"ONCE" - too many

Never, ever, base a movie selection on one particular song from the soundtrack. It seems like a pretty obvious move not to make but I've had previous success with this method of picking films. For example, whilst listening to Michael Barnes one morning, he mentioned the track he played (the name escapes me), was from a film, a good film, called Sin Nombre. For many reasons, I trust this guy. His music knowledge is vast and I prefer his selection of music over others at kcrw. That said, I came to the conclusion that similar taste in music = similar taste in movies? Somewhat accurate, right? I netflixed that bad boy immediately and sure enough I was not disappointed. The film is vivid. The colors, the violence, the story - all vivid. The soundtrack, while very good, was a back story and center stage became the plight of a young Honduran girl migrating to the U.S. The obstacles she encountered will give any American with liberal guilt (moi) a heavy heart. Rent it, watch it, love it. You may thank me later.

On the cusp of such success from Sin Nombre I added another film based on a song I heard from Jason Bentley's set on MBE. The song is nice, no? I mean a little emo for some but it's nice to be a sentimental sap once in a while. I'll be the first to admit I'm a sucker for quirky, indie love stories a la Eternal Sunshine. I added it to the queue and somehow, not sure how, Once rose to the top of the list and it arrived on Friday, full of promise. First off, there were two things going against this movie from the beginning; one: it was a musical and two: it probably cost about 3K to make. Not that a small budget should ever stifle a movies' success. With talented people anything is possible but this movie did not possess that kind of strength. It also didn't help that the person I was watching the movie with was of the xx genetic make-up. As soon as the word "musical" was mentioned I was given the stinkface.

I tried, I absolutely did. I was about 30 mins. into the film when I felt the urge to fast forward through it. It was long, or rather, it felt long. I'm sorry I can't really give an adequate review for this because I haven't actually seen the entire movie. I mean, you'll have to be slightly sensitive in order to appreciate this kind of film. Good Luck. Immediately afterwards I watched Born into Brothels to cleanse myself of bad movieness. Now I want a 35mm camera, stat.