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The Movie "Once"
Aloysius J. Gleek:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swell_Season
The Swell Season
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Swell Season is a folk rock duo formed by Irish musician Glen Hansard and Czech singer and pianist Markéta Irglová. "The Swell Season" name is derived from Hansard's favourite novel by Josef Škvorecký from 1975 bearing the same title. Their debut album goes by the same name.
Since their rise to prominence after starring in the 2007 film Once, they increasingly referred to themselves as "The Swell Season" in promotion of their performances until it became the formal name of their collaboration in 2008. (Notably, they still used their separate names when they contributed their cover of Bob Dylan's "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" to the 2007 soundtrack of I'm Not There. )
During a three year period from 2007 to 2010 a documentary film was made about Irglova and Hansard called The Swell Season which was released in the autumn of 2011 having been premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in June 2011 to very positive review.
History
The self-titled first album came about after Glen and Marketa were approached by the Czech film director Jan Hřebejk while touring in the Czech Republic, and were asked by him to record songs for his upcoming film Beauty in Trouble. It was the first album that Hansard, the singer for The Frames, had released independent of his band.
Some of the tracks on this album have appeared on other recordings - the track "Falling Slowly" and "When Your Mind's Made Up" on The Frames' album The Cost, and "Falling Slowly", "When Your Mind's Made Up", "Lies" and "Leave" on the Once soundtrack.
Glen and Marketa parodied their roles from Once in The Simpsons episode, In the Name of the Grandfather.
A follow up album, Strict Joy, was released on October 27, 2009 in the United States. Three singles from the album have been released: "In These Arms," "Low Rising," and "Feeling the Pull."
Spin Magazine 's review of Strict Joy gave the album 4 out of 5 stars. "If Glen Hansard's and Markéta Irglová's roles in the hit Irish indie film Once unintentionally wove the tale of their real-life falling in love, their second album as The Swell Season weaves the story of their falling out of it." SPIN.com
In August 2010, The Swell Season covered Neutral Milk Hotel's "Two-Headed Boy" for The AV Club.
At an August 19, 2010 concert at the Mountain Winery, a concert attendee leapt to his death from the roof of the venue onto the stage. The death was deemed a suicide. The band provided and paid for group counseling sessions for concert attendees who witnessed the event.
Discography
Albums
The Swell Season (2006)
Once Soundtrack (2007)
Strict Joy (2009)
Singles
"Falling Slowly" (2007)
"When Your Mind's Made Up" (2007)
"Falling Slowly" (2008, re-release, #61 Billboard Hot 100)
"Into the Mystic" (2008, part of "Before the Goldrush", the Teach For America Covers Project)
"In These Arms" (2009)
"Low Rising" (2009)
"Feeling the Pull" (2010)
Front-Ranger:
Wow, how did all this pass me by? I haven't been following the Oscars very closely ever since 2006. And, could it be that I've been preoccupied with another movie so much that I've missed others worth watching...if not countless times, at least once?? ;)
Aloysius J. Gleek:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/11/theater/theaterspecial/musical-once-receives-8-tony-awards.html?_r=1&hp&pagewanted=all
‘Once’
Basks in Glow of 8 Tony Awards
By PATRICK HEALY
Published: June 11, 2012
Steve Kazee, on guitar, with the cast of the musical "Once" at the Tony Awards ceremony
on Sunday.
The bittersweet romantic musical “Once” was the unexpectedly dominant winner at the 66th annual Tony Awards on Sunday night, winning best musical, best actor, and six other Tonys, in a highly competitive year for Broadway honors. Many of the celebrated shows, including “Once” and the play “Peter and the Starcatcher,” were notable for their imaginative theatricality, inventive staging and ensembles of little-known theater actors, instead of the big-budget or star-driven productions that often prevail on Tony night.
“Peter and the Starcatcher,” a prequel to the classic Peter Pan story, won five Tonys, the most for any straight play this year, but fell short of winning the top award in its field: the best-play Tony went to “Clybourne Park,” a satire of race relations by Bruce Norris that won the Pulitzer Prize for drama last year. It was the only award for “Clybourne,” reflecting Tony voters’ tendency to spread the good news; 11 musicals and plays won at least one Tony, out of 37 eligible shows.
“Once,” a slowly unfolding tale of two Dublin musicians falling in love, emerged early as the night’s favorite, winning for John Tiffany’s direction and for its book, by the Irish playwright Enda Walsh, as well as for set, lighting, sound design and orchestrations. (The actors in “Once” double as the show’s band.)
Near the end of the broadcast Steve Kazee, who plays the emotionally broken guitarist at the center of “Once,” won for best actor and used his acceptance speech to thank his cast mates for bucking him up after his mother’s death in April, shortly after the musical opened.
“This cast has carried me around, and made me feel alive, and I will never be able to fully repay them,” Mr. Kazee said.
The other lead acting Tonys went to Audra McDonald, winning her fifth Tony (at age 41) as Bess in the musical revival of “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess”; James Corden as the comic manservant in the British play “One Man, Two Guvnors”; and Nina Arianda as a sexy, mysterious actress in the play “Venus in Fur.”
