The funniest 92 seconds of 'La La Land'
“La La Land” is a film of many pleasures.
The breathless opening musical number on an L.A. freeway. Director Damien Chazelle's ever-moving camera. Linus Sandgren's gorgeous CinemaScope photography. Oscar winner Emma Stone's heart-wrenching performance. And Ryan Gosling's expressive, impossibly handsome face.
But one of my favorite things about the not-quite-best picture, which is now available for rental and purchase on DVD, Blu-ray and digital platforms, is a 92-second appearance from a bit player who leaves an indelible mark.
His name is Miles Anderson, a Rhodesian-born veteran of British television whose screen credits go back 44 years. In “La La Land,” an original musical about struggling actress Mia (Stone) and jazz snob Seb (Gosling) falling in love while chasing their Hollywood dreams, Anderson plays a photographer hired to shoot promotional pics for Seb's band. He's on screen for a fleeting moment, but gets some of the biggest laughs in the movie.
His cockney voice, his hopelessly unhip instructions to the hopelessly hip Seb, his ridiculous lip-biting ... Anderson makes the most of his part, and joins a long list of bit players whose little contributions to big movies leave lasting impressions on the audience. Here are some more of my favorites:
• “A whaaat?” An Amity Island fisherman responding to Hooper's (Richard Dreyfuss) insistence that a tiger shark, not a deadly Great White, had been caught became a fan favorite with those two words and a surprisingly hilarious cadence in Steven Spielberg's “Jaws.”
• “There is no spoon.” Rowan Witt was 11 years old when he delivered this epiphany to Neo (Keanu Reeves), the hero of the Wachowskis' sci-fi classic, “The Matrix.”
• “I'll have what she's having.” It's been called the funniest line in movie history, spoken by director Rob Reiner's mother, Estelle, after Sally Albright (Meg Ryan) fakes an orgasm in a crowded deli to prove a point to Harry Burns (Billy Crystal) in “When Harry Met Sally ...”
• Sean Stangland is a Daily Herald multiplatform editor who has seen “La La Land” five times already. You can follow him on Twitter at @SeanStanglandDH.