Film School, Vol. 1: Once

Since you already consult this website for good advice on how to vote, what to cook, and what current world events are most interesting, so I've decided to throw in a movie review from time to time. We watch a lot of movies and TV-on-DVD, thanks to Netflix, but this series will only address movies I really liked. Movies I hated will be ridiculed as usual, but will not be part of the Film School series.

The movie that prompted me to begin this is... Once, which you might have heard of by watching this year's Oscars. Glen Hansard, of the Irish band The Frames, and Czech singer Markéta Irglová won the Oscar for Best Original Song, and there was only one other song in their category of five that was not from the film Enchanted. Barf.

Now, about this movie. Guy and Girl (they remain unnamed throughout the movie) meet when he's singing on a Dublin street corner and she walks by, selling flowers. He tells her that his "real job" is working in his father's vacuum repair shop, which makes her day since, as she puts it, "I have a broken Hoover!" She returns the following afternoon with the broken vacuum cleaner in tow, and from there they get to know one another and discover that they make a great musical team.

Without telling so much that I spoil the movie, she aids him on a project to record a demo album and get rolling the career he has been long putting off. (Hence the title, which comes from the director's experiences with musicians who say they will start their career "once" such-and-such takes place.) The movie also centers somewhat on their potential relationship.

I bought this movie's soundtrack on iTunes weeks ago after hearing and liking their Oscar song, Falling Slowly, and it turns out that the rest of it is fantastic as well. My favorite song from the album is Fallen from the Sky, which is played in the movie on a Casio keyboard (drumbeats and all). It reminded me of my own Casio from my childhood, which played Greensleeves, Holiday, and Born in the USA.