I gotta say I just loved, loved, loved Jim Carney’s Once. Loved it. Cried through half of it, felt like a doofus for it, didn’t give a shit.

It’s just a perfect reconceptualization of the whole idea of what a movie musical ought to be — just barely enough plot to hold the songs together… except that instead of bursting into song for no good reason at all, stopping everything, and hoofing it around in antic costumery… the characters are working and/or aspiring musicians who just show each other what music they’re working with in their respective lives.

And what’s just so cool is that while they’re attracted to each other, and on top of that they mean something to each other, other parts of their respective lives have their own pull and so more than everything else they have the music the put together first over lunch breaks in music store pianos, or late night drinking and singing sessions with friends (my partner says this is more common in Ireland, where the movies’ set, than in the states), and then finally in an all-night recording studio session with other Dublin street musicians recruited for the occasion. And then…

Not to change the subject (or give anything away) but the actors playing the lead man and woman (their characters are never named) wrote and performed nearly all the songs.

Sigh.

Something else that’s so cool is that while they lyrics of the songs don’t carry the plot — they’re just songs two very, very good aspiring musicians might write — the way they’re played, filmed, acted in character carry the show.

Sigh.

I just loved that movie. If more musicals were like that I’d really like musicals a lot more. See it if you get the chance.