![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Once...film review
Granny has gone home, we've or rather I watched two movies, had our turkey and our pie. My mother was a sweetheart and went out of her way to make gluten-free stuffing, gluten-free bread and cornbread for the stuffing, gluten-free pie crust, gluten-free gravy, and gluten-free waffles for breakfast. Which in some ways was the best gift she could have given me.
The movies we rented were Ocean's Thirteen and Once which received brilliant reviews over the summer and fall, and made a few ten best lists. Not entirely sure I agree.
Ocean's Thirteen even with close captioning (my grandmother and father are heard of hearing) was difficult to follow. Busy movie. I think I was the only one in my family who did follow it. If you like heist movie's it is amongst the best that I've seen. But some of the subplots get lost and a few make no sense - such as the one that deals with Linus (Matt Damon) and his conman father (a character who must have been mentioned in Ocean's Twelve because I don't remember him from the first film). It's not a bad movie, but I don't recommend it for family viewing.
Once - much shorter film, clocks in at 86 minutes, I saw by myself. My father tried to watch it but grew bored and disappeared in the other room to watch The Unit halfway through. Once is a little postcard stamp of a movie. A slice of life. And possibly the most realistic musical I've seen. It is not the sort of musical hard-core Broadway musical fans would love, it is rather a musical for people who may not like musicals very much or find traditional musicals to be rather silly. The characters sing because they are struggling musicians and only in relation to what they are trying to do. No one spontaneously bursts out in song. There are no colorful costums. The songs are soft and airy much like ballads played with accoustic guitare and piano. In some ways it reminds me of what I like to call "let's start a band" musicals aka The Commitments and That Thing You Do! by way of James Joyce and with a lot less melodrama.
Unlike the big musicals showcased in the last few years, such as Rent, Dreamgirls, Chicago, Hairspray and Sweeny Todd - Once focuses on the process of making music, we see the man strumming his guitare, hammering out the basics of the tune, there's no fiery chorus or rousing numbers, no drug use, no sex scenes, no blood, no dream-sequences. The tunes are low-key, the sort you might here a street musician sing on a corner, which makes sense because the lead character is a busker who fixes hoover vacume cleaners in his father's shop.
Watching Once felt a bit like reading one of the short stories in American Best Short Stories of 2005 collection - except this tale was not depressing, but uplifting. Simple. And real. Afterwards, I felt warm and hopeful, like my dreams whatever they might be were possible.
The movies we rented were Ocean's Thirteen and Once which received brilliant reviews over the summer and fall, and made a few ten best lists. Not entirely sure I agree.
Ocean's Thirteen even with close captioning (my grandmother and father are heard of hearing) was difficult to follow. Busy movie. I think I was the only one in my family who did follow it. If you like heist movie's it is amongst the best that I've seen. But some of the subplots get lost and a few make no sense - such as the one that deals with Linus (Matt Damon) and his conman father (a character who must have been mentioned in Ocean's Twelve because I don't remember him from the first film). It's not a bad movie, but I don't recommend it for family viewing.
Once - much shorter film, clocks in at 86 minutes, I saw by myself. My father tried to watch it but grew bored and disappeared in the other room to watch The Unit halfway through. Once is a little postcard stamp of a movie. A slice of life. And possibly the most realistic musical I've seen. It is not the sort of musical hard-core Broadway musical fans would love, it is rather a musical for people who may not like musicals very much or find traditional musicals to be rather silly. The characters sing because they are struggling musicians and only in relation to what they are trying to do. No one spontaneously bursts out in song. There are no colorful costums. The songs are soft and airy much like ballads played with accoustic guitare and piano. In some ways it reminds me of what I like to call "let's start a band" musicals aka The Commitments and That Thing You Do! by way of James Joyce and with a lot less melodrama.
Unlike the big musicals showcased in the last few years, such as Rent, Dreamgirls, Chicago, Hairspray and Sweeny Todd - Once focuses on the process of making music, we see the man strumming his guitare, hammering out the basics of the tune, there's no fiery chorus or rousing numbers, no drug use, no sex scenes, no blood, no dream-sequences. The tunes are low-key, the sort you might here a street musician sing on a corner, which makes sense because the lead character is a busker who fixes hoover vacume cleaners in his father's shop.
Watching Once felt a bit like reading one of the short stories in American Best Short Stories of 2005 collection - except this tale was not depressing, but uplifting. Simple. And real. Afterwards, I felt warm and hopeful, like my dreams whatever they might be were possible.
no subject
I wasn't planning to see 'Ocean's 13' since I thought that Ocean's 12' was intolerably boring and pointless... but I had heard that this last one was better (it could hardly have been worse).
That really was lovely of your Mom to adjust her recipes, I know it isn't that easy to do, but it means that you aren't being faced with everyone else eating treats you can't share. It is those loving little things that make Christmas special.
no subject
"Once" does actually function as a musical just not in the way most people are used to. It's what I like to call a modern musical or realistic one. The character's express their innermost feelings for each other and their ex-spouses through song. The song's have a vital reason for being in the film. And the music is at the center of the story - it is why the two people meet, it's what motivates them, and it is what pushes the plot forward.
In most traditional musicals - the music isn't really a plot element. It is well dialogue or used to express emotion. Some of musicals don't even have much of a plot - the plot is just there so we can hear a bunch of cool songs and see a bunch of cool dance numbers.
ONCE reminds me a bit more of the play musical - where we have quite a bit of dialogue and scenes without music, but the music is still at the center of it, it expresses the theme, who the people are, and drives the action forward. Examples include: Caberet, Flashdance, Dirty Dancing, The Committments, That Thing You Do!, Ray, and Walk the Line. When you watch them, you don't necessarily think "musical" even though that's what it is. And as a result the film reaches a much broader audience.