La La Land (2016)

This is the one that drew all the nominations this year.  It helps that it has a two star cast, and that it is a musical, but it is also beautiful cinematically as well.  I did not know this when I saw it but the director, Stephan Elliott,  reportedly once told the Observer film critic Mark Kermode that that he’d made The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert to bring screen musicals back from the grave into which Xanadu had put them.  Those are old references, but if I had known he did Priscilla, I would have been more eager to see this film, which is truly an ode to old style Hollywood musicals.  In that vein it is impeccable.  The story is secondary to the staging, and the script is secondary to the performance, and with those priorities this is perfection.  The poster photo does an excellent job of conveying these pluses.  The positioning of Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling is absolutely seductive, as is the coloring of the clothes and scene and the way the photo conveys movement and excitement.  I was a little surprised to see this range in Gosling, but I have always thought he was terrific and this movie solidifies that opinion.  It is not my choice to win best picture, but it might be mine for best director.