Random note of the evening: While leaving work I saw a car with a COREY license plate. This gave me the momentary hope that Corey Feldman worked at my office as I couldn’t imagine anyone else having a COREY license plate. (I doubt Corey Haim can even afford a car.) I’d just like to walk up to him at the cafeteria and go “Dude, you were awesome in Meatballs 4.”
(That was the version of Meatballs that featured water skiing. Yes, I’ve seen it. I am not proud of that fact. Doesn’t matter how many foreign films I see I doubt I’ll be able to live that one down.
So I had nearly one taker on the Get EC out of his apartment on Valentine’s Day contest. Looks like I’ll have to up the ante. Not only am I offering a dinner at the Outback Steakhouse (it’s like having dinner in Sydney if you imagined Australia resembling a mall parking lot) but I will now throw in dessert at Dairy Queen as well. I would go for Baskin Robbins but 31 flavors? That’s too rich for my blood. Plus, they offer things like French Vanilla and they are therefore unpatriotic and cannot be trusted.
(You think I’m joking but remember that Kansas just voted for Mike Huckabee. I’m surprised there aren’t pickets outside Baskin Robbins for that fact alone.)
Switching gears here as I have something a little more serious and interesting to write about. (Though really, if anyone wants a dinner date at any time look me up. I might as well make the time I have left in this town interesting.) It came up during the commentary to the movie Once and it is something that is really applicable to where I am now.
It focused on why the movie was called Once despite the fact that there is nothing in the movie that would indicate what that would mean. John Carney the director described it as an Irish condition where you find really intelligent, witty guys hanging out at the bar behind a pint of Guinness going “Once I get a job, once I write my script, once I leave home…” but never going anywhere other than the end of the bar. They’re brilliant people but they are frozen behind their pints. As you could guess this is something I can identify with.
It’s amazing how quickly my life can get frozen in place. As my friend Erik once pointed out, I put my better days in the future, which is an awfully poor place for them. It’s always been once I meet someone, once I figure out what I want to do with myself, once I find time to write my novel, then I’ll be happy. I never make headway on those goals; in some instances I seem to be intentionally be working in the opposite direction. I know why this is even though it is something I am loathe to admit.
Basically it is easier for me to accept my inadequate life than face the risk of failing at my dreams. It’s easy to think about in terms of my writing: if I sit down and write a novel and it is horrible then my entire dream of being a writer is shot and the fantasy really keeps me going. It’s worse though when you think of it in terms of meeting people, dating, having relationships, however you want to describe it. If you open yourself up to someone you run the risk of being hurt and you have to ask yourself whether you want to risk pain in order to obtain happiness. Or if a blah life is acceptable.
What I’m hoping for is that the fact that I’m taking the separation package and having the world in front of me will break me out of this fog. I can go pretty much anywhere and do anything. I’ve spent my life setting myself up to be in precisely this situation. For once, I can let myself fail. If I can convince myself that failure can be the best thing that can happen to me I might just become the person I envision myself to be.
Showing posts with label Once. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Once. Show all posts
Monday, February 11, 2008
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Movie Review: Once
At times I feel as if I’m a mystery to most people. At the least I have a tendency to resemble an iceberg, ninety percent of myself is hidden beneath the surface and I drunken sea captains run into me with surprising frequency. But mainly there are parts of my past that most people have no clue about. Such as the fact that I was raised with a great appreciation of musicals.
This is entirely a result of my mom, who is as proud of her true original Broadway cast recordings as I am of my CD collection. Growing up I often had Rogers and Hammerstein or Lerner and Loewe as my background music and whenever PBS had a pledge drive and would show clips from the classics it was guaranteed to be on our tv. To this day I still like musicals and the drama within them and if you get me drunk enough to honestly list my five favorite films of all time Singin in the Rain would be on the list. That said, it always was a little contrived to see people walking down the street suddenly break into song with an orchestra that had apparently been travelling with them for the past five miles.
That is what makes the film “Once” such an interesting take on the idea of a musical. It’s a musical where the songs are entirely natural. There is no contrivance there, the music is a part of the characters’ lives the same way it is in mine. The plot is simple to the point that the characters don’t even have names (they are referred to as Guy and Girl). In essence, Glen Hansard is a busker on Grafton Street in Dublin, playing Van Morrison songs during the day and his own songs at night. He meets Markeeta Irglova, a Czech immigrant and pianist, and they talk and make music and maybe fall for each other. They decide to rent a recording studio for a weekend and record some tracks. That’s pretty much the entire movie.
It might not sound like much but when you see it on screen it can be as touching as anything you will see in a summer filled with high explosive sequels and remakes of the cartoons from my youth. The emotions are real as the songs really are performed by Glen and Markeeta (I’ve been listening to their album The Swell Season for most of the past year). There is no acting to be seen, this is Glen living his life through his music with a camera just happening to be nearby.
