The candy-colored love letter to musicals ‘La La Land’ on Tuesday landed a record-tying 14 nominations to the Academy Awards, which fielded a notably more diverse list of nominees following two straight years of ‘OscarsSoWhite’ backlash.
“La La Land” matched “Titanic” and “All About Eve” for most nominations ever, earning nods for best picture, stars Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, its jazz-infused songs and its 32-year-old writer-director, Damien Chazelle.
“I’m in Beijing right now. This only adds to the disorientation,” Chazelle said by phone Tuesday. “All that I have in my head is ‘thank you’ a million times over.”
Nine films out of a possible 10 were nominated for best picture. The others were: “Moonlight,” “Arrival,” “Manchester by the Sea,” “Hell or High Water,” “Lion,” “Fences,” “Hidden Figures” and “Hacksaw Ridge.”
Chattanooga’s John Montague is the associate producer of “Moonlight,” which pulled down eight nominations, tying it for second in the total number of nominations with the cerebral science fiction film “Arrival.”