Saturday, August 04, 2007
Things That Are Good
I recently downloaded Emily Wells' "Mt. Washington" from iTunes, and it's my current favorite song. A little folky and a little bizarre and just really great. I like her "Fountain of Youth" too.
Saw "Once" tonight with a friend and loved it. It's so completely sincere -- I haven't seen a movie that felt this "real" to me since "Lost in Translation" (though that may just be me and my extreme susceptibility to music-induced emotions). Like LIT, it's a small movie, big on atmosphere and not so big on plot. The music really does most of the dramatic work and is the whole point of the film (if you don't like singer-songwriters, this may not be the movie for you). The best scene comes about 1/4 of the way into the movie, when the two main characters spend their lunch hour at a piano shop playing one of his songs. That amazing feeling you get playing music with someone, that feeling I was always trying to capture with chamber music and then with tango -- on your own it's fun, it's great, but there's something missing, and when you finally put it all together with someone else it's so satisfying and complete and transcendent -- I've never seen that depicted in a movie before, or anywhere, really, and they caught it perfectly. The film has a tendency to linger in the good scenes to the point where they almost drag a bit, where a Hollywood movie would cut away and create a montage (with dramatic background music) for maximum emotional impact -- but that's how life is: when something wonderful happens, you want it to keep going as long as you can, even if you never quite recapture that magical moment. So many good things -- the hoover, the song on the bus... Anyway: go see it.
And finally: a shout-out to "The Lives of Others", which I saw a couple of months ago. It's not often a movie makes me leave the theater saying "Wow." This one did. It's a serious movie, and a long one (maybe a little too long towards the end), but utterly gripping and totally deserving of its Best Foreign Film Oscar.
I recently downloaded Emily Wells' "Mt. Washington" from iTunes, and it's my current favorite song. A little folky and a little bizarre and just really great. I like her "Fountain of Youth" too.
Saw "Once" tonight with a friend and loved it. It's so completely sincere -- I haven't seen a movie that felt this "real" to me since "Lost in Translation" (though that may just be me and my extreme susceptibility to music-induced emotions). Like LIT, it's a small movie, big on atmosphere and not so big on plot. The music really does most of the dramatic work and is the whole point of the film (if you don't like singer-songwriters, this may not be the movie for you). The best scene comes about 1/4 of the way into the movie, when the two main characters spend their lunch hour at a piano shop playing one of his songs. That amazing feeling you get playing music with someone, that feeling I was always trying to capture with chamber music and then with tango -- on your own it's fun, it's great, but there's something missing, and when you finally put it all together with someone else it's so satisfying and complete and transcendent -- I've never seen that depicted in a movie before, or anywhere, really, and they caught it perfectly. The film has a tendency to linger in the good scenes to the point where they almost drag a bit, where a Hollywood movie would cut away and create a montage (with dramatic background music) for maximum emotional impact -- but that's how life is: when something wonderful happens, you want it to keep going as long as you can, even if you never quite recapture that magical moment. So many good things -- the hoover, the song on the bus... Anyway: go see it.
And finally: a shout-out to "The Lives of Others", which I saw a couple of months ago. It's not often a movie makes me leave the theater saying "Wow." This one did. It's a serious movie, and a long one (maybe a little too long towards the end), but utterly gripping and totally deserving of its Best Foreign Film Oscar.
