I’ve had the soundtrack to “Once” sitting on my desk since about May, but I refused to listen to it before I saw the movie. It’s not your typical soundtrack, and in fact some people (wrongly) consider it a musical. In truth, it’s somewhere in between a soundtrack and a musical. It’s really a movie about music. A couple scenes are shot in musical style, but that’s about it.

This, for those who don’t care if I totally spoil the movie’s finest moment, is the movie’s finest moment. Guy (not his name: the two leads don’t have names, they’re just Guy and Girl) finally gets into a studio with Girl and some fellow Thin Lizzy-loving buskers, and proceed to bang out a song that just builds and builds and builds until it explodes. How can someone with Glen Hansard’s talent go so long without anyone knowing his name? Dunno, but in an interesting side note, he was a guitar player in the Commitments as well. Gotta go and watch that again.