New York Melody

I was expecting a cheesy film. I am not into musicals so was hesitant to commit to this film, in a theatre. But, I was pleasantly surprised. I find some of Ruffalos work, like Now you see me, to be hard to sit through. I did not dislike that film, but I hated his performance. Part of it was how vapid the character was. In this film it is the opposite. He is charming, roguish, creative, and delightful to watch. Quite frankly I did not think Knightly was up to this either. Was I ever surprised. She was great. Well written, well directed, and very good overall. In these days of Hollywood losing its edge, and producing more and more low quality, derivative work, it is refreshing to see a film like this one. And I did not even need to use my earplugs. Transformer this film was not. Thankfully.

A few years ago, Mr Shullivan & I went to New York and booked tickets to see 'Once'. Absolutely loved it - the show and the music! We then watched the movie version directed by John Carney - and it was great as well! When we happened to see a clip for 'Begin Again', with John Carney directing, I asked Mr Shullivan to get us this movie to watch at home - and I have no regrets!

Enjoyed the music during the film (and we even watched the bonus features on the DVD and I asked Mr. Shullivan to get the soundtrack!). And the music stayed with me even after the movie. I was pleasantly surprised on how much I enjoyed Kiera Knightley's singing as well as her acting performance. And I thoroughly enjoyed both her version of 'Lost Stars' and Adam Levine's!

Mark Ruffalo's performance as Dan was great - he showed the range of emotion you'd expect in the part he was playing - a jaded, down in the dumps record executive who gets a turnaround through the movie by his chance meeting with Gretta (Keira Knightley's character).

Loved the opening sequences of the movie - showing the same scene from several different character's perspectives - but especially Dan's - when he re-imagines Gretta's song with added instruments and enhanced arrangements. Unique & riveting!

And finally, loved the album and film concept of taking it to the streets of New York - very enjoyable and very real!

I will want to see this movie again! And any other John Carney films!

First, I love that you put the song, Thinking About Your Love, by Skipworth and Turner, in this movie! I've always loved their songs, beat and talent. Great choice. The original music was also quite good! Mark Ruffalo and Keira Knightly were great, as well as his wife, Catherine Keener, who is always great, and the daughter, Hailee Steinfeld. I love the whole idea of the movie. I could imagine it was fun from the moment John Carney wrote it and set about making it in to a movie. The idea for an album is too clever. Toying with love interests also kept the movie intriguing as did the creative process that was always at work, throughout the movie. My number one judge of a good movie is did it hold my interest and this movie definitely did. I think another way of putting it would be, did the movie seem like it did not seem long, whatever the length of the movie, if it didn't seem long, then it worked, because you lost track of time by being drawn in to the story and characters. Great story and movie! I definitely recommend people go see it and hope it catches fire, because it's much better than most of the movies that are out this summer.

Can a song save your life? Or a film about it? The former question is what the movies title originally was going to be. But lets get back to Mark Ruffalo and Keira Knightley, both of whom are exceptional in this. There is also Adam Levine (he plays sort of a version of himself or what the general public thinks of him and he's doing a great job too) and Catherine Keener.

Put this cast together with a really good script, that actually avoids quite a lot of the typical romantic comedy clichés. You genuinely don't know where this is going. It might have to do that this is first a movie about music and then about human love. So it's love for music first and then the rest. It doesn't mean, it doesn't love it's character though. Quite the contrary! They are very nicely drawn, which makes this a very entertaining watch.

I was a big fan of ONCE - I did not see BEGIN AGAIN when it first came out and only recently watched it and I loved it. One must be in the right mood for this winning, open hearted film - it can be easily passed over as sappy or sentimental but I thought the story of two damaged people meeting each other at just the right time - to be there to help one another - is very well done and Knightley and Ruffalo are wonderful together. But what really makes the whole package work is the fantastic songs - many people were involved with the writing of the music - including Carney the writer-director but the main person behind the songs is Gregg Alexander - a very underrated, very talented musician who was the band The New Radicals in the 90's. He has a way of writing catchy melodies and Lost Stars is a marvelous song - I think my fav scene though is when they are on the rooftop and crank out that song w/ Ruffalo jamming with his daughter. Brought a smile and a tear. I'm a sucker for Carney's films because I also loved SING STREET!