I had high hopes for this movie based on word-of-mouth from other movie-goers, but the only decent parts were the occasional "older" jazz tunes fleetingly heard throughout a dreadfully long and puffed-up soufflé that had no memorable music of its own to offer the listener. How many times can you play the same simple semi-classical jazz tune, over and over and over, and still have it leave no trace of memory after the movie is finished?

Beginning with the over-extended opening "musical" sequence leading up to Emma Stone giving the finger to Ryan Gosling once a massive traffic jam on the freeway finally begins moving again, all I could figuratively hear was some inept director in the background saying "Faster, faster! More energy! Keep smiling, dammit!" and where casting apparently had a call where every driver stuck in traffic couldn't be over 25, preferably not over 20.

As the skimpy plot slowly wound its way through the "seasons" to give us some time-frame for reference as to the length of this tripe, I kept expecting Toby Maguire and Kirsten Dunst to make a cameo appearance from their "Spiderman 3" jazz-bar sequence to at least bring some life to the turgid pace of this dog. The entire movie seemed like a two hour riff on that five minute clip. And the last "season" actually takes place five years later, like a bad coda to an awful movie.

Ryan Gosling can't sing, although neither could jazz artist Chet Baker, so I didn't hold that against him. But he certainly can't act, either. Emma Stone's own singing paled in comparison to Kirsten Dunst's feeble warbling in "Spider Man 3", and makes Nicole Kidman's singing in "Moulin Rouge" seem like an artistic triumph. Ms. Stone appeared to be trying her hardest to bring some much needed acting relief to the screen, but often came across as chewing the scenery opposite the sheer blandness of Ryan Gosling. Walter Matthau had more chemistry with Barbra Streisand in "Hello, Dolly!" and I always thought they had zero chemistry. Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone have less, as he seems to keep sucking it away from her.

The writing, directing, editing, "special effects" and even sound were awful. Characters just became "different", dancer's feet were cut off in several sequences, swirling the camera back and forth and back and forth took the place of cuts, possible close-ups were often ignored, segues were choppy, the "dream sequences" were usually laughable, with the final one the most ridiculous of all, and volume blared up and down throughout. Watching a two hour game of badminton would have been more interesting.