Humor me for a moment — is Damien Chazelle‘s old-school romantic musical La La Land really all that far removed from the cinema of David Lynch? Like the avant-melodrama triumph Mulholland Dr., Chazelle’s film is obsessed with the artifice that defines both Los Angeles and the entertainment industry around which it was built. Both films revolve around a pair of people inexorably drawn to one another, linked even as they drift apart due to the vicissitudes of circumstance. Both Lynch and Chazelle are fond of stylistic breaks from reality, exploring a dreamlike or otherwise surreal plane beyond this dimension. Hell, “here’s to the ones who dream” might as well be the mission statement of Lynch’s entire filmography.