• First Man

    How far would you travel to get away from everyone you love? Would 400,000 kilometres be enough? Damien Chazelle is not a romantic. He is in the habit of taking conventionally uplifting genres — the artist’s journey, the technicolour musical, and now the space race — cutting out their rah-rah hearts, and rebuilding them with a controlled focus on grit, sacrifice and the weight of roads not taken. The spectacular lunar leap that took place in the summer of 1969 is hardwired to be a narrative of triumph. Triumph over gravity, over the odds, and, let’s not forget, over the Soviets, who snatched an…

  • La La Land

    After assaulting our senses with 2014’s furiously frenetic Whiplash, Damien Chazelle sets his sights on our hearts in his new film, the romantic musical, La La Land. It seems the young director’s ambitions know no bounds as he transports audiences back to the era of Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in this throwback to Hollywood’s golden age. Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone star as Sebastian, a talented, but temperamental pianist who dreams of owning his own jazz club, and Mia, an aspiring actress stuck on the never-ending audition carousel in LA. When this pair of down at heel…