Albert Hall

BAFTA WINNERS IN THE FILM CATEGORY:

Best Film: La La Land

Best Director: Damien Chazelle – La La Land

Best Actor: Casey Affleck – Manchester by the Sea

Best Actress: Emma Stone – La La Land

Best Supporting Actor: Dev Patel – Lion

Best Supporting Actress: Viola Davis – Fences

Rising Star Award: Tom Holland

Best British Film: I, Daniel Blake directed by Ken Loach

Best Original Screenplay: Kenneth Lonergan – Manchester by the Sea

Best Adapted Screenplay: Luke Davies – Lion

Best Costume Design: Madeline Fontaine – Jackie

Best Foreign Language Film: Son of Saul – directed by Lazlo Nemes

Best Animated Film: Kubo and the Two Strings

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/70th_British_Academy_Film_Awards

La La Land

Director: Damien Chazelle

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, J. K. Simmons, Finn Wittrock, Rosemarie DeWitt, John Legend, Josh Pence

After the success of Whiplash, writer and director Damien Chazelle achieves the virtually impossible, a magnificent and dazzling modern day musical set in Los Angeles which is fresh, original and utterly captivating. La La Land pairs two of Hollywood’s hottest stars the dapper and ever charming Ryan Gosling (The Nice Guys, The Big Short) with the quirky and talented Emma Stone (Magic in the Moonlight) in one of the best on screen pairings ever seen on film.

La La Land is superb, a gorgeous brightly coloured ode to all those that have ever dreamed, that have harboured artistic expression, to those that have repeatedly been told to relentlessly follow your dreams. If you are talented and passionate then they will come true. But like all dreams, however magical there is always a price to pay.

Unashamedly, La La Land is also a tribute to Los Angeles, a glorious picture perfect film to all the major attractions of the magical city of stars where dreams come to be realized or dashed, where glamour is epitomized, where everyone wants to sing and dance and act on film.

La La Land sets the tone for a lavish musical, with the opening number starting as a traffic jam on one of the city’s major highways transforming into an extraordinary sing and dance number. Soon Mia an aspiring actress played with relish and nuance by Oscar nominee Emma Stone (Birdman) surrounded by a bevy of beautiful flat mates unexpectedly meets Sebastian a jazz-obsessed pianist whose dreams entwine in a seasonal musical which pays homage to Casablanca and Singing in the Rain.

Chazelle’s directorial style pays tribute to auteurs such as Robert Altman, David Lynch and Pedro Almodovar and his superb sense of timing is matched by his brilliant screenplay especially in the romantic scenes between Mia and Sebastian as they both embark on a romantic affair which is impulsive and beautiful from their first date watching Rebel without a Cause at the Rialto to their dancing under the stars at the iconic Griffin Observatory.

With an original score by Justin Hurwitz and some catchy tunes like City of Stars, La La Land will captivate audiences with its fanciful colours, its bold delight at music and refusal not to become too serious. In fact, La La Land is simply masterful in every way from the beautiful costumes mostly in primary colours to the fabulous production design, this film is like a tonic for everything cruel and horrible that is happening in the world.

Like a cinematic soufflé, La La Land hits all the right notes made all the more poignant by the fantastic performances by Gosling and Stone assisted with some wonderful cameo’s by John Legend, Rosemarie DeWitt and Oscar winner J. K. Simmons (Whiplash).

La La Land is the third collaboration of Stone and Gosling after Crazy, Stupid, Love and Gangster Squad and clearly this Hollywood chemistry is working judging by all the critical acclaim.

This is cinema at its best. La La Land is utterly phenomenal, a marvellous musical which is just what audiences are longing for: a visually spectacular tribute to the dreamers which makes living purely inspirational.

74th GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS

Took place on Sunday 8th  January 2017 hosted by

the Hollywood Foreign Press Association in Beverly Hills, California

GOLDEN GLOBE WINNERS IN THE FILM CATEGORIES:

Best Film Drama: Moonlight

Best Film, Musical / Comedy: La La Land

Best Director: Damien Chazelle – La La Land

Best Actor Drama: Casey Affleck – Manchester by the Sea

Best Actress Drama: Isabelle Huppert – Elle

Best Actor M/C: Ryan Gosling – La La Land

Best Actress M/C: Emma Stone – La La Land

Best Supporting Actor: Aaron Taylor-Johnson – Nocturnal Animals

Best Support Actress: Viola Davis – Fences

Best Foreign Language Film: Elle directed by Paul Verhoeven (France)

2016 Toronto International

Film Festival Winners

Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) takes place every year in September in Toronto, Canada.

Films which premiere at Toronto are often nominated for Academy Awards the following year.

TIFF does not hand out individual prizes for Best Actor or Actress but focuses on amongst others the following awards:
People’s Choice Award & Best Canadian Feature Film

Opening Night Film: The Magnificent Seven directed by Antoine Fuqua starring Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt and Ethan Hawke

People’s Choice Award: La La Land directed by Damien Chazelle – starring Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Finn Wittrock, J. K. Simmons & Rosemarie DeWitt

Best Canadian Film: Those who make Revolution only Dig their Graves Halfway directed by Mathieu Denis and Simon Lavoie