Once (Glen Hansard, Marketa Irglova) – What an art house film! This is a truly unique, low-budget flick that will leave you humming and fulfilled. Made for an estimated $150,000, it could be considered an irresistible home-movie musical. It’s that home-movie look with its grainy texture and (often) single hand-held camera technique that gives this the feel of reality that belies the actual story. Singer-songwriter Glen Hansard is a budding (oh yeah) singer-songwriter in Dublin who plays his guitar and sings on the street for money when he’s not fixing Hoover vacuum cleaners in his father’s repair shop. One day, he gets a measly dime from a beautiful, young Czech immigrant (played by, oh yeah, 19-year-old Czech singer Marketa Irglova in her first screen role) and both a personal and musical relationship blooms. He fixes her Hoover; she plays the piano for him at a local music store; and they embellish his brilliant music with harmony in hopes of launching his career. There is so much great music that I would characterize as mostly lyrical folk with a touch of anger that you will want to rush out and buy the soundtrack. These two released an album in 2006 called The Swell Season that includes the most memorable song of the movie, When Your Mind’s Made Up. And there is a wonderful soundtrack of this movie available on amazon.com, too, that has all the songs, including the title track, Once. But it would be unfair to just call this a musical. There’s a story of unspoken love and attraction while both characters remain faithful to their absent significant others even as their relationship buds. Think of this as a more bohemian version of Neil Diamond’s The Jazz Singer but with less pop and schmaltz. This movie could be the Blair Witch Project of this year except that this a real story with dramatic and musical charm. See this before it leaves your town or look for it when it hits the stores.