Don’t let the first ten minutes of Damien Chazelle’s (Whiplash) La La Land influence you too much. As much as it might seem like West Side Story, Grease, or many other musicals, rest assured, it is not that kind of movie. Ten minutes in, after a supporting cast of characters who you never see again finished performing a song and dance on top of and around their cars while in a traffic jam on the 105/110 interchange in Los Angeles, CA, I wondered what the heck I had gotten myself into. There was a reason I have never been able to get through Chicago or Moulin Rouge. I am sure that these are fine movies. Chicago won Best Picture, and Moulin Rouge was a Best Picture nominee. I’m not much into musicals as I am into other genres. There is nothing wrong with them (I wouldn’t say I like animated movies much as well), but they aren’t my cup of tea. The only reason I could sit through Les Miserables was that my dad had already tricked me into watching it in the theater. My biggest fear was that La La Land would be either all song and dance (implied from the trailers early in the year) or a lot of song and dance (inferred from later previews). However, neither was the case. While there was a lot of music in this film, and it certainly was a musical, it’s not just music. There is so much more. If you’re at least willing to give this movie a chance, you’ll enjoy it in some fashion.