Party à la La La Land,
The movie is a kind of Alka-Seltzer for our queasy times. And it was only right that it be fêted with a proper party high in the sky.
Festival hit La La Land — which got the Hugo Boss treatment at the sprawlingly beautiful Lavelle on King St. W., following its gala treatment earlier on Monday at the Princess of Wales — brought out its co-leads Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, among others.
Together, in the gauzy, new, theyreally-don’t-make-’em-like-thatanymore movie musical, they’re guaranteed to relieve heartburn. And possibly start a new trend for spectator shoes, while they’re at it.
Everybody’s boyfriend, Gosling, gamely wears a pair of two-toned hoofers throughout most of the movie — notably during the dreamiest of dance sequences inside the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, my fave part of the movie — and, Monday night alone, I ran into two people ’round town who had worn their own spectator shoes in tribute.
All we need is one more to make a trend, right?
Someone phone Wintour.
Buttonholing La La Land’s director, Damien Chazelle, in the waning hours of the TIFF party — while the lobster brioche, and the ample drinks, rang on, and other guests like John Legend and Dan Levy carried forth — I got confirmation that his Technicolor love story is, indeed, partly inspired by the floaty French classic Umbrellas of Cherbourg.
“It’s one of my favourite movies,” Chazelle told me. We also had a nice chat about the time the director (who looks so young, and not like one of the guys who work at the Apple Genius Bar) came to the fest about 10 years ago as a movie lover.
“I remember seeing a director get a standing ovation and thinking, ‘Oh, they even give standing ovations to directors? This is my kind of town,’ ” he shared.
Chazelle and I also talked about the opening scene in La La Land, which consists of an exhilarating, 100-person montage of people singing and dancing on the ramp of an L.A. freeway. The scene had only one dress rehearsal beforehand, and they only had two days to get it all done — during a heat wave. Pressure . . . but fun!
Gosling, by the way, was relatively low-key at the rooftop soiree, even skipping the red carpet set up outside, and coming up through the underground parkway. The stud had arrived in Toronto direct from Budapest, where he’s currently shooting the Blade Runner remake. Party watch
Reese Witherspoon, making a spree of it while stopping into “The Room” at Hudson’s Bay on Queen St. W., picked up a few Roland Mouret dresses, handbags courtesy of VBH and Alaia, and four coats from Max Mara, Pucci and GBV. Fashion therapy!
Amy Adams was as delightful as advertised when I chatted her up at the post-premiere of Arrival, held at Storys, above Byblos, on Duncan St. She’s an elbow-toucher.
Lupita Nyong’o got feted at a swanky dinner a couple of nights back at the Shangri-La, presented jointly by Tiffany & Co. and Vanity Fair. Michelle Williams and Douglas Booth: among those who joined.
Richard Geregave good flirt when he stopped into an intimate dinner hosted by Variety and Holt Renfrew at Montecito, on Adelaide St. W., to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Sony Pictures. And finally We appear to have reached that time in the fest when Ethan Hawke spends a good hour playing pingpong, taking on a variety of opponents. He did just that at the TIFF-time film hive Mongrel House, set up at the historic Campbell House. Shinan Govani’s transportation for the Toronto International Film Festival has been provided by BMW Canada.
Damien Chazelle’s Technicolor love story is, indeed, partly inspired by the floaty French classic Umbrellas of Cherbourg