I try not to jump for the five star rating mere days after first viewing of a movie, but sometimes you just know. I did not realize this was based on a play until after I'd seen it, and I don't want to make judgments about the play without having seen it; however, many of the reviews I read after the film seemed to take issue with the lack of explicit mention of homosexuality, supposedly a sign of the conservative…

There's a moment early on this film that nicely summarizes Damien Chazelle's approach to music and art: Ryan Gosling, sitting at his piano, puts on a jazz record, which begins with a complicated piano riff. He stops the record, plays the riff on his piano exactly as heard on the record, messes up, then spins back the record, replays the opening, and mimics it again. It's the same methodology behind the "Play one wrong note and you DIE" premise of…