comment #1

actionman says ...

How/why did ONCE flop in Ireland during its initial release?

comment #2

le corbeau says ...

A friend of a friend worked on a couple of The Frames' albums and here's how he says the problem with the Oscars and Once's eligibility was worked out. Apparently Hansard was invited to some Irish rock stars photo shoot or event or something, and Bono comes up to him and starts chatting him up like he's old pals, and asks Hansard how it's going. Hansard says, well, I'm a bit bummed, we thought we were going to be up for an Oscar but now there's some issue with the eligibility because the record came out before the movie did. Bono says, "What? Hang on a second." He whips out his cellphone and calls somebody and tells him "This is bullshit, you have to fix this."

He hangs up and tells Hansard, don't worry, I called David Geffen and told him to take care of it for you. And so it was...

comment #3

gruver1 says ...

Wells to Actionman: I don't know that it did flop there. This guy is just saying it did. There's a difference, I know, between flopping and not doing much business, or doing half-decent business on a per-screen basis but failing to rack up big numbers overall. But I agree with you totally -- the idea of "Once" tanking in Ireland is very strange. Unless Ireland's economic boom has turned the Irish into lifestyle comfort zombies like us -- people so inebriated and doped by affluence and distractions on their handhelds and SUVs and too much food and having Jabba-sized bodies that something plain and sweet and real like "Once" just isn't entertaining enough for them.

comment #4

Mr. Muckle says ...

The Irish may be immune to their own magical blarney. It's not hard to imagine that a homegrown, low-budget project like "Once" fails to impress on the grounds of familiarity. For me, though, best film of the year.

comment #5

JHRussell says ...

mgmax - that is a great story...nobody come back now and rain on it - I want that to be true.

comment #6

Josh Massey says ...

Have tickets to see Hansard and Irglova next month in Atlanta. Very much looking forward to it.

And I have yet to see anything "sweded" that has caused the corners of my mouth to upturn in the slightest.

comment #7

le corbeau says ...

When did "sweded" become the new term for parody? I missed that memo from Hipness Central.

Keep on truckin',
Mgmax

comment #8

Trashcan Jack says ...

Just to give a shout out from Dublin, I don't have the figures at hand but I can confirm Once didn't last long in theatres here. It was rapturously reviewed and had a perfectly timed release around Valentine's Day, but still nobody went. I believe 300 did just fine at the same time though.

Jeff is partly right that many Irish have by and large turned into a dead- eyed crowd of materialistic cultureless robots with a little too much heft in their gait, but to be honest I don't know that Once would ever have done all that well here.

Until now of course. The weakest thing about Irish cultural tastes in general is that we often regard homegrown product as suspect until it's been successful somewhere else, particularly in the US. So Once winning the Oscar has already resulted in a huge upswing in soundtrack sales. The cultural insecurity is kind of depressing, but I guess that's tempered by the idea of more and more people checking out the movie and the music.

comment #9

C Toto says ...

Caught the "Once" due in Denver last year. Magical stuff -- their between-song banter is just as engaging as what transpired on the Oscar stage. If you enjoyed the movie, give their live act a try.

comment #10

MAGGA says ...

There is also the fact that people only know a movie is good once they have seen it. You can never really blame people for avoiding a good movie, especially one that is so difficult to market. You can sort of blame people for going to things that will obviously be more of the same, like Spiderman 3, Bourne 3, Rush Hour 3 etc, or more similar-looking Will Ferrell-movies etc, but concincing people to see a low budget film about folk singers is difficult, and good reviews mean less and less because people are more and more hip to different motives of reviewers (like pretending to "be in touch" etc). Their Oscar moments were as good as they could hope for in terms of marketing material. They topped the youtube charts until the latest Hillary attck ad and Obama-as-Christ gospel-soul freakshow vid was unleashed

comment #11

Arizona Joe says ...

Very interesting comments about Geffen, the zeitgeist in Ireland.

"Once" is a subtle movie. Maybe the masses don't cotton to it unless a salient authority says, "This is good."

I admired it's superior independent production. You'd think the music would give it a leg up in marketing. Music today is so fractionated into small market segments that the music, like the film does not appeal to a wide audience.

comment #12

cm65 says ...

So apparently the term "sweded" comes from Be Kind Rewind. My response to its sudden ubiquity is, AW HELL NO! Anyone who uses it more than once deserves to be kicked in the nuts.

comment #13

calraigh says ...

Once didn't do well here precisely because it's a very familiar story, especially to Dubliners.There's no remove like say, there was with Intermission or Adam and Paul(I love that movie to death, seek it out compadres!)and it really just felt like somebody dv-ing anybody's average day in and around the city.I know I avoided it because Glen Hansard/his character reminds me too much of an ill-fated, ridiculously long lliason I had with a musician here and I just couldn't handle seeing all those devastating musician-isms on the big screen.I know a good 20 Dublin women who are in complete concurrence.Dublin.Male musicians.Heartbreak.Does not a happy woman make..

comment #14

Stephe96 says ...

I just watched "Once" for the first time last night. I enjoyed it well enough and really liked that 'Falling Slowly' song.....but (and I hate to say this) I didn't think the movie was all THAT great. For one thing, the rest of the songs aren't nearly as good as 'Falling Slowly', and a few of them go on just a little too long.

But I would definitely recommend this movie with a few reservations: you'll like it, but I don't know if you'll absolutely love it. And best film of the year? I don't know about that one.

comment #15

calraigh says ...

By the way, I have since watched it and loved it.I have always loved The Frames and Glen, and this film was is literally nothing else you'll see in the cinema.It's almost anti-film and thats why its so beautiful.Personally though, it's still hard to watch.I do prefer his Frames stuff though..

comment #16

Cinexcellence says ...

Sweding something that didn't cost anything to make...priceless.

comment #17

le corbeau says ...

I'd like to see the road in Ireland you could drive an SUV on, and leave enough room for a bicyclist to get by.

comment #18

Dan Revill says ...

Mgmax, if that story is true, then it just goes to show you how awesome Bono really is and all the haters can stuff themselves.

comment #19

BurmaShave says ...

Even the FCC won't fuck with Bono. Fuckin' brilliant.

comment #20

T. Holly says ...

Dropping Glenn's character's girlfriend backstory puts this in misogyny league with Oliver Peoples' Robert Evans.

comment #21

Ben C says ...

I have no idea what you just wrote.

comment #22

corey3rd says ...

The Falling Slowly scene is so f'n powerful it does overwhelm the film. Nothing emotionally in cinema in since Bob Fosse's Bye Bye Love can match it as far as seeing creativity captured. My wife was in tears when the finished the song.

comment #23

tac16301 says ...

I was at the Irish Film Board shindig a few weeks ago and, after Hansard and Marketa performed, I chatted about "Once" with a producer friend from Dublin. He confessed that he didn't much like it. Too soft. Too sentimental. Too much gratuitous Frisbee-tossing. I gather that's a pretty common reaction over there.

comment #24

T. Holly says ...

Dublin never was a very good location for Hollywood, so it wound up here. Ben C, you comment too much, take your clothes off and get out of the house, it'll help you see Glenn had an attachment living in London that was dropped when sweded. Never leave it to the Swedes.