Once

I realize this is late in coming, as this movie has been out for a while, but I finally got to see Once last night. I suspected I would love it since music, Ireland and Czech people are like my three favorite things. And love it I did. The music was great (as I'm sure you all know it won the Oscar for best song) and I have to say it was probably one of the most real movies I've ever seen. It seems like Hollywood - and even the independent entertainment industry - always tries to make us believe that love conquers all and love is the most important thing in the world and as long as you have that, it doesn't matter if you have to give up everything else. This film has a much more realistic outlook on that. Sometimes love doesn't conquer all and sometimes you have to be practical and play with the cards life dealt you. The film was completely heartbreaking, but at the same time extremely happy and uplifting.

Marketa Irglova's character made me extremely happy. She was just so Czech - always saying exactly what's on her mind. It made me miss the Czech Republic a lot. I also got really excited to be able to pick out a few Czech words and phrases.

During the Oscars, Colin Farrell referred to Once as "the little movie that could." It's so true. You can tell that the film was shot on an extremely low budget, but you really don't care because there's just so much heart to it and the music is beautiful. A lot of people refer to this movie as a musical, but it's not really. Not in the classical sense anyway. It's a film that revolves around music and has a lot of musical performances. But every time they sing, they are writing a song or recording a song or performing a song. It's not like in classic musicals where breaking out into song and dance is just part of daily routine for everyone in that world. The closest it comes to that is when Glen Hansard's character sings answers to Marketa Irglova's questions on a bus. But that's very much something his character would do and I hardly think that makes it a musical.

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