On one hand, the somewhat-New-Line-partial David Poland has called Michael Davis‘s Shoot ‘Em Up “grindhouse dim sum…unbelievably tasty and surprising and engaging stuff…a joyous plate of entertainment…a watchable enjoyable experience…good junk!” On the other, Variety‘s Peter Debruge is calling it “violent and vile in equal measure” as well as “shamelessly sordid” and “gonzo” in the vein of Running Scared, The Boondock Saints, Domino and Smokin’ Aces, and yet — important passage, this — “too stylistically audacious to dismiss outright.” I’d love to get into this myself, but the defining terms have obviously already been drawn. You either have a taste for low-brow vitality, or you don’t.

Fox Searchlight and Landmark Cinemas hosted an industry/journo shindig (screening, party, performance) last night for Once, which is right now receiving a fresh TV-ad push and personal-appearance promotion by costars Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. Here’s a slow-loading but better quality wav file of their performance of “Falling Slowly”, and here’s an mp3 file of “When Your Mind’s Made Up”.

Once costars Marketa Irglova, Glen Hansard performing in the lounge/bar within West L.A.’s Landmark plex — Tuesday, 7.31.07, 9:25 pm

Fox Searchlight marketing president Nancy Utley, Marketa Irglova, Glen Hansard, Fox Searchlight prez Peter Rice at last night’s soiree.

Glen and Marketa are playing this evening at a sold-out show at the El Rey on Wilshire. They visited Jay Leno on Monday night; a visit with Carson Daly airs on Friday, 8.3. Hansard and The Frames are going to be touring with Bob Dylan in New Zealand and Australia throughout most of August. All that’s left to happen now is for the film to show up in more theatres so the live-wires who are still saying “Never heard of it!” will perhaps give this perfect little film a looksee.