La La Land – 4K UHD Blu-ray Review

Winner of 6 Academy Awards® including Best Director for writer/director Damien Chazelle, and winner of a record-breaking 7 Golden Globe® Awards, LA LA LAND is more than the most acclaimed movie of the year – it’s a cinematic treasure for the ages that you’ll fall in love with again and again. Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling star as Mia and Sebastian, an actress and a jazz musician pursuing their Hollywood dreams – and finding each other – in a vibrant celebration of hope, dreams, and love.

What a delightful throw back to the days when Hollywood made a song and dance movie ala Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It’s a simple story, but the charm is in the telling. Gosling sings, dances and actually plays the piano (very well, I might add!), while Stone can sing and dance well, too. Together, with some brilliant camera works, they leave the viewer spell bound and the special effects are wonderful (Griffith Planetarium) to see. This movie can be a showcase of high dynamic range and wide color gamut. The colors are so vivid; you’ll be unable to tear away from the screen.

So the story revolves are the two protagonists. One is seeking to become an actress, while the guy wants to become a jazz musician. They fall in love, but will their careers bring them together or shoot them into different orbits? This film is worth watching to find out that answer. Boy, right when you think Hollywood doesn’t make ‘em like they used to…along comes La La Land! Perhaps a modern classic.

Filmed in Super 35mm and processed with a 2K DI, the colors and details in this movie are astounding. The director purposely used bold primary colors in every scene in the film and those colors just explode with HDR/WCG. I still can’t get over the opening montage of singing and dancing on an LA freeway off ramp with over 100 dancers involved. All of the sunset shots display a myriad of pink and purple hues that you just can’t capture on BD. Those colors also appear a bit flat on Blu-ray when compared directly. So when I am asked if the UHD version is really “that much better”, the answer is an unequivocal YES! The sound is fantastic, too.

The jazz music makes me want to get a 4K UHD concert disc and chill. One scene has Gosling on piano with a single spotlight on him. The scene is inky black and the light so intense, then the stage lights up in neon and the music blasts off. It’s both eye and ear candy. I can name dozens of scenes where the colors and lighting are just stunning, especially if neon light is involved, but mere words cannot portray the real visual effects you’ll see here…just go get this movie ASAP!

Almost too numerous to mention: Commentary, Another Day of Sun: They closed own a freeway!, La La Land’s Great Party, Ryan Gosling: Piano Student, Before Whiplash, Love Letters to LA, The Music of La La Land, John Legend’s acting debut, The Look of Love, The Third Time’s the Charm, Epilogue: The Romance of the Dream, Damien and Justin Sing (demos), and of course trailers, posters and song selections. All in all, well over an hour of extras…and they are all fun!