Ms. McDonald, who recently returned to Broadway after four years acting on television, delivered a speech that honored the stage as a refuge for actors. “I was a little girl with a potbelly, hyperactive and overdramatic, and I found the theater, and I found my home,” she said.
Ms. Arianda squealed with delight several times during her speech, and paid tribute to, among others, the actor Christopher Plummer, who presented her with the award. “You were my first crush,” she told Mr. Plummer.
The other leading contender for best musical was the Disney production “Newsies,” an audience favorite about New York newsboys on strike in 1899. “Newsies” started the night with eight nominations and won two Tonys, for choreography and score. The latter award gave the eight-time Oscar winner Alan Menken his long-awaited first Tony, shared with the lyricist Jack Feldman.
In his acceptance speech Mr. Menken described the journey of “poor ‘Newsies’ ” — from the 1992 film version “that earned nothing at the box office” to the current Broadway adaptation that is grossing nearly $1 million a week, among the biggest box-office takes of any new show this season.
“We owe it to the generations of kids that have adopted this movie and insisted that it be brought to the stage,” Mr. Menken said, referring to the years of requests to Disney that the film be turned into a musical.
Among the best-known winners on Sunday was Mike Nichols, the Oscar-winning director who had previously earned six Tonys for directing plays and musicals on Broadway; he received a seventh for staging “Death of a Salesman.” When his name was announced, he kissed his wife, Diane Sawyer, and then took the stage and declared himself “extremely touched” by the honor. He recalled that the Beacon Theater, site of the Tony Awards ceremony, was his neighborhood movie house as a kid, where he once won a pie-eating contest during a Saturday matinee.
“It was nice, but this is nicer,” said Mr. Nichols, who is 80. “You see before you a happy man,” he continued, thanking playwright Arthur Miller’s daughter Rebecca and “a cast straight from heaven,” led by Philip Seymour Hoffman as Willy Loman.
“I can’t talk about them,” Mr. Nichols said, choking up. “I love them too much.”
As expected, “Salesman” also won the Tony for best revival of a play, the third time that Miller’s drama has won in that category. (It also won for best play in 1949.) But in something of a surprise, the show’s two male leads — playing a tormented father and son — were defeated by actors giving outsized comic performances: Mr. Hoffman lost to Mr. Corden, and Andrew Garfield, who took on the part of Biff soon after shooting the title role in the forthcoming “Amazing Spider-Man” movie, lost to Christian Borle, a foppish pirate in “Peter and the Starcatcher,” as best supporting actor in a play.
Christian Borle (with mustache) in a scene from "Peter and the Starcatcher" performed at the
Tony Awards ceremony.
Another surprise was “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess” for best musical revival, a category where the beloved 1971 musical “Follies” had many ardent fans among Tony voters. (“Follies,” which has music by Stephen Sondheim, has now lost once as best musical and twice for its revivals.) “Porgy and Bess” was controversial for efforts to update the show, but it had two acclaimed performers in the title roles, Norm Lewis and Ms. McDonald, as well as the music of George and Ira Gershwin, who producer Jeffrey Richards thanked first in his acceptance speech — along with DuBose Heyward, who created the characters in his original novel “Porgy.”
Mr. Walsh, the “Once” book writer, known for emotionally intense plays like “Misterman,” remarked in his acceptance speech about being an odd choice to write the romance-driven plot of “Once,” which was based on a 2006 Irish film of the same title.
“It’s like getting the rights to ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ and then getting Charles Manson to write it,” Mr. Walsh said.
Other featured acting honors went to Judith Light as the acerbic alcoholic aunt in “Other Desert Cities” and to Michael McGrath and Judy Kaye as opposites-who-attract in the musical “Nice Work if You Can Get It.”
Ms. Light, a veteran of television (“Who’s the Boss?,” “One Life to Live”) who was also nominated for an acting Tony last year for the play “Lombardi,” appeared slightly shocked as she took the stage; she won in a competitive field that included Linda Emond, who gave a critically acclaimed performance as Linda Loman in “Salesman.”
“I feel like I’m the luckiest girl in New York tonight,” Ms. Light said, before thanking the cast and crew of “Other Desert Cities” — as well as her father, who died this spring.
Hosted by the television actor Neil Patrick Harris, the Tonys began with a mix of musical numbers that included a song from last year’s winner for best musical, “The Book of Mormon,” and a sampling of Christopher Gattelli’s choreography for “Newsies.”
Mr. Harris’s comic bits included being lowered, upside-down in classic Spider-Man position, and taking a gentle shot at the technical troubles last year in the Broadway musical “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.” He continued to hang there during remarks by the actress Angela Lansbury and the theater executive Ted Chapin, who laced their comments with aerial references. As for “Spider-Man” itself, that $75 million musical lost in the categories of musical sets and costumes, its only nominations.
