Once, He Said

The musical is as movie genre as old as the talkie. In recent years, it has taken a back seat probably best done in animation by Disney. But take heart, telling a story by singing your heart out has not died. John Carney director and writer has given us a totally different take on the concept with his film "Once".

eastern We are introduced to a Dublin street busker who is playing, as he says, what people want to hear during the day and his songs at night when there aren't as many people. A immigrant European women encourages him to record his music. Her aid and encouragement seems selfless, but in fact she also needs an outlet for her pain. As it turns out she is an accomplished musician and just the thing he needs to take his flagging pride to another level.

Both of these people are drifting after the loves of their lives failed them. He lost his girlfriend when she left him for a new life in London. The girl, there are no character names in this film, left the father of her child in her home country to find a new and more hopeful life. What they have in common is music and beautiful music it is.

In this film music is not incidental music to create background. The director is not creating moods or scene with familiar music. With their music, he created dialogue that drives the story and introduces us to the characters. Following them in their effort to record their songs, we are exposed to their dreams, suffer their pain and hear their stories.

In the wings lurks the question, can they over come their grief and find love and if they do will it be with each other? I won't tell you the answer to that, because it would spoil it for you, but I can tell you that seeing this film is a wonderful and worthwhile experience.

The Valet (Doublure, La), He Said

Romantic comedies are so much better with French subtitles, or so it might seem. The plot of this farce is simple. The CEO of a large French company has a mistress. She happens to be a supermodel (potential trophy wife of the highest order). They are photographed together and the photo is published in a newspaper along with the obligatory speculation that there is a romance in the air.

Our CEO / Lover is worried about his wife, not because he loves her, but because she controls sixty percent of the stock in the company he runs. In the the photo there is a man passing by. Our CEO's attorney suggests that they set up this guy with the supermodel to take the heat off of him until his position at the company can be secured, he can than divorce his wife and have his trophy,

Cut to hapless man walking past the power couple at the moment the photo is snapped. He is a parking valet for a popular restaurant, who lives with his pal in a dumpy flat commiserate with their status in Paris. His girlfriend has just gone into debt to open a bookstore. When he proposes to her, she tells him that she is too involved in her venture to consider marriage to him. Despite her offer to remain friends, he is despondent and desperate

Cut to supermodel, (think whore with a heart stereotype). She is actually in love with the CEO, but wants him to leave his wife and marry her. She serves him notice and leaves him. But the damage from the photo is done and the CEO must recruit her and the hapless hero to play act as a couple until the heat is off of him. Hapless man does it for enough money to get his girlfriends bookstore out of hock. Supermodel makes the CEO a deal. Hedging her bet, she'll do it for twenty million which he will get back when he divorces his wife.

And so the playacting begins, with the question for everyone else is what the supermodel sees in the Valet and why isn't he more happy about his new room mate. Events all work out in the end, but the trip is enjoyable and while somewhat predictable amusing in a very French way of looking at things

Paris Je T'aime, He said

This is an unusual film in that it is an anthology of "love stories from the city of love." A series of short stories with the theme of love with absolutely no ties to one another, except they all occur in Paris.
The segments range from brilliant to "I can't wait until it's over it's so bad". It is so uneven that I can't begin to deconstruct it. I'd have to run it in slow motion to do a credible job. And frankly it's not worth it