#Buy la la land soundtrack movie#

And that in Season 4 of NBCвЂ™s Parks and Recreation, Amy Poehler, as Leslie Knope, visits her local public radio station, where a DJ plays Benny Goodman and Miles Davis simultaneously, and then says to Leslie, off mic, with right-thinking oiliness, вЂњResearch shows that our listeners love jazz.вЂќ She might know that Lena Dunham claims to hate jazz, too: Dunham said so in 2014 on li.st, the list-making social media platform.

Or she might know that eight months ago, in Season 5 of HBOвЂ™s Veep, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, as Selina Meyer, joked that jazz was вЂњway overrated,вЂќ comparing it to democracy and anal sex. вЂњYou canвЂ™t follow it and thereвЂ™s no melody,вЂќ Carrie replies.

вЂњWhy would you say something like that?вЂќ Ray asks. And these are not insignificant movies: Whiplash managed to go from a Grand Jury Prize win at Sundance to a Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards, and Oscar prognosticators have already tapped La La Land as this yearвЂ™s front-runner. But itвЂ™s worth dwelling on, because between this film and his previous one, Whiplash -the story of a young jazz drummerвЂ™s struggle with a sadistic music teacher-Chazelle seems to be investing in the connection between jazz and torment, whether it is the love-hate kind of torment or the hate-hate kind. The joke, years ago, became a trope, and then a screenwriterвЂ™s clichГ©.

#Buy la la land soundtrack movie#

To have a sympathetic fictional character of a big-budget movie say that she hates jazz is a sign that the character is in on a long-running joke. A lot of people understand jazz to be sacred, and this makes it a target for irreverence, because sacrilege is funny-and especially when ritualized. Hatred of jazz-whether sincere or fashionable or reflexive, as a kind of sorry-not-sorry joke-runs strangely deep in American culture. But this movie wants to connect with you in code, and here is a cold-bloodedly coded moment. I canвЂ™t help, because I wonвЂ™t help, unless you want to talk about it. Some people really donвЂ™t like the sounds of jazz, particularly saxophones and trumpets, and thatвЂ™s fine, too. To hate jazz, or to feel alienated by it, might be tied up with issues of race, gender, class, generation, or distrust in the spiritual value of a work of art. Jazz is about 100 years old, and despite all the humane joy in the music of, say, Louis Armstrong or Sarah Vaughan or Ornette Coleman, it can look from a distanceВ like a guilt-maker: a parent, a teacher, a cudgel. Working as a jazz critic, IвЂ™ve met people like Mia. вЂњI should probably tell you something now, to get it out of the way,вЂќ cautions Mia (Emma Stone), an aspiring present-day actress, to Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), a stoic young jazz pianist, at a turning point in La La Land, Damien ChazelleвЂ™s new movie musical.