Neil Patrick Harris, a three-time Tony Awards host, joined Patti LuPone for a tune at the ceremony
As the front-runners for best musical, “Once” and “Newsies” had more in common than many past rivals for the award: both were low budget by Broadway standards, costing about $5 million each, and were based on movies that had ardent fans but not much commercial success.
Enthusiasm was also high among Tony voters for all the best-play nominees: “Clybourne,” “Desert Cities,” “Peter and the Starcatcher” and “Venus in Fur.” The field stood out from past years because the four plays, all by American writers, had their starts at respected Off Broadway theaters and drew critical acclaim for intelligent plotting, character development and weighty roles.
Only Broadway shows are eligible for Tonys, with awards decided by a pool of 851 voters, about 70 percent of whom usually cast ballots. (Many of the others chose not to vote because they did not see enough of the nominated shows.) The voters are a mix of theater producers, directors, designers, actors and tour presenters — some of whom have commercial interests in the nominees.
Aloysius J. Gleek:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on January 07, 2012, 02:32:47 pm ---I checked this out of the library and saw it last night. The low-budget movie ran in 2006-7 and earned an Oscar. Now, I hear the original stars (who were not professional actors) are adapting it for a Broadway production!! Definitely worth looking in to!
It's not just a long music video, although I loved how the entire songs were played in the movie instead of just snippets. It's also a commentary on multiculturalism and on the newest generation's (the Millennials?) difficulties with communication, lowered attention spans and interpersonal skills in these days of sexting and porn on demand.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: Aloysius J. Gleek on January 07, 2012, 05:17:48 pm ---Lee, I saw the (very brief) New York Theater Workshop production the night after the positive review posted below. It will definitely be on Broadway in 2012, maybe in the Spring. I really, really liked it--'He' was terrific, amazing singer, amazing actor, amazing accent; 'He' could be a big star. 'She'--hmmmm. Not so much. Musically, She's ok, Her acting, hmmm, overly eccentric, Her accent, sorry, awful, fake-y bad. Hate to say it, but--if they change Her, the entire production will be a huge hit.
Once
Steve Kazee and Cristin Milioti portray the Guy and the Girl in this musical at the New York
Theater Workshop, inspired by the movie of the same title.
Steve Kazee, standing at the microphone, with other members of the "Once" cast.
--- End quote ---
Well, I was right! ;) ;D
--- Quote from: Aloysius J. Gleek on January 08, 2012, 05:02:08 am ---Steve Kazee is so HUGELY good, it's hard to overstate it--he is WHY there is any reason to put the stage production on at all. He sings better than [Glen] Hansard in Hansard's own songs, and he has completely changed the character (in a very quiet, subtle way) so that the story in the musical is better than the story in the film, despite the fact that there are aspects in the musical that are heavy-handed and even literally dumb compared to aspects that were clever and touching in the film. Oh yeah, one other thing--the photos above do not even begin to show what the reviewers rightly saw in person--Kazee is seriously gorgeous. The fact that he also beautifully plays the Guy (the character) as painfully shy, sad and anguished (but subtly and quietly) AND that he sings like an angel, AND he does an amazing Dublin accent (he's from Kentucky), well--he's unbelievable.
True fact: I managed to get a first row seat dead on center, so I noticed something at the very end, just before the curtain call (no curtain), on the night of the first show after the opening night, when all the amazing reviews had just come out. The theater blocking was such that Kazee and [Cristin] Milioti were both together, immediately in front of me at the very end of the story. Then, just before they and the rest of the cast were to face the audience and bow, very quietly, so only I and maybe one or two other people could have seen, HE turned to her, locked eyes, and silently mouthed 'Thank you!' to her.
Anyway. I guess you get the idea he's pretty terrific. So is the show.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: Aloysius J. Gleek on January 07, 2012, 05:35:20 pm ---
Steve Kazee and Cristin Milioti in "Once," a new musical based on the 2008 film, and now possibly
bound for Broadway. The film was awarded an Oscar for its plaintive song, "Falling Slowly," also
featured in the stage production.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: Aloysius J. Gleek on January 07, 2012, 05:52:20 pm ---
Steve Kazee, left, and Cristin Milioti are shown in a scene from "Once,"
performing at the New York Theatre Workshop in New York.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: Aloysius J. Gleek on January 08, 2012, 01:02:08 pm ---
Steve Kazee and Cristin Milioti in a scene from broadway's musical "Once," directed
by John Tiffany, at the New York Theatre Workshop.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: Aloysius J. Gleek on January 07, 2012, 06:44:04 pm ---
The Bottom Line: “Once” is amply rewarding,
but this lovingly crafted musical will lure
many audiences back again and again.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: Aloysius J. Gleek on January 08, 2012, 11:19:05 am ---
To see the trailer, click, then again where indicated:
Click for tickets:
--- End quote ---
Front-Ranger:
Wonderful news!! Does Steve convey the tortured agony as well as the original actor, Glen Hansard, did? I'm sure he does!!
I'm just sorry that Andrew Garfield didn't win for supporting actor. Is the Spidey curse striking again?
Would have loved to see Neal Patrick Harris hanging upside down...and hanging...and hanging... :laugh:
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