Goofs

The day Sebastian visits Mia at her coffee shop, Mia entered work wearing black pants with a yellow bag. When Mia leaves work, she is wearing a blue skirt with a red bag. When they show a long shot of Sebastian and Mia walking on the lot, she is seen to be wearing black pants. Then in the next shot, she is wearing the skirt again.

During the road rage incident between Mia and Sebastian, Sebastian is seen wearing a brown-colored shirt. When he returns to his apartment and has the conversation with his sister, he is wearing a blue-colored shirt. In the next scene, when Sebastian is practicing on his piano, he is back to wearing the brown-colored shirt. (Director Damien Chazelle acknowledges this mistake in the audio commentary.)

When Mia asks Seb to grab her keys for her, a tattoo on his left arm/elbow is visible. Later in the film, it is not.

In Sebastian's apartment, the clock says 10:50, but later on it shows 9:50.

(at around 1h 2 mins) As they are sitting down at the table, Sebastian picks up the beer with his left hand, but it is in his right hand after the cut.

During the opening freeway dance, several of the cars used for dancing have two visible, color matched strips on both the hood and roof. These are textured anti-slip adhesive to prevent the dancers from slipping.

There is one car with decorative "racing" stripes. Anti-slip clear coating is easily available if needed.

During Sebastian's keyboard solo in the song 'Start a Fire', his left hand switches between in and out of his pocket during several shots.

He put his hand in his pocket and he took it out of his pocket during several shots. He did it deliberately and on camera. This is normal behavior.

During the "Start A Fire" performance, in one shot about two minutes into the song, the camera can be seen on the right side of the frame.

It was a performance in a club. A camera *was* in the audience - filming the performance. It's not part of the movie crew and equipment.

In the opening sequence (Another Day of Sun) the cars on both sides of the freeway are facing the same way.

It's a divided freeway. The oncoming lanes traveling the other way are seen at 0:04:25.

Before the end of the 'Another Day of Sun' sequence, as the camera pans up over the freeway, neither Mia nor Sebastian's cars is seen. After the 'La La Land' and 'Winter' title cards and the camera pans back down, their cars appear, replacing other cars that were there before. Mia's Prius replaces the white SUV with the dancer in orange on top, while Seb's car replaces the gray sedan behind the SUV with the dancer in green.

In this surreal sequence where simultaneously, in a gridlock, people spontaneously leap on cars and sing, how their cars got there is not the main oddity in this musical comedy.

When Sebastian is playing the opening piano solo for "Start a Fire" and he looks out into the crowd to smile at Mia, the people around Mia are already moving their heads to the main rhythm of the song (which hasn't kicked in yet).

Which fits right in with the general surrealistic tone of the movie - dancing in the night sky stars, head-nodding zombies, stardust fluttering in the air.

When Sebastian goes to check on the oven after the argument with Mia, the smoke rises out of the oven slowly and almost horizontally, a sign that fake smoke was placed inside. If the oven actually had started smoking due to overcooking the food, the smoke would rise vertically and extremely fast upon being opened.

Lower temperatures are the most common culprit in food burning in ovens. As food dries out and approaches the ignition point, smoke progresses from wisps to clouds then flames. There's no point where extremely fast vertical smoke would come from a burnt casserole. If there were, the smoke detector would have sounded long before it did.

When Mia and roommates are getting ready to go out, one of her roommates pulls out a strappy blue dress and gives to Mia to wear. Mia dances and sings with the dress insinuating that she is going to wear it out that evening. When the girls all are finished getting ready and head out Mia is seen wearing a completely different blue dress that looks nothing like the one she was handed by her roommate. It is same color, but different style of dress altogether.

In the opening scene, several of the cars danced upon during the "Another Day of Sun" routine are dented in the roofs and hoods, revealing that there had already been several takes.

Of course there were previous takes. That's blatantly obvious. Hundreds of people abandoning their grid-locked vehicles to dance on the hoods to mismatched car radio stations doesn't happen without some prep work. [This statement simply justifies the Goof; it does not negate the Goof.]

When Mia exits the shower her hair is dry.

When Mia's friends are leaving the house to go to the party, the sound of the door closing doesn't match the shadow of the door.

The opening scenes include Christmas decorations in the coffee shop, Mia's apartment, and the jazz club, and "Jingle Bells" on the soundtrack, but Mia's phone shows the date as January 25.

(at around 17 mins) As Seb passes her stopped on the freeway, Mia shows him a finger gesture. Probably intended to be insulting, but she uses the wrong finger.

Near the beginning the lead male character is in his car rapidly switching between radio station but as the chrome wing ariel of his car is down he would not be able to pick up any radio stations at all.