Wednesday, January 9, 2008

See "Once" at Least That Many Times

I hate musicals. I mean I really hate musicals. They are my Kryptonite. I can suspend disbelief for a lot of things when I watch a movie or a TV show. Sure there are 20 bad guys with machine guns, and he only has a pistol. So what? He's the good guy and it is a movie. So what if a bullet would go trough that car door like the metal was a sheet of paper? It's a movie! Fat guy, Hot Wife? Why not? He's got personality, and a laugh track.
But the one thing I can't suspend disbelief for is a movie where someone just starts singing, and music comes out of nowhere, and everyone knows the words, and they know all of the choreography. And worst of all, is that the music is something you would never listen to unless you were forced to listen to it by Carson Kressley.
And then I see the movie "Once".
"Once" takes everything I hate about musicals, picks it up by its feet and shakes it down for lunch money. Politely.
The story is simple. An Irish street busker, played by Glen Hansard of the Frames, meets a nice Czech girl who is also a musician, and then they make beautiful music together.
What makes this movie so different from other musicals is that the music is in context. It makes sense. He is a street performer playing his songs. Then he teaches her some songs so she can play with him. She doesn't magically know the lyrics. She reads them off of his notebook. She learns the music there before your very eyes. The songs do progress the plot of the movie, by revealing the singers feelings, but they are believable. They are songs you would actually like to have on your iPod. Not ridiculous songs that sound like they were ripped from someones twitter posts or laundry list.
The acting is great. The music is great. It is a low budget, yet awesome movie.
It had a similar feel to the Ethan Hawke/Julie Delpy Before Sunrise/Sunset films. So if you liked those, definitely go for it. Even if you didn't like those, I am hard pressed to believe you could have a bone to pick with anything in this film.
Buy Once on DVD by clicking here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Absolutely THE BEST movie of the year, if I do say so myself. We rented it from a video store (Blockbuster or Hollywood Video, but I don't know which), and I thought, well, why not watch, the music's good (my mom was watching it downstairs when I was eating lunch), and I plopped right on the couch. In five minutes, I was practically in love with the movie, lol. After we watched it, we bought the soundtrack, and neither my mother nor myself have stopped listening to it since.

I rate it 12 out of 10, those two extra points because of how it touches the ppl that watch the movie and listen to the music.

SleekPelt said...

This movie is nothing short of remarkable. I watched it last night for the first time and am still just blown away by it. I think I'm going to post about it tonight, in fact. For now, I'm just looking for the chords!