I have reworked my top 10 movies of the year. Lacey and I rented Once on Friday, and it immediately vaults up to number 5, knocking Hot Rod off the list.
Once was absolutely outstanding. It is a musical, but instead of grinding the narrative to a halt to let the characters sing, the film weaves the songs into the plot, and the songs help advance what is going on. It is quite amazing. The two lead actors are actually musicians, the guy is in an Irish band called the Frames, and the gal is a classically trained singer and pianist. The music is brilliant. The two leads wrote almost all of the songs, and it shows. I bought the sountrack on Saturday, but had half a mind to run out and buy it Friday night at 11 PM. It was that good. The film itself, while great, does dawdle a bit in the middle, and they probably could have done more there, but no worries. The rest of it is so good, it makes up for it. There are two scenes specifically, that along with the Dunkirk scene in Atonement, and the uncut scene in Children of Men are four of my favorite scenes in cinema history. I'll have to think about it a bit more and do a separate post on that. Suffice it to say that if you are reading this, and haven't seen the movie, rent it immediately. It has the F word a lot at the beginning, but if you can get past that, you won't regret this rental. Amazing. It's hard to compare this to Moulin Rouge, as they are so very different (Moulin Rouge is more of a spectacle, and adds dancing into the fold), but Once and Moulin Rouge are most definitely the two best musicals of our generation. If you aren't moved when the two leads sit down in the music store and punch out one of his songs, then I just feel sorry for you.
Posted by jmmelton at January 14, 2008 10:23 AM | TrackBack