What I love about the movie is that it highlights something that I deal with on a constant basis; it is easier for me to communicate through music than anything else. Even though I write every night I still feel that I can get my emotions across better in a mix tape than an email or a letter. There is a segment of the population where music and emotion is so intertwined that we can’t express one without the other. For most people that seems to be a little foolish and there is one scene that really shows it and it is my favorite from the film.
At one point Markeeta is listening to Glen’s music on a Discman and writing lyrics to the track and the batteries die. So she walks to the corner store, basically in her pajamas, buys batteries, and sings the song on the way back to her apartment. Now some may call this a musical moment, a girl singing on the street. Except that I do that all the time. I catch myself singing to myself in a parking lot or on the way to my apartment. I’ve overheard people mentioning it with a tone of voice indicating that they feel like they should try to keep their distance. But really it is just that when a song is good you don’t want to let it go for a second and that is what she is doing in that scene.
This is a brilliantly simple movie. No explosions, no stars, nothing except music and Dublin and hopes and dreams and maybe a hint of love. And a wonderful, unexpected ending that makes you smile to no end. Maybe I’m a fan of this movie because I’ve met Glen and his band is my favorite in the world. Maybe I’m a fan because these songs have been a part of the fabric of my life for the past year. Or maybe it is just because a story about an Irish guy meeting a Czech girl on the streets of Dublin touches me on more levels than most because of my heritage. No matter what, this is a beautiful movie with wonderful music. You owe it to yourself to see it. Just to hear the line “You have suffered enough and warred with yourself. It’s time that you won” in song.
The five random CDs for the week:
1) Emmylou Harris “Spyboy”
2) Cat Power “The Greatest”
3) R.E.M. “Monster”
4) Bruce Robison “Long Way Home From Anywhere”
5) Cowboy Mouth “It Means Escape”
This is entirely a result of my mom, who is as proud of her true original Broadway cast recordings as I am of my CD collection. Growing up I often had Rogers and Hammerstein or Lerner and Loewe as my background music and whenever PBS had a pledge drive and would show clips from the classics it was guaranteed to be on our tv. To this day I still like musicals and the drama within them and if you get me drunk enough to honestly list my five favorite films of all time Singin in the Rain would be on the list. That said, it always was a little contrived to see people walking down the street suddenly break into song with an orchestra that had apparently been travelling with them for the past five miles.
That is what makes the film “Once” such an interesting take on the idea of a musical. It’s a musical where the songs are entirely natural. There is no contrivance there, the music is a part of the characters’ lives the same way it is in mine. The plot is simple to the point that the characters don’t even have names (they are referred to as Guy and Girl). In essence, Glen Hansard is a busker on Grafton Street in Dublin, playing Van Morrison songs during the day and his own songs at night. He meets Markeeta Irglova, a Czech immigrant and pianist, and they talk and make music and maybe fall for each other. They decide to rent a recording studio for a weekend and record some tracks. That’s pretty much the entire movie.
It might not sound like much but when you see it on screen it can be as touching as anything you will see in a summer filled with high explosive sequels and remakes of the cartoons from my youth. The emotions are real as the songs really are performed by Glen and Markeeta (I’ve been listening to their album The Swell Season for most of the past year). There is no acting to be seen, this is Glen living his life through his music with a camera just happening to be nearby.
What I love about the movie is that it highlights something that I deal with on a constant basis; it is easier for me to communicate through music than anything else. Even though I write every night I still feel that I can get my emotions across better in a mix tape than an email or a letter. There is a segment of the population where music and emotion is so intertwined that we can’t express one without the other. For most people that seems to be a little foolish and there is one scene that really shows it and it is my favorite from the film.
At one point Markeeta is listening to Glen’s music on a Discman and writing lyrics to the track and the batteries die. So she walks to the corner store, basically in her pajamas, buys batteries, and sings the song on the way back to her apartment. Now some may call this a musical moment, a girl singing on the street. Except that I do that all the time. I catch myself singing to myself in a parking lot or on the way to my apartment. I’ve overheard people mentioning it with a tone of voice indicating that they feel like they should try to keep their distance. But really it is just that when a song is good you don’t want to let it go for a second and that is what she is doing in that scene.
This is a brilliantly simple movie. No explosions, no stars, nothing except music and Dublin and hopes and dreams and maybe a hint of love. And a wonderful, unexpected ending that makes you smile to no end. Maybe I’m a fan of this movie because I’ve met Glen and his band is my favorite in the world. Maybe I’m a fan because these songs have been a part of the fabric of my life for the past year. Or maybe it is just because a story about an Irish guy meeting a Czech girl on the streets of Dublin touches me on more levels than most because of my heritage. No matter what, this is a beautiful movie with wonderful music. You owe it to yourself to see it. Just to hear the line “You have suffered enough and warred with yourself. It’s time that you won” in song.
The five random CDs for the week:
1) Emmylou Harris “Spyboy”
2) Cat Power “The Greatest”
3) R.E.M. “Monster”
4) Bruce Robison “Long Way Home From Anywhere”
5) Cowboy Mouth “It Means Escape”
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