Story and photos by Dr. Michael Lim The Travelling Gourmet TM

Copyright all rights reserved

The irrepressible and entertaining Travelling Gourmet TM watches Hollywood blockbuster “La La Land!” starring Emma Stone and…

MACHO Ryan Gosling…This is the 21st Century answer to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers of the Golden Age of Hollywood. An ‘arthouse’ type movie that is a romantic sojourn into the lives of two young people aspiring to become BIG in show business. Their trials and tribulations and ultimately…their success. This is after all another interpretation of the American Dream. There is a real tangible onscreen sizzling and electrifying ‘chemistry’ between Ryan and Emma. Both are not what you might call picture perfect handsome and beautiful. Ryan is perpetually unshaven with an attempt at an “Action Man Explorer full beard” that does not quite make the mark, and he has eyes set too close together…Emma is bordering on Anorexia but is pretty enough with waif-like somewhat deformed features…and the eyebags are showing…Never mind! They still look very good and they sing and dance very well. That is what counts in a musical nicht wahr? I loved this movie and the music and the dancing and the subtle IRONY in the ending…I won’t give it away. Ha! Ha! Need to know and all that…:-) Amazingly,

Ryan Gosling plays the piano with NO finger doubles

Gosling, who hails from Ontario in Canada spent four months learning how to play the piano every day in order to get to a level that would make his jazz musician character Sebastian convincing. Well, it convinced me! John “Love Me Now” Legend also stars as a successful Mod-Jazz Band Leader…

Emma Stone sings, dances, dazzles and delights as Mia a struggling and aspiring actress from Boulder City in Nevada in a house opposite the Library…trying like so many to make it in show business in the cut-throat world of show business. Emma Stones’ acting is exemplary and very impressive! The wistful smile to Ryan in the final scene brings tears to your eyes…well, I must confess without duress that it brought tears to mine. Am I a “Sensitive New Age Guy” then??? 🙂

On a side note the tap dancing shoes that Ryan Gosling wears in their moonlight tap dancing scene are almost identical to those worn by Fred Astaire in “Too Hot to handle”. Emma wears a matching pair…At the end when she is a big star, the people in the coffee shop where she worked as a barista before, treat her very, very differently from when she was a ‘nobody’. A very sad but true depiction of life and human nature… C’est le monde, n’est pas…