Hollywood

Hollywood. The land of dreams is no stranger to appearing on the big screen and being presented from many different angles, but it has been a long time since it was quite so colourful and quite so musical. This is La La Land.

Seb (Ryan Gosling) and Mia (Emma Stone) are both dreamers. The former longs to own and manage his own jazz club, the latter sees her name in lights, her face on the big screen. Their paths are interwoven and they can chase their dreams together with encouragement and support but the world we live in isn't easy for dreamers. There are expectations to live up to, finances to organise, and the proverbial 'man' keeping our protagonists from their ultimate success. Also, the film teaches us that sometimes success and dreams do not come hand in hand, that one does not necessarily equate to the other. This is not just a story of Seb and Mia, of their love and dreams, this is a story of how Hollywood engulfs those who wish to chase their dreams, how it forces compromise and conflict, how small decisions can change everything. And this story is told through song and dance.

The film opens with a traffic jam - welcome to Hollywood. But one by one, the commuters begin to sing; they step out of their cars and dance down the road in a spectacularly flowing set piece. Welcome to La La Land. The tone is apparent and the stage is set; we are thrown into a two hour rush of colour, music and movement. Director Damien Chazelle glides through his narrative with confidence, the film dancing along with its stars, helped in no small part by cinematographer Linus Sandgren. Chazelle and Sandgren choreograph each scene to the beat of the film, their camera as one of the performers. It weaves in and out of cars and bars, it swings around the piano that Seb plays, it circles Mia as she sings her heart out; it captures every ounce of emotion and, more importantly, soul that the film has to offer. If Chazelle's last feature Whiplash embodied the intensity of jazz, La La Land captures its warmth.

That warmth is amplified by the charisma and chemistry of the two leads. Both Mia and Seb are instantly and overwhelmingly likeable and their pairing slowly builds, eventually blossoming into love. From the gentle touch of finger tips in a cinema to helping plan each other's visions, their relationship is electrifying and full of life. The two powerful performances from Stone and Gosling over the course of the film culminate in a riveting and emotional climax with one of the most charming sequences in the film, leaving you smiling despite being metaphorically punched in the gut. The talent of the whole cast cannot be overstated with cast members learning new instruments (for their roles, Gosling learned piano from scratch and John Legend learned guitar), as well as dancing and singing live onset. No doubt you will be leaving the cinema tapping along to the catchy songs now permanently etched into your brain.

La La Land is a musical adventure into fantasy. It's more universally appealing than Chazelle's Whiplash, it's more charming and a lot less bleak, and also harks back to the golden age of Hollywood. This is almost a guaranteed formula for critical success (see The Artist's Best Picture win in 2012), but it also makes for a wonderful piece of cinema. It lacks the depth and power of some arguably better films, but it is inoffensive and totally captivating. It is a glimpse of what happens when a skilled film-maker decides to create something joyous; La La Land does not need to be dark to be brilliant.

The Weirdos of Wall Street

Around a decade ago, banks across the world collapsed. Not many of us really understand the details of what happened, but we all agreed that bankers were to blame and they were bad, bad people. A few filmmakers have tried to explain the events that led us to this conclusion (Margin Call, Inside Job), and trying to join that club is Anchorman director Adam McKay. This is The Big Short.

The Big Short tells three vaguely interlinking stories of bankers who predicted the crash of the housing market and bet against the banks. Firstly, there is Michael Burry (Christian Bale), a millionaire who discovers that banks are using subprime loans to add more mortgages to their plans. Subsequently he goes to the biggest banks in America and bets against the housing market. Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling) learns of these transactions and presents them to the second set of bankers, Mark Baum (Steve Carell) and his team of investors, who investigate the issue further. Finally, two young bankers, Charlie Geller (John Magaro) and Jamie Shipley (Finn Wittrock), find Burry's pitch regarding the housing market bubble and team up with retired trader Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt) to help them make the trades. But as the three sets of bankers reveal more about the housing bubble, the more the moral implications of their bets are brought into question and the corrupt system simply keeps getting worse.

Steve Carell as Mark Baum

McKay has gathered a stunning cast to tell this important story. Steve Carell is on the top of his game, reuniting with a director that made him eat coffee grinds in one of their last outings. Carell's Baum is the moral compass at the centre of the film; he hates bankers and yet is one himself. While the others betting against the house market, like Bale's genius Burry or Goslings sleazy Vennett, are only aiming to gain in either pride or money, Baum is constantly fighting an internal battle and Carell portrays this brilliantly. The ensemble work brilliantly together on screen, though rarely at the same time. Burry is never out of his offices, whilst Pitt, nigh on unrecognisable as Rickert, spends most of his time on the phone, physically separated from those he is performing with. But this does not hold them back, and this is a character based film. We have to care about the people on-screen because they are still part of the corrupt system that the film is criticising - they need to be the good-bad guys - and every single actor give performances that aid that goal.

Brad Pitt as Ben Rickert

Much like this year's Spotlight, The Big Short is a film that takes a incredible ensemble cast and explores the evil actions of humanity. Whilst the subject matter is not quite as dark as Spotlight, it is no easier to swallow. For many of us, what caused the 2008 financial crisis was incomprehensibly confusing, but what McKay does, helped in no small part by screenwriter Charles Randolph, is make it accessible. With entertaining cameos from Margot Robbie, Selena Gomez, Richard Thaler, and Anthony Bourdain as themselves, who help break down some of the more complicated elements of caused the collapsed (Subprime loans, CDOs, Synthetic CDOs) with handy, understandable metaphors (blackjack and fish stew, anyone?). The self-referential postmodernism does not stop there; the fourth wall is nothing to McKay, and characters often take themselves out of a scene to talk to the audience. With such a complex topic, the direct address often adds much needed clarity.

Though a bit clunky at times, cutting to archival footage that breaks up the films pace, and a little bit too long, The Big Short is an engaging, accessible, and important story of corruption, greed, and contemporary history.