It's 'La La Land.' No, 'Moonlight.'

Oscar's biggest screw-up ever? Probably.

Normally, I'd be writing something about how host Jimmy Kimmel, after a fine start, teetered as the evening wore on. I might say that I was a bit surprised that Denzel Washington (Fences) lost the best actor award to Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea). I also might have said that Viola Davis' heartfelt acceptance speech for best supporting actress was the highlight of an evening that became boring despite Kimmel's attempts at originality -- dropping candy from the rafters and bringing a tour bus full of unsuspecting gawkers onto the Oscar stage.

I also might have said that I got real tired of Kimmel's running gags about his feud with Matt Damon.

Had things gone the way they should have, I would have cheered Moonlight's victory over frontrunner La La Land for best picture.

I know. I still can't believe it, either. Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, who once starred as Bonnie and Clyde, stole all the Oscar thunder by announcing the wrong movie for best picture. During a La La Land acceptance speech, we learned that Moonlight -- not La La Land -- actually had won. It fell to Jordan Horowitz, a La La Land producer, to utter words that probably will haunt him for the rest of his life, "There's a mistake. ... This is not a joke, Moonlight has won best picture."

Warren Beatty lamely tried to explain what happened, something about the best actress card being in the best picture envelope. It didn't really help.

So what should have been a great night for those of us who preferred Moonlight to La La Land left a very sour taste. How could anyone not feel sorry for the folks who made La La Land? They had statues in hand -- and gracefully surrendered them to the Moonlight crew.

You'll read a lot more about this monumental screw-up, but on a night when we should be celebrating the work of Mahershala Ali, who won best supporting actor for his performance as a crack dealer with a heart in Moonlight and when we should be wondering how Suicide Squad won anything (it landed the Oscar for makeup and hairstyling), we're stuck with the most embarrassing ending to an awards program in the history of awards programs.

So I'm cashing in my chips for the evening. Maybe I'll return to Oscar tomorrow, but I'm no longer in the mood to eke some social significance out the evening, which included the expected jabs at the current administration and calls for inclusion.

Instead, I'll leave you by quoting a tweet from James Poniewozik, a TV critic for the New York Times.

"Looking forward to tomorrow morning, by which time the Oscar winner for best picture will be Hidden Figures," Poniewozik wrote.

All I can say is, "Dunaway and Beatty gave us something to talk about, but damn."

Music and romance in 'La La Land'

Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone star in an attempt to breathe new life into the Hollywood musical.

I liked it, OK? Now, let me tell you why the much-praised La La Land didn't totally lift my spirits, change my mood or otherwise transport me to heights heretofore unattained in the history of human movie watching. And, no, I'm not talking about some post-election funk that prohibits me from enjoying anything.

For me La La Land is a bit of an oddity, a movie I enjoyed (some of it immensely) and also quibbled with (often).

Director Damien Chazelle (Whiplash) opens the movie with a dance number staged on an LA freeway exit that sets a snappy pace that defines the movie in its earliest going. Scenes feel carbonated, as if they're about to bubble off the screen.

The single-shot camera work of the movie's opening proves fun in a razzle-dazzle sort of way, but if you look at other elements (the music and the dancing), you may be slightly less impressed. La La Land feasts on candy-colored imagery and an unashamed reckoning with its musical predecessors.

La La Land centers on a romance between aspiring artists -- one a jazz-obsessed pianist (Ryan Gosling), the other an actress (Emma Stone) who has yet to make her mark in Hollywood.

Watching Gosling and Stone do a Rogers/Astaire-like number on a deserted street overlooking the city's lights proves a bit of a strain. They're both trying their best, but I've seen Fred Astaire and ... well ... you know how the rest of the sentence goes.

Of the two stars, Gosling seems the least likely to turn up in a musical. He's playing a character who dreams of restoring a jazz club in Los Angeles, and he's written a song for piano that becomes one of the movie's major motifs. Sorry to say, the tune sounds trite when compared to Gosling's character's purported heroes: Bird, Coltrane, et. al.

Eventually, Gosling's Sebastian is presented with the opportunity to join a successful band led by former pal Keith (John Legend), a musician who embraces a youthful audience and thinks that Sebastian's devotion to jazz might be a bit pointless.

By this time, Gosling's Sebastian and Stone's Mia are a couple; she urges him to join Keith's touring show, but in the end, regrets having encouraged him. She thinks Sebastian has sold out his art, and betrayed his avidity. Who's left to defend the purity of jazz?

Stone's Mia faces her own struggle. She finds herself humiliated at audition after audition, familiar scenes handled with aplomb by Chazelle. Sebastian encourages Mia to write a play, and stage it as a one-woman show. She does. No one comes. She heads back to her home in Nevada, but eventually achieves her dream, and becomes a star.

Will the romance between Mia and Sebastian survive all this career angst?

While pondering that question, you'll find trace elements of Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly, Vincent Minnelli and Jacques Demy. But even if you don't catch the references, you'll get the feeling that Chazelle wants to meld old-fashioned movie magic with an upbeat sensibility that can play to contemporary audiences.

The stars of the movie are production designer David Wasco, art director Austin Gorg and cinematographer Linus Sandgren, whose work affords considerable pleasure in quiet sequences in which Stone's Mia simply walks down a dimly lit street or in a fantasy sequence set at Los Angeles's Griffith Observatory, which you'll recognize as a centerpiece location in Nicholas Rey's Rebel Without a Cause.

Chazelle uses the observatory's planetarium for the movie's most fanciful and charming sequence, which offers a helping of gossamer enchantment that can't help but make you smile.

Don't be surprised if Stone wins the best actress Oscar for her work here. To the extent that the movie has a true beating heart, it emanates from Stone, who has been given a showcase musical number -- a song that she pulls off with more conviction than vocal talent.

The movie's bittersweet ending isn't entirely satisfying, but we have La La Land, and it's possible to like it without totally surrendering to all of its carefully concocted charms.