Thank you so much to everyone that joined us for 'La La Land with Wine' on Saturday night .. a mesmerising movie and we hope you enjoyed the wines too!
Our 'Seasonal' La La Land Wines ..
As promised, here are the wines we poured on the night:
Winter -
Extra Special Cremant d’Alsace, France - ASDA £11.95
Spring -
Paco & Lola Albariño, Rias Baixas, Galicia, Spain - Sainsbury's £14.00
Summer -
Alamos Malbec Rose, Mendoza, Argentina - Majestic £9.99 (£7.99 as part of a mixed case of six)
Fall -
Edna Valley Pinot Noir, Central Coast, California, USA - Majestic £15.99 (£11.99 as part of a mixed case of six)
Winter -
Reserve des Hospitaliers Cairanne, Rhone Valley, France - Waitrose £11.99
La La Photos from the night
La La Trivia
Shares the record for most Oscar nominations (14) with Titanic (1997) and All About Eve (1950). La La Land (2016) is the only of the three to not win Best Picture.
Upon its huge historic victory at The 74th Annual Golden Globe Awards (2017), La La Land broke the record for the most Golden Globe Awards with seven wins (beating One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and Midnight Express (1978)), as well as the record with the most Golden Globe wins in every category in which it was nominated with seven nominations and seven wins (also besting One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest).
According to composer Justin Hurwitz, all the piano performances featured in the film were first recorded by pianist Randy Kerber during pre-production. Ryan Gosling then spent two hours a day, six days a week in piano lessons learning the music by heart. By the time filming had begun, Gosling was able to play all the piano sequences seen in the film without the use of a hand double or CGI.
John Legend, singer and pianist, had to learn how to play the guitar for his role.
The audition scene, where the casting director interrupts Mia's emotional performance to take a phone call, was actually inspired by one of Ryan Gosling's auditions in real life.
The line in the film said by Sebastian, "that's L.A. They worship everything and they value nothing," was actually added in by Ryan Gosling himself, when he heard his real-life partner, Eva Mendes, mention it as a joke.
The opening number, "Another Day of Sun," was filmed at an extremely hot temperature of 109 degrees F (43 degrees C) in two days. Each performer had two spare sets of costumes, stored in the cars, which they changed between takes. To maximise the filming time, choreographer Mandy Moore started rehearsals in May 2015 at the parking lot behind the production office. The sequence was mapped with miniature model cars and post it notes. During filming, as to avoid being accidentally filmed on the overhead camera, Moore was hidden beneath a car so that she could bark instructions to the dancers.
Only 30 dancers were used for the "Another Day of Sun" sequence. Most of the people and cars seen in the far background are CGI.
Emma Watson turned down the role of Mia due to scheduling conflicts with Beauty and the Beast (2017), while Ryan Gosling turned down the role of the Beast in that film to appear in this one. Coincidentally, both are musicals. Ironically, Emma Stone would later drop out of the role of Meg March in Little Women (2019) due to scheduling conflicts with promoting The Favourite (2018) and Watson was cast to replace her in the part.
Tom Hanks was so impressed by the film that, during a press conference for his film Sully, he told all the reporters to go see the film whenever they could.
Prior to filming, Damien Chazelle, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone visited Gene Kelly's widow and were able to look through many of Kelly's film memorabilia, including his leather-bound copy of the script for Singin' in the Rain (1952). At the end of the visit, Kelly's widow's dog escaped and Chazelle and Gosling ended up running through traffic to rescue the dog, with Chazelle affirming to Gosling, "We will not kill Gene Kelly's widow's dog." They were successful in rescuing the dog.
Damien Chazelle and Justin Hurwitz came up with the idea of the film during their senior year at Harvard University in 2010 with Hurwitz writing the musical tracks and Chazelle on dialogue. Initially they found two financial backers and a producer for a budget of $1 million. However, the demand for a lot of script changes made them to drop the project off. After Whiplash (2014) found critical success, the project was resurrected with the studio increasing the budget to $30 million; this allowed the filmmakers to rent the Griffith Observatory for filming (a full day rental there costs $10 thousand)
The plot has strong ties to Emma Stone's real-life history. The movie is based in LA, and Mia is discovered as a college dropout actress pursuing her dreams. Stone is a school dropout herself, having moved to LA at the age of 15 in pursuit of an acting career.
As Sebastian and Mia walk through the studio lot, they pass by two actors shooting a romantic scene, those actors are actually Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone's body doubles.
The movie stops being a musical at the moment Sebastian and Mia stopped being happy. The next song was sung at the audition when Mia starts feeling joy again.
Sebastian never introduces himself to Mia, and she never calls him by his name at any time in the film.
Chazelle also was taken by the concept that you meet someone in your life who transforms you. That sets you on a path toward being who you dreamed you could be. And yet you must travel that path alone. Chazelle finds that concept beautiful and heartbreaking and ultimately that's what he wanted the movie to be about.
Producer Marc Platt told a story that on the last day of filming the sun was setting and Damien Chazelle delayed announcing the wrap, instead grabbing a handheld camera to start filming the sunset. Platt realized that Chazelle did not want production to end. As darkness fell, Platt walked over to Chazelle to tell him they had nothing left to film without light, upon which Chazelle sadly agreed to call it a day.
Thanks again for joining us, check out our website to see all of our upcoming, movies, tastings and dinners. We'll be back at The Crescent for four more events before the end of the year including Rocketman, Abbott & Costello meet Frankenstein, Gremlins and White Christmas.