Photo by @refugeeinamerica
Medammes et mesieurs,
A modern musical. Let me just repeat that.
[speaks slowly]
aimouddernmeeyouseecal
[Audience applause]
Lalaland makes me want to turn my life into a musical.
In this movie I'm still fifteen.
And by fifteen what I really mean is twelve. I'm a late bloomer. Specifically, I'm referring to the gap between the stages where I was not a girl, not yet a woman. I believe it was Britney who coined the term.
In this movie, my musical, I'm a fifteen-year-old living the life of a thirty-year-old. I may look twenty-five but I'm really thirty-four.
Like Jennifer Gardner in the movie with Mark Ruffalo, I swear some days I get up feeling as if I woke up as my teenage self. And people don't seem to notice.
I play the role of a yoga teacher/writer. I'm married to a german-salvadorean film director. He is as cute as he is talented.
For our 10th year anniversary we go out on a date. Dinner and a movie.
The Vista Theatre is playing Lalaland. My favorite of all time.
I saw the movie for the first time before Christmas, I've been in love with it ever since. I had no idea what to expect other than I'd really liked Whiplash. Enough to make me curious to watch what happens next. Besides, Ryan Gossling is never a bad idea.
The movie [Insert 10,000,000,000.00 "Smiling Face With Heart-Shaped Eyes" emojis here] blew my mind. It also blew my soul into tiny thousands rays of multicolored glitter tracing rainbows.
By the way, that was me totally fanning my eyelashes at Damien Chazelle.
The Vista feels like going to the movies, in a movie. It's been around since 1923.
Yes, LA is that romantic.
As romantic as an unannounced John Mayer concert at Hotel Cafe. And wait, is that Dave Chapelle?
[crowd cheering]
Lalaland is not just the story of Sebastian and Mia dancing across the universe in a sequence of scenes that are visually multi-orgasmic. It is also the story if its director, Damien Chazelle.
It is the story of a technically flawless and magic-filled master piece. A boy with a dream. The dream of a boy who is slapping society in the face. Using confetti.
It is both a movie and a city. Like pizza and a beer. My 13 going on 30. Watching it made me feel like it is ok to swirl.
Actually, not just to swirl but to sing and dance.
Uninhibitedly.
