Once
Wow! If you post it, they will come I guess. 1,034 hits yesterday for the new Spoon songs. That’s a record by a long shot. Hopefully a few of those new people read some of the other posts and decides to come back. Anyway, as most of you know by my movie reviews section (which has been severely lacking as of late), I’m almost as big into movies as I am music. So, when a movie like Once comes along, I get all excited wanting to see it right away. The problem usually lies in the fact that these movies never make their way to Springfield or any of the surrounding areas so I’m left waiting for the dvd to come out before I can see it.
As for the movie itself, Once is the newest movie from director John Carney, who was the bassist for the Irish band The Frames for a few years and made most of their music videos before turning into a full time director. He brought in Glen Hansard, the lead singer of The Frames, and Marketa Irglova to sing a few songs for the film’s soundtrack since they had collaborated earlier on an album entitled The Swell Season. Before long they had most of the soundtrack finished and Carney decided the two would be perfect for the lead roles of the movie and cast them in the parts instead of professional actors.
From the previews, Once appears to be the kind of movie I have an admitted soft spot for. It’s the kind of movie that uses only human interaction to tell a story of love, life, and hardship. The reviews are glowing and considering I absolutely love Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, this movie could end up being my favorite of the year. Once itself is a simple story of a street musician who meets a young mother adapting to new surroundings and they realize they each have musical talent and try to collaboarate to give each other better lives. So, basically Before Sunset style of conversationally driven scenes, only based around music, and that my friends is why I’m so excited to see this.
The soundtrack came out yesterday and the movie opens in select cities May 18th. If you’re lucky enough to be in a city that is featuring this film, go see it and let me know how it is. I’m going to take Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune’s word for it when he says “Once may well be the best music film of our generation”.
I didn’t receive the promo in time for this post, since excitement led to me not being able to wait to post about it, but two of the songs are reworked versions from The Frames latest album The Cost, so the mp3’s below are from that album. It sounds like Marketa plays piano and sings on both these songs so I think they just used the album versions of these songs for the film and then recorded a few new ones. (EDIT: Found the version of the two songs from The Swell Season they use in the movie, they’re below) I’m not sure, but this gets me to thinking why in the world I haven’t posted about the Frames before now because The Cost is a phenomenal album itself. Glen and Marketa have been opening for Damien Rice lately supporting their album The Swell Season and I imagine they’ll only get even bigger once Once is released. Here’s more info on the movie:
Trailer
Behind the Scenes
Falling Slowly (The Swell Season version)
When Your Mind’s Made Up (The Swell Season version)
Just to let you know, I saw it the day it came out here in LA without knowing anything about it before hand, and have rarely been so impressed and moved by either movies or music.