La La Land & This is Us.

I know being a MOVIE critics is a very legitimate job where trained professionals see things in a movie that no human eye of the regular public is actually seeing and they are breaking down every aspect of the movie in the most technical way and let me just say, thank you. 

You are valued. 

But for the rest of us who see movies to be be entertained by great plot, good laugh & star quality acting, here I am! I have just added "Cinema Critic" to my list of jobs and I'm here to work! 

I'll be breaking down (1) show & (1) movie per post according to the following. 

Who's in it :

Basic plot

Acting skills 

How you feel during it 

Amount of tears shed 

Parental advisory 

Then I'll rank according to my own patented scale. 

5 stars - see it twice in theaters, tell everyone you know, then buy it

4 stars - must own this movie 

3 stars - redbox it 

2 stars - only redeeming quality was the popcorn

1 stars - in the process of suing the director to get my money back 

This week I'm talking La La Land & This Is Us. 

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Hallelujah, praise be to Heaven, a new good family television program has graced us with their presence once again.  

If you look at what is on television these days, it is LEVEL TEN drama (reality tv), unrealistic-ness (grey's, I love you, but that much tragedy does NOT happen to one group of people), or a bad guy/crime show (once again, I love them). BUT I NEED MORE. 

Just on cue enters, This Is Us.

This show is so bomb. It starts with a couple, played by the lovely Mandy Moore & the studly  Milo Ventimiglia (Shout out to all the Gilmore Girls fans reviling their childhood crush). They are having triplets and immediately you fall in love with this couple. You believe their love. I want to do this review without spoilers but the show tackles real life stuff, like race and weight and marriage and family issues and homosexuality. Sometimes with humor and sometimes it is heavy. 

As you meet more and more characters in the show, you see how they are all intertwined. Im getting gooseys just writing this.  The acting is wonderful and it somehow, some way it will pull on the heartstrings of every single person watching. Take the plunge and watch it. 

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LaLa Land. Obviously, it won a million awards. But is it actually made for the everyday movie seer? 

YES. 

La La Land is about 2 people (Ryan Gosling & Emma Stone) one who aspires to be a jazz musician and one an actress. The movie is a musical and you travel through their lives, struggling to live out their dreams. There is depth and heart ache and joy and love. 

The music is exquisite and the acting is a dream. Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone have a chemistry that you just believe to be true. 

SPOILERS AHEAD

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They end up falling in love and you get to see how following their dreams and putting those dreams first affects their relationship. Emma ends up leaving LA & going home. 

But Ryan goes after her and pushes her into an audition that ends up giving her the big break she was looking for. 

Fast forward, you see Emma Stone as a famous actress with her new husband and child. They go on a date night,  and wind up stumbling into Ryan's Jazz club. 

As he is playing the piano on stage, they catch eyes. It flashes back to their life and how it could have been, happy. You almost think that is what actually happened. 

Then it's back in the jazz club. Emma is with her husband & they decide to leave. She meets eyes with Ryan and they smile. Then Emma leaves. 

... 

I watched this and my heart broke. We watched them grow and change and laugh and then all of a sudden it's over. I hated it! I couldn't possibly understand this ended. 

I went home and thought about this a lot. We watched their love story unfold, the important life lessons they taught each other, the mistakes they made. 

But we never got to see the love story of her husband. Maybe it was grandeur in all the ways and would have made the Ryan love story look like kid stuff. 

I think that is life. Life is falling in love and then losing it sometimes. It's taking the lessons of our past and learning from them. It's seeing where they bettered you and being grateful. 

And then it's finding what is right and moving forward. 

I still cried though, let's be real. 

So La La Land & This Is Us, approved. 

Xo Kels